Zimbabwe - A letter from the diaspora

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21 November 2008

Dear Friends.
How bad do things have to get in a country before the world takes notice? Only when the situation reaches crisis point and Zimbabwe does not yet constitute enough of a crisis apparently.

All week long there have been truly dreadful images of the unfolding tragedy in the DRC. Heart-breaking stories of children separated from parents, women gang raped either by rebel or government soldiers and thousands of people on the roads fleeing from one or other of the armies. An appeal has been launched to raise millions of dollars to help with humanitarian crisis in the DRC but still the media says hardly a word about the tragedy that is unfolding daily in Zimbabwe. It is just not bad enough. The world will wait until there is outright war and hundreds of dead bodies lie rotting on the streets before they take any notice. What was is it the UN said after the genocide in Ruanda, that this must never be allowed to happen again; now ten years later the DRC descends yet again into total lawlessness and millions of people are made homeless. But the DRC is not a new crisis; like Zimbabwe, it has been going on for years and no amount of humanitarian aid will solve the problem. What is needed is a lasting political solution. Increasing the size of the peace-keeping forces in the country might give the people protection in the short term but it will not ensure a peaceful future. The DRC is blessed with abundant natural resources and vast mineral wealth but its people are among the poorest in the world while greedy men fight for control of the diamond mines.

And that is where Zimbabwe comes into the picture – again. Reports of Zimbabwean soldiers fighting in the DRC surfaced this week; whether they are the remnants of Mugabe's last Congo adventure or whether it is a fresh incursion we have no way of knowing with certainty. The Bright One declared, 'We have nothing to do with the DRC. We have enough problems of our own.' Was that an acknowledgement that the authorities in Zimbabwe are aware of the suffering of their own people? If that is the case, then why can they not reveal the true extent of the cholera epidemic that is sweeping the country, an epidemic caused entirely by this government's total failure to maintain clean water supplies to the country's towns and cities. The main hospitals in Harare and other cities have closed down and as a consequence the only Medical School in the country is also forced to close. There will be no more doctors trained to treat future generations of Zimbabweans. Physicians for Human Rights tell us there are no anti-biotics, no water, no food, no ARV's for Aids patients and all but the dying are turned out on the streets. With hospitals closed, maternity units cease to exist and pregnant women needing ceasarian sections will die in childbirth or give birth to permanently brain damaged children. If that is the situation in town, one can only imagine what it's like in the rural areas where for a long time now there have been no drugs, no rubber gloves, no syringes and even if the clinics and hospitals are still open the fees are astronomical and way beyond the means of rural people who have grown no crops to sell and have long since sold their cattle to pay school fees or other expenses. People are utterly desperate for food; children are seen poking around for mealie pips in cow pats, collecting seed from bird droppings or from the side of the road where laden grain lorries belonging to fat cat politicians have spilt their precious cargoes. Everywhere in the rural areas there are stories of people dropping dead where they stand from starvation

How many have died from hunger, from cholera, from Aids? There are no statistics; Zimbabwe is a country where everything has broken down. Government offices are not functioning, there is no one to collect figures, no one to register births and deaths because the system has collapsed. No wonder Mugabe wants to stop the Elders coming into the country to see the humanitarian disaster for themselves. So much for Mugabe's Africanist credentials when he shows so little respect for African culture that he can tell even these worthy Elders to 'Get lost' as the Herald so graphically described Zanu PF's reaction to the intended visit. Mugabe's arrogance knows no bounds; we shall see whether the Elders are frightened off by his bullying tactics. Will they even be allowed to get past the goons at Harare Airport I wonder? If they do get in they will see a country dying on its feet, not yet another DRC perhaps but getting perilously close to total collapse. Can we be surprised at the West's apparent indifference when Africa itself allows Zimbabwe to die rather than stand up to the man they still regard as a Liberation Hero? Zimbabweans may rightly ask what liberation is that? Liberation to die of preventable diseases; liberation to die in childbirth, liberation to die of hunger in a country that was once a land of plenty; liberation to die at the hands of Mugabe's Youth Militia or police; is that the liberation they mean, these cowardly African leaders? Does nothing disturb their consciences? I know that for me the most shocking sight of the week was doctors and nurses and ordinary hospital workers being beaten by baton-wielding policemen just for daring to attempt a peaceful protest march. Is that the liberation Zimbabweans fought for?
Yours in the (continuing) struggle.

14th November 2008

Dear Friends.
Where to now? That is the question we are all asking ourselves since the shameful SADC decision to support the status quo in Zimbabwe. This was the much vaunted 'African solution to African problems'.
I ended last week's Letter with the words, “Dare we hope that this time common sense, decency and human compassion will prevail?” and now we know the answer. Hope deferred, it seems. We were told that the fifteen members – though apparently there were only six of them present - of SADC voted in favour of a resolution instructing the opposing parties to go home and form a government of national unity. That, said SADC Secretary Thomaz Salamao was the decision of SADC and must be respected. As for the disputed Ministry of Home Affairs, well the two sides must share that Ministry between them. How that would work, Salamao could not say; indeed he was forced to admit that not one of the SADC countries had such an arrangement in their own country but that was the solution proposed for Zimbabwe. That was the 'African solution' to the human tragedy that has engulfed our country and is spilling over the borders with refugees flooding into the surrounding countries of these very states whose leaders are content to ignore the human suffering of thousands of African people. Once again SADC has demonstrated its total failure to recognise the democratic will of the people as clearly stated in the March elections which Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC won. Instead, SADC chose to placate Mugabe, recognised him as president and even allowed him to sit in on their deliberations. The MDC delegates obeyed the ruling to leave the room but Mugabe categorically refused and a gutless Chairman, none other than the South African President Motlanthe, apparently lacked the moral authority to compel the old man to leave. Thus Mugabe was present in the chamber when the ruling was made, daring the SADC members to say one word against him, no doubt.
Not only have SADC recognised an illegitimate president, they have, by their failure to act, become complicit in the criminal activity of a government in 'borrowing' donated funds intended to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The money was diverted says Gideon Gono for 'other national priorities' It's not hard to see what those 'priorities' were as the Mugabe regime dishes out bribes to judges and chiefs to continue their craven support for a morally and financially bankrupt government. SADC turns a blind eye to all this as they do to the violence inflicted on the opposition. SADC surely know it is happening but continue on the same path of blind support for a man who has destroyed his country and allows men women and children to die rather than give up on iota of his power. Only God can remove him says Mugabe but in the meantime he will kill, beat, starve and imprison anyone who dares to oppose him.

MDC meets today to discuss the way forward following this slap in the face from SADC. I imagine it will be a very stormy meeting. Certainly local pundits have been vocal with their advice but then words are cheap. Opinions range from : Let Mugabe get on with it, leave him to hang himself; Pull out of the Agreement entirely; Fresh elections are the only answer; Go to the AU and failing that the UN for a solution. No doubt all those views and many others will be reflected at today's meeting. Zimbabweans are very good at talking but what is needed now is Action. Looking in from the outside what I see is the lack of unity even among the democratic forces. Months ago all the civic organizations vowed they would work together to overthrow the regime. When one group demonstrated they said they would all be there to support their brothers and sisters. It has not happened; instead the police pick off the brave demonstrators – be they WOZA or NCA or ZCTU - like so many flies and toss them in gaol to rot in the fetid prisons that daily spew out their dead. It is only by acting together that the civic movements and the MDC will demonstrate to SADC, the AU and the UN that they are one united people. Without that unity of purpose, the people will remain rudderless, like a ship without a captain sailing on an ocean of endless suffering. Only through solidarity of purpose and unity in action will Zimbabweans free themselves from the dictator's cruel tyranny. Then hope will be restored. We can do it…Yes we can!
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH

7th November 2008

Dear Friends.
Tuesday November 4th 2008 was a day to remember. Watching the millions of people waiting patiently in line to vote in the US elections was to see democracy in action. There were people of every race and colour and of all ages, standing for as long as five or six hours to cast their votes for a new president of the most powerful country in the world. Whatever one's feelings about the United States, it was hard not to be impressed by the absolute commitment of the American people to exercise their democratic right to choose a new government. A comment by one of the people standing in line said it all: "It's like you see in developing countries," she said referring to the thousands of people waiting in line. And she was right, that unknown voter. I was reminded of 2002 in Zimbabwe when people turned out in their thousands to vote and we saw long lines snaking around the polling booths only to have our hopes dashed yet again of a free and fair election as Zanu PF and Tobiawa Mudede once again stole the people's victory. As the saying goes, 'It's not who votes that counts but who counts the vote.'

Not in the States or not this time anyway. No endless delays, no mysterious pauses while the figures were massaged and manipulated; within hours of the last vote being cast in this vast country the first results were announced. People had stayed up all night and not just in the UK but all round the world, glued to their televisions waiting for early results to come in. When I went down to my local newsagent at six o'clock the next morning the results were already in and to my astonishment every single newspaper, even the tabloids, normally only concerned with images of half-naked females or sporting heroes, had Obama's victory as the front page story. It was history in the making but for some reason known only to themselves and their political masters, the Zimbabwean state-controlled media as far as I can discover chose to ignore one of the most important political developments of this new century. An African American had been voted overwhelmingly by people of every colour and none as the 44th President of the United States and Zimbabwe's ruling party has nothing to say!

Watching Obama's acceptance speech in Washington later that day was to witness a moment of history similar to Mandela's installation as President of a new South Africa, or the collapse of the Berlin Wall or Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech. One knew instinctively that something had changed forever; a wrong had been put right and the balance had been restored. Nothing can expunge the horrors of slavery but the for the first time the White House will be inhabited by a young African American family who as Obama himself pointed out have the blood of slaves and slave owners running in their veins. As he spoke the cameras panned the vast crowd and many were openly weeping. It was the sight of Jesse Jackson with tears streaming down his face that will remain forever in my mind. Such a long and bitter struggle it has been for men and women like him but they have never given up hope. "We never gave up hope," said Maya Angelou, the African American writer. "Hope is all you have in the struggle for freedom. We knew it would come but we never believed it would be in our lifetime."

No matter which side you were on you could not fail to be impressed by the dignity and grace of Obama's acceptance speech. It will go down in history not only as an example of great oratory but for the leadership and vision that it demonstrated to a fractured and divided nation torn apart by wars in Iraq and Iran and by an economic crisis that threatens the lives of thousands of ordinary Americans. Obama will I believe be a president for all Americans , "Whether you voted for me or not" as he said. It has nothing to do with skin colour; it is a question of national identity.

Compare the generosity and magnanimity of Obama's speech with the hatred that pours from the lips of Mugabe and his cohorts and you see the difference between true leadership and the arrogance of power for its own sake. The argument I have read this week that the election of an African American to the White House will weaken Mugabe's hand against the US is not supported by past examples of racist rhetoric from the master of hate speech. It seems not to matter to him whether his perceived enemies are black, white or any shade in between, the truth is that if you are not with him you are against him.

As we head to yet another SADC Summit to resolve 'the Zimbabwe problem' what is desperately needed is not misguided pan-Africanist loyalty for Mugabe and his outdated policies but real leadership and vision from the assembled African leaders. The lives of millions of Zimbabweans depend on their ability to force one old man to see sense. It is beyond belief that the political survival of an 84-year old dictator who has ruled for almost thirty years carries more weight with these African leaders than the fate of 11 million African citizens. Dare we hope that this time common sense, decency and human compassion will prevail and the nightmare for Zimbabweans will end before too many more die of aids, cholera or plain starvation?
Yours in the (continuing) struggle, PH

1 November 2008
Dear Friends.
Africa is once again in the news this week. Our television screens and newspapers have been filled with horrific images of thousands of people in the DRC fleeing from the rebel advances towards the provincial capital of Goma hoping to find sanctuary there. Literally thousands of men and women are trudging through the bush with their belongings piled on their backs, on bicycles or motor scooters. The picture of one small child stays in my mind. A little boy, not more than four years old carrying a plastic container almost as big as himself; his innocent face staring out at the world with huge eyes, a reminder to all of us of the guilt we adults share for the disruption to his young life. Many of these refugees have been displaced more than once from their villages, the only life they know is on the road, fleeing from one army or the other, trying desperately to find safety. It seems no one can protect them: not the Congolese army, nor the UN Peacekeepers as they pour out of their villages in search of safety. Yesterday Goma itself was under attack by the rebels and later from retreating government troops, looting and raping as they abandoned the city. An estimated 250.000 people are on the move and this Friday morning the International Red Cross is describing the situation as 'a humanitarian catastrophe' Most of the NGO's are pulling out of this crisis-torn country and desperate villagers hide out in the forests, making it even more difficult for any remaining aid agencies to get help to them. As always, it is innocent civilians who suffer and where there are tribal or ethnic differences the suffering is exacerbated. It is not the root cause of the Congo's repeated wars, however; it is greed for diamonds or gold or any of the country's vast mineral wealth that has led to the repeated conflicts. The west - and China - have indirectly sponsored these wars too in their desperation to get their hands on Congo's precious natural resources.

Anyone in Zimbabwe who is wondering what any of this has to do with them would do well to remember Mugabe's intervention in the Congo back in 1997 in support of his friend Laurent Kabila. Many experts claim that this marked the beginning of Zimbabwe's economic collapse. It was a deeply unpopular war with the Zimbabwean people and the cost in human terms has never been fully revealed by Mugabe's government. What was clear at the time was that the war provided unlimited opportunities for top military personnel and business people to become millionaires overnight thanks to Congo's diamonds. Business opportunities for Zimbabwe we were told but the Zimbabwean people saw none of the benefits. The ones who profited, army generals, top policemen and business magnates are the very same people who are now making sure that Mugabe's so-called Agreement with the MDC never becomes a reality. They have too much to lose but while the intervention in the DRC may have been the source of their wealth it may yet lead indirectly to their downfall. Their names are still there in a UN Report on the people who had exploited the Congo's natural resources during that conflict.

Meanwhile, reports coming out of Zimbabwe indicate that there are rising numbers of soldiers and policemen deserting because of poor pay and conditions. As hunger stalks the land and the economic crisis worsens by the day with the Zim currency becoming virtually useless, these deserting soldiers, who did not enjoy the same money-making opportunities in the Congo as their superior officers, may yet decide Zvakwana - Enough is Enough. It is a not impossible scenario that Zimbabwe too will be caught in the grip of civil unrest and what we are seeing today in the DRC is a pre-echo of what could happen in Zimbabwe. With our mighty South African neighbour about to enter a very troubled period as the ANC heads for a possible split, it is not too difficult to see why minds are not fully focussed on settling the Zimbabwe problem. Mugabe's allies have too many problems of their own. No doubt, the decision to involve SADC will be delayed as long as possible but in the end an agreement will have to be reached ; not because Mugabe cares about the people's suffering but because his own survival may depend on it. Dictators can never be entirely sure who their true friends are. His friend Laurent Kabila'death inside his own palace is a case in point. His death has never been properly explained. Zimbabweans will remember the two-day silence while the world waited for the official announcement from the DRC. We all knew that Kabila's body was already on the tarmac at Manyame airbase where it had been flown by a Zimbabwe Airforce plane sent by Robert Mugabe to collect his friend's body. Was it a member of his own presidential guard who had killed him or was it someone who was afraid Kabila was about to blow the whistle on Zimbabwe's involvement in the Congo? We shall probably never know but the link between present events in the DRC and Zimbabwe's past involvement in that country should not be forgotten.
What goes around comes around!
Yours in the (continuing) struggle, PH