A 2006 retrospective and a look forward to 2007

At the start of a new year it is appropriate to take stock of our
position, to see the gains and losses made, and to consider what
2007 might bring to those of us struggling to survive in the hell-
hole Mugabe and Co. have made of a once beautiful and prosperous
nation. The new year is traditionally a time for resolutions,
budgets and planning, but none of these are possible in the turmoil
that is Zimbabwe.

Looking back to 2006, we have little to cheer us; the losses seem
to far outweigh the small gains made. A straw poll taken recently
listed the following as the major events of the year:

• The continuing food shortages and increasing levels of
  poverty and malnutrition - despite all Agriculture Minister Made’s
  bluff and bluster
• A deepening health crisis, and the bleak news that the average
  life expectancy has plummeted to 34 years for women and 37 years
  for men (and this for 2004)
• The continuing scourge of AIDS and the abysmal shortage of anti
  retroviral drugs
• The doctors’ and health workers’ desperate resort to strike
  action
• The increasingly blatant use of torture tactics by elements of
  the ZRP to suppress any sign of dissent, most notoriously in the
  violent abuse in the police cells of leaders of the trade union
  movement.
• Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono’s spectacular failure to
  control the “number 1 enemy”, inflation, which started the year at
  585 per cent and ended the year just about double that figure !
  (the effect of lopping off 3 of zeros from the currency in August
  has already been negated just 5 months later)
• The continued harassment of private schools, and huge increases
  in fees in government schools.
• The desperate ratcheting up of the regime’s “Look east” policy
  which is effectively mortgaging the nation’s future in order to buy
  a frightened clique of ZANU PF politicians a little more time.
• The crumbling infrastructure evident everywhere but perhaps
  most conspicuously in the increasingly polluted water supply in the
  capital and the breakdown of sewage disposal services.
• The dislocation of normal life (and business) by the
  increasingly frequent power cuts and fuel shortages.
• The continuing haemorrhaging of Zimbabwe’s population in
  (mostly illegal) emigration to South Africa and other
  countries.
• The increasing harassment of industry by NECI and Zimra
  officials, and the jailing of company executives
• Repeated threats of a compulsory 51 per cent takeover by the
  state of significant mining interests - without compensation
• The nauseating spectacle of the whole “succession debate”
  which continues to mesmerize the entire ZANU PF party machine
• The failure of a fragmented opposition to begin to repair the
  damaging split in the MDC

The total breakdown of society is reflected in this list; what it
does not reveal however is the human side of the tragedy - the pain
and heartbreak caused to individuals and families by the evil
policies and practices of the few corrupt men and women who rule
this country for personal gain - and the fear-driven complicity of
others who lack the courage to say No to the bullies.

For the human face of things, consider the family torn apart by
emigration: the father who has crossed the border illegally to try
to earn an honest wage in Johannesburg, living in a crowded room
that he is forced to share with too many others, constantly
watching his back for police and immigration officials, and
hampered in his bid to secure a reasonably paid job by his illegal
status. He is denied the right to family life and unable to give
his children the love and guidance that a father should provide.
Meanwhile back home his wife struggles to bring up the family
alone, and to feed and provide for them with her own meager income
and the few Rand that her husband sends back. His children barely
know this stranger, and resent his sad attempts at parental
discipline on the occasions when he does come home. And so the
cracks in the family begin to appear, and it is only a matter of
time before they drift apart, by divorce de facto or de jure.

Or consider the grandmother, looking after her grandchildren whose
parents - her own children - have died of AIDS. She is in her
seventies, and has had her own time of child-rearing, when she was
younger and more able to cope with the demands it inevitably
brings. She is a widow herself, but now has four grandchildren
living with her, aged from 12 years down to 18 months. She is also
caring for another son who is sick with the same disease: he used
to have a decent job with the Railways, but he had to leave there
as the disease got worse. He did not have access to anti retroviral
drugs when he needed them, and now it is too late: his body is
thin, skeletal; his skin is covered with weeping sores; he is
becoming incontinent and barely able to feed himself. It is only a
matter of weeks before his body joins the three and a half thousand
others being buried across the country every seven days. How does
this grandmother survive ? Miraculously, since she has no regular
income whatsoever, from a combination of church handouts, sporadic
assistance from her last surviving (and working) child, and the
paltry proceeds from her tuckshop selling sweets, cigarettes and
whatever fruit is in season. And when she dies what happens to the
children?

This is the real tragedy, and statistics and the few independent
news reports reveal only inadequately the depth of personal
suffering involved for the majority of Zimbabweans.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe is being looted and pillaged by its rulers.
They access fuel at the official price of $400-odd per litre, and
run thriving businesses selling the same fuel back to the public or
the industrial sector at five or six or seven times that amount.
They pocket the difference, and term it profit, when its real name
is theft. The same thing happens with scarce foreign currency out
of which ZANU PF chefs make a killing, while at the same time hard-
working company directors who seek to access small amounts of
foreign currency to keep their businesses going and to protect the
jobs of their workers, are sent to jail.

Even the (to date) limited revelations of the extent of the looting
involved in the Zisco scandal indicate an almost unbelievable
enrichment of the few favoured - and protected - by the ruling
elite at the expense of the whole nation. (See our article on the
cost of Zimbabwe’s kleptocracy for further details …)

The names of many of those who are enriching themselves obscenely
by essentially criminal means are already known. The perpetrators
should be afraid. We know who they are, and there will surely come
a day when they will be called to account for their ill-gained
wealth. Justice may be delayed but be assured, once the people
have removed a criminal regime, justice will take its course.

Outlook for 2007

Realistically 2007 is unlikely to be any better than the year just
gone. In all probability it will be worse as the multi-faceted
crisis continues to spiral out of control and the regime becomes
ever more desperate to postpone the inevitable day of reckoning in
which both personal and corporate misconduct will be exposed.

Health services, education, housing and transport services are
likely to deteriorate still further. As for the business sector,
assuming Gideon Gono stays at the helm of what has been referred to
as Zimbabwe Inc., it will have little choice but to continue to run
on crisis-management as it reacts to his whimsical and ill-
conceived policies.

Even the UN forecasts for Zimbabwe are gloomy: The United Nations
Office for Humanitarian Affairs has launched an appeal to donors
for USD 215 million for Zimbabwe in 2007, projecting - like us - a
worsening of the economic and humanitarian crisis. They cited a
grim list of looming problems, including increasingly scarce inputs
for agriculture, significant food shortages, vulnerable populations
on the move, and the “continued impact of contentious human rights
and governance issues and reduced resources for humanitarian
programming”.

What would we put forward as the absolutely minimal requirements to
arrest the present decline towards a totally failed state and to
begin to turn the situation around? Three things:

First, a new coalition of opposition forces, including but not
limited to the MDC. The two branches of the MDC must overcome
their differences sufficient at least to establish a working
partnership and eliminate internal squabbling and competition.
Other civic and church groups would need to be drawn in too to a
grand alliance for democracy, similar to the United Democratic
Front which helped to make the final push for freedom and democracy
in South Africa.

A second pre-requisite for progress towards a democratic future is
a new constitution. Such a people-driven constitution would need to
be drawn up after consultation with all stakeholders, and modeled
on international best-practice. Needless to say it would have to
incorporate all the necessary checks and balances compatible with a
fully functioning democracy. Without such a new start the best
government in the world could not perform to its full potential, as
it would be hamstrung by a failed constitution dating back to the
Lancaster House agreement, and further emasculated by Mugabe’s self-
serving amendments. (The enactment of such a democratic
constitution would also address the problems inherent in the
judiciary which has become increasingly partisan over the last six
years).

And once a new democratic constitution is in place and the
opposition has overcome its apparent wish to self destruct, the
stage would be set for a fair and free election under the auspices
of a credible international team - with a run-up period free of
violence and intimidation, and with equal access provided to the
state and independent media for all parties.

Once a new government has been elected and invested with the
necessary moral and legal authority to do so (authority which the
present regime has long since forfeited), it would be bound to
establish an acceptable mechanism to bring into the open the truth
about the terrible years of mis-rule under Robert Mugabe - perhaps
along the lines of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. Those responsible for criminal acts should be brought
to justice and those who have enriched themselves unfairly under
ZANU PF patronage should be made account to the people of Zimbabwe.
The reason for this is not so much retribution as the desire to
achieve a measure of restorative justice - and the laying down of a
clear marker for the future that the perpetrators of serious crimes
against the people will not henceforth be able to walk free.

Once these minimal pre-requisites for a new beginning are in place
we have no doubt that Zimbabwe would be able to engage once more
with the whole international community - rather than being limited
as at present to a one-sided interaction with the world’s most
authoritarian and anti-democratic regimes. International confidence
would soon return, bringing the much needed new investment to
rebuild the country’s shattered economy, and no doubt a reversal of
the outward flow of Zimbabwe’s own skilled workforce. In short
Zimbabwe would be on the road to a new era of peace and prosperity.

How many of the above minimum requirements for a turnaround may we
expect to see achieved in 2007 ? Realistically we have to say,
probably none. But that should not deter us in the least from
keeping them firmly in mind and working steadily towards their
realization. Let them be clearly etched in the nation’s
consciousness as not only our common goals but the minimum demands
we make of those who have brought Zimbabwe to these desperate
straits.

The immediate question is whether Mugabe will voluntarily step down
in 2007 to make way for new leadership. Following ZANU PF’s
December congress at Goromonzi media reports have revealed
unprecedented anguish at every level within the party on this
issue. For Mugabe to step down now, leaving a fragmented party to
fight it out (perhaps literally on the streets) for the spoils of
power, and before any one of the three minimum demands listed above
have been put in place to protect the people of Zimbabwe, would
clearly not best serve the interests of the nation. Equally however
for Mugabe to extend his term as president to 2010 would spell
complete disaster for the nation. If there were a third
alternative, namely that Mugabe could step down in the near future
leaving a united ZANU PF with moderates holding the reins of power,
that would certainly increase the chances of implementing a
peaceful and orderly turnaround. However it has to be said that the
prospects for such a “third alternative” are extremely remote. The
fact is that ZANU PF is in serious disarray with a number of
powerful factions (each with a long history of violence) contesting
for power.

In all likelihood then, 2007 will not prove to be a year of
significant change. Rather will it be another year on the long road
to freedom in which those of us who believe passionately in freedom
and democracy had best batten down the hatches, consolidate our
positions, and continue to work steadily forwards towards the goal,
so that when the opportunity for change comes we shall not be found
wanting.

Share This

This entry was written by Sokwanele on Monday, February 5th, 2007 at 2:23 am. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.