Hands… and other things on the day of a General Strike
April 15th, 2008
The first bit of news I received this morning had nothing to do with the general strike called by the opposition. It was a call from a friend: “I hope you’ve got news for me!” I said loudly, before he could say hullo.
“I do” he said.
I thought it would be strike related news. Instead he said a contact of his had phoned him and told him that people in the Musana Communal Lands, in the Bindura / Shamva area (Mashonaland Central), have had their hands cut off. That the pattern of beatings and burnings had taken a dramatic turn for the worse.
The open hand is the symbol of the winning opposition.
Despite the fact he trusts his contact, he said he needed to do what he could to verify the information. He asked me to blog it anyway, but to stress we are trying to find out more – to verify and confirm. It’s hard getting info out of the darkest areas in Zimbabwe. So right now we don’t know if it’s true, and if it is how many people are affected.
I know it could be possible. The Gukuruhundi, for example, is littered with torture and violence designed to psychologically damage as well as hurt. I also remember, many years ago, going through a particular area in Zimbabwe and seeing a women with a mutilated face. I was told that her lips had been cut off during the liberation war because Mugabe’s fighters believed she had ‘talked’ to the Smith regime. Symbolic violence is potent and doesn’t shout a message to the community, it screams it.
I don’t know if its because news of the hands violence is so grotesque that my mind is struggling to accommodate it as a truth. I need it confirmed, even as I don’t doubt the capability of Mugabe’s crowd to be so grotesque. I think its denial at what it means for our future.
If this level of torture is endorsed at higher levels – a kind that doesn’t heal externally and get covered over by clothes – then it suggests the military big wigs have thrown all caution to the wind and are going for broke.
You can’t draw back from this. It’s one thing for politicians to have a discussion about immunity for crimes committed in 1982; but quite another to talk about immunity for what happened yesterday and today.
How do I move from that to news about the strike….? Awkwardly:
Strike news: an sms colleague from a friend in Harare has said: “There is talk of soldiers chasing people on the streets of Glen
Norah in Harare early this morning”
An email to us this morning said: “This is a very good idea but the majority of Zimbabwe is not aware of this call. Even myself was not aware until this morning when I was already at work, just to see this e-mail now.”
So, I’m not sure yet what is or isn’t happening. I was trying to find out but the news about the hands that came instead has left me winded.
Update: I called my colleague in Harare. He said … there is a report of a Kombi bus having been burnt in Warren Park, a township in Harare, and soldiers chasing people in the streets of Glen Norah, another township in Harare. Companies in the industrial sites of Harare are reporting less than 50% turnout by staff.
April 15th, 2008 10:53
I understand the desperation to do something – anything – yet fear the effects of this strike call. So many are already unemployed in Zimbabwe, struggling to survive and to put one’s job at risk is a big ask.
I’m also thinking of the tragedies that ensued during the struggle years in SA when local communities effectively turned on each other, burning buses, throwing people’s groceries on the ground, forcing women to drink detergent and many worse things. I would think that public actions such as WOZA have done, utilising “flash mobs” and/or well planned acts of symbolic impact (including sabotage), actions that start small (but annoying for ZANU-PF) and gradually ramp up, might be preferable. However, we hope and pray for a positive impact.
April 15th, 2008 11:07
We are listening.
April 15th, 2008 11:52
Horror.
Sokwanele, Please Please publish your list of addresses and a call for mailing action from outside Zim in an immediately visible place and make it very easy to do. I am directing a lot of people to your page to act, outside my personal circle, and it’s very important to make it easy for them. Thank you.
April 15th, 2008 12:17
lthink zimbabweans have been patient enough for how long will the people suffer because of one person who is greed and selfish who does not want to give other people a chance to rule even if he loses in a democratic election.Why is the world afraid of Mugabe
April 15th, 2008 13:45
enough: We hear you and are working very hard on finding a way to collect, collate, and make publically available – in a very very easy way accessible to Zimbabweans – a central list of contacts that Zimbabweans can work with. Zimbabweans cannot trawl through the internet looking for contacts; we need a tool at our fingertips.
April 15th, 2008 14:32
Standing back for a moment, I do believe that the ultimate answer still lies somehow with South Africa. There are already small signs that the ANC are turning (not yet officially against Mugabe personally) but against the unchallenged power of Zanu PF. There is a whiff of new leadership afoot that wants to see a change. How this will play out, and how long it will take to become a full condemnation of the status quo is anyone’s guess. But it is there, and, I think, growing.
April 15th, 2008 15:01
This is such awful news. I pray it is not true. As someone has said: what cannot be forgiven is that Mugabe has brutalised and corrupted so many and such lovely Zimbabweans. Keep strong. We have come so far. The darkest before the dawn…
April 15th, 2008 17:45
you have not come back to advise if the hand story is true have you anymore facts as yet
i think you need to let everyone know what facts you have now found as it is very upsetting to say the least very hard for the brain to take in
April 15th, 2008 19:16
Boomerang: I haven’t been able to find anything more yet. I will give you an update, if I can, as soon as I can.
April 16th, 2008 11:16
“Chikwana, 38, says she is not an opposition activist and that her vote is her secret. But not secret enough. There were two polling stations in Chiwaka. The one in the centre appeared to be correctly run but the other, on the edge of the village, raised suspicions. Ahead of the elections Zanu-PF was telling people that they should vote there.
“When they were beating me they wanted to know why I didn’t go to their polling station. They said to me: there we could see how you put your vote, if you vote in the other place it’s secret and that means you voted for the opposition. They said they knew how people voted in that polling station from the figures and it wasn’t for Zanu-PF,” she said. “They said we must vote for Zanu-PF. If you don’t vote Zanu-PF you must go away. They said we were selling the country to the whites.”
See good report on http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/16/zimbabwe
April 17th, 2008 22:10
I just received the following from ROHR (Restoration of Human Rights) in Zimbabwe. I’ve edited out names…
“Security alert. The Zimbabwe Police looking for ROHR members. They came pa[address; name omitted]‘s flat looking for our office and threatened mai [name omitted] the tenant with detention if she fails to give them our address. She did not know our address. Individuals from various civic orgs and MDC are being picked and arrested. So far more than 100 arrests have been reported”.