Zimbabwe - A letter from the diaspora

Dear Friends. If there is one message that has come out of the events of the last two weeks for ordinary Zimbabwean people, it is this: You are on your own! There is no one who is going to going to rescue Zimbabwe. Some of us have been saying that for a very long time and now maybe it has finally sunk in. Certainly none of the southern African countries are going to lift a finger; the Americans have their hands full in Iraq and anyway it was Bush who nominated Mbeki as the 'pointman' on Zimbabwe; the EU appears divided and indecisive on the issue and the Brits apart from plans to evacuate their own nationals in the event the situation further deteriorates are unwilling to provoke Mugabe's rage and hysterical sloganeering of 'Zimbabwe will never be a colony again' Ironically, colonial mastery is precisely what the Brits do not want! They cannot yet face up to their colonial past. They're very good at the guilt and wringing of hands but not so good at accepting their moral responsibility to the inhabitants of their former colony.

Even if it is true, as reported in some UK and South African papers this week, that behind the scenes the SADC leaders spoke very sternly to Mugabe about the economic collapse in his country, anyone who still believes - as the MDC appears to - that SADC has done enough to justify our hope for a just solution to the current impasse is, in my view, guilty of dangerous self-delusion. It is dangerous because it is based on the false premise that the other side, ie. Zanu PF and, by extension Thabo Mbeki are sincerely committed to honest negotiation. The likely result of such false and unsubstantiated optimism is that it raises the hopes of millions of Zimbabweans that maybe there is the possibility that their lives will get better. Those hopes are bound to be dashed again on the rock of Mugabe's intransigence and a desperate starving people with nothing else to hope for may resort to violent change which no one can control.

It is naivety that has been the downfall of the opposition parties in Zimbabwe; they continue to believe that they are dealing with a man and a party who can be trusted to keep their word. The problem I believe is that the MDC in calling for democratic change through the ballot box has failed to see that in addition to the ballot box there are other non-violent ways to bring about change. The civic organizations such as WOZA, the NCA and the churches have demonstrated time and again that it is possible to get ordinary men and women out on the street peacefully demonstrating their anger and displeasure at the continuing misery of their lives. Without that public display of disaffection Zimbabwean ministers and their South African counterparts will continue to claim that all is well in the country. There is no evidence they can claim that the mass of Zimbabweans are dissatisfied with their lives under the Mugabe regime because, they say, we do not see the people out on the streets. But Zimbabweans and the leadership of the opposition parties would do well to remember that 'one little brown man in a dhoti' as Churchill described Mahatma Ghandi, brought the entire might of the British empire to a standstill when he led millions of Indians on the great salt march and then on to Indian independence. In America, Martin Luther King got thousands of African Americans out on the streets in the Civil Rights Movement. Nearer to home, the children of Soweto were instrumental in bringing an end to apartheid when they took to the streets in June 16th 1976. In all of these struggles against tyranny it was the people, armed only with their courage and longing for freedom who initiated change.

My question to the opposition parties in Zimbabwe is why have you so little faith in your own people? They have shown that they are capable of courageous resistance but what they desperately need now is leadership, someone who will organize and lead them from the front. Then the whole world will see Zimbabweans in their thousands demonstrate their longing for freedom and a new beginning. I believe that Africa and the west would then be forced to come to the aid of the people, not just with words and gestures but with a UN resolution and action to follow. I can hear the cynics asking, 'What did the UN ever do about Rwanda, Dafur or the DRC?' and their cynicism is justified. My point is that until Zimbabweans stand up and demonstrate publicly how desperately they want change, the rest of the world has every excuse for continuing to turn a blind eye. For surely even the opposition must by now see that the ballot box alone will not bring about change because Mugabe has already rigged the result. MDC can never win while Mugabe sets the rules.

Until the opposition parties in Zimbabwe harness the strength of people's power, Mugabe and his cronies in SADC will continue to claim that all is well in the country and no change is needed. By their continued failure to provide leadership for a genuine people's revolt the opposition makes it possible for Mugabe and his ministers to go on telling their nonsensical lies about the state of the country; they will be believed because there is no evidence to the contrary. The sight of determined people peacefully demonstrating on the streets might waken Africa and the world to the tragedy that is Zimbabwe. To quote Robert Nesta Marley: None but ourselves can free ourselves.
Ndini shamwari yenyu. PH

Friday 17th August 2007

Dear Friends. 'Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe was greeted with thunderous applause by delegates as he arrived at a meeting of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) at which his country's crisis tops the agenda.'
So writes Chris McGreal in The Guardian today Friday August 17th 2007.

All week long we in the UK diaspora have been hearing and reading comment and analysis of the likely outcome of this meeting in Lusaka. Just this morning the BBC's Today programme carried an interview with the MDC man in London and one George Shiri, a British based academic - or that's how he's described - on the prospects for the talks. Shiri has been in this country for close on twenty years, he is in effect the ruling party's spokesperson in London and can always be relied on to parrot the party line.

For anyone who knows anything at all about the situation in Zimbabwe it was a shoddy piece of journalism. The BBC presenter clearly had not done his homework; he asked innocuous questions and completely failed to respond when Shiri, questioned about the violence in the country and the attack on the MDC leaders, replied with the usual unproven allegations that it was all caused by the MDC themselves. They were mounting a violent attack on a police station at the time of the attack, Shiri claimed. And he was allowed to get away with that preposterous allegation. No one, not the BBC man nor, I'm sorry to say, the MDC representative had the wit to challenge Shiri or to remind him of Mugabe's own words at the time, 'We will bash them…they deserve it.' which would have pinpointed for the listener exactly where the violence is coming from and who is directly responsible for it all.

And this is the same man who receives 'thunderous applause' from the SADC leaders as they gather in Lusaka. Maybe Zanu PF bussed in a whole lot of cheer-leaders, I wondered? How else could grown men, leaders of their countries, cheer for a man like Mugabe who permits no opposition, muzzles the press and beats his own people . Have these leaders lost all decency and humanity that they continue to back the man who has time and again shown his utter contempt for the people's suffering? With literally thousands, of refugees flooding over their borders, SADC leaders continue to applaud the man who has brought about his country's downfall and reduced the population to starvation, misery and desperation so great that they will risk everything to get out of Zimbabwe.

Mugabe will fly back to Harare once again, his ego undiminished, to claim that he has the full support of his African brothers and the state-owned media will trumpet his success on the front page and shout it aloud on every news broadcast. And once again the Zimbabwean people, those that are left in the fast-shrinking population, will hear the same old lie: that it is the British who are responsible for the whole mess. I wish that someone would explain to me how sanctions against named individuals have caused the total collapse of Zimbabwe's economy. Sanctions! scream the Zanu PF apologists. UK led sanctions have destroyed the economy and the SADCC leaders believe –or choose to believe - the lie. Even while they benefit from British aid and trade they swallow the lie because they must not be seen to attack a 'liberation leader' and break so-called African unity.

Today's article in The Guardian reports that The Zambian president who in March this year described Zimbabwe as a 'sinking titanic' heaped praise on Africa's liberation leaders, including Robert Mugabe and urged all Zimbabweans to ' maintain peace and stability.' What kind of nonsense is this? Morality is turned on its head and Mugabe's blood-soaked present is overlooked on the grounds that twenty-seven years ago he was a great liberation leader. In the twisted logic of the SADC leaders' thinking the past liberation history excuses all present crimes against his own people. There is something terribly wrong with that logic; rather like telling oneself that one great, heroic deed in the past excuses all present crimes.

Winning freedom from colonial rule was a great achievement but the liberation leaders would do well to remember that they would never have won that battle without the support of millions of ordinary men and women who gave their lives for freedom. But that was then and this is now, the twenty-first century. Thousands of young Zimbabweans have no memory of the liberation struggle. The only struggle they know is the struggle to survive in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. He will be long gone while the born-free generation will live on with his dreadful legacy.
There was one tiny ray of hope - and unintended humour - in The Guardian report. The Zambian information minister, speaking to Associated Press commented' Zambia cannot impose its will on Zimbabwe just as Zimbabwe cannot impose its will on Zambia. But we can quietly whisper to each other our concerns.'
So now we know! A combination of Mbeki's quiet diplomacy and Zambia's quiet whispers seems to be all that will come out of this SADC extravaganza. Will the softly-softly approach be loud enough to awaken the collective conscience of the SADC leaders? Maybe even Mugabe himself might hear a distant murmur of disquiet from his neighbours and change his ways. Somehow I doubt it - but miracles do sometimes happen!
Ndini shamwari yenyu. PH.

Friday 10th August 2007

I don't know who it was who said 'All publicity is good publicity' - probably a newspaper magnate - but in Zimbabwe's case I'm not at all sure it's true. Sky TV's footage this week of burly white farmers manhandling desperate black Zimbabweans fleeing the chaos over the border was certainly publicity but it did no one any good. What it did was to reinforce the stereotypes of the past; memories of white men armed with whips and assisted by vicious dogs in apartheid South Africa and Smith's Rhodesia only appeared to emphasise the point that what is happening on the Zim/South African border in 2007 is simply a continuation of the racial divisions and hatred that tore the two countries apart in the past. The Sky footage may have intended to highlight the desperate plight of the Zimbabwean refugees but the over-whelming feeling left in the viewer's mind was antipathy towards those South African white farmers. Geoff Hill's earlier report on SW Radio Africa of what's really happening on the South African border had tried to put the record straight; Geoff pointed out that the white farmers also deserved our sympathy as they suffer daily incursions, theft and damage caused by the fleeing Zimbabweans but no words could erase the image of the farmers handcuffing terrified black people.
What the Sky report failed to do was to point out that the white farmers would not have had to resort to vigilante tactics if the South African police and immigration authorities had been doing their job properly. The truth is that South Africa is totally unable or unwilling to address the problem of Zimbabwean refugees , even refusing to call them what they are: refugees fleeing a country where every aspect of life has become unsustainable; a country which South Africa has consistently failed to criticise for its gross abuse of human and property rights over the last ten years, a country which has been brought to its knees, in part because of South Africa's moral cowardice and failure to confront Robert Mugabe. Even now, at the eleventh hour when Mbeki is mandated by SADC to facilitate crucial talks between the Zimbabwean government and the opposition, he continues to allow Mugabe and Zanu PF to dominate the proceedings with their lies and deceit about the true situation in the country. You would think that the presence of thousands of refugees on South African soil should alert Mbeki to the collapse of the neighbouring state. But, when it comes to Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, Mbeki remains silent, apparently tongue-tied by his fear of Mugabe's maniacal response to anyone who dares criticise the actions of the 'Hero of the Liberation Struggle' and the Pan-Africanist cause.

Speaking of maniacal responses, SW Radio Africa's interview with Florence Chiwenga this week demonstrated perfectly that not all publicity is good publicity! Anyone with a modicum of sense, even within the ruling party, who listenined to Chiwenga's crazy ranting would have to be as convinced as I am that when it comes to Zimbabwe the lunatics have taken over the running of the asylum.
The inimitable SW reporter, Violet Gonda, never one to resist a challenge, picked up her phone in London last week and rang the Commander in Chief's wife to ask her about her attack, verbal and physical, on the members of Morgan Tsvangirai's party as they toured the Makro wholesale outlet in Harare. Tsvangirai had gone there to see the effects of the government's price blitz on the availability of goods. Accompanied by journalists he toured the huge store only to come face-to face with Florence Chiwenga, a fire-eater if ever there was one. Quite what the lady was doing there was not entirely clear but I suspect she was after a bargain or two that she could resell on the black market. After all what's the point of backing the government's crazy price reductions if one can't take advantage of them! What followed was pure lunacy as la Florence screamed abuse and unprintable insults at all and sundry and physically assaulted a journalist.
Violet, like the good journalist she is, followed up on the story and simply wanted to ask Mme Chiwenga what it was all about; why had the sight of the opposition leader provoked such a rage? Whether Violet really expected a sensible answer, I somehow doubt. Chiwenga is after all the woman who told a white farmer whose farm she wanted that she hadn't tasted white blood for a long time. It's hard to believe that one would get a sane response from such a person. What Violet got in answer to her always courteous questioning was a positive barrage of nonsense about a lying foreign media, enemies of Zimbabwe etc etc. We have all heard it so often that it's not even worth getting angry about; all you can do is laugh and that's exactly what Violet did when Chiwenga threatened to sue her for one billion US dollars for daring to phone her private number! With that, the phone was slammed down and when the intrepid Violet tried to phone again the amount had gone up to two billion.
It's all utterly insane but there's a chilling side to it; my mind went back to when my daughter's farm was first invaded and there was a gang of rabid war vets at the gate on a daily basis ranting and raving a la Chiwenga. The scary thing about them was there was just no way one could actually communicate; there was simply no talking to them as fellow human beings, no common sense or reason in what they said. Any kind of normal human exchange becomes impossible with people so brain-washed that they no longer know right from wrong.
As more and more 'dissident' thinkers leave the country or are arrested and imprisoned there's a terrifying prospect that only the madmen, the ranters and ravers will be left to negotiate Zimbabwe's future. And that is a very frightening prospect.
Ndini shamwari yenyu. PH.

Friday 3rd August 2007

Dear Friends. Here in the UK, summer has at last put in an appearance. Sunshine and blue skies make even exile seem bearable.

I was walking along in the sunshine last Saturday when I met two British friends of mine also out enjoying the long overdue summer. 'So when is there going to be a military coup?' they asked when we got to talking about Zim - as we always do! They are both educated, well-informed people and they're familiar with the spate of military coups that have occurred in West Africa over the years. Naturally enough they assume that something like that will happen in Zim. The textbooks, after all, tell you that coups occur when the military dislike the way the country is being governed and decide they could do a better job. Well, let's face it, anyone could do a better job than this lot in Zimbabwe with their insane economic policies, their flip-flops and the right hand not knowing what the left hand's doing! So, naturally, one would expect some sort of reaction from the military to the rank incompetence of the Mugabe regime. Instead, despite rumours and counter-rumours the Zimbabwean military remain firmly in their barracks – except of course when they come out to beat innocent civilians senseless or to intimidate the voters at election time.

As I walked away from my friends, I thought about their question and when I got home I took down Ali Mazrui's book, Nationalism and the New States in Africa. My copy of the work is well out of date now but there is a Table at the front of the book which shows Africa's post-independence history. Mazrui lists all the African countries from Algeria to Zimbabwe, names their capitals, languages and population figures and even has a separate column dedicated to military coups. Between 1963 and 1982 by my rough count there were fifty-five overthrows of civilian government by the military in Africa; Ghana for instance, has had five coups, the last being in 1981 and Nigeria has had at least three.

Since military coups are generally followed by periods of intense repression and violent upheaval, I suppose we should be grateful that Zimbabwe has escaped the military coup and for twenty-seven years has been ruled by one man, one party. The truth, however, is that Zimbabwe has in effect already had a coup, a bloodless coup perhaps but certainly the military have taken over the management of Zimbabwe plc – everything from the running of elections to the provision of food and fuel. And it has all been carefully and deliberately put in place by none other than the wily President Mugabe himself. Take a look at every parastatal in the country and you will find a former military man heading the organization. The military are already virtually in charge of everything. Robert Mugabe has made absolutely sure of that through his system of patronage and giving top jobs only to military men. It keeps the generals sweet and it keeps Mugabe in power. The army – at least not its upper ranks – has no need to mount a coup; the top brass are not going to risk losing their immense wealth and influence for the sake of the country and its people.

And it's that failure to put the country first that is the key issue I believe in Zimbabwe's current situation. While the country waits –and has waited for the last ten years – for some outside power to come to the rescue, the suffering of the people has gone on unabated. No one, not the President, not the ruling party, not the military and I'm sorry to say not even the opposition parties are prepared to put the country first before their own greedy self-interest. And while they all argue and criticise and carp at one another, their Zimbabwean brothers and sisters – and most tragically the children - die of hunger, of exhaustion and heartbreak as the House of Stone collapses around them.

So, it was like a reviving breath of hope this week to read, Kofi Annan's words as he delivered the fifth annual Nelson Mandela lecture. Yes, he could have said those things while he was still Secretary General of the UN but let's not carp about that. The fact that he spoke so openly - and in South Africa too- of the Zimbabwean situation as 'intolerable and unsustainable' should give Zimbabweans some cause for renewed hope, a tiny flicker of light at the end of that endless tunnel. What Annan did was to articulate what so many of us have been thinking for a long time. Africa's failure to condemn bad governance and human rights abuses is in Kofi Annan's words ' a pernicious self-destructive form of racism that unites citizens to rise up and expel tyrannical rulers who are white but to excuse tyrannical rulers who are black… African leaders' he said, ' must stop shielding each other from criticism.'

Whether Annan's words had any influence on Thabo Mbeki we'll never know but it was slightly encouraging to hear Thabo Mbeki say this week that elections in Zimbabwe must be free and fair and 'acceptable by all the people' I say 'slightly' encouraging because it seems curious that it was Thabo Mbeki's government who declared Zimbabwe's recent elections 'free and fair' despite all the evidence to the contrary. What has happened since then to alter South Africa's perception of 'free and fair'? Could it possibly be the presence of thousands of desperate Zimbabweans crossing the border every day and putting huge pressure on South Africa's social services, or perhaps there are other pressures on the South African President? South Africa has its has own elections coming up and the South African constitution does not allow Mbeki to stand for a third term. Perhaps Thabo Mbeki like Tony Blair before him is worried about his legacy? At least Blair can justifiably claim that peace in Northern Ireland was a successful legacy. But time is running out for Thabo Mbeki and his shameful near-silent diplomacy. While he continues to shield Robert Mugabe from the world's condemnation, Zimbabwe continues on its downward spiral into darkness and despair.
Could any human being with a conscience claim that as a successful legacy?
Ndini shamwari yenyu. PH