Mandebvhu Talks “Zimbabwe”…

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Wednesday he hoped talks aimed at resolving the country’s political crisis would give President Robert Mugabe an “honourable exit”. Mugabe’s ZANU PF party began power-sharing talks with the opposition in South Africa last week, but doubts have surfaced over progress after they were adjourned on Tuesday. South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday the talks would resume on Sunday. “The role of Robert Mugabe and the role of Morgan Tsvangirai in the envisaged co-sharing government will have to be discussed by the negotiating parties. I am not in any position of defining what his role would be,” Tsvangirai said in an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 News. “What I would hope is that it will allow him [Mugabe] a process of an honourable exit,” he said, speaking from Johannesburg in what Channel 4 said was his first broadcast interview since the negotiations began. Mugabe and Tsvangirai are under pressure from within Africa and the rest of the world to negotiate a national-unity government to end a crisis that has ruined Zimbabwe’s economy and flooded neighbouring states with millions of refugees. Tsvangirai said Mugabe was “just as human as every one of us” and had similar concerns, “although, of course, I think he is ignorant, or chooses to be in a denial stage, as far as the violence is concerned”.

Asked if he could work with Mugabe, Tsvangirai said: “That I cannot say, because that is part of the negotiation process.” Tsvangirai said there had been obstacles in the talks but said that was natural in any negotiating process. “There have been sticking points. Some issues have been ironed out, some issues are still outstanding. We hope that as the negotiations proceed they will find a common compromise,” he said. The settlement under discussion was a transitional arrangement that would bring the crisis to a soft landing and allow the parties to deal with issues of rule of law, the Constitution, humanitarian intervention and economic recovery, he said. This interim period should last “no more than two years in our perspective”, he said. A two-week deadline for completing the talks runs out on August 4, but it could be extended. It has been unclear what compromise could be reached at the power-sharing talks. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says only Tsvangirai can lead a new government because he won a first-round presidential vote in March and only pulled out of a June run-off vote because of violence he says killed 122 of his supporters. ZANU PF has said it will not accept any deal that fails to recognise Mugabe’s re-election.

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Mugabe made the threat after the reserve bank governor announced he was knocking 10 zeros off the hyper-inflated currency. On August 01, 10 billion dollars becomes one dollar.

Mugabe warned profiteers in a televised address on Wednesday not to “drive us further” but said if they did the government would impose emergency measures.

The new currency was forced because computers, electronic calculators and automated teller machines at banks could not handle basic transactions in billions and trillions of dollars. A 100 billion-dollar note issued last week was not enough to buy a loaf of bread.

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Robert Gabriel Mugabe and Morgan Richard Tsvangirai held hands. Mugabe tried to lift Tsvangirai’s hand above the shoulder, to join it in his in a triumphant double fist, a gesture reminiscent of the moment he held up Joshua Nkomo’s hand and with that gesture killed opposition politics in Zimbabwe for a long 12 years. Tsvangirai may also have had Joshua Nkomo in mind, at that moment, because he seemed to resist this, his hand remained just below shoulder level, and Mugabe had to be content with a sideways shake and a toothy grin. Mugabe grinned. Tsvangirai grinned. Arthur Guseni Oliver Mutambara grinned. Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki grinned. They all grinned and were happy together. It is surreal, this orgy of grinning, this sudden, blinding flashing of teeth: barely a month ago the pictures of torture camps filled television and computer screens, photographs of burnt bodies illustrated the stories of horror from Zimbabwe. Seared on the minds of millions were the story of the death of Abigail Chiroto, killed in an arson attack, and the haunting image of Joshua Bakacheza, diminished and fragile in his death, just two of the victims that made the front-page news of just about any newspaper that gave prominence to Zimbabwe.

Tsvangirai was warning the world about genocide in Zimbabwe. Barely a month later he is sitting down to talk with the genocidaire-in-chief. Such is the fluid world of high politics. Like Kenya before it, Zimbabwe is to be another example of a new model of African elections. Losing an election, it seems, does not actually mean you have to give up the seat of office. The example of Zimbabwe should be particularly encouraging to Eduardo Dos Santos in Angola and Paul Biya in Cameroon, two incumbent leaders whose countries are next on the elections radar. This is the lesson of Zimbabwe: if you are the incumbent and it looks like you are on your way out, for God’s sake do not panic, just hang in there; beat the living daylights out of some of your people, just because you can, and the poorer they are the better; imprison those who would dare to oppose you, torture them, and if they are women, throw in a little spot of rape; kill them in horrible ways and burn their bodies and dump them in shallow graves, or no graves, as you please; in a word, intimidate your way back to power and, bingo, the African Union will very nicely ask you to accommodate your opponents in a government of national unity.

“The people of Zimbabwe have suffered long enough,” is the mantra that is being used to push forward these talks. And indeed, the suffering is beyond levels that anyone with compassion can accept. Everyone knows the figures; the hyperinflation, the unemployment rate and now, yet again, the spectre of creeping starvation — the United Nations reports that up to five million people face starvation. But how far should this mantra be carried? Have the people suffered so much that non-bread and butter issues to do with the dismantling of oppressive institutions, accountability, justice and reparations must be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency? There is no doubt that, even if the MDC pushed for these issues to be at the forefront of the negotiations, ZANU PF would not welcome any demands for justice, for truth and reconciliation, even at the very basic level of a public airing of the atrocities. An insistence on this point may well mean the end of any talks, any negotiation, any accommodation. And is it to be expected that ZANU PF will approve the demilitarisation of state institutions and thus dismantle the very system that has ensured its survival? The result of this negotiation, when it comes, may well be a political compromise of the kind that Zimbabwe saw in the 1980s when Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU merged with Mugabe’s ZANU PF after a violent campaign of intimidation. That process of negotiation left unaddressed the violent suppression of Nkomo’s supporters. The politicians got their Mercs and perks. And to this day the people of Matebeleland have reason to remain bitter that nothing was ever done to address their pain.

It is in this regard that the most disturbing element of these talks is that, as with the ZANU-ZAPU, and the Lancaster House talks before them, they are yet again the exclusive preserve of politicians. If there is something Zimbabweans should have learned by now, it is that the fate of the country should not be entrusted to politicians. This is a political crisis, the thinking goes, and a crisis for politicians to address. When the MDC wanted the mediation expanded, it talked only of adding another mediator to watch over Mbeki, who has given the world reason to believe that he is Mugabe’s most able and hard-working ambassador. The real expansion in the mediation should have been the inclusion of civil society, because the people who truly need watching over are not the mediators but the politicians. The exclusion of civil society means that matters of justice, however broadly defined, may never be addressed. Nor will the many economic crimes of this brutish regime.

And there is another dimension: not only redressing the evils of the past, but also laying a foundation for the future: one of the items on the agenda of the talks is a new Constitution. Certainly, this mediation presents an opportunity to jettison the Lancaster House agreement that was progressively amended to concentrate power in the hands of the executive, thus giving Zimbabwe the horrors of 28 years of Mugabe. The negotiators should agree to a new Constitution but not, as they have attempted to do in the past, come up with a draft themselves. To leave the process of Constitution-making to two political parties would be quite wrong. The absence of civil society from the talks inevitably means that Zimbabweans, like Kenyans, will be held hostage to a political compromise. And because the people have suffered enough, they will have no choice but to accept what the politicians decide and try to rebuild their lives anew on a foundation of compromise and cheated dreams.

If the MDC sings the praises of this new deal in dulcet enough tones and ZANU PF accompanies with soothing sounds about healings and new visions and unity of purpose, the money for a rescue package will start to flow. Inflation will go down. The politicians will serve their terms and campaign for new terms. They will make grand speeches at the opening of Parliament and schools. They will pose for photographs with visiting dignitaries. Zimbabweans will joke and laugh about the time inflation was 2000000% and they paid their bills in billions and trillions and the budget was set in quadrillions. Joshua Bakacheza and Abigail Chiroto will fade out of memory; they will certainly not appear in any history books - neither they nor the many victims whose beaten buttocks and burnt bodies served to stoke the flames and keep the story of Zimbabwe in the limelight. Having served their purpose, they will leave the limelight, appearing only in the memories of the people who loved them and in the occasional search on the internet, where nothing is deleted. And Zimbabwe will go on to a future rooted in grief and pain, where the accumulated resentments of the past will be daily reminders of the dangers of political compromise.

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Monday is podcast day. ZNU 131 is available to play using the multiplayers in the right hand sidebar of The Bearded Man blog.

In this programme I look at the hypocrisy of the current power sharing talks in South Africa. And the obvious failure of the three parties to live up to the agreement which they all signed.

For some reason, Odeo has deemed my latest programme as ‘invalid’, but the programme is playable from here and can be downloaded here…

As usual, my thanks for your continued support of my broadcasts.

‘debvhu

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As negotiators for President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai began power-sharing talks on Thursday in South Africa, they confronted one seemingly unbridgeable divide: which man would have the real executive power in a unity government? Mr Mugabe’s governing party, ZANU PF, insisted that Mr Mugabe, as the victor in a runoff that has been denounced internationally as a sham, would name any new government, The Herald, a state-owned newspaper, reported Friday. But the opposition says Mr Tsvangirai, who outpolled Mr Mugabe in March elections and dropped out of the runoff, citing murderous violence against supporters, must be in charge. “Whatever transition we come up with, it must be led by Morgan Tsvangirai,” Thokozani Khupe, vice president of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said in an interview on Saturday.

A collapse of the talks could lead to an accelerating implosion of Zimbabwe’s economy and the flight of millions more people from Mr Mugabe’s increasingly repressive rule into neighbouring countries, potentially destabilizing the region. The Mugabe government’s economic isolation intensified last week as the United States and the European Union tightened sanctions. But a settlement that left Mr Mugabe or his allies in power would be a blow to democratic aspirations on the continent after an election that independent observers from across Africa unanimously concluded was neither free nor fair. One of the most remarkable changes to emerge from Zimbabwe’s violent election season is that leaders in Zambia and Botswana have resoundingly broken the silence of Mr Mugabe’s peers in the region about the human rights abuses committed by his governing party. Phandu Skelemani, the foreign minister of neighbouring Botswana, which has refused to recognise Mr Mugabe’s legitimacy, said in an interview on Wednesday that his country would not be party to what he called “the raping of democracy” in Zimbabwe.

With rumours swirling that Mr Mugabe, 84, and Mr Tsvangirai, 56, are close to a deal in talks that are supposed to last only two weeks, Ms Khupe, a member of Parliament from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, said she had not been informed yet about the progress of the negotiations. But she noted that any agreement from the talks, which are being held at a secret location in Pretoria, would have to be approved by the party’s leadership. Some African and Western officials worry the opposition may yet get outfoxed by Mr Mugabe, who has kept a tight grip on power for 28 years. Shadowing the current talks is the memory of an earlier set of unity negotiations. In 1987, after years in which historians estimated that Mr Mugabe’s military forces killed at least 10,000 civilians in the stronghold of his rival Joshua Nkomo, Mr Nkomo joined the government, allowing Mr Mugabe to further solidify his hold on power.

The current talks, too, were preceded by a violent onslaught. Since April, according to doctors who treated the wounded and tallied the dead, thousands of Mr Tsvangirai’s supporters have been assaulted by Mr Mugabe’s enforcers and more than 100 have been killed, decimating the opposition’s grass-roots leadership. “Tsvangirai may be lured into accepting a power-sharing arrangement which would lead to Mugabe succeeding himself through puppets from ZANU PF,” Raila Odinga, the Kenyan prime minister, said in an interview on Thursday. “The best option for Tsvangirai is to insist that Mugabe becomes a ceremonial president with executive powers vested in the prime minister” - a position that would be held by Mr Tsvangirai. Mr Odinga speaks from his own experience with unity talks. Once the Kenyan opposition leader, he became prime minister in February after a deal brokered by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general. It followed a deeply flawed election that some observers believe had been stolen from Mr Odinga.

Mr Odinga, who has met with Zimbabwean opposition leaders including Mr Tsvangirai in recent months, said he had sent a senior official from his own party to Johannesburg to advise the opposition during the talks. Mr Skelemani, the Botswana foreign minister, said the fundamental issue for Zimbabwe was who controlled the executive powers held by the president under the country’s Constitution. Referring to the possibility that Mr Mugabe’s negotiators would try “to do a Nkomo” on Mr Tsvangirai, Mr. Skelemani warned that the opposition would “risk emasculation” if it allowed Mr Mugabe to retain the presidency. Asked about Mr Mugabe’s stated desire to hold on to power, Mr Skelemani replied, “What power? Power to run the country into the ground?” Botswana’s increasingly urgent criticism of Mr Mugabe, along with similar concerns voiced by Zambia’s president, Levy Mwanawasa, highlight what Martin Meredith, author of “The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence,” (Public Affairs, 2005) called an unprecedented development in the 14-nation bloc of the Southern African Development Community. “This group of SADC countries has always tried to hold on to the image of unity,” he said. “This is shattering it.”

Since Mr Mwanawasa suffered a stroke last month, Botswana has become the leading critic in detailed public statements about the recent election violence and rigging. “The atrocities have been corroborated and constitute the necessary evidence to conclude that the credibility and integrity of the election process was compromised,” according to the report of Botswana’s election observer team. Botswana’s statements carry moral authority: Its democratic traditions stretch back decades, as does its reputation for spending its wealth from diamonds to improve the public welfare rather than enrich the governing elite. Botswana’s and Zambia’s public statements pose a serious challenge to the “quiet diplomacy” pursued by the region’s most powerful player, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who is mediating the current talks. He has resisted domestic pressure here in South Africa to criticize Mr Mugabe, repeatedly greeting him in recent months with a handshake and a smile.

Mr Mbeki held on to control of the Zimbabwe mediation with the endorsement of the African Union on July 1. But in a meeting of African heads of state in Egypt, Mr Mugabe listened with consternation as officials representing Liberia, Nigeria and Botswana, among others, delivered humiliating critiques of the political violence that marred the election, according to several officials who were present. He counterattacked, accusing his critics of failings of their own. “You’re talking about somebody who’s been in power 30 years,” Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, said in a recent interview. “Support wears thin.” Ms Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated economist who became Africa’s first female elected head of state in 2005, added, “There’s a lot going on in SADC and the AU behind the scenes, much more than was reflected in the open statements.”

Botswana’s vice president, Mompati S Merafhe, sitting just two seats from Mr Mugabe, said the Zimbabwean leader should be suspended from the African Union, Mr Skelemani said. Botswana seems to have been greatly affected by its ringside view of the Zimbabwe crisis. When Mr Tsvangirai fled Zimbabwe in the middle of the night on April 8, just 10 days after the general election, citing death threats, he crossed into Botswana and was granted refuge. That same month, Botswana’s new president, Ian Khama, asked Mr Mwanawasa, president of Zambia and the leader of the Southern African Development Community, to convene an emergency summit meeting of regional heads of state on Zimbabwe, Mr Skelemani said. Subsequently, victims of the political violence began streaming into Botswana. The accounts its election observers brought back from Zimbabwe deepened Botswana’s official revulsion.

Ruth Seretse, the deputy director of Botswana’s directorate on corruption and economic crime, led the 50-person observer team. She said in an interview that she had seen ZANU PF youth militia members beating people at a rally for Mr Tsvangirai in Harare. “People ran for their lives,” she said. “The riot police just stood there.” For two weeks, she monitored faxes and text messages from Botswanan observers deployed across the country. Some of the most disturbing reports came from Bakwena Oitsile, a retired major general in Botswana’s army. He said in an interview that in one village in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland West Province, he had found 14 houses, as well as grain stores, burned and reduced to ashes. Pregnant women and children there had nothing left but the clothes on their backs. In another village in the province, he arrived just hours after an attack on June 17. In one hut, he discovered the body of a man just beaten to death and his wife, still alive, with a deep cut on her head. Another woman’s index finger had been cut off. Her hand was still raw and untreated. “She was in great pain when we were there,” he said. “She was screaming.” He said of what he witnessed in Zimbabwe: “I will never forget it. It’s all in my heart and head.”

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The signing of the memorandum of understanding between ZANU PF and the two MDC formations must be welcomed after the protracted period of violence and political stalemate. But is it the right medicine and what does it say about the two protagonists? Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis is a deep-rooted one, the antidote to which requires more than agreeing to who will hold the reins of power or how the spoils of defeat will be parcelled out. The malaise has surfaced over more than a decade where land reform was only one of a number of structural challenges the state faced. Thus the fundamental problem that this negotiating process, starting today, ought to address is the restructuring and transformation of the state and society after years of brutalisation, exclusion and erosion of the constitutional order.

A culture of violence, subversion of the rule of law and scant attempt to deal with the country’s history during and after independence need to be addressed if this round is to yield anything more substantial than previous rounds. However, the agreement has a number of weaknesses. It required some compromise on both sides in terms of what it contained and how it was phrased, but has this weakened the substance of the agreement or reflected the balance of forces between the negotiating partners? While President Mbeki was still trying to get the parties to the negotiating table, Morgan Tsvangirai set out five preconditions for signing any draft agreement: the appointment of an AU envoy to join the SADC mediating team; the release of all political prisoners; the cessation of violence and the disbandment of all militias; the reinstatement of access by humanitarian organisation to provide food, medical and other related services to Zimbabwe’s population; and that parliament and the senate should be sworn in and begin their work programme.

Two preconditions are not addressed in the MoU: the release of political prisoners, and the swearing in of parliament. President Mbeki’s creation of a reference group which included AU and UN envoys may be said to partially address MDC concerns with the impartiality of the South African mediator. Under “interim measures” the MoU sets out that each party will issue a statement to condemn the promotion and use of violence, ensure the law is applied fairly to all irrespective of political affiliation, and take all steps necessary to “eliminate all forms of political violence, including by non-state actors”. It makes provision for the return of any displaced person and the resumption of the work of humanitarian organisations. While these articles address the very heart of the challenges of negotiations, there is no provision in the agreement for effective, independent monitoring of their implementation. This is a fundamental shortcoming.

This is particularly problematic in the light of the manner in which ZANU PF has conducted itself both before and after the presidential run-off, bringing to bear the might of the state apparatus. In addition, members of the opposition are still in jail or have treason charges pending. While a level political playing field is unattainable for the MDC in the short space, given what has preceded it, the absence of a monitoring mechanism assumes the good will of all parties, something experience has shown is not the case, especially with power at stake. The MoU is very ambitious in the agenda it sets itself, which ranges from economic to political, security and communication matters, framework for a new government, implementation mechanisms and a “global political agreement”. There is a great deal on the table in the overarching political and economic framework. At a clinical level, it is not impossible to cover the ground in two weeks. Yet this downplays the significance of the intangible elements of a successful negotiation: a degree of trust and confidence-building between parties.

Notwithstanding these flaws in the agreement, the process can render some positive outcomes. The role of the mediator, the reference group and the region are key in this. First, they need to appreciate the omissions and weaknesses that I have mentioned and mitigate their possible negative impact on the outcome. This relates particularly to the balance of power between the MDC and ZANU PF. The MDC holds the moral high ground. The party’s trump card was its reticence to participate in an MoU or an ensuing agreement, because the region recognises that the current situation in Zimbabwe is no longer tenable. But the MDC has demonstrated weak mobilising capacity, especially in the face of overwhelming state security machinery.

ZANU PF is not entering into these negotiations to lose its “gains” of June 27. They recognise that they have to make certain token compromises - just enough to ease the entry of foreign currency for the beleaguered economy, but not enough to weaken their control over the levers of power. This is why the way in which President Mbeki and the reference group play their cards is crucial at this juncture for any agreement. And while not even FW de Klerk began negotiations believing he was negotiating himself out of power, the duration of those negotiations allowed the reality of this eventuality to dawn on him and his supporters, including the military. This agreement lacks that “luxury”. Thus this round of negotiations should aim to set in place an interim arrangement, upon which a more comprehensive constitutional framework that includes not only the political elites but a cross-section of society, can be negotiated.

Such an interim arrangement will have to put policies in place to stabilise the economy, end political violence, and restore the rule of law and freedom of association, movement and of the media. This will require the swearing in of MPs in terms of the March 29 results (no mention of which is made in the MoU) to repeal the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the Public Order and Security Act, the Broadcasting Services Act and the Interception of Communications Act. The interim arrangement should make provision for effective monitoring measures, including the deployment of SADC peace monitors to ensure adherence and implementation, especially by the security establishment. To achieve such an outcome will require consummate skill and the judicious application of pressure by external actors (not only the mediating team).

This is a tall order indeed. The reference group constituted by President Mbeki was not mentioned in the MoU. Yet the reference group allows for a more robust facilitation. Thus President Mbeki should not permit its dilution, especially as it legitimises the mediation more in the eyes of the MDC. Furthermore, the terms of reference of the Reference Group should be made public in the interests of a more transparent process. Any comprehensive settlement will need to be crafted by Zimbabweans themselves. South Africa, however, carries a huge responsibility in this two-week period, to ensure that the “hard” power of ZANU PF does not trump, yet again, the moral high ground of the MDC. The events after the March elections show that elections alone or a government of national unity will not address the country’s problems, nor can the country and the opposition do it alone. What must be avoided in the talks that begin today is the Zanufication of the MDC. If that were to happen, the process is likely to produce another damp squib.

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I have a plan. I think I can save Zimbabwe. I’m not saying I can do it single-handedly. Certainly, the groundwork has been done by Thabo Mbeki, inserting himself into the middle of that slightly gruesome hypocrisy sandwich on Monday, as Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai shook hands, and smiled at each other only with their mouths. That meeting could bring peace. It could bring stability. But it’s not going to bring prosperity. They need another plan for that. And, like I said, I think I have one. At almost the exact moment that the meeting was taking place, Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank issued its first $100 billion note. It’s not as much as it sounds. The Zimbabwean shopper will need four to buy a dozen eggs, and another for his bus fare. On paper, it’s worth only slightly more than it is as paper, that’s to say about 7p. But consider - on eBay, it’s worth about £40. Think about that. If Zimbabweans can only get to a computer to auction their notes, they can turn their $100 billion into, I think, nearly $57 trillion. Do it again, just the once, and they are into the realms of quadrillions. Then quintillions, sextillions, and all the others your calculator can’t cope with. Septillions, octillions and vaudevillian rapscallion scullions. Suddenly they’re the new Russians. Notaphily to the rescue.

Obviously, this is not an endless supply of cash. The world only contains so many $100 billion notes and indeed, so many potential notaphilists prepared to buy them. Still, for a time it could work a dream. Monopoly money leaves the economy, real money comes in. That’s good, isn’t it? Anyone? Anatole? For all I know, Robert Mugabe clicked on this months ago. Maybe that’s how he keeps himself in shiny marble bathrooms and grim shirts. A cyberspace Nero, fiddling on his laptop as Zimbabwe burns. It’s a complicated business. Some $50 billion notes actually sell for more than $100 billion notes, and some $5billion notes sell for even more than them. What do you call it, when little notes are worth more than big ones? It makes my brain feel like a water balloon squashed in a fist. Economics with motion sickness. In another generation, Zimbabweans could be the best mathematicians in the world.

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Amid Zimbabwe’s mind-boggling hyper inflation, a new 100 billion dollar bank note has more value as a novelty item on eBay than on the streets of the capital. The note, launched this week, is worth enough to buy a loaf of bread - if you can find one on Zimbabwe’s depleted store shelves. Meanwhile on eBay, the bill was on offer for nearly US$80. Notes in the millions of dollars are useful only as toilet paper and it’s cheaper to light a fire with low denomination bills than with newspaper. In the political and economic turmoil since disputed March 29 elections, prices have risen almost daily. Factories and businesses have shut down amid empty order books and chronic shortages of gasoline, power, water and spare parts for equipment repairs.

President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai signed an agreement Monday to hold talks about power-sharing to end the crisis and restore economic stability. But the news failed to move the exchange rate, since little cash is available. House prices and lottery prizes are quoted in quadrillions - that’s with 15 zeros. Zimbabweans says it’s only a matter of time before big ticket items will be priced in the quintillions, which have 18 zeros. Official inflation is quoted at 2.2 million percent but independent finance houses say it’s closer to 12.5 million percent. One major commercial bank said its automated teller machines are not configured to dispense multi-zero withdrawals and freeze in what it called a “data overflow error.” Software writers are busy writing programs to try to overcome the problem.

Urgent electronic transfers in trillions also take several days as electronic accounting systems grapple with transactions in 12 zeros. Bank transfers command a special rate. A hundred billion dollars is worth US$5 at the official rate, US$1 at the black market rate - but just 30 US cents in a transfer because by the time the funds are processed the Zimbabwe currency can be expected to be worth a lot less. Shops have dropped six zeros from price tags, adding them again after totals are tallied at tills. Zimbabwe has 27 denominations of bills and no coins. Lower value bills - 10 million Zimbabwe dollars - are all but obsolete, even in brick-sized bundles. Beggars and street urchins rarely bother to pick up such bills dropped on the street. But one recent day in Marondera town outside Harare, traffic stopped and business came to a halt when someone - apparently upset by the dizzying rate of inflation - started throwing 50-billion-dollar notes from a moving car. Residents scrambled to collect the money.

The biggest bakery in Harare shut down this month and sent 1,200 workers home on forced leave because flour stocks recently ran out. For years, the bakery donated free loaves every week to a home for the handicapped and charity-run hostels. One Internet provider has invited customers to pay their fees in gasoline coupons that hold their value. A 58-year-old Harare financial director who asked not to be identified said his monthly salary is paid in local money which converts to US$50 at the bank rate. When available at his local sports club, a hamburger costs the equivalent of US$12. He hasn’t eaten out in a year. A cup of coffee at a government-owned five-star hotel was 130 billion Zimbabwe dollars, or US$5.30 this week. A waitress at the hotel said she earns 100 billion Zimbabwe dollars, US$4 a month.

A German company stopped shipments of bank note paper to the central bank’s printers this month as the European Union looked to strengthen sanctions. The release of new money slowed as the central bank said it was looking to Indonesia and Malaysia to supply the specialized paper. The daily grind for Zimbabweans to survive in the economic meltdown has won them a rating as the world’s unhappiest people in the World Values Survey of the Michigan Institute for Social Research. Zimbabweans were slightly unhappier than Armenians and Moldovans, also victims poverty and “the legacies of authoritarian rule,” the researchers said. Dereck Nhamo, who manages a warehouse, says he wants to join the teeming ranks of unemployed because he can’t afford to work any longer. Nhamo earns less than his bus fare to the warehouse in Harare but adds to his monthly income by selling firewood collected on weekends in outlying woodlands. “It doesn’t make sense to go to work any more,” Nhamo said.

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The European Union stepped up sanctions against Zimbabwe yesterday, in an effort to increase pressure on Robert Mugabe a day after he signed a pact to enter power-sharing talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The new embargo identified a further 37 supporters of the regime whose assets will be frozen and who will be subject to a visa ban, preventing them from entering EU territory. For the first time the sanctions will also affect four Zimbabwean companies and aim to close loopholes that have enabled Mr Mugabe to come to Europe almost at will despite being the first name on the travel ban. Announcing the measures, in protest against June’s widely condemned presidential election run-off, Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, said: “It is impossible to accept the result of the second elections when basic democratic rules are being violated. Sanctions have an effect. They are not just for fun.”

The decision to add new names to the 130 already on the sanctions list was taken despite the signing on Monday of a deal between Mr Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, on a framework for talks. The discussions, which were due to begin in South Africa yesterday, got off to a far from auspicious start after the chief representatives for both parties failed to leave Harare. The talks are now unlikely to begin before Thursday. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said: “The sanctions that we and others are proposing are designed to reinforce the drive for the transitional government to reflect the democratic will of the Zimbabwean people.” The EU’s decision, which was implemented immediately, has extended the sanctions to four Harare-based companies. They included Zidco Holdings and Jongwe Printing and Publishing Company (PVT) Ltd, which carries out printing and publishing for the ruling ZANU PF. Also on the list is Cold Comfort Farm Trust Co-operative, which is considered a front for investments outside Zimbabwe, and Zimbabwe Defence Industries.

The individuals added to the visa ban hail largely from the business sector and the military. They include Gideon Gono, governor of the central bank, Joyce Kazembe, the vice-president of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, and Peter Chingoka, the head of the country’s cricket federation, who is accused of supporting the terror campaign during the elections. For the first time, two journalists have also been included: Munyaradzi Huni and Caesar Zvayi, both of whom work for the state-run Herald. Foreign ministers made clear last night that the sanctions could be extended to other individuals and organisations. In the coming weeks the EU will “examine the measures which might be taken against others responsible for violence, and other bodies linked to them”, it said. In future it will be possible to prevent the visit to Europe by anyone on the banned list unless “on humanitarian grounds”. The EU cannot stop individuals attending UN meetings on its soil but now it will give visas only to the persons directly concerned. Mr Mugabe will be able to attend meetings but his wife will be refused a visa.

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Embattled Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai committed the ruling ZANU PF and two factions of the MDC to two weeks of negotiations with South African mediators, after signing a Memorandum of Understanding on Monday.

The establishment of a government of national unity will be the main issue in the talks, although both sides differ on who should lead it and how long it should stay in power.

The two parties had been deadlocked over talks since Mr Mugabe was re-elected on June 27 in a poll boycotted by the opposition because of violence against it’s supporters.

The African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), both concerned by a crisis that has flooded neighbouring states with millions of refugees, have pushed for a power-sharing deal.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the country’s largest labour federation, has demanded that the mediation process be expanded to include representatives of unions, churches and other groups.

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