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

25 July 2008

Dear Friends.
There is only one topic of conversation for Zimbabweans at the moment and that is the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed on Monday 21st of July 2008. Despite the total lack of hard facts, journalists desperate for copy and so-called experts who love the sound of their own voices have rushed in to prophesy on the outcomes of the talks now taking place in South Africa. The civic organization too have been quick to air their views about the wisdom - or lack of it - of Morgan Tsvangirai's participation in those talks. Some of these civic bodies have even questioned Tsvangirai's right to represent the Zimbabwean people at the talks. Listening to some of the comments, you might be forgiven for wondering if they even want a settlement of Zimbabwe's desperate plight. Even before the MOU was signed, a grouping of civic organizations had issued a statement saying that they would reject a transitional government led by either Tsvangirai or Mugabe. Instead they want a neutral figure to head any new transitional government.

Watching it all from the UK diaspora, two points strike me about this move by civic society: the first is that they seem to have forgotten the March 29th elections which Morgan Tsangirai and the MDC won conclusively. The second point concerns the appointment of a so-called 'neutral' figure to head up a new government. Anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of Zimbabwean politics over the last few years knows very well that 'neutrality' is simply not possible in that context. In the life and death struggle that has gripped Zimbabwe, even finding food for your family has become 'political. From as far back as 2004 when I left, the ownership of a Zanu PF card determined whether or not you would be able to access maize; to claim that you were neutral and belonged to neither party would get you nothing, except a beating. That was true right down at the grassroots level of politics and it still maintains today. How then is it possible to claim that 'neutrality' is a requirement for leadership in a country where political allegiance has penetrated every single aspect of life. To be neutral in Zimbabwe is virtually impossible. Even the police, the judiciary and the military who are all supposed to be neutral and apolitical have taken sides. Where then is this 'neutral' leader to be found? The Zimbabwean people have already spoken, they want a new dispensation in their country and they want Morgan Tsvangirai to lead it. To ignore that fact, as the civic groups have done is to ignore the democratic voice of the people and, in my view, demonstrates a naïve lack of understanding of political realities.

Like everyone else I felt profound misgivings when I saw the pictures of Morgan Tsvangirai shaking hands with Robert Mugabe. Like everyone else I asked myself how Tsvangirai could shake the hand of the man who was killing, torturing and imprisoning MDC supporters. Like everyone else I feared and still fear that Tsvangirai would be swallowed up and rendered powerless by Zanu PF just as Joshua Nkomo had been. I spent the rest of the week reading and rereading the MOU and listening to the voices coming out of Zimbabwe via SW RadioAfrica. In all the talk there is much about how Tsvangirai had been forced to negotiate or risk losing power. Very few people have noted that Mugabe himself was also forced to talk. With the economy imploding around him and the threat of even more sanctions against his cronies, Mugabe too had no option but to talk to his hated enemy. The truth is that all conflicts end with enemies facing each other across a table and hammering out an agreement. Zimbabwe cannot continue as it is, Zimbabweans know it and Africa knows it.

The MOU acknowledges that "We (the parties ie Zanu PF and the two MDC formations) have an obligation of establishing a framework of working together in an inclusive government" (my underlining) Immediately noticeable is the fact that Robert Gabriel Mugabe is nowhere referred to as the President of Zimbabwe; he is simply called the President and First Secretary of Zanu PF in the same way that Morgan Richard Tsvangirai is the President of one MDC formation. That, in my view is a step forward. The MOU is nothing more than a Declaration of Commitment "to commit themselves to a dialogue with each other with a view to creating a genuine, viable, permanent and sustainable solution to the Zimbabwean situation and, in particular, to implement this Memorandum of Understanding." There is nothing legally binding here and either side could presumably get up and walk out at any point. It is the Agenda for the Dialogue now taking place in South Africa at some secret location that raises serious questions. "The Objectives and Priorities of a new Government" are divided into headings: Economic, Political, Security, Communication and Framework for a new Government. Under these various headings are sub-headings such as Sanctions, the Land question, a new constitution, free political activity, the rule of law, security of persons and prevention of violence. The contentious matter of the freedom of the press is summarised in the one word 'Media' with External radio stations similarly described. No commitment is made to freeing up the media or granting licences to independent radio stations. "It is envisaged" says the MOU that " the Dialogue will be completed within a period of two weeks from the signing of this MOU." Item10.1 entitled Security of Persons is of particular concern to all Zimbabweans suffering state violence. "Each party will issue a statement condemning the promotion and use of violence and call for peace in the country" and furthermore " The Parties will take all necessary measures to eliminate all forms of political violence, including by non-state actors, (my underlining) and to ensure the security of persons and property."
Item 10.1(d) goes on to " agree that in the interim they will work together to ensure the safety of any displaced persons and their safe return home and that humanitarian and social welfare organizations are enabled to render such assistance as might be required." There is no mention of the restoration of food aid by international NGO's which was banned by Mugabe's government on the grounds that they were preaching a message of 'regime change'. Item 10.2 says "The Parties shall refrain from using abusive language that may incite hostility, political intolerance and ethnic hatred or undermine each other."
All of this is the Agenda for the Dialogue now taking place. Some commentators have suggested that an Agreement has already been reached and all that is being done now is to tie up the loose ends. I don't know how these commentators are getting their information since all Parties to the MOU have agreed not to communicate with or through the media. For most of us I suggest the best thing we can do now is to wait and see what transpires. Personally, I'm waiting to see Robert Mugabe on camera telling the nation and the world that the violence must stop and that he is genuinely committed to an 'Inclusive government.' Until that happens, I shall not believe that things have changed for the better in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has to instruct his moronic journalists at ZBC, The Herald and the Sunday Mail to desist from the hate filled garbage they call reporting. And above all, I'm waiting to see if Zanu PF rank and file, the police and the army, the war vets and the Green Bombers will listen to their Dear Leader when he tells them that the MDC is no longer the enemy but an equal partner in government. Only then can the healing begin in Zimbabwe.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.

18th July 2008

Dear Friends.
Today July 18 is Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday. A musician celebrating the occasion in South Africa was interviewed on the BBC this morning. He was asked what quality it was that made Mudiba so universally loved and admired. Unhesitating, the answer came back, 'His humility.'

Think of South Africa and you think of Mandela and smile; think of Zimbabwe and you think of Robert Mugabe and weep. Yet their ages and backgrounds are not so different. Both men have suffered imprisonment, both men have fought unjust colonial regimes but there the resemblance ends. In fact, the contrast between the two could not be greater: Mandela's warmth and charm come over even on camera. You feel better just to see that beautiful smile; such grace and dignity emanate from the man that youngsters the world over who were not even born during apartheid love and admire him. His sympathy for young people and children is manifest in everything he does. Of course, he has faults, he is human after all but it is that very humanity that earns him the world's love and respect. It is the very opposite quality in Robert Mugabe, his inhumanity towards his own people, that has earned him the world's revulsion.

For me as a former teacher and trainer of teachers, the one story coming out of Zimbabwe this week that most shocked me was the account of war veterans going systematically from school to school in Lupane (Mat North) ejecting children from their classrooms, not because their parents had not paid their school fees but because they were MDC supporters. These pro-Mugabe war vets say they will not rest until all children whose parents support the MDC stop attending 'Zanu PF schools' Could there be any greater evidence of Mugabe's inhumanity? To deprive children of their basic human right to education because of their parents' political allegiance is utterly inhuman. Anyone supporting the opposition is, in Mugabe's eyes, less than human and therefore not worthy of human rights. His thuggish war veterans and Youth Militia have totally swallowed Mugabe's philosophy; no surprise then to hear of the involvement of foreign mercenaries assisting them in the unrelenting violence in the country. The story steadily gaining credence is that a certain Major Portrais Mpiranya, a Ruandese 'genocidaire' on the run from the ICC has been given refuge in Zimbabwe along with 4000 Hutu refugees. This week certain men have been spotted in Manicaland alongside Zimbabwean militants carrying out the brutal attacks on civilians. The 'strangers' as the local people describe them, speak neither Shona nor Sindebele nor English. They travel with interpreters who give them their orders and their methods are brutal in the extreme and include gouging out eyes, burning buttocks and genital mutilation. The question has to be asked: Have the dreaded Interahamwe come to Zimbabwe and more to the point who is paying them for these crimes against humanity being committed in the name of Mugabe's 'Final battle for control'? Thugs have to be paid, more money has to be printed and, as surely as night follows day, inflation continues to rise.

This week the reserve Bank Governor himself announced that inflation in the country had risen to 2.2 million %. In response Robert Mugabe launched his National Basic Commodities Supply Enhancement Programme. At the televised ceremony Mugabe announced the programme would put an end to profiteering and 'would bring basic goods to the people at affordable prices.' Pictured in the Herald, the goods were displayed in dear little baskets strangely reminiscent of the sort of 'krisimus bokis' that Rhodesians used to dole out to their employees once a year. But this was presidential magnanimity and each basket contained, so the Herald reported, cooking oil, laundry and bath soap flour and mealie meal to the value of Zim$ 100 billion, the price of a loaf of bread presently. It goes without saying that the first port of call for Mugabe's munificence is the rural areas where the chiefs and headmen will be in charge of distribution. These same chiefs who have sold their souls to Mugabe in exchange for cars, generators, and lord knows what other benefits will have yet another opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to Mugabe by carefully excluding opposition supporters from his benevolence. Once it was the colonial masters who exploited the traditional rulers in a policy of 'divide and rule', now it is Zimbabwe's first and only black president as he still considers himself to be. Speaking at the ceremony to launch this rescue of the economy, Mugabe said this intervention was 'part of efforts to bring relief to the people while measures were being taken to revitalise the productive sector' Exactly how dishing out food hampers is going to achieve this miracle is not clear. Where have all these goodies come from anyway? Inflation, Mugabe claims, is the fault of illegal sanctions, Britain wants regime change so that they can continue to exploit the resources that Zimbabwe is endowed with. (I thought the Chinese had already done that!)

More than anything else that Mugabe said at the launch of his food hampers, one particular remark caught my attention. Speaking of profiteering which he blamed along with sanctions for inflation and high food prices, Mugabe said, 'We do not want people behind bars…we would want our prisons to be empty than full but, alas, just now they are brimful and we do not know what to do' There is one thing he could do. Release the thousands of MDC activists and supporters from gaol and halt the violence, that just might help to persuade the MDC that Robert Mugabe still has some remnants of humanity left. What Zimbabwe desperately needs right now is a gesture of good will from Robert Mugabe. Then the current talks about talks might really lead on to a representative government.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH Click here for your copy of Countdown by Pauline Henson aka PH

12th July 2008

Dear Friends.
Article 21(3) of the United Nations Charter on Human Rights declares. "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections."

The key word there is 'genuine'. Did the Presidential runoff on June 27 constitute a 'genuine' election? With massive intimidation of the opposition beforehand and only one candidate it is hard to see how anyone can claim that the result reflected the 'will of the people which is the basis of the authority of government.' Election observers from the AU, the PAP and SADC were unanimous that the conditions for free and fair election simply did not exist. The haste with which Robert Mugabe declared himself president even before the results had been announced was a clear indication to the nation and the world of his contempt for the democratic process and international opinion. In effect, he was challenging the world to recognise him as President for another five years.

Speaking on July 9th Bright Matonga declared, " The people of Zimbabwe made a decision on June 27 and that decision has to be respected." With more than 100 killings, over 1500 MDC activists in prison, 5000 polling agents missing and at least 20 elected opposition MPs either in prison or in hiding, it was no surprise that the western powers should state categorically that they did not recognise Robert Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe. Now the UN is locked in fierce debate on what to do about Zimbabwe. The invasion of Iraq has shown that military intervention against dictatorships does not solve the problem in the long term and only causes immense human suffering for the general population. The imposition of sanctions appears to be the only answer. Not general sanctions against the Zimbabwean people but sanctions aimed specifically at the clique of top military men surrounding Mugabe and keeping him in power. There are thirteen of them and a draft UN resolution has named and shamed them. They are the men who have ruthlessly set about maintaining Mugabe's grip on power by nothing less than the total extermination of the opposition in an onslaught of violence that includes rape, murder and horrific torture.

All week long the papers here have been analysing whether or not sanctions work. Paul Vallely writing in The Independent (10.07.08) argued the pros and cons of sanctions to deal with rogue regimes. They certainly helped to bring down the apartheid regime in South Africa - something Thabo Mbeki chooses to forget - and since military intervention is unlikely what other option is there to deal with a regime that has earned the revulsion of the rest of the world? Sanctions and an oil embargo could certainly immobilise the military force that is keeping Mugabe in power. On the other side of the argument, Vallely points out that for sanctions to work everyone has to abide by them. That is the weakness of the pro-sanctions argument. Sanctions busting by Mugabe's allies - and he still has some - will destroy the effectiveness of the measure.

Inside the country, Zanu PF apologists have descended as always to the politics of race. Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, the Minister of Information claims in The Herald, that all this is nothing more than 'international racism' and 'an attempt to impose a government on the people of Zimbabwe.' His side kick, Bright Matonga, never shy of playing the race card, despite having a British wife, says the west "wants to undermine the AU and President Mbeki's mediation because they think only white people think better. It is an insult to African leaders." And what of the African leaders themselves? Sanctions, they say, will only harm Zimbabwe; Thabo Mbeki of course agrees. He has a short memory; it was the ANC who called for sanctions against the apartheid regime. While the debate rages on at the UN, Mbeki conveniently convenes a meeting of Zanu PF and the MDC just in time to assure the rest of the world that there is no need for sanctions since talks are already underway to form a Government of National Unity. No surprise to learn the Mugabe will continue to head that government and the MDC will be swallowed up. The sickening picture of a smiling Arthur Mutambara shaking hands with Mugabe at State House tells Zimbabweans very clearly how this is going to go but the people are not fools; they have every reason to know that Mugabe and Zanu PF are not to be trusted. Mugabe and his political soul mate, the chosen SADC negotiator, Thabo Mbeki, share the same mindset: Africa's liberation was won through the barrel of a gun and no mere cross on a ballot paper can change that. Meanwhile the killing, raping and burning continues. There are an estimated 200.000 people displaced because of the violence. "It is the MDC" says Nicholas Goche, "who committed the violence to create sympathy to coincide with the G8 Summit…to give the impression that there is increasing political violence and that people are still being beaten, but all that is false." At the UN the Zimbabwean delegation warns that sanctions "will push Zimbabwe towards a civil war." Zimbabweans know very well that it is not sanctions that 'will push the country towards civil war' it is Mugabe's own militia and war vets under the control of the military who are already doing that. Sanctions, if universally applied, would make it impossible for these criminals to travel outside the country or access their vast fortunes salted away in foreign bank accounts. The imposition of a strict arms embargo would mean that the regime was no longer be able to buy arms to kill their own countrymen and women.

In the light of near-universal condemnation from the world community, Mugabe can no longer claim that all is well in Zimbabwe and not all his racist ranting can make it so. What Zimbabwe needs is an honest, impartial negotiator to help solve the impasse. While Thabo Mbeki drones on about how only Zimbabweans can solve their own problems, his every moves demonstrates his own partiality, even to the extent of rejecting a UN negotiator to help solve the problem. Since the sham election of June 27 thousands more Zimbabwean refugees have flooded into South Africa and still this stubborn man cannot bring himself to admit that he has utterly failed to bring an end to the crisis. Even the world football body FIFA has warned South Africa that holding the 2010 World Cup is in doubt if the situation is not brought under control in Zimbabwe. Nothing moves Mbeki. One has to wonder what it is, apart from the so-called Liberation Credentials, that tie him so closely to Robert Mugabe and his disgraced regime. Perhaps if we knew the answer to that question we might be a step nearer to finding a solution. How much more African blood has to be shed, how many more women have to be gang raped and children be orphaned before Mbeki acts to stop the madness?
Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH
http://www.lulu.com/content/2752118

5th July 2008
Dear Friends.
If any of us thought the violence in Zimbabwe would cease with the bogus election on June 17th then General Notice 85A/2008 Clemency Order No.1 should have disabused us. The sight of bands of thugs roaming the streets of Harare and other cities had earlier aroused my suspicions. These youngsters did not look like the fanatical Gezi boys we have become accustomed to; true, they were young like the Gezi boys but they looked more like criminal gangs, undisciplined, ragged and thin. Then the light dawned and I remembered that the newly installed Robert Mugabe could once again use his presidential powers to grant an amnesty to prisoners, releasing them from their stinking and overcrowded cells. It is traditional following a presidential election we are told and the very next day after his inauguration came General Notice 85A/2008.

Picture the scene; you are suddenly released into the sunlight again; freedom has come - but freedom to do what? Inflation is running at over a million %; you have no money, no food and no job. You do not even have the bus fare to take you home. As the prison gates close behind you, there is a certain 'someone' waiting who offers you what seems an absolute fortune to roam the streets and do exactly what you did before: make a lot of noise, beat up any passer-by but particularly known MDC activists and sympathizers. In normal times such behaviour would get you arrested and back behind bars but now you are under the Presidential amnesty; you are doing his work for him. What choice do you have? It is not because you care about one party or the other; the politics of the stomach is all you understand. Morality is a luxury in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. You see the ruling party's election posters proclaiming 'This is the final battle for control' and the presidential clenched fist tells you how this control will be maintained. Not through justice and honest negotiation but through rigged elections and violence which you are expected to carry out.
The Notice covers those people arrested between March 29 and June 16 2008, ie. from the first election which the MDC won and right through to the day before the sham election which Mugabe claims to have won. 886 prisoners have already been released and a further 4998 are due for release this weekend. A prison official stated that no MDC prisoners would be released. 'They do not qualify' he says. Unelected Minister for Justice, Patrick Chinamasa, however, denies that it is only Zanu PF prisoners to be released but we all know, the world knows, that violence is the only weapon Zanu PF has left and the Amnesty will provide them with the foot soldiers they need to carry out the 'Final Battle'. The aim is nothing less than the total destruction of all opposition forces in the country.

These are indeed desperate times in Zimbabwe. The pathetic AU raps Mugabe on the knuckles and tells him to go home and form a government of national unity. His spokesman George Charamba rages at foreign journalists who dare to question Mugabe's legitimacy accusing them of taking advantage of their white skins(!) and the Old Man himself, looking for all the world like a cornered rat, says he is as legitimate as Gordon Brown. He talks about the demon in Downing Street - well, it takes one to know one I guess!
Back at home, we see the heartbreaking images of Mugabe's victims: the crumpled face of a beautiful black baby with both her legs in plaster; an elderly white woman her face covered in bruises, both arms shattered. They dragged her along by her hair she says. She saw the man holding a great chunk of her hair in his hand and in a final act of humiliation he urinated on her head. What had she done, the old woman to deserve this? She and her husband and her son-in-law were all beaten not for breaking any law but because they had dared to contest Mugabe's right to take their farm. As to what the beautiful African child had done, she has done nothing: her father is an MDC activist. Like thousand of others, that little child will bear the scars for the rest of her life.

What can Zimbabweans do to stop this madness? We have tried the democratic route and that failed. Mugabe saw to that. He is not going to give in to such trifles as crosses on ballot papers; to him the gun is mightier than the vote. Not even the condemnation of fellow African leaders will stop him. Only God can remove him he says and in front of the whole world he swears his oath of allegiance. With his hand on the christian holy bible in a ceremony presided over by his puppet Chief Justice, Mugabe promises to 'serve the Zimbabwean people well and truly'.
And what do Zimbabweans do? They shrug their shoulders and ask Toita sei? What can we do? Hapana zvokuita, Nothing to do! But there is! The hundreds of courageous MDC activists have proved it with their blood; the Woza women have proved it and suffered the consequences of their courageous stand. Released finally after six weeks in gaol, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mhlangu are examples to us all of the resiliance of the human spirit. They will not surrender to their own oppression and neither should the Zimbabwean people. Only they can reclaim their country, no one else will do it for them.
Yours in the (continuing ) struggle. PH