Zimbabwe

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Zimbabwe's president, Robert G. Mugabe, has moved to require that virtually all public companies cede controlling interests to "indigenous citizens," a plan the government calls black empowerment and Mugabe's critics label a bid to shore up his crumbling political support. The proposal, issued in draft legislation published Monday, would transfer a 51 percent stake in the companies to Zimbabweans who were "disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the grounds of his or her race" before April 1980, when the nation won independence from white rule.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA -- Zimbabwe's ruling party agreed to modest democratic reforms yesterday ahead of national elections, including slashing the presidential term by a year, ending presidential appointment of legislators and expanding the lower house of parliament. The reform package, however, left intact the sweeping powers wielded by President Robert G. Mugabe, and failed to address the southern African nation's flawed electoral rolls, less than six months before national elections are to be held.

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- When soft-spoken Vennia Magaya was evicted from her deceased father's house, her TV set and oven thrown out into the yard after her, she thought it wasn't right.So she sued her half-brother for evicting her.She had a compelling case. The nation's constitution, a separate law enforcing women's rights and several international human-rights treaties that Zimbabwe has signed clearly backed her claim as heir to her father's estate.But in a stunning reversal of fortune for Zimbabwean women in particular and African women in general, the nation's Supreme Court overruled or challenged almost every law relating to women's rights in Zimbabwe and gave the house to her half-brother.

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- President Robert Mugabe, one of the last great African autocrats, is leading his country into its 20th year of independence with its economy imploding and his control under growing threat."

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- These are threatening times for President Robert Mugabe, 74, Southern Africa's longest-serving strongman.An imploding economy and involvement in an unpopular war abroad are combining to put Mugabe's 18-year rule under unprecedented pressure. There is a growing sense that this nation of about 12 million is entering its transition into the post-Mugabe future."We are very close to change," said Lupi Mushayakarara, chair of the Institute for the Advancement of Freedom, funded by financier George Soros.

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Former Zimbabwean President Canaan Banana was convicted yesterday on 11 counts of sodomy, attempted sodomy and indecent assault by Zimbabwe's highest court, and prosecutors confirmed he has fled the country.In the most sensational trial involving homosexuality in modern African history, High Court Judge Godfrey Chidyausiku confiscated Banana's bail and issued an arrest warrant for the 63-year-old father of four and Methodist theologian.Banana went to neighboring Botswana on Nov. 17."

Rescue workers in Zimbabwe were searching yesterday for the body of a Maryland man whose riverboat capsized downstream of Victoria Falls during a whitewater rafting trip. HTC Tour operators and the U.S. State Department said he is presumed dead.John Mayer, 45, of Rockville has been missing since Feb. 11. A tour operator in Zimbabwe said Mayer had moved from Maryland to Hong Kong and was vacationing when the accident occurred.In addition to Mayer, six other passengers and a guide on the inflatable riverboat were tossed into the Zambezi River during an afternoon trip, said Jeremy Brooke, owner of Shearwater Tours in Harare, which organized the outing.

DURING THE last full decade of South Africa's apartheid in the 1980s, neighboring Zimbabwe was often hailed as proof that black majority rule could work. More recently, though, it has become an example of how unwise policies practiced by an unchallenged, aging leader can throw a country into hopelessness.This situation has been only too common in post-colonial Africa. Eventually, unhappiness swept aside such founding presidents as Tanzania's Julius Nyerere, Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda and Malawi's Hastings Kamuzu Banda.

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- The problems of African libraries include those familiar anywhere, such as funding, staffing and keeping up with advancing technology. But in Zimbabwe, librarians also must find books in 19 local languages and 43 dialects.But there is no shortage of enthusiasm. In honor of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair last summer, war veterans who had been demonstrating for higher pensions suspended their protest. Youth and children's groups treated the assembled publishers, book-sellers and librarians to dramatic readings and musical performances extolling the importance of books in their lives.

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, was modeled after the U.S. Endangered Species Act. It attempts to protect wildlife by regulating international trade in such commodities as elephant ivory and and rhino horn. It includes 138 signatory countries. And like its inspiration, its many failures show it to be a bitterly divisive failure best summed up in a phrase recently overheard here: ''The killing fields of CITES.''Glen Tatham, chief warden for Zimbabwe's national parks, says his country has set aside a higher percentage of its land for wildlife than any other African country.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Facing severe pressure from Southern African leaders, Zimbabwe's opposition voted yesterday to join a unity government under President Robert G. Mugabe, despite failing to win its key demand for control of the police. The opposition will share control of the police ministry with Mugabe's party, an arrangement that many in the opposition see as unworkable. Mugabe retains control of the military and intelligence ministries. The U.N., meanwhile, reported that Zimbabwe has suffered more than 60,000 cholera cases since August, surpassing what experts had said would be a worst-case scenario.

MASVINGO PROVINCE, Zimbabwe - They look like birds pecking, grain by grain, along the nation's roadsides. Tattered women and children bend to pick up the corn blown from passing trucks. The precious grains are about all there is to eat. Millions of people across Zimbabwe are on the brink of starvation, largely because of the failure of this year's harvest and the nation's collapsed economy, along with President Robert G. Mugabe's ban on humanitarian aid during the recent election campaign.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Hopes for a way forward in Zimbabwe's disputed elections hang on a weekend meeting of the regional Southern African Development Community, after negotiations this week between Zimbabwe's ruling party and the opposition failed to seal a deal. Despite upbeat talk from Zimbabwean President Robert G. Mugabe and the mediator of the talks, South African President Thabo Mbeki, little progress was made on the key issue: the division of power between Mugabe and the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - After three days of intensive negotiations to resolve Zimbabwe's political crisis, President Robert G. Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai were deadlocked yesterday on the most fundamental issue: which one of them would lead a new unity government. The talks, which began last month with high hopes for a quick settlement, were adjourned with no date set for a resumption. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the official mediator in the crisis, left Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, yesterday without the power-sharing deal he had hoped to broker.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - She has to call the young men her "comrades." She cooks food for the comrades and serves them. She sweeps the comrades' floor and cleans up after them. And whenever any of the comrades wants sex, she is raped. Asiatu, 21, is a prisoner of the comrades at a command base of the ruling ZANU-PF, one of 900 set up by the party to terrorize Zimbabweans into voting Robert G. Mugabe back into power in the one-man presidential runoff election late last month. The election is over, but the terror isn't.

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt - A day after his inauguration for a sixth term as president, Robert G. Mugabe, the runaway winner in a violence-stained electoral race in Zimbabwe, arrived in this Red Sea resort yesterday for an African Union summit, under pressure from the United Nations and his neighbors to negotiate a settlement with his adversaries. Mugabe, 84, flew here as the winner of Zimbabwe's presidential runoff vote, which world leaders called illegitimate because of bloodshed and intimidation, and which African parliamentary monitors said was neither free, fair nor credible.

The government of President Robert G. Mugabe in Zimbabwe was condemned this week in the strongest possible terms for a wave of violence against his political opponents that the U.N. Security Council declared has "made it impossible for a free and fair election to take place" this Friday. Mr. Mugabe's reign of terror has forced Morgan Tsvangirai, his would-be opponent in a runoff election for the Zimbabwean presidency, to withdraw and seek refuge in the Dutch Embassy. A defiant Mr. Mugabe says he plans to go forward with the election, regardless of the international outrage over his behavior.

During the late 20th century, human rights campaigns led by Western progressives helped to liberate two nations on the tip of the African continent from brutal whites-only rule. In 1980, the apartheid regime of Rhodesia gave way to a black-led Zimbabwe. And in 1994, the first multiracial elections in South Africa delivered the presidency to a black man, the longtime anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela. In the years since, the two nations have traveled very different paths. South Africa has enjoyed stability, a free press, international investment, an independent judiciary and democratic elections - helped by the graceful exit of Mr. Mandela, who retired after one term.

The despots are having a bloody field day. In Zimbabwe, President Robert G. Mugabe's surrogates continue to terrorize his people for the sin of exercising their free will. Since the March election, when Mr. Mugabe failed to win a majority, Zimbabweans have been harassed, assaulted and attacked, and as many as 65 killed. The mayhem led opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to decamp abroad for seven weeks, and since his return May 24 to compete in the presidential runoff election, he has faced a series of indignities.

PRETORIA, South Africa -- Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai announced yesterday that he had decided to take part in a runoff election against President Robert G. Mugabe, saying that he believes the vote "could finally knock out a dictator for good." Tsvangirai had previously ruled out participating in a runoff, saying he had won outright in the disputed March 29 elections. But in announcing his decision to return to Zimbabwe in coming days, he said that despite the risks faced by opposition activists, it would be a betrayal of Zimbabweans not to contest the second round.