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This paper explores the scourge of infrastructure vandalism in South Africa and Zimbabwe, with a particular focus on electricity and rail transport companies within the two countries. The paper sought to document the manifestation of infrastructure vandalism; identify the socio-economic impacts of infrastructure vandalism; and explore the challenges of curbing vandalism. The paper reveals that vandalism mainly manifests through copper cable theft; vandalism of transformers, pylons and rail infrastructure; theft of transformers; and tampering with railway points machines. Vandalism of infrastructure comes with direct and costs to the utility companies, as well as negatively impacting the economy, essential services, and the overall community safety. Involvement of employees in the criminal activities, corruption, incessant power cuts, well organised crime syndicates and a weak legal framework were identified as the current challenges to anti-vandalism efforts. The paper also proffers mitigatory measures to deal with the scourge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The HIV response is hampered by many obstacles to progression along the HIV care cascade, with men, in particular, experiencing different forms of disruption. One group of men, whose stories remain untold, are those who have succumbed to HIV-related illness. In this paper, we explore how next-of-kin account for the death of a male relative. We conducted 26 qualitative after-death interviews with family members of male PLHIV who had recently died from HIV in health and demographic surveillance sites in Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The next-of-kin expressed frustration about the defiance of their male relative to disclose his HIV status and ask for support, and attributed this to shame, fear and a lack of self-acceptance of HIV diagnosis. Next-of-kin painted a picture of their male relative as rebellious. Some claimed that their deceased relative deliberately ignored instructions received by the health worker. Others described their male relatives as unable to maintain caring relationships that would avail day-to-day treatment partners, and give purpose to their lives. Through these accounts, next-of-kin vocalised the perceived rebellious behaviour of these men, and in the process of doing so neutralised their responsibility for the premature death of their relative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zimbabwean migration into South Africa represents a challenge to standard global models for responding to large-scale migration flows. South Africa's existing legal and institutional infrastructure for migration management and refugee protection is not adequate for responding to this challenge and yet the country has not planned or implemented alternative responses. The paper outlines the complex 'mixed' nature of current Zimbabwean migration to South Africa and describes how South Africa's range of legal and institutional responses are ineffective in protecting both South Africa's national interests and the rights of Zimbabwean migrants. After presenting a series of factors against which future responses should be evaluated, it lists various possible forms of response, including legal and humanitarian interventions, and discusses their respective appropriateness in the South African context. Finally, the paper suggests six possible policy scenarios, taking into account institutional and political realities on the ground in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the rise of the HIV pandemic in Zimbabwe and also traces the history of official silence about it. The paper argues that women are a particularly vulnerable group, but are often the most deprived of treatment. The spread of the disease within the Zimbabwean diaspora is also described and it is pointed out how British asylum procedures can discourage bearers of the disease from seeking medical opinion and help. The medical profession within Zimbabwe itself is castigated as not having been ready to take a stand against silence and on behalf of patient choice and empowerment, and the Zimbabwean situation is contrasted with those in Uganda and South Africa. The paper makes a passionate call for engagement nationally, professionally and internationally with the Zimbabwe pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on an interdisciplinary conference organised by the Kent Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities in April 2004. The title of the conference, Connecting Cultures attracted an extraordinarily diverse range of papers covering subjects from Caribbean narratives to translating India, to representing terrorism, and included papers on British Asian cinema and television, narrative and memory in South Africa, post-apartheid prose writing and culture contact in Border Zones. The paper of Terence Ranger, a speaker at the conference, considers a mode of translation as he explores the dynamics of the postcolonial interactions that exist in the system of Zimbabwe asylum appeals. He assesses the usefulness of examining asylum narratives both with the grain and against the grain to debate issues surrounding postcolonial assumptions both in Zimbabwe and in Britain. The papers that follow expand on various themes of the conference, commencing with a group of papers that discuss narrative and memory in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Sexual risk-taking is influenced by individual, interpersonal and social factors. This paper presents findings from a qualitative follow-up study to a clinical trial evaluating biomedical HIV prevention products among African women, explored participants’ perceptions and experiences of heterosexual penile-anal intercourse, as well as the gendered power dynamics and relationship contexts in which this sexual behaviour occurs. In-depth interviews were conducted with 88 women from South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Findings reveal that despite its social stigmatisation, women engage in penile-anal intercourse for reasons including male pleasure, relationship security, hiding infidelity, menstruation, vaginal infections, money and beliefs that it will prevent HIV transmission. In addition, participants described experiences of non-consensual penile-anal intercourse. We used sexual scripting theory as an analytical framework with which to describe the sociocultural and relationship contexts and gendered power dynamics in which these practices occur. These data on the distinct individual, dyadic and social contexts of heterosexual penile-anal intercourse, and the specific factors that may contribute to women’s HIV risk, make a unique contribution to our understanding of heterosexual behaviour in these sub-Saharan countries, thereby helping to inform both current and future HIV prevention efforts for women in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There are two interconnected fundamental policy questions that should shape any land reform programme in any African context: what kind of land reform and land tenure is ideal as well as what kind of farming is appropriate? The article argues that South Africa has never addressed these important questions and other associated questions, hence there appears to be policy confusion regarding South Africa's land reform processes. It is taken for granted that the process of land reform in South Africa is necessary in redressing apartheid colonialism – this should be the hallmark of land reform in not just South Africa but Southern Africa as a whole, as Moyo (2013), Murisa (2013), Hendricks et al. (2013), Hebinck et al. (2013) and many others have argued recently. Since 1994, the government relied on the 1996 Constitution and the 1997 White Paper on Land Reform as well as a plethora of legislative pieces to redistribute land, correct land tenure and address land restitution. However, land reform as a whole in South Africa has been a dismal failure. It is no surprise that Hendricks et al. (2013, 1) say ‘there remains a land crisis in South Africa’. Zimbabwe, by contrast, has been peddled as a possible model to follow. The study of the Zimbabwean land reform processes amplifies the fundamental point that this article argues – that policy clarity is critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on research conducted in Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe that focused on violence in the context of political transition. The paperexaminesthe relation between political transition and sexual and gender-based violence in the three countries. The paper argues that it is critical to recognise sexual and gender-based violence as bound to systemic gendered inequality if such forms of violence are to be addressed and mitigated when periods of violent conflict end. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many who have admired the African National Congress are confused and dismayed by post-apartheid South Africa's foreign policy on human rights and good governance, exemplified by its most important policy test to date, viz. Zimbabwe. It is argued below that understanding this policy in terms of the widely-used explanation that it represents 'a shift from idealism to realism' is unsatisfactory. This state-centric framework, focused on 'national' interests and ideals cannot accommodate the wide range of interests, ideals, and other factors that shape the policy. Instead, this investigation assumes that all foreign policies involve a close interaction between 'realism' (interest-driven analysis) and 'idealism' (beliefs/values-driven analysis). In addition to exploring this interaction, this paper also touches briefly and tentatively on the following questions: how well has South Africa's foreign policy been calculated and implemented, and what have been its effects and consequences for South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the 'progressive' international norms to which both South Africa and many of its critics subscribe. A subsidiary aim is to clarify some misunderstandings between South Africa and the West that frequently lead to their 'talking past each other' on this, and other, issues of human rights and good governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the extent to which South Africa's policy towards Zimbabwe under the Mbeki administration was shaped by economic and commercial considerations. Given the extensive involvement and growing influence of the South African business sector in Zimbabwe, the potential link between the South African government's policy stance towards Zimbabwe and South Africa's commercial interests in Zimbabwe is intuitively appealing. This paper argues, however, that although South African firms have exploited the commercial opportunities that have emerged from the political and economic crises in Zimbabwe, it is not clear from the available evidence if commercial interests have been a primary consideration in South Africa's policy towards Zimbabwe. It concludes that the Mbeki government's policy of 'quiet diplomacy' towards Zimbabwe was not principally shaped by economic objectives, but was instead driven predominantly by political and ideological concerns, which related closely to perceptions about South Africa's role on the African continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of military co-operation between the USSR and the liberation movements in Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa has still to be written. The same applies to co-operation with Moscow in the post-independence period. So far the attempts to do so have been unsuccessful, not only due to the lack of accessible documents, but also due to an uncritical attitude to the available materials. This paper attempts to present a 'factual version of history'. It addresses in particular the issues of training the African combatants in the USSR, and the activities of the Soviet teams attached to the ANC, SWAPO and ZAPU as well as to the armed forces of the independent African countries. While most of the Russian archives are still 'sealed off', the author has used oral history sources and memoirs as an invaluable means of painting a picture of the Soviet involvement from the early 1960s to 1991. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuing crisis over Zimbabwe raises a variety of issues of considerable interest to both the theorist and the practitioner of foreign policy: the merits or otherwise of contemporary attempts at state classification; the utility and morality of intervention in a state's internal affairs by economic or military means; the notion of hegemony; the assumptions underpinning African diplomacy; the incentives and constraints attendant on South Africa's foreign policy. In attempting to explain South Africa's role in the Zimbabwean crisis this paper will—where appropriate—make reference to these theoretical concerns on the assumption that the interaction between South Africa and Zimbabwe provides some revealing insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After attaining political independence from their erstwhile colonial masters, a major preoccupation for all ex-colonial African countries has been the formulation of national policies (economic, educational, political, social, etc.) considered appropriate to their mode of national development. None of these has proved more difficult to achieve than the formulation of language policies that reflect the complex multilingual contexts of these countries. The present paper is an attempt to identify the causal factors that have led to this state of affairs. Part One deals with the historical background, and attempts to trace some sources of the problems that continue to complicate the process of language policy formulation. Part Two deals with present realities, and Zimbabwe and South Africa are used to illustrate ex-colonial African countries trying to formulate a comprehensive language policy. The two parts are linked by the observation that past and lingering societal perceptions, and consequently attitudinal orientations, can be said to play a part in rendering language policy formulation in highly complex multilingual countries an extremely intricate task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]