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.
Click here to find out more or buy online

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

25th September 2009

Dear Friends.

"Pass a law no whites are allowed to farm," said a white commercial farmer this week, "Then it makes it clear." It's not hard to understand the white farmer's bitterness, anyone with a white skin in Zimbabwe, farmer or not, knows very well that the possibility of his or her being declared a non-citizen at any time is never far away. Accurate population statistics are a thing of the past in Zimbabwe but I can't believe there are more than 20-30.000 whites left inside the country but if Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF apologists are to be believed, this handful of people is responsible for every evil under the sun.

Mugabe is at the UN this week, no doubt loving the opportunity to outdo all his friends in their anti-imperialist rhetoric. It was Gadaffi's turn earlier in the week and he ranted on for over an hour; Iran's man was also there with his holocaust denial and claims that his recent hotly contested election was all above board and today it will be Mugabe's turn. More of the same, no doubt! How he loves these opportunities to rub shoulders with world leaders and play the international statesman! As a foretaste, perhaps, of what he will say today, Mugabe gave an interview to CNN's Christiane Amanpour yesterday. She asked him some pretty direct questions but, as usual, Mugabe was in total denial of the facts; he prefers his own version of reality. When taxed with the vexed question of sanctions by Amanpour who reminded him that sanctions were directed only at individuals within his regime, he simply told her she was wrong. Sanctions had ruined the country's economy and thus harmed the whole population, he claimed, while at the same time stating that the country's economy was healthy! On the question of land, Mugabe said, "The land reform is the best thing that could have happened to an African country. It has to do with national sovereignty." That old chestnut again! The problem is that Mugabe has never defined exactly what he means by this catchall label. What it appears to mean is that he can do exactly as he likes with ‘his' Zimbabwe and ‘foreigners' must just keep out –except those with money to give, of course. And who are these ‘foreigners'? Now we come to the nub of the matter, "Zimbabwe belongs to Zimbabweans, pure and simple." he said, "White Zimbabweans, even those born in the country with legal ownership of their land, have a debt to pay. They occupied the land illegally. They seized the land from our people." And if that wasn't clear enough, he went on, "They are British settlers – citizens by colonization, seizing land from original people, the indigenous people of the country."

When I read those words of his I was reminded of an incident that happened when I was living in Murehwa. In one of the only racially motivated incidents I experienced in my twelve years in Murehwa as the only white person in an all-black town, a complete stranger stepped out into the road as my vehicle passed, stuck his clenched fist in the air and shouted "Go back to Britain!" ‘How does he know I'm British?" I thought, I could be any European nationality.' Then it struck me, what that complete stranger saw was not my nationality but the colour of my skin. If my pigmentation was white, then I was a foreigner, in the eyes of Mugabe and his followers and apparently not a part of the ‘national sovereignty' that he constantly refers to.

So, like the white farmer quoted at the beginning of this Letter, I too wonder why Mugabe doesn't come right out and say clearly that whites are not and cannot ever be Zimbabweans? My five children were all born and brought up in Zimbabwe but to Mugabe they are still ‘settlers' who, in his words, ‘have a debt to pay'. That nonsensical argument is used to justify the hideous violence and injustice being meted out not only on white farmers but also on black farm workers who are caught in the tsunami of land invasions that rolls across the country. Are they not ‘the indigenous people of the country' to use Mugabe's definition of what it is to be a true Zimbabwean? The truth is that anyone, black or white who stands in the way of the bottomless greed and corruption displayed by Mugabe's followers and – dare I say it – perhaps some newly powerful MDC followers too, is liable to be beaten or killed and have his property destroyed or stolen. The police will not lift a hand to defend them, they are too busy invading farms.

Week by week, we hear of the moral collapse that has engulfed Mugabe's Zimbabwe. The lack of response from the population at large to actions that would once be totally unacceptable in African culture is shocking. A seventy-year old woman is stoned to death by Zanu PF youths for daring to protest at the mini-murambatsvina being proposed by Harare City Council against market traders; a man is beaten bloody for wearing a T shirt saying ‘No to the Kariba draft' and forced to don a Zanu PF T shirt and at the Chiadzwa diamond fields another young man is killed by soldiers anxious to protect the ‘blood diamonds' for greedy army generals. Zimbabwe seems to have totally lost its moral compass. Even the churches remain strangely silent about the abuse of basic human rights in the country. As for the MDC, having ‘sat down with the devil' they appear powerless to raise their collective voice above a whisper to defend anyone from Mugabe's vindictive spite against all his perceived enemies, be they black or white. We are all ‘paying the debt' for our complicity in permitting thirty years of Zanu PF's tyrannical rule.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.

18th September 2009

Dear Friends.
The absence of a Letter from me last week was due to a computer failure, over which I had absolutely no control! When I finally got back online again, it was after the EU visit. Only the day before the EU's arrival in the country Mugabe had referred to 'bloody whites' as the source of all his troubles when he addressed his party's Youth League. Zimbabweans have become used to derogatory and racist hate speech from Robert Mugabe but that does not make it any less shocking, coming as it does from the man who claims 'supreme leadership' of the country. Mugabe was rather more circumspect in front of his all-white visitors from the EU. Everyone was on their best behaviour, in public at least, but there was no doubt the EU delegation needed more than the famous Mugabe charm to convince them that all was well in Zimbabwe's new dispensation. No matter how hard they try - and they have tried very hard - Mugabe and Zanu PF have not succeeded in convincing anyone that sanctions are the cause of Zimbabwe's miseries. As Geoffrey Van Orden, MEP, wrote in the UK Independent this week, 'Keep up the pressure on Mugabe and his clique of kleptocrats.' Zimbabwe needs more than the cosmetic changes brought about by the existence of a unity government. Real change will only come about when there is a new people-driven constitution followed by free and fair elections in the country. Robert Mugabe knows that very well and that is why he is using every trick in the book to delay the process to which he signed up in the GNU.

One look at the massive crowds attending MDC rallies - thirty thousand in Bulawayo last Sunday - should tell Mugabe and Zanu PF that their time is up but, like the political dinosaurs they are, they cannot accept the reality of change. Meanwhile, inspired by their leader's blatant incitement, Mugabe's shock troops on the ground continue their war of attrition against the remaining white commercial farmers. "Farmers will not be saved by the Unity Government" Mugabe declared to his Youth Brigade and in a sickening reprise of earlier scenes over the past ten years we see again pictures of a blood-soaked white farmer attacked by a gang of hoodlums. The evidence is there for all to see in the video on the SW website. And what do the brave ZRP do to protect the white farmer in question. They charge the farmer with violence alleging that he shot at the invaders who have tormented him for months. It could only happen in Zimbabwe.

It is the activities of the military that are, I believe, the deepest cause for concern. There are disturbing reports of acts of violence by lawless soldiers against fellow citizens all around the country. But it was the head of the army, Lt.General Sibanda addressing the troops recently that revealed very clearly where the army's sympathies lie - and it is not in support of the spirit of unity that is supposed to underpin the GNU. Sibanda was speaking about what he called 'asymmetrical warfare' and in particular what he regards as the one-sided war being waged by foreign based radio stations. "Guard against them," he told the troops. What exactly that means is not clear but it is a worrying indication of military intentions. The army remains in tight control of the Chiadzwa diamond mines where another civilian was killed last week. The profits from these 'blood diamonds' are undoubtedly funding Zanu PF and Robert Mugabe's continuing stranglehold on the country.

Writing about the situation in Kenya in the dying days of Arap Moi's dictatorial regime in Kenya, the Kenyan Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai tells of an incident which seems to me very relevant to present-day Zimbabwe. It was 1992 and Maathai was present in Nairobi at a big meeting of pro-democracy activists when there was a phonecall telling the activists that Moi wanted to hand power over to the army. The coup was scheduled to take place any time they were told by a reliable source. Mathaai comments, "A government sponsored coup would be the perfect way for President Moi to avoid having to face the electorate at the end of the year."(Unbowed - One woman's story by Wangari Maathai)
A silent military coup has apparently already taken place in Zimbabwe. Mugabe is the Commander in Chief of the army so who now is in control?
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.

3rd September 2009

Dear Friends.
One of the most depressing things about the situation in Zimbabwe at the moment is the way groups of people who should be working together for the common good are fragmenting. The students, the teachers and even the trade unions have split over issues which would seem on the face of it to be soluble. It's hard to tell from this distance away but the impression gained from various reports is that the splits are often caused not by issues of principle but rather by the personalities involved. Jealousy and the thwarted ambitions of individuals clawing their way up the greasy pole of power seems to be the order of the day in this 'new' Zimbabwe under the Inclusive Government. What is lacking - and has been lacking for the past decade and more under the government of Zanu PF - is a National Vision for the country. When political allegiance has been the only criteria by which patriotism and even 'hero' status is judged, it is not surprising that Zimbabwean society as a whole has become deeply fractured. Add the factor of downright racism against one highly productive group of people as seen in Mugabe's disastrous Land Reform and you have a recipe for disaster. Imposing a Unity Government on top of all these divisions was never likely to produce a population united by love of country. Instead we have a country where greed and corruption are the order of the day and the communal values once espoused by Zimbabweans have almost disappeared. It is every man for himself now as the struggle for political power and even day-to-day survival intensifies. With the collapse of the rule of law, the victims have nowhere to turn for help and the cycle of violence and despair goes on unchecked. The pictures we have seen this week of the burning homesteads of farmers and workers demonstrate exactly what happens in a country where the police fail in their duty to protect the citizens, black and white, of the country.

Meanwhile, Robert Mugabe, the author of all this misery, is away enjoying the hospitality of his friend Gadaffi in Lybia. In week-long celebrations for forty years of 'revolutionary' leadership; watched from behind bullet-proof glass by the likes of Sudan's Al Bashir, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela among other similarly dubious characters, Gadaffi's troops on the ground and in the air visibly demonstrated the power of the military might that has ensured Gadaffi's rule for four decades. Mugabe must hope that his own troops will be similarly loyal.

Back home, it was Morgan Tsvangirai who reminded Zimbabweans that the underlying purpose of this political union is the improvement of people's lives, 'giving the people of Zimbabwe a direction' was how the Prime Minister expressed it. It sounds like a noble reason to set old enmities aside: to unite the country in a common goal of doing what is right for all its citizens. Tsvangirai was asked in an interview how he could bring himself to 'sup with the devil', knowing what suffering Robert Mugabe and his henchman had inflicted on Tsvangirai himself and hundreds of his followers. "What is reconciliation without that?" was Tsvangirai's reply. "Reconciliation is a measure of tolerance across the very serious political divide that existed in this country. How can we stand up as leaders and call for national unity when between us we don't relate to each other?" For me, there is something deeply flawed in this line of thinking. If the violence was all in the distant past it might be understandable that Tsvangirai should set aside crimes committed a long time ago. But the truth is that Mugabe's army and police and Green Bombers, (his 'new war veterans' as he once described them) continue even now to inflict savage punishment on anyone perceived to be enemies. 'Relating to each other' sounds very fine, discovering that Robert Mugabe is a charming, well-mannered individual does not, or should not, blind one to the true facts of his history. Robert Mugabe came to power and has stayed in power through violence, through the barrel of a gun as Mugabe himself has said on more than one occasion. Morgan Tsvangirai and hundreds of his supporters have good reason to know that. For Morgan Tsvangirai now to 'sup with the devil' is in my view nothing more than political expediency and to claim as he does that it is the beginning of true reconciliation is grossly misleading.

One day after that interview Morgan Tsvangirai spoke at a Press Conference that he had himself called. President Zuma had come and gone with little appreciable change in the situation on the ground. The violent farm invasions go on, the police continue to fail to in their duty to protect Zimbabwean citizens, the courts continue to deliver highly partisan judgements and the Minister of Justice tells the country that they no longer recognise the authority of the SADC Tribunal. That is hardly surprising when we consider that it was the SADC Tribunal that had ruled in favour of the white farmers! Whether it was these developments that influenced Morgan Tsvangirai's statement at the Press Conference is not clear. "We are not" he said, " tied up by anything other than the fact that we volunteered to be in this government and what will stop us from leaving. We have an option of getting out if we think it's not working…when we say it is irreversible we are not saying things will not change, we just say this is the only option that gives direction to the people of Zimbabwe and on that we are very committed." Whether such commitment is shared by both sides in the Unity Government and the population at large is the question that only time will answer. Judging from recent comments by Zanu PF Ministers, it sounds as if the lifting of sanctions is the only issue they are seriously committed to and if the MDC can't deliver on that front - and they can't since they were not the ones who called for sanctions in the first place - Zanu PF's commitment to Unity will disappear like the mist on an October morning only to be replaced by the heat of violent retribution against their former partners. That's the way they work.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.