Zimbabwe - A letter from the diaspora

GOING HOME: The year is 2004 and Caleb Dube, the former detective with the Zimbabwe Republic Police has been in exile in the United Kingdom for two years. A letter arrives from his old friend and colleague, Moses Musindo, alerting Dube to the fact that his former teacher and friend, Father Hugh Malloy, is in great danger. Friendship demands no less and Caleb Dube goes home to his native land. With no help from a partisan police force, Dube and Musindo set out to investigate. In the course of their enquiries deep in the rural areas, the two men meet a host of unforgettable characters, including Sami the AIDS orphan and Sami's friend, Tatenda, the hunter. The two boys are an indispensable part of the investigation and the search leads them to an old adversary of Dube's who holds the key to the mystery of the missing priest.
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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

5th February 2010

Dear Friends.
Two events this week serve as a reminder that even the most intractable problems can be solved, given good will, a genuine desire for the common good and willingness to compromise - without loss of principle - from all parties. That may sound like pie-in–the-sky nonsense to hard nosed political types but the two events I referred to illustrate, I believe, an essential ingredient in solving the Zimbabwean impasse. The five British MP's currently visiting Zimbabwe may announce that they are delighted with the progress the country has made since the inception of the GNU but the facts on the ground for ordinary Zimbabweans tell a very different story.

The two events I refer to are object lessons for Zimbabwe. Today, February 5th 2010, after the near collapse of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland which had brought sworn enemies, Sinn Fein and the DPU, into an uneasy power-sharing government, the two sides today announced that they have reached a settlement. It took hours and hours of patient negotiation late into the night, but finally the Agreement is secure and Northern Ireland can face the future with some hope that life will improve for all its citizens and that the violence and extra-judicial killings will stop. What was very obvious from this hard-won solution was that, in addition to the two sides' recognition of the absolute necessity of finding a way forward, the presence of external parties, in this case the Republic of Ireland, the British Government and the US, was a crucial ingredient in helping the two sides reach a solution. It was pressure from these neutral parties that kept the warring sides at the negotiating table. In our own dispute, Zimbabweans are entitled to ask: So, where is our external, neutral party to pressurize Zanu PF and the two MDC's into reviving the collapsing GNU? President Zuma and SADC are there but what sign have we had they are either neutral or even impartial?

The second event which occurred this week was in fact the anniversary of a momentous announcement which took place twenty years ago on February 2nd 1990.It was an announcement that shook South Africa and the whole world to the core. On February 2nd FW de Klerk, the South African President stood up to open a new session of the South African Parliament in Cape Town. History records that the city was jam-packed with foreign journalists all expecting to hear that Nelson Mandela was about to be released and desperate to report on the historic event. Instead, de Klerk stunned the country and the world by announcing nothing less than the end of apartheid, the unbanning of the ANC, the release of all political prisoners and the dismantling of the entire legislative structure that had propped up the apartheid system since 1948. The present parliament would be stood down and, there would be one-person-one-vote elections, he announced. In a speech lasting less than thirty minutes, de Klerk had dismantled the power of the white minority and effectively ensured that the black majority were now in control of their destiny. No one knew, except his closest advisors and they were sworn to secrecy, what de Klerk was going to say and the effect was electric. Within days there was a joyful and entirely peaceful demonstration led by Archbishop Tutu through the streets of Cape Town. Nine days later Mandela was released and the whole world saw for the first time in twenty seven years the man whose name had become a byword for the cause of oppressed people worldwide.

What was it that made de Klerk, an Afrikaaner from a prominent establishment family and the original forefathers of apartheid, take such a courageous and far-reaching step? He was still only in his early fifties, many years of power lay ahead of him but he virtually handed over to what many whites regarded as 'communist inspired terrorists'. There were, of course, many reasons but one of them was undoubtedly the breakup of the Soviet Union with all that implied for Africa. The other was the near economic collapse that had hit South Africa because of international sanctions. South Africa had become a pariah state, suffering almost total isolation through the sporting and cultural boycott. More than anything else, de Klerk and some of his close colleagues recognised the reality of the situation. They saw very clearly that South Africa could not go on the way it was. The black majority was hammering at the door and had to be acknowledged; de Klerk bowed to the inevitable, despite the backlash of a small body of hardliners who saw him as a sellout of the white hegemony.

Tragically for Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe cannot or will not accept reality; he has not learned the lessons of history, not even from his nearest neighbour. After thirty years of unbroken power, this 86 year old man cannot accept the reality that power is slowly changing hands. And now, as Finance Minister, Tendayi Biti, articulated this week, Mugabe and Zanu PF continue to do all they can to destroy the GNU by the unlawful farm invasions, the disobeying of lawful court orders and the misuse of the media to vilify the MDC and the Prime Minister. The only possible conclusion to draw from all this is that Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF supporters lack the good will, the desire for the common good or the ability to compromise that will ensure a lasting political settlement in Zimbabwe.