Zimbabwe - A letter from the diaspora

Countdown is a political detective story. It is fiction but the background is accurate and verifiable. Set in 2001/2 and the start of the land invasions, the book shows how the politicisation of the police force has led directly to the breakdown of law and order. In this hostile environment, two honest cops attempt to investigate a murder. Click here to find out more or buy online

30th August 2008

Dear Friends.
I have long believed that a politically compromised police force is one of the root causes of the collapse of law and order in Zimbabwe. Without impartial policing and an independent judiciary the citizen has nowhere to turn for protection. From 2000 onwards we have seen that the so-called forces of law and order are tilted in one direction only and that is to uphold the political imperatives of the ruling party. The white farmers were the first victims; as their properties were violently invaded and they were driven from their homes, the police refused to intervene on the grounds that it was 'political' and they could do nothing. Even when there were violent physical assaults and murder, the police failed to act and, in many cases actively supported the farm invaders. As Mugabe's political fortunes began to wane he resorted more and more to racist rhetoric, "Our party must continue to strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy," he said at the time

I was living in Murehwa when the first white farmer, David Stevens, was murdered and five of his fellow farmers brutally assaulted as they attempted to rescue their friend. It was April 2000 ( See Cathy Buckle's Beyond Tears for an account; she calls it 'The weekend from Hell') The news of that murder went all round the world; indeed I heard of it first on the World Service of the BBC. Robert Mugabe, of course, was quick to respond with his now familiar accusation of western racism. One white man is killed and the western media goes into a frenzy he claimed. On the ground in Murehwa we all knew that it was the police who had handed the white farmers over to the war veterans. We knew the names of the killers and as the days went by after the incident we saw those very men walking freely about the township. They had acted with complete impunity knowing that no policemen would dare to lay a finger on them. That was where it all began, the politicisation of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, a body of men and women who had once been a highly trained and disciplined force, trusted by the people as the guardians of law and order. Now, eight years later, the ZRP has become no better than an arm of the ruling party. Once called 'the dogs of Ian Smith' they serve a different master now but one no less ruthless and they carry out his bidding with complete disregard for human rights or considerations of justice and the law. This week we had another example of police complicity when they stormed a perfectly lawful AGM of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition at a hotel in the middle of Harare and with a truck full of armed cops disbanded the meeting on the grounds that it was an illegal gathering. Earlier in the week the police had arrested five democratically elected MDC MPs as they were about to enter the parliament building to attend the opening of the new session. In a blatant attempt to prevent MDC members from voting for a new Speaker of the House, the police had once again proved their total partiality to Zanu PF. The democratic will of the people means nothing to them, the MOU means nothing to them, they continue their blind allegiance to Robert Mugabe and his party of thugs and thieves while the country slides further and further into the abyss. With police and judges corrupted by Mugabe's patronage and croneyism, law and order collapses. Traditional chiefs, once the upholders of customary law in the rural areas have been subverted too and there is nowhere to turn for justice. Rural or urban, black or white, it makes no difference if you are opposed to Mugabe and Zanu PF you are 'the enemy within' and the police will deal with you accordingly.

Ironic then that when Kirsty Coventry returned to Zimbabwe with her gold and silver medals this week she was treated as a heroine despite the colour of her skin. There was a victory parade through the streets of Harare and a banquet in her honour. Mugabe congratulated her 'most heartily on that heroic performance' Hypocrisy or just political expediency on the Old Man's part? The truth is that he is using Coventry's victory because he thinks it reflects well on him and his government; he fails to acknowledge that Coventry went to the hated US to train for her medals so utterly desperate are conditions in her own country. Accompanied no doubt by a police escort the white Olympian is honoured and feted by a man who will do anything to prove that the country is prospering under his leadership despite the fact that he said only this week after the State Opening of Parliament that his cabinet was to be restructured because, in his own words, "This cabinet I had was the worst in history - most of the ministers were unreliable - incompetent and spent time attending to their own businesses. Many abused their power to deny people food." (Rich, coming from the man who has banned NGO's distributing food aid!) Perhaps he has forgotten that he appointed the cabinet in the first place - the same way he extended Police Commissioner Chihuri's term of office three times thus ensuring a sickeningly compliant police force whose only concern appears to be propping up Mugabe's rotten regime while the real criminals stalk the corridors of power. Will they ever be brought to justice?
Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH

22nd August 2008

Dear Friends.
Another week has gone by, another year is almost over and still Zimbabweans wait in exile all over the world for something to happen, anything that will tell them their country is finally shaking off the shackles of dictatorship. Here in the UK, as August draws to its wet and windy close we too watch and wait for news of the change which seemed so tantalisingly close just a month ago. For the past week the British media has been almost totally silent on the subject of Zimbabwe, their attention has been elsewhere: Russian tanks advancing into Georgia, the Olympics with its clutch of medals for Britain and for a little while it was the resignation of Pakistan's president Mushareff that dominated the news. Listening to Mushareff's resignation speech it was hard not to wonder if there was a warning there for Robert Mugabe? If there was, then Our Man in Harare just wasn't listening - but then he rarely does. Now, top of the news is the Spanish air crash, that's the story for the moment until some fresh disaster grabs the headlines.

Meanwhile Zimbabwe's disaster goes on: people die of starvation or Aids or a combination of the two, Zanu PF continues its campaign of violence against the opposition and the remaining white farmers are driven off their farms, villagers are raped and brutalized, the shops are still empty, even affluent suburbs are going without water for months and power supplies diminish by the day while inflation climbs to even more dizzying heights. It's just the same old story. So much for Gideon Gono chopping off the noughts; like white ants climbing up the house wall no matter how often you knock them down they will not go away; everyone knows you have to eliminate the cause if you really want to rid yourself of the tiresome beasties. Left to their own devices, they will bring your house down in the end.

Commenting on the Central Statistical Office's inflation figure of 11.2 million percent, the Minister of Finance - I didn't even know we had one, he's been so silent lately - Samuel Mumbengegwi commented that Zimbabwe wasn't the only country in the world with high inflation. In Zimbabwe's case, the minister maintained, the situation was exacerbated by world food prices and western sanctions. Perhaps it is better if the Minister remains silent with that kind of reasoning! Since when has Zimbabwe with its stone-age barter economics been part of the twenty-first century world economy? The real Finance Minister, Gideon Gono aka the Governor of the Reserve Bank says we must find a way of getting people in the diaspora to contribute more to the country's economic revival. While Zanu PF sharks gobble up the country's remaining assets, Gono expects hard-pressed exiles to send even more of their precious pounds and dollars home to rebuild the collapsing economy which he and his government cronies have plundered. Only watch the parallel market rate and you will see in a five day period the rate shot up from 340 to 800$ to the pound sterling. Those pesky noughts are already back again!

In the absence of hard news, political hacks spend their time writing stories whose sole purpose is to make trouble and create division, particularly in MDC ranks. 'It's all Morgan Tsvangirai's fault that there is no agreement signed,' they claim, ignoring the fact that it is Robert Mugabe aided by Thabo Mbeki and SADC who stubbornly clings to power. Worse than that, he still refuses to let the NGO's do their work of feeding the people. An estimated 5 million Zimbabweans face starvation; villagers in Matabeleland survive on wild berries and roots and urban folk struggle to cope while the infrastructure collapses around them. It is indeed the same old story.

Now we hear talk that Mugabe will reconvene parliament next week in direct contravention of the MOU that all parties to the talks signed. Yet another example of the spineless SADC mediation that virtually gave Mugabe the go-ahead to do just what he likes; after all he is the Liberation Hero and liberation credentials are apparently the only qualifications needed to run a country - into the ground. Witness the antics of one Joseph Chinotimba, the so-called war veteran, as he directs the terror campaign in Manicaland.

But it's Arthur Mutambara who continues to echo Mugabe's vitriolic rhetoric against the west and appears to align himself with the dictator. Interviewed by an Australian radio station, Mutambara was at his loud-mouthed, arrogant best. "We are smarter than the Australians. We are smarter than the Americans" he bragged. " We went to better schools than most of these leaders in America, in Britain and Australia. I am coming out of Oxford. None of your prime ministers can challenge me intellectually." With two such massive egos: Robert Mugabe, the self-elected president, at the top and Mutambara, the self-proclaimed intellectual giant, at his side in whatever role, there is little hope that sanity will prevail in Zimbabwe soon but Robert Mugabe will be 85 years old in February. He will go at a time of his own choosing, we hear, not when he is told to. But what if the summons comes from a higher authority? That's one call the Old Man will not be able to reject.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH.

15th August 2008

Dear Friends.
Robert Mugabe once boasted that he had the best educated cabinet in Africa; he himself claims to have no less than seven degrees. On Heroes Day he introduced Arthur Mutambara as 'an astute young professor'- you would think that Mugabe would have realised by now that professors with political ambitions are not entirely reliable characters! The fact that this professor is a robotics engineer strikes me as vaguely comic; like a robot, which after all cannot think for itself but is programmed to perform, Mutambara proceeded to say exactly what Mugabe wanted to hear. Despite the fact that he has lived in the west for fifteen years and gained his doctorate at Oxford, Mutambara launched into a Mugabe-esque tirade against the west. Strange, coming from a man who received a Rhodes scholarship and owes his academic education to Britain and America! Such men drone on about the evils of colonialism and the 'colonial legacy' yet fail to see that they themselves mirror the snobbish attitudes of their former masters who promoted education as a 'civilizing' influence. These highly educated types apparently feel only contempt for anyone less educated than themselves. It explains a lot about their attitude to men like Morgan Tsvangirai who, incidentally, chose not to be present at the Heroes Day celebrations believing as he does that the annual jamboree is nothing more than an opportunity for glorification of Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF. With 'heroes' like Hitler Hunzvi buried there, it is not difficult to understand why the MDC feels as it does about the place and the occasion.

Mugabe's thinly veiled contempt for Tsvangirai is typical of the snobbery of the intellectual elite; humility is not their strong point. One characteristic Mutambara appears to share with his new political bedfellow is arrogance; hubris as the ancient Greeks described it, which ultimately leads to downfall and ruin. Mutambara would do well to remember that. If reports of a 'deal' between himself and Mugabe are true – and I tend to believe they are since 'divide and rule' (another colonial hangover) is a typical Mugabe ploy - Mutambara is Mugabe's choice as Prime Minister. Zimbabweans may well ask who exactly the professor represents? He failed to win his own seat in the March elections and his party gained a mere ten seats in the House of Assembly. From what I read seven of those ten have clearly stated that they will not support Mutambara if he accepts a post in Mugabe's so-called Unity Government. Is Mutambara's arrogance so great that he is prepared to go it alone for the sake of his own personal advancement? His party's ten seats will count for little without backing from his MP's – or will they all be swallowed up by Zanu PF?

Mugabe's own speech at Heroes Day was a mere twenty-five minutes long and he said very little about the ongoing talks. What I found particularly interesting was his reference to God. Mugabe seemed to be justifying the use of violence against the opposition, using God as his excuse. " God says I give you power to protect yourselves…God gives people the power to protect themselves even if that means violence" With the news this week that the death toll of MDC members has now reached 125 and the Report by the Zimbabwe Coalition indicating very clearly the number and details of the horrendous violence inflicted on opposition supporters, it is hard to see how God can be held responsible. Zimbabwe is not at war, there is no enemy except in Mugabe's own mind. 'God allowed me to do it' hardly constitutes a justification for torture and murder. On Defence Forces Day Mugabe further extolled the politics of the fist. He heaped praise on his armed forces and honoured the men who had made it possible for him to remain as president, either by delaying the election results like George Chiweshe or by actively promoting the violence before and after the runoff election where Mugabe stood against himself and won! To emphasise the point that violence is the only power he respects, when the talks resumed Mugabe was accompanied by Constantine Chiwenga, the man who says he will never recognise anyone other than Robert Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe.

The signs were all there. The humiliating business of the confiscation of the MDC leaders' passports on their way to the SADCC meeting simply confirmed what we all knew: Mugabe was never going to accept Morgan Tsvangirai or anyone else as an equal partner. So, Thabo Mbeki went back to South Africa empty handed. There is no deal for him to boast about, no real success for his 'quiet diplomacy'. A deal, if there is one, with Arthur Mutambara will not solve Zimbabwe's problems. It will not persuade the west to part with billions to revive the comatose economy and it will not convince Zimbabweans at home or abroad that democracy has finally come. Like others before him Mutambara will be used by Robert Mugabe to keep the old man in power – but not, I suspect, for much longer. Shame on these 'educated' men who play political games while the people suffer. All credit to Morgan Tsvangirai and his team who have remained true to their support base, the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who time and again have voted for a new beginning, a new Zimbabwe
Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH

8th August2008

Dear Friends.
I was amused to read this comment by a Zimbabwean this week. "There are two things Zimbabweans are good at, one is laughter and the other is making a plan." The truth of this observation is something all Zimbabweans will recognise and while it's certainly true that laughter is the best medicine, it is also true that the ability to 'make a plan' to get round difficulties has meant that Zimbabweans often fail to grasp the nettle because they are so busy trying to negotiate a way round it. Robert Mugabe understands this national characteristic very well and exploits it to the advantage of the ruling party. No matter how repressive and unjust the measures he takes against the people, he knows that Zimbabweans very seldom get angry enough to react. Instead they find a way round obstacles; they simply 'make a plan'.

In the midst of all the rumours and counter-rumours this week of an imminent settlement between Zanu PF and the MDC, ordinary Zimbabweans have, understandably, been too busy trying to get round the monetary chaos to pay much attention to political goings on. With the cancellation of ten noughts off the face value of notes and the reintroduction of coins, the householder's job was to locate the long discarded coins. There were hilarious accounts of people finding coins in the most unlikely places, kids' toy boxes, rubbish dumps, jam jars in pantry cupboards and then rushing out to spend them at supermarkets where harassed shop assistants used to counting notes on neat little note counters suddenly had to contend with hundreds of heavy and very grubby coins. 50c was apparently the lowest acceptable denomination but if the bill for just a few items, a loaf of bread, a pkt of milk a dozen eggs and a few tomatoes,(even supposing you could get any of those things) came to 124 trillion that had to be calculated in 50 cent pieces! I can only imagine the length of the queues at the checkout, not to mention the weight of the coins the shopper had to carry. $200 in 50cent pieces weighs 2kgs apparently! There were so many stories to provoke laughter; I liked the one about the man who had been using his old coins in buckets as doorstops. The story goes that he was able to buy a satellite dish with his six or seven buckets of coins. Another man, a street vendor, had found enough coins to buy him a houseful of new furniture and even hire a truck to carry his splendid new bedroom suite etc home for him. Much laughter but, alas little action or protest that this absolute chaos had been brought down on the populace by the Governor of the Reserve Bank himself, the same man who had paid billions to provide judges with the latest state of the art Mercedes and satellite dishes. Indeed the initial reaction from the people was that Gideon Gono had actually made life easier for them. What they don't realise is that this monetary honeymoon will be very short and the nightmare of noughts is already on the way back. There is no sign of the new currency notes and in a bizarre development fuel tokens have become the latest feature of the economy. Providing one has forex to buy the tokens, it is now possible to buy goods, pay utility bills and even school fees with fuel tokens worth US 1.50 a litre. That certainly is laughable were it not so tragic a sign of Zimbabwe's total collapse. The truth is that Zimbabwe in 2008 has returned to a barter economy under Robert Mugabe, the man who once said no one could have managed the economy better than he had.

In the midst of all this chaos at home, Robert Mugabe went off to Singapore. It was reported that he had gone for a medical checkup but the Sydney Morning Herald picked up the story that he was in reality on his way to Hong Kong to be one of the 'World Leaders' attending the glamorous opening of the Olympics but – and this is the funny part – the Chinese wouldn't let him in! ITV here in the UK picked up the same story but in Harare George Charamba, the president's spokesman, said it was simply a matter of Mugabe being needed at home as the talks reached a crucial stage. Later on in the week, just yesterday the 7th August, George Charamba was denying that there would be face-to- face talks between Mugabe and Tsvangirai to settle the final details of a so-called deal between the parties. And to give his denial some semblance of truth he added that " the president spent the day (when he was supposed to be meeting Tsvangirai) feeding chickens at his Norton farm." Now that is funny! How many chickens has he got for heavens sake? And are we really supposed to believe that Robert Mugabe feeds his own chickens – in his Saville Row suit, no doubt? The mind boggles. The pity is that he doesn't give as much care to feeding his own people. The food insecurity figures were issued this week by the Zimbabwe Red Cross and the picture is grim. Millions of Zimbabweans face present hunger and the real prospect of starvation in the months ahead. Still the NGO's are forbidden by Mugabe's 'government' to deliver food aid and Mugabe's bully boys and thugs 'fine' villagers returning home from their hiding places by taking their chickens and goats as punishment for voting the wrong way. A good friend of mine who has been in hiding since May went back home to Murehwa this week to check out the situation. He has been separated from his wife and children for over three months now and his kids have missed school. It's still not safe for them all to go home together he says because the thugs come out at night to beat up MDC activists whose names are listed. 'This is where Shepherd Jani was murdered' he reminds me, as if I could forget. Despite the ongoing 'talks' nothing has changed on the ground and the police continue to turn a blind eye on blatant criminality while hunger and despair haunt the land. I heard the despair in my friend's voice, such a brave activist he is, when he said "Perhaps any settlement is better than nothing?" and my heart sank. Who am I from the relative comfort of the diaspora to tell him otherwise? I am not hungry and hunted down as an 'enemy of the state', unable to feed my children or give them a roof over their heads. But I fear for Zimbabwe. Will Zimbabweans wake up one morning soon to find the party and leader they supported overwhelmingly back in May swallowed up by Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF in a Government of National Unity. There will be no room for laughter then, no 'making a plan, to get round that obstacle, it will be too late.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH

2nd August2008

Dear Friends.
One week ago, Sunday July 27th. the SA Sunday Times carried a report that Thabo Mbeki had finally told Mugabe that he had to talk to the opposition. The report went on to quote verbatim Sydney Mafamadi's words to the Zimbabwean 'leader'. "You don't have a government. You can't summon your parliament. You have no legitimate president - thus you have no cabinet. You cannot behave as you have been doing. Real talks have to start straightaway." So, the article concluded, it was South Africa who had forced Mugabe to enter negotiations with the opposition parties, the two MDC parties. On the very same day, The UK Sunday Telegraph claimed that it was Mugabe's other ally, China, who had forced the old man to 'behave himself' because his actions were bringing the Chinese hosting of the Olympic Games into disrepute.

Well, who cares whether it was South Africa or China, I thought; at least it's some kind of movement. So great is my distrust of Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF that I had no real hope anything would come out of the talks but - hope springs eternal! As the week went on, press reports on the progress or lack of it at the talks between the two sides became wilder and more confusing by the day. Were the talks on or were they off? Were the two sides deadlocked or was there real progress being made? Was it true Tsvangirai had been offered the crumb of the vice-presidency? With a complete media blackout and no offical spokesperson appointed to give the public the real news, the print media was filled with speculation, rumour and often just plain gossip. It was only on Tuesday July 29th that Mbeki himself announced that the talks had adjourned for the negotiators to return to Zimbabwe to consult their leaders, as indeed the MOU had made allowance for them to do. The South Africa president insisted that the talks were going well and would resume on Sunday, August 3rd.

Like many others I suspect, I decided early on in the week that my blood pressure would not stand any more of the surges of hope and despair as each contradictory report came out. Direct news from Zimbabweans at home in the form of phonecalls and emails was a much more reliable source, I decided and the story they told was one of increasing despair as daily life becomes more intolerable. The bloody violence continues, food is still being used as a political weapon and the economy continues its descent into previously unheard of depths. "Can I send you money?" I asked a friend. "No point," she replied, "I can't get more than 100 billion out of the bank and a loaf of bread is going for 200 billion. Any cash you send is just going straight to Gideon Gono."
And right on cue, in rode the knight in shining armour to rescue Zimbabwe from the dragon of inflation. It was none other than Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank Governor, plump cheeks glowing with health and sporting a huge buttonhole of fresh flowers. For the third time he offered the same solution to the nation's problems: knock off the noughts! He did it in 2005; he did it in 2006 and now he's doing it again in 2008. But this time it is a massive ten noughts that will be removed, surely the dragon will truly be slain this time? Ten billion is now worth just one dollar and a trillion has become one hundred Zim dollars. Gone are the days of Zim billionaires - for the time being anyway. And, that old jar of coins you had been saving because you didn't know what else to do with them, now they are back as legal tender. My friend in Murehwa laughed over the phone as he told me, "You remember that box of coins you left, P. Well, they're real money again!" Will they be enough to buy a loaf of bread I wondered.

In the Herald, Gono is reported as saying that he wants a six-month wage and price freeze and it is every citizen's duty in terms of the Social Contract to abide by the new conditions. "We will soon have no economy to talk about if daily, hourly price increases continue." Gono is quoted as saying and he adds almost as an afterthought that the fight against inflation will also need increased agricultural output and reduced fiscal expenditure.

Meanwhile in a separate report the Herald tells us that the judges have all been given new top-of-the-range Mercedes Benz, 32 inch plasma screen TVs, (the Chief Justice and Judge President each get a 42 inch set) generators and satellite dishes - even though other people are having their dishes torn down. Explaining it all, the Master of the High Court, Mr Charles Nyatanga, tells us that the judges get a new Merc every 5 years as one of their conditions of service. As for the generators; well the poor dears, the judges I mean, have to take their work home with them and in view of the regular power cuts they need light to illuminate their deliberations as they write their learned judgements. In addition to the Mercedes the judges have Isuzu and Totota trucks issued to them because explained Mr Nyatanga, "It is not desirable to drive their Mercedes on rough terrain to their farms" No comment!

And who is paying for all this? Why none other than Gideon Gono! The Central Bank purchased and will install all these new 'goodies' for the judiciary. So much for fiscal discipline! Now let's see if the MPs, cabinet ministers and other assorted government lackeys will agree to a six-month pay freeze. It is every citizen's duty after all.
Yours in the (continuing)struggle. PH