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

28th November 2009

Dear Friends.
After weeks of zero activity and near-paralysis on the 'Talks' front, on Thursday came the announcement that President Zuma has appointed three new facilitators, to 'speed up the talks' we are told. After the complete news blackout that had shrouded the talks, this development must be a welcome respite for the hungry hacks, starved of any hard news for so long. Even the venue for the talks was top-secret and wild stories that the parties were changing the venue for the talks every day had journalists following ministerial cars in a desperate attempt to find out just where they were meeting. Wild speculation had taken the place of hard news and the long-suffering Zimbabwean people - at home and abroad - were reduced once again to mere spectators as their future was decided behind closed doors.

Meanwhile the Zanu PF negotiators, under instructions from their wily boss no doubt, had sneaked in another condition for the MDC team to meet before a settlement of the outstanding issues could be reached. Anything to delay the process is Mugabe's unspoken agenda! As well as getting rid of US and EU imposed Sanctions, 'Pirate radio stations' broadcasting from outside Zimbabwe must be dismantled! It is the MDC's responsibility, claims the Zanu PF team not only to remove Sanctions but now, they must also close down these dratted 'Pirates' operating outside the country. And who are these fearsome 'pirates'? Why, none other than SW Radio broadcasting from London and VOA from Washington, they are the dreaded 'pirates' operating on the high seas and spreading lies and disinformation about Zimbabwe - or that's what Zanu PF would have us believe! What they really want, of course, is to be the only voice Zimbabweans can listen to, the one they hear from the ZBC. In the absence of the Media Commission, the setting up of which was clearly laid out as one of the conditions of the GPA, Zanu PF still has complete control of the media, and that's just what they want to keep in their vice-like grip. Regardless of the fact that there are 15 hour power cuts going on daily, the Zanu PF chefs still choose to believe that the Zimbabwean people are faithfully listening to ZBC and swallowing the lies and propaganda. What the zanies have failed to grasp is that Zimbabweans of all classes are desperate to hear the truth about what is happening in their country and the only places they can do that is with the wicked 'Pirate Radio Stations'. Exactly how the MDC can silence these 'Pirates' is not clear. I have visions of pitched battles aboard the good ship SW Radio with the pirate chief Gerry Jackson and her First Mate, the redoubtable Violet Gonda, plus all the rest of her swashbuckling crew in bandanas, armed with cutlasses fighting off Captain Morgan and his MDC team as he boards the illegal vessel and attempts to gain control of the microphone! It is a laughable image but it illustrates the nonsensical claim from Zanu PF that the MDC has the power to close down radio stations - or get international Sanctions lifted for that matter.

All I know is that here in the diaspora, without SW Radio, I would never hear the real news from home, good and bad. Zimbabwe barely features in the British papers any more and the BBC is strangely silent on the subject despite their 'agreement' with Zanu PF's Minister of Information that they were free to cover all parts of the country. Without SW Radio, I would never have heard in such detail the joyous news of President Obama's presentation of the Robert F. Kennedy Award to our wonderful Woza women. Without SW Radio, I would not have heard the awful news that my old home town is once again under threat from the Green Bombers, I would not have heard the actual words of the Zanu PF member who told the residents of the town that they could expect another jambanja if they failed to accept the Kariba draft, “If you hear screams in the night, don't go outside.” was his blood-curdling advice. And without SW Radio, the trial of Roy Bennett would not be fully reported and I would never hear the truth about the ongoing and horrific farm invasions - something else which the BBC has failed to cover.

In the five years since I left Zimbabwe, SW Radio Africa has been my lifeline and for all my friends and family at home the same is true. The only thing that could make it an even more valuable source of news is if Gerry Jackson and her 'pirate' crew were to be allowed to broadcast from inside the country. Will the arrival of these new South African appointees bring that day any nearer? Will they, Mac Maharaj, Lindiwe Zulu and Charles Nquakulu, be able to bring some urgency to the near- moribund negotiations going on in Harare? An agenda has been agreed, so we are told, which includes no less than twenty items and time is passing, just 10 days before the SADC deadline expires. With the 2010 World Cup getting nearer by the week, South Africa needs to see the Zimbabwean problem solved before visitors from all over the world start to arrive. Perhaps, as with Ian Smith decades ago, it will be South Africa who forces the dictator to loosen his grip and accept reality at last? Once again, we wait and hope.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.

20th November 2009

Dear Friends.
Long ago when Rome was the centre of the greatest empire in the known world, a fire broke out in the city. The story goes that the Emperor Nero who was, to put it mildly, a trifle eccentric, climbed up onto the palace roof to get a better view of the conflagration and, while the city burnt beneath him, Nero played his fiddle. Hence,'To fiddle while Rome burns,' meaning 'to amuse or divert oneself from crucial issues.'
There was more than one 'eccentric' in Rome last week and the subject under discussion was certainly crucial, nothing less than world hunger. Ironically, Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president was there; the man whose so-called Land Reform has destroyed his country's capacity to feed itself and made thousands of his own countrymen and women jobless, homeless and facing starvation. But there he was in Rome with his wife, that notorious shopaholic - and where better to shop than Rome with its sumptuous boutiques and designer shops! Mugabe was there to attend the UN World Food Summit accompanied by a 60 strong delegation. (It needs an awful lot of suitcases to carry back all his wife's purchases!) Rather like Emperor Nero of old, 'fiddling while Rome burns' Mugabe too was entertaining himself with this diversion while his country waits for him to play his part in putting out the flames that threaten to destroy the Unity Government.

Interestingly, the only member of the G8 countries to attend the Summit, was Sylvio Berlusconi, Italy's President and another 'eccentric'. Attendance at the UN Summit was a diversion from the Milan courtroom where he is due to appear on tax fraud charges. Instead, Berlusconi was on hand in Rome to introduce the current chairman of the AU, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to address the assembled company. One eccentric introducing another, you might say. In recent years Berlusconi's sexual escapades have been extensively covered by the Italian media but last week the Italian papers were full of another story, not of a sexual nature, though it certainly looked that way at first glance. 500 beautiful young 'hostesses' recruited from a hospitality agency had been invited to the home of the Libyan Ambassador in Rome with strict criteria: they must be between 18 and 35, and at least 1.7 metres tall. There was more, they must be pretty, no mini skirts allowed and no plunging necklines. The fee was $50 a head and they were to present themselves on Sunday evening. The unknown host was none other than the Chair of the AU, Mummar Gadaffi and his reason for hiring the 'hostesses' was nothing less than to convert them to Islam! Despite the fact that it was Rome and the headquarters of the Catholic Church, Gadaffi was on a proselytising mission. Like Mugabe, Gadaffi was in Rome for the World Food Summit but in his spare time he lectured the girls on the superiority of Islam, the failings of Christianity and the position of women in the western world. The UK Independent carried the story and showed the girls leaving the Libyan Embassy, all carrying heavy copies of the Koran. When he finally got round to the matter in hand, ie. the World Food Summit, Gadaffi and Mugabe were as one, singing from the same hymn sheet, ranting on about the evils of the west and their exploitation of the world's poor. Robert Mugabe's speech to the Summit was classic Mugabe-speak. It was "hostile interventions and hostile sanctions that have had a negative impact on our farmers. Our neo-colonialist enemies are determined to make us fail." Mugabe claimed. Nero-like he plays his increasingly bizarre propaganda instrument while, back home very little changes. In a painful reminder of Murambatsvina four years ago, municipal police in Harare beat up vendors, white farmers and their workers continue to be harassed and intimidated by police and greedy chefs, even High Court judges, all aided and abetted by top army officers and scores of soldiers. Students are arrested on trumped up charges of weapon possession and Roy Bennett's trial continues on its agonising way and the anti-MDC and blatantly racist rhetoric of the government press rolls on. The President of the Council of Chiefs joins in the anti-white chorus and attacks the Minister of Education, claiming that he is "charging exorbitant school fees to incite people to topple Mugabe from the presidency." And he adds, "We heard that a white man is now the minister of education…What's that, to have a white man in government?" In the same week a white Catholic priest is brutally beaten and humiliated by Mugabe's soldiers while in Rome the Pope celebrates mass attended by, among others, one Robert Gabriel Mugabe, a baptised and practising Catholic. 'Giving the Catholic Church a bad name' must be the least of the charges that can be made against Robert Mugabe.

Today, November 15 marks the expiry of the SADC deadline to initiate the process of settling the deep divisions between the two sides in the GNU. Zimbabwe teeters on the brink of disaster but Nero-like, Robert Mugabe plays on, the same old tune. Speaking at a good governance conference in Tanzania this week, the Sudanese telecom billionaire, Mo Ibrahim, remarked (about Africa generally) "Something is drastically wrong. I think we have the right to ask our leaders are they really serious." Well, Robert Mugabe is very, very serious about just one thing and that is staying in power - whatever the cost.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.



13th November 2009

Dear Friends.
'Something there is that doesn't love a wall' goes the first line of a poem by the twentieth century American poet, Robert Frost. The events of this last week demonstrate perfectly the truth of Frost's poem, the thrust of which is that nature itself finds the idea of separation by physical barriers alien. I can't be sure but I doubt that ZTV gave much coverage to the fall of the Berlin Wall that was commemorated this week. Thanks to Zanu PF ideology Zimbabweans live behind their own wall of propaganda - but in the west the commemoration received huge coverage. It may mean little to Zimbabweans today but the fact is that the collapse of the Berlin Wall led directly to the collapse of Marxism and the Soviet Union which in turn had massive consequences for the African continent. What makes all this painfully relevant for Zimbabwe today is the fact that it was not politicians who were responsible for changing the system and bringing down the Berlin Wall. It was the courage of thousands of ordinary people who on November 9th twenty years ago streamed across the bridge separating the two sides of Berlin shouting, "We are the people, we are the people" and regardless of the presence of border police proceeded to tear down the hated wall that separated them from their fellow countrymen and women on the other side. It was a momentous demonstration of the power of ordinary people to bring about change and it united Germany, changing forever the political and human map of Europe and the world.

Twenty years later, in a rain-swept Berlin, western leaders stood in front of the magnificently illuminated Brandenburg Gate and declared what a great blow for freedom the collapse of the wall had been. The leaders' words make for interesting reading when we consider the state of the world twenty years later where walls of one kind or another still separate people. The French President said, "The fall of the Berlin Wall rings today as an appeal to fight oppression." And Hilary Clinton, the US secretary of State commented, "A wall, a physical wall, may have come down but there are other walls that exist that we have to overcome and we will be working together to accomplish that." But it was the British Prime Minister who went even further and listed the countries still behind walls of dictatorship and tyranny. "An Africa in poverty, Dafur in agony, Zimbabwe in tears, Burma in chains, individuals even when in pain need not suffer forever without hope." Fine words from all the leaders but do their actions match their words when we see them propping up illegitimate regimes in the name of stability, regardless of the abhorrent values those regimes espouse?

And where was Robert Mugabe while the cause of freedom was being celebrated in Berlin? Regardless of the 15 day SADC deadline set to start solving the urgent problems at home, Robert Mugabe was in Egypt at a Sino-Africa Summit. China, the last officially communist state, despite the blatantly capitalist lifestyle of its middle classes, is at the forefront of the new 'Scramble for Africa' and their presence has little or nothing to do with freedom or human rights for the dispossessed people of Africa. With very little direct criticism from the west, anxious not to offend China's rapidly growing economic might, the Chinese are now actively pursuing their exploitation of Africa's natural resources in Algeria, Congo-Brazaville, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Sudan and Zimbabwe. In 2005 when the British and the Americans condemned Zimbabwe's recent elections as 'neither free nor fair' Robert Mugabe reacted with predictable anti-western rhetoric. On Independence Day that year he declared, "We have turned east where the sun rises and given our back to the west where the sun sets," In effect, Robert Mugabe sold the country's natural resources to China, knowing that they will not raise even a whisper against the human rights abuses that continue to be perpetrated. This week alone we have seen the arrest of trade union leaders on spurious charges, the ongoing farce of Roy Bennett's trial, the release of a documentary showing the terrible suffering of farm workers on the invaded farms and yet another desperate plea from a white farmer to Morgan Tsvangirai to do something to restore law and order on the farms. And all the while the country sleepwalks into another agricultural season where next to nothing is grown to feed the hungry masses. Today, The Zimbabwean reports that even the war vets who occupied the farms are now beginning to see that 'Mugabe traded land for votes' and in a quotation that has particular relevance to the Chinese presence in Zimbabwe, combined with the all-pervasive corruption of local Zanu PF officials, one resettled war veteran remarked, "I have often wondered how this US$300 million that this country is said to be owing to China was acquired and how it was used if the state still fails to pay farmers for their maize."

It seems that the wall of propaganda built by Zanu PF's repressive media laws to silence all independent voices has been breached! As Robert Frost puts it, "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know/What I was walling in or walling out/ And to whom I was like to give offence/ Something there is that doesn't love a wall."
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.

6th November 2009

Dear Friends.
There was a terse little announcement from the SADC Summit in Maputo on Thursday 05.11,09 from Morgan Tsvangirai that his party had lifted their boycott of the GNU with immediate effect for a thirty day period, in which time Robert Mugabe would be expected to deal with the ‘pertinent' issues that had led to the MDC's disengagement. We all know what those ‘pertinent' issues are, whether they remain intact after the Summit will only be evident in the coming thirty days. If Morgan Tsavangirai has not been arm-twisted by SADC into dropping any of his demands then by 05.12. 09 the country should have a new Attorney General, a new Reserve Bank Governor, Roy Bennett will be installed as Deputy Minister of Agriculture and the Provincial Governors will also have been installed in their posts. The next thirty days will surely be a test of Mugabe's authority; will he be able to persuade his supporters on the ground, the army, the police and the hated CIO security agents, that the GNU is a political reality which they must accept or will he once again introduce all the usual red herrings of sanctions and British involvement to muddy the waters? The MDC have now added the name of George Charamba to the list of unacceptable Zanu PF officials. Will Charamba now tone down his ‘hate' speech and will ZBC/TV and the government controlled Herald begin to report more fairly- or at all - on the MDC? The next thirty days will be a test not only of Mugabe's honesty but also of Tsvangirai's strength of purpose.

For me and the thousands of others who signed the AVAAZ online petition to ban Zimbabwe from the Kimberley Process, the shock of the week was the failure to expel Zimbabwe for the blatant human rights abuses committed at the Chiadzwa diamond fields. Despite all the credible documentary evidence of murder and brutality committed against Zimbabwean citizens, despite clear evidence of the massacre of 200 people at Chiadzwa, the Kimberley Process meeting in Namibia failed to expel Zimbabwe or even to impose a six-month ban on diamond sales. Instead, they will send a monitor to Chiadzwa to check up on the human rights situation and oversee the production and sales procedures! The Kimberley Process is an international diamond certification process, set up in 2003 to monitor the sale of the gems and ensure that ‘blood diamonds' are no longer sold on the international market. The Process involves some 99 members representing 75 countries who make up 99.8% of the world's diamond production. Obert Mpofu, Zimbabwe's Mining Minister, was present at the meeting in Namibia. There was "insufficient evidence" he declared, that Zimbabwe was in breach of Kimberley Process rules and, unbelievably, the meeting chose to accept his word. But not so unbelievable when we see that Zimbabwe was defended by South Africa, Namibia, Russia and the DRC, all diamond producing countries. You would think that they would all be concerned to clean up the diamond trade but, in fact, it was their veto that let Zimbabwe off the hook. Liberia's Minister of Mines had visited Chiadzwa back in July to see for himself and he spoke movingly about how the diamond trade had funded the bloody wars that have killed thousands in his own country and in the DRC. None of that made any difference to the Kimberley Process decision; in blatant defiance of their own rules, Zimbabwe's - blood diamonds' will continue to be sold, enriching army generals, ministers of state and all the other assorted crooks who support Robert Mugabe's continued stay in power. Their motives are at least understandable, greed is after all a universal phenomenon, but what remains incomprehensible is South Africa's continuing support for the dictator. The business community in South Africa appears to be equally indifferent to human rights considerations as they gobble up more and more businesses in Zimbabwe. Today we read that a Johannesburg based firm called the New Reclamation Group will form a joint venture with Zimbabwe to mine the Chiadzwa diamond deposits. The New Reclamation Group is a scrap metal company partly owned by Old Mutual plc, another South African company whose business interests include a sizeable share holding in Zimpapers, the owners of The Herald and Chronicle, whose hate speech and pernicious propaganda have propped up the evil Zanu PF regime for decades and kept the Zimbabwean public disinformed on every issue – from crucial election issues to horrific human rights abuses. Old Mutual plc is the second largest share holder in Zimpapers. Pretty ironic that a company based in South Africa, a country where the press operates freely and which prides itself on one of the most liberal constitutions in Africa, should be so closely connected with a Zimbabwean newspaper group that daily spews forth virulent racist propaganda. South Africa's constitution, adopted in 1996 clearly states in its bill of rights that all its citizens regardless of sexual orientation, race or gender have the right to live in "a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights." Those noble ideals seem not to apply when South African government and business deals with Robert Mugabe and the country he has ruined.

Instead of censuring his appalling record of misgovernance, South Africa protects him at every turn. Leaving morality aside, as the South Africans so obviously have, perhaps the forthcoming 2010 World Cup with all its potential business opportunities will convince them that their support for the geriatric dictator is a serious error of judgement? Meanwhile, South Africa continues to buy up our impoverished and desperate country where 50% of pupils cannot afford to write their O level exams this year because the fees are just unaffordable and half the population is living on food aid. I'd say they are very ‘pertinent' issues and not likely to be dealt with in the next thirty days.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.