Zimbabwe - A letter from the diaspora

28th December 2007

Dear Friends.

As I've said before, one advantage of being in the diaspora is that one is able to take the wider view of world events. It is easy to become so totally immersed in the complexities of Zimbabwean politics and the unfolding tragedy inside our country that one forgets we are just a small part of the global picture and that there are links and threads connecting Zimbabwe to events happening both in and outside Africa.

Yesterday's assassination of the Pakistani opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto is a case in point. Ms Bhutto had been in exile from her country for eight years. She returned in October this year to fight the forthcoming election as her party's candidate and from the day she arrived back tension has been mounting inside Pakistan. With her assassination, violence has broken out in several districts but President Musharef has declared that elections will still go ahead in January. For Zimbabweans, watching how Musharef handles the crisis reminds us of the terrible consequences that may follow once violence has been unleashed. Ms Bhutto was killed by a solitary gunman who then blew himself up taking twenty other innocent civilians with him. Whether or not the Pakistani government was involved will probably never be known but the lesson for Zimbabwe as I see it is that, to their credit, the opposition has firmly eschewed violence as a means of solving the political impasse. Even the current chaos in the country has not as yet provoked the long-suffering Zimbabweans to take up weapons. Mugabe's proud boast that he came to power through the barrel of the gun and that he has degrees in violence is something we see daily in the behaviour of the police, the army and the Youth militia but whatever their failings the opposition have not fallen into the trap of thinking that violence is the correct response.
Despite my profound reservations about the talks going on under Thabo Mbeki's partial leadership and his blatant and obvious support for Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF, I can appreciate the MDC's continued participation in the talks. The truth is that the talks are the only game in town; the alternative is too ghastly to contemplate. I for one dread the day when I turn on the television and see Zimbabweans killing each other and the country plunged into a civil war. That may still happen but from what I've been reading lately, it's more likely to be internecine warfare among members of the ruling party than any conflict with the opposition that will lead to a national blood-letting.

However, it needs to be understood that violence takes many forms. The violence of Mugabe's language is one form, filled as it is with hatred and intolerance. Deliberate withholding of food aid is another and the repression of freedom of expression and association is another, the list is endless. 'The first condition of non-violence ' said Gandhi, ' is justice all round in every department of life.' It is that condition which is simply not present in Zimbabwe under a Zanu PF government. The long and bloody struggle against the injustice of the colonial regime has been replaced by the injustice of a brutal dictatorship. But a non-violent response does not mean that the democratic forces simply fold their hands and suffer under the brutality. We need to fight the oppressor by every means available to us, using our natural intelligence, our wit and above all our long experience of the enemy's lies and deceit which should prepare us for all eventualities. And that means not allowing ourselves to be taken for a ride by Zanu PF's dirty tricks, by their tinkering with unjust laws in order to fool the world that these are genuine moves towards a more just society. Nothing less than justice for all Zimbabwe's citizens will suffice, written into a new constitution with legal safeguards ensuring the protection of all.

If the Talks, due to resume on January 2nd 2008 do not produce that clear result then the MDC would, in my opinion, be fully justified in pulling out and demanding a new and impartial facilitator of the SADCC mediated negotiations. Thabo Mbeki has shown time and time again that he is not the man for the job.
Yours in the struggle. PH

21 December 2007

Dear Friends.
My phone rang at 8.0'clock this morning and I guessed straight away that it was Zimbabwe calling because the Brits rarely call at that time in the morning! I was right. My friend in Murehwa wanted to tell me that a certain parcel had arrived but more than that he wanted to talk about what has just happened in South Africa and what it means for the negotiations going on between Zanu PF and the MDC. Knowing how passionately I'm concerned about everything Zimbabwean my caller wanted to describe to me the feeling on the ground in my old home area when they heard that Jacob Zuma had beaten Thabo Mbeki in the election for leadership of the ANC. Naturally enough after seven long nightmare years, Zimbabweans are principally concerned for what this result might mean in terms of their future.

Will events in South Africa make any difference at all? My caller assured me that's the question everyone's asking even in the smaller centres of the country. I admit my own first reaction to the news had been excitement but on reflection I think it is really only significant in that it puts additional pressure on Mbeki to solve the problem. Change in the leadership at the top of the ANC might possibly mean that there will be a firmer line on the Zimbabwe question and that might filter through to Thabo Mbeki himself. There is no doubt that Mbeki's position is seriously weakened inside his own country and presumably in SADC and the international community. With the end of Mbeki's presidency in sight, he will surely want to score a breakthrough with this thorny and seemingly intractable problem? But Zimbabweans would do well to remember that the South African President will still be the one facilitating the negotiations. Perhaps even more significant is that Zanu PF's endorsement of Robert Mugabe as their candidate in the forthcoming elections means that the one intransigent element preventing genuine negotiations will also still be in place, ie. Mugabe himself.

What has become very clear to me is that Mbeki shares at least one characteristic with his friend Robert Mugabe. Both men are in denial about the realities on the ground in their countries and yet both leaders seem to think they reflect grass-root feelings when in fact they have become totally divorced from their own people. Mugabe denies his own responsibility for what has happened in Zimbabwe and Mbeki's denies the terrible reality of the Aids pandemic decimating his country. But, despite the blow to his pride and to his own standing, I can't believe Mbeki is suddenly going to change his stance of support for the man he regards as a Liberation comrade. It would, I believe, be a mistake to assume that Zuma's victory is going to make any immediate difference to the Zimbabwean situation. The suffering and near starvation continues as do the daily arrests and beatings of opposition supporters and the response from the South African government is a deafening silence. It is hard to understand how South Africa can conduct its own affairs in an apparently fair and democratic way and yet remain silent when its close neighbour is putting in place the mechanisms that will ensure the 2008 elections are already rigged.

My early morning telephone caller wanted to tell me also how people on the ground are feeling about the forthcoming elections in Zimbabwe. Looking at the situation from the diaspora, I had been of the opinion that the MDC should boycott the whole exercise for the farce that it is but it seems that the people on the ground do not share that view. Despite Zanu PF's tinkering with the oppressive legislation and amending the constitution - again - ordinary people appear to have understood very well that the only way open to them to bring about change is through the ballot box. The MDC are yet to decide whether to participate or not but judging from my contact's comments the people on the ground are anxious to exercise their democratic right. It's a tough choice for the opposition but I hope they will listen to the people's voice.

Chaos in the banking sector was further exacerbated yesterday with the issue of new notes and pictures of desperate people being turned away from banks illustrated very clearly how frantic ordinary people are with Christmas just around the corner and the dreaded school fees due in January. It's hard to see how issuing larger denomination notes will help the economic collapse in the country, as I said last week the truth is that Zanu PF have no clue how to solve the problems besetting Zimbabwe. And they seem to care even less; even RBZ governor Gideon Gono admitted to the Congress that it was top people in the country who were milking the system. One little story this week proved to me how callous and indifferent the ruling party is to the interests of the people. They respect nothing and no one but their own selfish and corrupt interests. Teachers marking national examination papers at Belvedere Teachers College and Harare Polytechnic were ordered to vacate their living quarters so that delegates attending the Congress could be accommodated. As always politics in the form of Robert Mugabe and his interests takes precedence over every other consideration, even children and the nation's future.
The next generation deserves better from their leaders; it really is time for change.
Yours in the struggle. PH

14th December 2007

Dear Friends.
Winter has come with a vengeance this week in the UK. The ground is white with frost most mornings and it is bitterly cold. There's a thin film of ice on the canal I walk along every day and it's not easy to remember that at home the weather is hotting up and - for some places anyway - the rains have come.

The weather is not the only contrast; in the streets of the town where I live there are hordes of people doing what the Brits like best: shopping! Christmas is the excuse for indulging their favourite pastime and the contrast between this land of plenty and the desperate shortages and near starvation back home is sharp and painful. That contrast is made even more painful when we hear the President of Zimbabwe's words to the faithful at the Zanu PF Congress currently underway in Harare. After his usual attack on the Brits and Americans, Mugabe said he was being ostracised for defending the rights of his people and he added, 'Their welfare is my welfare, their suffering is my suffering. They (the people) own Zimbabwe.' Place those words alongside the news that Zanu PF has spent millions, or do I mean trillions, on new vehicles for the party faithful ahead of the elections which he still insists will be held in March 2008. War vets, Youth Militia and the Women's Brigade will all be allotted brand new vehicles to travel the length and breadth of the country to spread the Zanu PF gospel - along with maize handouts too I'm sure.

What exactly that gospel is I for one do not know. Apart from a constant barrage of hatred and intolerance for anyone who dares to disagree with their saviour, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, I can't see any policies which point the way forward for the country. All we ever hear is that the Liberation Stuggle is the measure by which everything must be judged and anyone who can't see that is a traitor. According to the Zanu PF gospel, there is only one man who can lead the country and that man is Robert Mugabe. Despite the fact that Zimbabwe, led for 27 years by that same man, has the highest inflation in the world and the lowest life expectancy for its citizens of whom 80% are unemployed we are expected to believe the declaration of a man - who has already lived 50 years longer than the average Zimbabwean man can expect to live - that 'Their (the people's) suffering is my suffering'. It defies all logic that any sane person should trust the sincerity of a leader who has ruined the economy and caused untold suffering in the process, trampled on human and political rights, blatantly rigged elections, sidelined the judiciary and police and created a virtual one-party state with the military in control of every parastatal in the country. What has any of that to do with the 'welfare of the people' and in what way are Mugabe and his close followers 'sharing' the suffering? Mugabe answers that the suffering has all been caused by sanctions imposed by foreigners intent on bringing about regime change. That lie should be repeatedly exposed for what it is by every Zimbabwean opposition politician; as the Archbishop of York, a fellow African, demonstrated so graphically on UK TV last week when he cut up his clerical collar, it is Mugabe who has destroyed the identity of this once proud nation.

It took a woman, the German president Angela Merkel, to tell the old man the truth at the EU/AU Summit in Lisbon; 'You are giving Africa a bad name.' And for that she was labelled Racist and Fascist by the Zimbabwean Minister of Information. What is it about Mugabe's followers that they are totally unable to conduct a rational debate without descending to crude, personal abuse? I thought the Dutch leader had it just right when he said he counted it an honour to be included in Mugabe's Gang of Four! Humour and satire are very powerful weapons against dictatorial regimes as Wole Soyinka demonstrates.
In one thing, however, Mugabe was right. There's always a smidgen of truth in what he says; that's what makes his propaganda so devilishly clever! He was right when he said it is the people who own Zimbabwe. He would do well to remember that when elections come round.
With another new year just round the corner, it's hard to believe that any of us in the diaspora will get home any time soon. I for one have to keep on telling myself not to give up, that hope is all we have and we must never give up the struggle for a free and democratic Zimbabwe. In the meantime we must keep up the pressure, whatever way we can, wherever our talents lie and in whatever way we know best.
Yours in the struggle. PH

8th December 2007
Dear Friends,
I don't think I was the only Zimbabwean in the diaspora to be jumping up and down this week; why I was positively toyi-toying round my little rented house when I heard that Hugo Chavez had narrowly lost his referendum. Of course, he says he won't give up on his '21st century socialism'. In a clever move he had sweetened the pill for the masses by offering a shorter working week and other incentives to vote Yes but it seemed the crunch point for the electorate was the prospect of Chavez holding onto power indefinitely.
There were so many parallels with the Zimbabwe situation that it was almost uncanny. Chavez' implied threat before the vote was strangely reminiscent of the sort of thing our own Dear Leader says. A vote against reform is a vote against Chavez , thundered the Venezuelan leader, and anyone who voted against him was a traitor. And yet, just like Mugabe after the Referendum in February 2000, Chavez appeared to accept his defeat with humility. Can anyone forget how Mugabe appeared on ZTV back in 2000 and stunned us all by the apparent grace and humility of his acceptance of defeat? Just a few days later he had launched his revenge with the violent land invasions that have destroyed the economy and left his own people starving.

The so-called 'million man march' this week was presumably intended to show the world that Mugabe has the total support of the masses. Like everything Mugabe does there was a hidden agenda; he is about to attend the AU/ EU Summit in Lisbon and evidence of his people's devotion to him would convince the assembled leaders that Mugabe was people's choice for leader. That was the plan but it didn't quite work out that way; the 'million' had several noughts cancelled and just a few thousand impoverished rural folk fell for the ruse. I loved the comment of one man who said he'd only got on the bus because it was a free fare into Harare where he hoped he might find groceries he couldn't find in the shops back in the rurals! A bystander, a resident of Harare commented that she'd never seen the police escorting an opposition demo and wondered if the M.M.M. had asked permission for their gathering. ( You really can't fool all the people all the time! When will Zanu PF learn that? ) The papers here gave Mugabe's nonsensical speech to the 'millions' some coverage but it was the usual verbiage from a leader who seems to have nothing more to offer long-suffering Zimbabweans than anti-British insults including the comment that the UK parliament and people had lost all rationality so much so that they debate Zimbabwe every week. The occupants of No 10 Downing Street, said the President of Zimbabwe, were no better than street kids. Seems to me that tells us more about the Zimbabwean Presidents's attitude towards his own people than it does about British Prime Ministers.
Robert Mugabe may think he has scored a huge victory in getting an invitation to Lisbon to attend the Summit but Zimbabweans from the diaspora will be there too. A large group of Vigil people have moved from their usual place on the Strand in London for this one week and will be there in Lisbon with their placards and their drums, singing their songs of freedom to remind Mugabe and all the other African leaders that the voice of the people cannot be silenced. The Vigil group have been given permission by the Portuguese police to demonstrate outside the Summit venue on condition they remain 100 metres away. That shouldn't be a problem for the Vigil folk; anyone passing along the Strand on a Saturday afternoon will tell you that you can hear those guys drumming and singing from the top of a London bus! The Vigil people will be joined by many other civic organizations in Lisbon. Crisis Action released a very powerful Letter condemning European and African leaders for their political cowardice in failing to put Dafur and Zimbabwe on the Summit agenda. Signatories to the letter included such notable writers as the South Africans, Nadine Gordimer and J.M.Coetze, Wole Soyinka and the former Czeck president, Vaclav Havel, a playwright.
The Times, as always has given huge coverage to the unfolding crisis in Zimbabwe including a truly heart-breaking piece on the Aids tragedy and its effect on children. It's the state of the economy and the value or do I mean non-value of the Zim dollar that has become the butt of comedian's jokes here. If that sounds callous I don't think it's meant that way; simply that Brits just can't get their heads round inflation of %16000 and an exchange rate of 7 million Zim dollars to one pound sterling. Commenting on a British politician's miserable face the other day one newspaper columnist commented that ' the man looks as if he's inherited 8 million from an uncle…only to discover it was in Zimbabwe dollars'! In short, Zim's economy has become a laughing stock. The guy who fixed my computer the other week, knowing that I am a Zimbabwean, said that he didn't care how I paid …as long as it wasn't with Zim dollars!
Yours in the struggle. PH.

1st December 2007

Dear Friends.
It's been over two months since I wrote; my long silence has been one of the consequences of moving house and losing my internet connection. That meant I couldn't listen to SW Radio or read Zim News; in short I was cut off from home and it was a very frustrating experience. Phonecalls and letters together with the occasional newspaper item here in the UK kept me in the picture and once a week there was The Zimbabwean to fill in the details. One advantage I had over similarly news-starved Zims at home was that I was not faced with the nightly barrage from the ZBC or the poisonous propaganda of the Herald!

When I was finally connected again, I was struck by how little I had missed. It seemed that nothing had changed - except for the worse. Power cuts are now a daily occurrence all over the country, lasting for days at a time. Fuel is still unobtainable except on the black market at astronomical prices. In two months inflation has doubled; basic food items have become even more scarce and the supermarket shelves are still virtually empty. ( People from home phoned to say that they had forgotten what bread tasted like and one friend told me he had come across bread being sold on the black market in one of Harare's townships at $600.000 a loaf.) Violence against the civilian population has gone on unabated despite the Mbeki-led negotiations between the two main parties.

Looking in from the outside at the near-silent 'talks' I was struck as I so often am by the unbelievable naivety of the opposition that they could consider talking to the very people who are so clearly intent on their destruction. Surely, even in a situation of outright war, the guns have to be silenced before the two sides can sit down to negotiate the peace, yet the opposition continues to negotiate while their followers at home are being beaten and imprisoned, refused food aid and blocked from any form of democratic protest. Perhaps I'm missing something here but its hard to understand how a supposedly mature political party can go on believing in the integrity and trustworthiness of Zanu PF when all their past dealings have shown them to be precisely the opposite. Has the opposition learned nothing of the true nature of the ruling party over the long years of betrayal, of lies and deceit and rigged elections? Such naivety is criminal when one considers the effect it has on ordinary people. In my two months of isolation from events back home I was reduced to tears on several occasions by heartbroken calls from an opposition political activist, a friend of mine, wanting to know what the hell was going on and how he and his fellow activists were ever going to keep up the spirits of the growing numbers of opposition supporters in the rural areas when the leadership appeared to be selling out to Mugabe and co. It was not a question I could answer.
While Zimbabwe continues on its seemingly inexorable path to ruin, we have seen one example of how, very slowly and with a good deal of pressure from outside-democracy takes root. In Pakistan, after a period if intense political upheaval, President Mushareff has taken off his military uniform and promised to lift the State of Emergency and hold free and fair elections. He has released the thousands of detained opposition supporters and allowed his two main rivals back into the country. None of this happened without a great deal of pressure, particularly from the Americans, who need a democratic Pakistan to help them in their 'war on terror'.

In the southern African context, some people had hoped that President Mbeki would be the one to put that kind of pressure on Mugabe; it hasn't happened and it looks unlikely that it will happen. Mugabe attends the EU/ Africa summit in Lisbon next week and will no doubt strut his usual stuff and spew his usual lies and distortions about how his country's problems are all caused by sanctions imposed by the west. Thabo Mbeki will be there to support him no doubt. Gordon Brown won't be there; he says he wont sit down at the same table as Robert Mugabe. With or without Brown, it's unlikely anyone will challenge Mugabe; he seems to be having it all his own way at the moment.
Perhaps all hope is not lost however; Mugabe's great friend and political ally Hugo Chavez might well provide another example of how dictators always get their come-uppance in the end. Chavez is trying to abolish the time limits on his presidency so that he can remain in office until 2030 but his plan has run into considerable opposition on the streets. One of the reasons for this is the shortage of basic food stuffs! Like his friend in Zimbabwe, Chavez has introduced strict price controls and, hey presto, no milk, no eggs, no sugar, no flour and no cooking oil in the shops. Middle-class Venezuelans are emigrating in droves, apparently. A 'Yes' vote in Sunday's referendum on the constitution will give Hugo Chavez absolute control over the enormous oil reserves, and the right to expropriate private property and censor the media 'in times of emergency' You have to wonder at the similarities between these dictators; they learn from each other apparently.

Unlike Venezuela, however, Zimbabwe does not have huge oil reserves at its disposal and since Mugabe has already destroyed the economy; there is not much left for him to exploit - except the suffering masses. ' We know you're short of bread' he told the people at a recent rally, 'but just wait patiently.' Tell that to the starving children, Mr President.
Yours in solidarity. PH