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

18th June 2010

Dear Friends.
When he arrived back in Harare from the World Cup, Robert Mugabe announced that the South African facilitators would shortly be back in the country to continue with their attempts to mediate in the endless 'talks' between the MDC and Zanu PF.

Not so, declared Lindiwe Zulu, the spokesperson for the facilitators. They are not returning to Harare in the immediate future; President Zuma is too occupied with affairs of state at home. "Does that mean," she was asked, "that South Africa is disengaging from their efforts to settle Zimbabwe's crisis"? No, Lindiwe Zulu answered, "South Africa would "remain engaged until Zimbabwe is back to normal."
That phrase, 'back to normal' must have raised a few cynical smiles from Zimbabweans at home and in the diaspora. Just what exactly constitutes 'normality' in Zimbabwe and how do we measure it - except by comparing life now with what we experienced in the past? The answer, I suppose, depends on who you are and what sort of life you lived before the country descended into its present state of 'abnormality' which led an estimated 5 million people to leave the motherland in search of a better life in foreign countries.

The trouble is that the 'abnormality' has been going on for so long that it seems like 'normal'. Rather like the old song, 'I've been down so long it seems like up to me', Zimbabweans at home have forgotten what it was like to live in a 'normal' country where things work. A country where traffic lights function and roads are repaired; where you are not subject to police harassment and brutality merely for having a different point of view - or a different skin colour; where the phones work and where there are not daily 16 hour power cuts that make modern life impossible; where you can be sure your money is safe in the bank and the courts will be impartial should you be unfortunate enough to be picked up by the police and charged with some fictitious crime. 'Normal' is living in a country where there is rule of law and all are equal before the law, a country where political allegiance is not the sole determinant of your value as a citizen.

Ms Zulu's definition of 'normal' may differ but she would not, I think, disagree that her own country can be considered 'normal' for a democratic state in the "21st century. In the same week that she made her remark about Zimbabwe's return to normality, came the news that Farai Muguwu had been 'snatched' from Harare Central Prison and taken to the infamous Mtapi Police Station where the conditions have been deemed 'unfit for human habitation' by a High Court judge. Farai Muguwu is of course the brave man who, through the Centre for Research Development, has attempted to blow the whistle on the downright theft and corruption going on in the diamond mines. He was arrested on June 3rd and has been incarcerated ever since and refused bail. The truth behind his arrest and mistreatment may never be known but from all reports it seems that it is not unconnected with one of Ms Zulu's fellow countrymen who was anxious that the truth should not be told about the criminal behaviour of certain high profile names inside Mugabe's government, not excluding at least one MDC Deputy Minister. But that is 'normal' in Zimbabwe today and the MDC are powerless to intervene or even to speak out, it seems. Their silence about this and so many other issues of justice and human rights in Zimbabwe, from the continuing onslaught on the white farmers to the violence and intimidation going on in the villages in the run-up to the Constitutional Outreach programme, does not suggest that Mugabe's partners in the Inclusive Government are overly concerned with a return to 'normality'. Commenting on Tsvangirai's powerlessness in the face of Mugabe's tenacious grip on power, a foreign diplomat remarked that the Prime Minister appeared content to 'live with it'.

For those of us who were deeply uneasy about this so-called power sharing government from the beginning, our worst fears are being realised. The MDC is being swallowed up by Zanu PF and, in the process is besmirched by the culture of greed and self-interest that permeates among the Zanu PF chefs. Mugabe's professed claim at the launch of the Constitutional Consultation that "We don't want violence" during the process is totally misleading. We all know - as Tsvangirai himself knows - that it is Mugabe's Youth Militia, CIO and war vets who are already committing acts of violence and intimidation in the rural areas before the consultation even starts. Schools are being used as bases for the Militia all over the rural areas and in Mashonaland East I hear that the Teacher Training College in Mutoko where I taught has been invaded - not for the first time - by Zanu PF thugs who force trainee teachers to attend political lectures. Children at schools in this area and many others are being forced to attend 'training' sessions where they are taught violence. Operation Chimumu it's called - deaf and dumb; that is what these thugs want the general populace to be, unless of course they speak the Zanu PF language. But still the MDC remain virtually silent. Either they are naïve to the point of blind credulity or they are simply unwilling to jeopardise their own positions in the Inclusive government. Whichever way you look at it, this cannot be described as a 'normal' situation. Perhaps the South Africans have been deafened too by the blast of their World Cup vuvuzelas and can no longer hear the cries of their brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe?
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.

11th June 2010

Dear Friends.
No matter how you try - and not all of us are football fanatics - you just can't get away from the World Cup! The build-up has been going on for months but at last the big day is here. Today, Friday, all eyes will be on South Africa. Not all the coverage, however, is exclusively concerned with what happens on the pitches or the injuries the players sustain as they prepare for the days ahead. In the UK, news of Rio Ferdinand's knee injury was treated rather like a national tragedy and just this week Wayne Rooney's verbal abuse of a referee gave every reporter the excuse to let fly with acres of advice on anger management. Yesterday it was reported that the Brazilian referees are all busy mastering English swear words so that they can understand any abuse hurled at them by angry English players!
However, the more serious and thoughtful observers of events in South Africa have not failed to notice that all is not as well in the Rainbow Nation as the media men would have the world believe. For the next month all eyes will be on the soccer but as in Zimbabwe, 'Wait till after the World Cup' seems to be the general refrain where a massive upsurge in xenophobia is feared against the African foreigners who have flooded into the country for the World Cup. As Daniel Howden put it in the UK Independent on Monday this week, "All roads lead to South Africa for fans - and for refugees trying to escape Zimbabwe's brutal regime." In a thoughtful and well-researched piece, Daniel Howden had taken the trouble to visit the Central Methodist Church and see for himself the plight of Zimbabwean refugees. Despite the GPA and the formation of a Unity Government fifteen months ago - an Agreement "cobbled together" by the South African facilitators as Howden remarks - an estimated 2.100 Zimbabweans turn up at the Musina Home Affairs Dept every day seeking asylum. But still the South African authorities insist there is no crisis in Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, desperately impoverished Zimbabweans flood the city streets selling unofficial World Cup merchandise, anything to feed themselves and their families and give them a roof over their heads.

It is a moral tragedy that the giant of Africa, the owners of one of the most liberal and enlightened constitutions on the continent, should choose to ignore the blatant abuse of human and democratic rights going on just over the border in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. In the name of 'African solidarity' two South African presidents have chosen to side with Robert Mugabe, not a word of criticism of the Zimbabwean dictator has escaped their lips. Just this week the South African courts have ordered their government to release the Report on the conduct of the 2002 elections in Zimbabwe, elections which Thabo Mbeki himself had declared 'free and fair' despite the horrendous violence that we all know took place on the ground. Whether the South African government will obey the Court order and release the Report or will, like their Zimbabwean comrades, simply ignore the law, remains to be seen. While all eyes are on South Africa and the final preparations for the World Cup, this week we have seen at least three MDC MP's arrested and thrown in gaol for so-called crimes, including in Ian Kay's case the 'distribution of out-of date medicines' which were in fact nothing more than vitamins and asprin tablets. Another MP was arrested for 'insulting the president' and the activist who dared to expose the criminal activity and blatant theft going on at Chiadzwa was also arrested, his home ransacked and his relatives beaten up because, allege the prosecution, "he earned his living by damaging the government of Zimbabwe." In the rural areas the threats and violence continue as the country prepares for the Constitutional Outreach Programme and on the remaining commercial farms in the past week alone 16 farms have been violently invaded despite having High Court orders allowing the white farmers - many of them South African citizens protected by BIPPA - to remain on their land. Rumour has it that it is a very senior minister in Mugabe's government who has told the invaders to ignore High Court orders and stay where they are.

My purpose in this Letter is not to belittle South Africa's hosting of the World Cup. Everyone who loves Africa must surely celebrate that this worldwide media event benefits South Africa and the whole of the continent. Above all, that it restores Africans' belief in themselves and changes some of the shockingly outdated western concepts of Africa as a hopeless continent where dictators flourish and the rich get richer at the expense of the thousands of Africans who still live in poverty. In the midst of the excitement and jubilation of hosting the World Cup in front of world leaders, the South African government should not forget the responsibility that comes with power, responsibility for their own citizens and those of her near neighbour who seek her protection. As the South African constitution states in its preamble, South Africa will be "a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights." where the 'right to life' is enshrined in the Bill of Rights and discrimination on the grounds of 'sexual orientation, race or gender' is forbidden. Such noble ideals are surely applicable to all Africans, including the millions of Zimbabwean who have sought refuge in the country. South Africa's deafening silence about Zimbabwe's desperate plight is a failure in moral responsibility and makes them complicit in the violence that is daily unleashed by Mugabe's supporters both inside and outside Zimbabwe.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.