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

26th September 2008

Dear Friends.
All week long I have been wandering what I would write about in this week's letter. With so little real news coming out of Zimbabwe during this current impasse, it was hard to see what there was to talk about that the political analysts hadn't already dissected and mulled over all week. Then, Robert Mugabe came to my rescue!
Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Mugabe said : "Once again I appeal to the world's collective conscience to apply pressure for the immediate removal of these sanctions by Britain, the United States and their allies which have brought about untold suffering to our people." No sooner had I read those words and watched the clip on the BBC website when my phone rang. It was a good friend of mine calling from Murehwa. He wanted to thank me for some money I had sent him and to tell me that the gift had enabled him to buy two buckets of maize. With very careful rationing that might last a couple of weeks he told me. One helping of sadza a day and perhaps a little bowl of thin porridge in the morning for the kids before they go to school. No meat, so they supplement the sadza with vegetables from his garden – grown I may add with seeds sent from the UK! My friend is one of the lucky ones but for most of the people in Murehwa it's an early morning trip on foot to the nearest muhacha trees. 'You know muhacha? he asked me. Of course I know muhacha. In this area of the country it is a scared tree and I had often sat under its shade with friends at a rural bottle store. The fruit of the muhacha is edible and sweet. Every child knows that and in the old days it was what you would call a 'leisure' activity, gathering the sweet fruit to munch on the way home. There's a grove of these trees deep in the rural area about eight or ten miles from Murehwa and every morning people trek there to gather the fruit. No longer is it a leisure pastime, now it is the people's only means of survival. 'You have to get there early' my friend told me because people fight, they actually exchange blows so desperate are they for the hacha. It is all they will eat for the day. Like all wild fruits, if eaten to excess, it will have a disastrous effect on the digestive system and acute diarrhoea follows. With nothing else in the stomach such conditions can prove fatal and without drugs or medical intervention people will die - have already died in the area. The local MP for the area is none other than the Minister of Health, himself a doctor. I wonder if he heard his president tell the UN Assembly that "The majority of our rural people have been empowered (by the Land reform programme) to contribute to household and national food security and to be masters of their destiny" If that is the case then why are the people surviving on wild fruits? Why are their own grain huts empty? Why are the huge grain silos in Murehwa housing imported maize accessible only to those with foreign currency to buy the precious commodity?
Mugabe appeals to the 'world's collective conscience' but apparently has none himself as he leaves his people to starve while he struts the world stage accusing everyone else of causing the Zimbabwean people's 'untold suffering.' The contrast between Mugabe's weasel words at the UN and what my friend told me of the people's suffering could not be more marked. This week I listened to two highly respected Africanists, Richard Dowden and William Gumede debating the situation in Zimbabwe and I was shocked to hear Richard Dowden remark that Mugabe cared nothing for Zimbabwe's future, that he was quite prepared to destroy the country in order to save his own position. Of course, I had heard that comment before from friends sitting around under the muhacha tree at the bottle store. I had even been inclined to make the same judgement myself but to hear that view coming from such a scholarly and objective source shocked me. Can it really be true that this great 'Liberation Hero' has become so bloated with power that he is blind to the suffering his policies have caused? Is it the fault of the sanctions against the leadership of Zanu PF as Mugabe claims that have caused the tide of human misery that has swept across the land? Climate change and sanctions have hindered food production, he claims but Mugabe knows that is not true. Has he not himself chivvied the resettled farmers for not growing more food?
I watched the Old Man being interviewed this week in New York. He was asked if he would allow Human Rights monitors into Zimbabwe to see for themselves, "Ah,ah,ah' he replied and shook his head. He was smiling at the time, the smile on the face of the crocodile, I thought. Later he claimed that his government had been falsely accused of human rights abuses. Tell that to the victims and their families, Robert Mugabe. Who else but you gives the orders for your opponents to be 'taught a lesson for not voting the right way.' "We won't stop" said one of his bully boys this week talking of the ongoing attacks on MDC supporters, "until the President himself tell us to."
Like everyone else in the diaspora, we are a long way from home and it's often hard to separate fact from journalistic fiction but that phonecall I received, just this morning, renewed my doubts about the wisdom of negotiating with such a man as Mugabe. Trusting Tsvangirai's personal integrity is one thing but can we be sure that all his top people are similarly motivated by what is best for Zimbabwe and not by hunger for money and power. All we can do from this far away is watch and wait and hope that truth, justice and, above all, conscience will prevail.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH




19th September 2008
Dear Friends.
Monday, September 15th 2008 was described in the papers here as 'Manic Monday' but it had nothing to do with what was happening in Harare! It was the day that Wall Street appeared to be collapsing under the weight of failing banks. That story took up the front pages and was the headline on all the News broadcasts. However, Zimbabwe had its fair share of news coverage and the evening bulletins showed Mugabe ranting on in the same old way as if nothing had changed. Maybe it was 'Manic Monday' after all, I thought as I watched the Old Man draped over the lectern, rambling on like King Lear in his dotage. It was profoundly embarrassing and when Mugabe launched into his blatantly racist comments about the Americans and the British Morgan Tsvangirai covered his face with his hand. Those very Americans and Brits are after all the ones who will be called on to rescue Zimbabwe's near moribund economy; only Mugabe is arrogant enough to insult the very people whose money he needs so badly.

It was a not a good beginning and as the week went on there was even less to be hopeful about. If any of us had thought that Mugabe might show at least a little humility at this key moment in Zimbabwean history then 'Manic Monday' showed how wrong we were. Publicly anyway the Old Man was totally unrepentant; it was Morgan Tsvangirai in a statesmanlike address who cleverly reminded Mugabe of his own words at Independence, "If you were my enemy yesterday, today we are bound by the same patriotic duty and destiny." All weekend, there had been the fear that the Old Man would not even turn up for the signing ceremony but there he was on Monday, large as life. Despite his public posturing the mere fact that he had sat down and negotiated with his mortal enemy shows clearly that the Old Man recognises, albeit with profound reluctance, that he has no choice but to share power. He knows that he lost the March elections, he admitted as much when speaking to top Zanu PF officials: "If only we had not blundered in the March elections...we wouldn't be facing this humiliation now...This is what we have to deal with." Those words do not suggest to me that the Old Man has lost touch with political reality. My own view is that he knows very well that his days are numbered but he will manage his going to suit himself and he will certainly not do anything to assist the 'enemy within and (now) well embedded' as Nathaniel Manheru described the MDC in a leader article over the weekend. Mugabe needs this Agreement to work. He is counting on Morgan Tsvangirai to get the foreign donors on board to rescue the economy and feed the near-starving population.

The first two Articles in the Agreement deal with sanctions and land, Mugabe's two pet obsessions. Indeed, Mugabe's hand is evident throughout the Agreement, like an iron fist inside the velvet glove of Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy'. The reality that Zimbabweans and the world have to accept is that Mugabe is still there and all the carping criticism of the Agreement cannot change that fact; as a UK columnist had commented earlier, 'Jeer and boo as much as you like, he's still there.' The Agreement is cumbersome, vague and ambiguous and omits crucial issues. Without doubt Zanu PF and Mugabe will do their level best to derail and delay its implementation every step of the way. Five days after the signing the country still has no cabinet and today, Friday, we hear that six hours of talks between the principals have failed to get agreement on the allocation of cabinet posts. Hardly surprising really after Mugabe had told his top party officials, " We remain in the driving seat. We will not tolerate any nonsense from our new partners." It is very clear that Mugabe's concept of partnership involves only 'junior' partners to his own permanently senior position. It was Morgan Tsvangirai who identified the first priority of the new government as feeding the people.

And there are a few hopeful signs. The Red Cross is immediately resuming food aid; the police are beginning to act like the true guardians of law and order again but only in some areas. If reports are to be believed war vets and Youth Militia are no longer getting priority in food queues and although it sounds unbelievable, it is reported that the service chiefs have acknowledged Tsvangirai as Prime Minister, worthy of equal respect with Mugabe. MDC T shirts are even being openly worn in some areas

The biggest problem as I see it is changing the political culture in the country as reflected in the state-controlled media. That is going to take the repeal of legislation: AIPA and POSA and the Broadcasting Act and that needs parliament to reconvene. Once the Agreement is amended into law - by Mugabe as president - with Constitutional Amendemnt No 19, parliament can begin work straight away. Robert Mugabe will of course delay that as long as he can and five days after the signing of the Agreement Zimbabwe still has no functioning government. There are in fact two opposing centres of power and who knows what games the various internal players are up to within parties and factions in the struggle for powerful positions and all the perks involved. Those cynics within and outside the country who say the Agreement will never work may well be proved right. No thinking person can be unaware of the pitfalls that lie ahead but the cynics should ask themselves, what alternative was there for a country and people so near the edge of annihilation? Cynicism cannot feed the children or give them hope for a better future.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH.


12th Septemver 2008

Dear Friends.
"We've got a deal"! With those words Morgan Tsvangirai told waiting journalists at the Rainbow Towers Hotel that the unbelievable had happened; the long months of agonising on/off indecision were over. There had finally been a breakthrough. Later at an official press conference Thabo Mbeki announced, "An agreement has been reached on all items on the agenda. All of them endorsed the document tonight. I am absolutely certain that the leadership of Zimbabwe is committed to implementing this agreement." The formal signing ceremony, attended by regional leaders will take place on Monday, Mbeki added, but gave no further details.
For Zimbabweans at home the news may well have come too late at night. By that time they may well have retired to their beds, hungry and without lights or power to cook their evening meal or listen to their radios and televisions. Here in the UK diaspora I heard it first on BBC News at Ten after another day of watching and waiting for hard news. Mugabe had attended the Chiefs' Ndaba in Bulawayo earlier in the day and had given no indication that a settlement was anywhere near. On the contrary, he had told the chiefs, "We have not gone anywhere. We're still stuck at the same point where those from the MDC want to govern. They want Mugabe to go. Where shall I go? I can't go anywhere…It is humiliating to be negotiating with a party sponsored by countries pushing for regime change," It seemed nothing had changed, the Old Man was just not prepared to budge. Yet there was something different; after his speech, the traditional leaders had most uncharacteristically given Mugabe's government a positive tongue-lashing about the food shortages, the corruption of government ministers and police involved in food scams. Had the chiefs' words perhaps reminded Mugabe that he has no money to solve the problem of hunger and food shortages? Could that be the reason he finally put his name to a document that virtually entails sharing power with the hated enemy , the man he has done his level best to destroy? Only a couple of days before Kofi Annan had launched a scathing attack on the AU, "they should have endorsed the results (of the March elections) and said to Mugabe; You are not a legally elected president". With those words ringing in his ears, Mugabe perhaps realised that the game was almost up. Whatever the reason, he arrived back in Harare, ninety minutes late apparently, to sign the deal that was to change the status quo.
No one knows the details of the Agreement yet but we all understand ‘the devil is in the detail'. So many questions spring to mind. How long is the ‘Inclusive' government going to last? Are we in for another five years of Mugabe's presidency? One thing is clear: Mugabe's henchman in the state media have not come to terms with the new reality. On the very day the deal was announced the state controlled Herald was still spreading its lies about Morgan Tsvangirai, claiming that the new Prime Minister was about to appoint a retired Colonel, one Lionel Dyck (a white man of course) to the post of Commander of the Zimbabwe National Army; MDC MP's are still incarcerated, the violence goes on against MDC supporters and Gideon Gono announces the setting up of licences for one thousand retail and wholesale outlets who will for the next eighteen months buy and sell in US dollars. No prizes for guessing who will get these licences; it will be Zanu PF fat cats but for ordinary Zimbabweans with no access to forex it is a pointless exercise which will only increase the shortages and extend their suffering. Right up to the last minute before the deal was announced, Mugabe was busy trying to ensure that his appointees were in place as Provincial Governors and, if rumour is to be believed, under the terms of the agreement, Mugabe will be forced to revise these appointments.
Zimbabweans have three days to ponder the deal and from what I hear no one is dancing in the streets. What they are all asking themselves is will this bring an end to our suffering, will this deal bring an improvement in our lives. And above all, can we trust Mugabe to stick to his word? Will he really allow Morgan Tsvangirai and his ministers to operate without interference? ‘Sources' tell us Mugabe will continue to chair the cabinet while Tsvangirai controls a Council of Ministers but what happens when those two bodies clash? We have to wait until Monday and the formal signing before we have the answers to these questions - and maybe not even then. Three days in which the so-called war vets and youth militia may resort to even more violence against opposition supporters. Will they listen if or when Mugabe tells them to desist and what of the police and army who, again if rumour is to be believed, have been promised immunity for their horrendous crimes. Will they now enforce the law impartially?
It's going to be a very long weekend but despite all our reservations and whatever the future holds the truth is that Zimbabwe will never be the same again. Something has changed forever.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH.




6th September 2008

Dear Friends.
Sometimes, not often, but occasionally, I almost give up on Zimbabwe. It would be so much easier, I think, just to sit quietly at my desk overlooking an ancient cathedral and a pleasant canal where long boats drift by, write my books and not worry anymore about a situation which I cannot change. But the pull of Africa is too strong. Even now four years after I left Zimbabwe, I cannot break the ties that bind me to the people and country I love. It is the same for all exiles, we watch and listen to the accounts of suffering and heartbreak as the motherland tears itself apart and know that we are powerless to change anything. 'Eternal Suffering for African People' I remember seeing that written on the back of a country bus travelling along the Nyamapanda Road in the late eighties and it is true now as it was then. As Robert Mugabe approaches his 85th birthday after twenty-eight years in power, nothing has changed except for the worse. Still he blames everyone else for Zimbabwe's problems, the collapsing economy is the fault of western sanctions, the food shortages are caused by the west's refusal to give aid, the failure in agricultural production is nothing to do with his disastrous agricultural policies, it is all the fault of the perfidious white farmers who have sabotaged the 'land reform' programme, aided and abetted by the British backed opposition. He surrounds himself with self-serving parasites and praise singers while Africa stands by and looks on as he ruins a once prosperous country. 'Share power, fifty fifty' advises the Chair of the AU in response to the current stalemate - for stalemate read collapse - of the talks between the two sides. And how does Mugabe respond? He tells the MDC leader sign the agreement or else "I will form a government without you. My government is empowered by elections" he claims but is careful not to acknowledge the result of the March elections which clearly demonstrated the will of the people in favour of the MDC. His unelected Minister of Justice Patrick Chinamsa adds his voice and declares, " It was left to the people of Zimbabwe to decide and they have done."
Where is their honesty? Where is their humanity? As the nation collapses under the burden of unprecedented hardship and suffering how is it that Mugabe who constantly trumpets the virtues of African culture has forgotten the honoured maxims of Ubuntu/ Unhu which underpin African culture? Writing in 1980 the respected Zimbabwean historian Stanlake Samkange defined the concept of Unhu as incorporating three basic maxims. One: to be human is to affirm one's humanity by respecting the humanity of others and on that basis, establish respectful human relations with them. Two: when faced with a decisive choice between wealth and the preservation of life of another human being - then one should opt for the preservation of life and Three; that the king ( for 'king' read Mugabe!) owes his status including all the powers associated with it, to the will of the people under him. Speaking about the concept of Ubuntu/ Unhu in Shona, Nelson Mandela said that above all it represents tolerance, humanity and respect for others. It is a universal truth, the very basis of an open society because it ties each member of the community to all the others. We are dependent on each other; we owe our very humanity to the existence of other humans. Our humanity is defined by Unhu.(In Shona, Munhu munhu nekuda kwevanhu)and the whole community is enriched by it. That is the basis of African democracy.

How is it that Robert Mugabe, the self-proclaimed nationalist and pan Africanist, has forgotten this noble African concept? As he clings ever more desperately to power and Zimbabwe, the House of Stones collapses round him burying the people, Mugabe forgets - or chooses not to remember - that he owes his power to the people he governs. I read that analysts inside the country say he is no longer in control, that it is the army generals who will not let him cede power to Morgan Tsvangirai, fearful that they will face prosecution for their dreadful misdeeds, from the Gukuruhundi massacres right through to Murambatsvina and the recent pre and post-election violence. If that is intended to excuse the Old Man's failure to accept defeat, I for one do not buy it. I read also that some Zimbabweans have resigned themselves to another five years of Mugabe's misrule. "The people are so angry," said a good friend when he phoned me recently to tell me of the hunger and shortages making life a misery, " but they are so passive." Anger needs to be channelled if it is to be an agent for change. And change is what Zimbabwe desperately needs but not change at any price. We need a change which reflects the genuine will of the people, anything less is a denial of basic democratic rights as enshrined in the concept of Ubuntu/Unhu which as Mandela points out is central to the well-being of the community and improves life for everyone, " if you can do that you have done something very important," said the great man. The tragedy for Zimbabwe is that it is ruled by a man and a party whose only interest is holding on to power. They have forgotten that their job is to serve the people; Zimbabweans should pray that newly elected MDC members will not fall into the same trap.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH.