Mugabe dispels ill-health rumours

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe moved to dispel rumours that he is in poor health when he made a public appearance to welcome delegates from 69 international organisations to a conference on monuments and heritage sites.

His appearance in the north-western resort town of Victoria Falls came as Zimbabwe’s health minister, David Parirenyatwa, was dispatching police, army and prison doctors to replace striking health care workers at government hospitals.

About 500 doctors walked out on Friday demanding pay rises of up to 8,000% to keep pace with rampant inflation, officially running at around 455.6%.

They have since been joined by some 20,000 nurses.

The only doctors currently providing services at state hospitals are foreigners brought in to assist under long-standing agreements with Cuba and other countries.

The state-owned Herald newspaper reported yesterday that one doctor at Harare’s main hospital had to attend to casualties from four road accidents assisted only by student nurses.

Some outpatients had been turned away, the paper said.

Meanwhile, Mr Mugabe told delegates at yesterday’s conference that land was Zimbabwe’s greatest heritage and had been reclaimed for the country’s black farmers, state radio reported.

Mr Mugabe’s often-violent land reform programme has seen 5,000 white-owned farms confiscated for redistribution to blacks.

The programme has crippled Zimbabwe’s agriculture-based economy, with the country now facing 70% unemployment and acute shortages of food, fuel and medicine.

The President’s appearance at the conference came after a flurry of rumours that he had collapsed and been admitted to a hospital in neighbouring South Africa for treatment.

Government press secretary George Charamba insisted that Mr Mugabe was in good health and accused western diplomats of trying to “destabilise” the country.

Andrew Moyse, director of the independent Zimbabwe Media Monitoring Project, said he feared the health scare published in South African and British newspapers would be used by the government to justify further curbs on journalists.

“This will undoubtedly give them ammunition to clamp down further,” he said.

The government has stepped up its crackdown on Zimbabwe’s political opposition and independent media since Mr Mugabe’s disputed re-election in March 2002.

Police shut down the country’s only independent daily newspaper, The Daily News, on Saturday in defiance of a court order allowing it to publish.

The four directors of the company that owns the Daily News, Associated Newspapers Zimbabwe, were arrested on Monday and accused of producing an unlicensed publication.

They were released yesterday on bail.

Magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe said he would rule next month on whether to proceed with the case.