Waiting is a way of life in Zimbabwe.

I’ve been watching and waiting for over 36 hours for the official announcement of Zimbabwe’s just-ended one-horse-race – the Run-off of the Presidential election. I don’t normally watch zanu-pf’s brand of national television programming, but have had to do so in order to see the official Election results. It is a cross between good AIDS-awareness adverts/programs and bad pro-zanu-pf propaganda. Of it all, what sticks in my mind are the words of the one advert “Imagine the possibility of an AIDS-free generation – it starts with you!”.

So what is that to the world? Nothing on the face of it, but if we look deeper at the situation in Zimbabwe, the latest tragedy unfolds. Outplayed, out-manouevered or just plain outclassed in the game of political genocide, the peaceful people of Zimbabwe stand stunned by the sheer brazenness of their murderous President-to-be. The majority of the populace has just ‘lost’ the latest round of manipulated and rigged elections to him and his political minority.

With the ability to shed political skins like a snake – one minute a venomous cobra sending waves of paid thugs to kill and mutilate defenceless villagers, the next a concerned and devoted family man and icon for the nation – he strides defiantly from the jaws of defeat once more.

One would expect him to rest – to recouperate from an election campaign in which he had to dig to the bottom of his dirty tricks bag for the most horrific forms of murder, shamelessly brutal violence and ballot-rigging to snatch a bloody victory from the people.

No – not our President-elect to-be will not rest! He is to be enthroned within 48 hours of the close of polling, then he is off to a Summit of the African Union in Cairo.

What of that? Having been publicly criticised by some members of the AU, he is now wearing his anti-colonial, anti-western, chameleon-skin cloak, to strut his stuff in front of his African peers. This cloak is well-known in Africa. It can make a mass-murderer look like a choir-boy. That – together with his legendary eloquence which allows him to turn mesmerising lies into the “truth” – he will be attempting to persuade his peers that not only does he speak for the people of Zimbabwe (by right of conquest) but that he should be allowed to pervert the course of Africa’s re-birth as a continent of self-reliant sovereign states. His stance is that he is leading the people of the continent in the struggle to free them from colonialist and capitalist western oppression and exploitation.

What he won’t be telling them is how he equates murdering the people of Zimbabwe – and stealing the wealth of the nation – with giving the people of Africa freedom from anything! What he won’t be explaining is how an oppressive African dictator is better than an honest, patriotic, democratic African leader!

Will he succeed in this crusade? Will men of high political stature – astute and well-seasoned African politicians – allow themselves to be manipulated, mesmerised, bullied and cajoled into uniting behind the one-way walls of dictatorship? Will they stand by their principles and the rights of the people of the people of Africa?

We have hope! We have recently seen and heard African leaders of integrity refusing to accept the actions of Mugabe and his supporters.

Stand fast and pray, people of Africa! Imagine the possibility of a dictator-free generation. It starts with you!

Hey – but am I missing something here? Zim has an independent electoral body – the Zimbabwe Electoral Comission (ZEC) – who are appointed by the President, and are supposedly completely autonomous. On TV they display their logo, surrounded by the words “INDEPENDENCE”, “TRANSPARENCY”, and “IMPARTIALITY”.

We also have a government and a ruling party that insist that they have run a free and fair election. Then again, several groups of international observers have departed from Zim after echoing the government’s mantra of “free and fair”.

Since 29 March we have had several developments that are so bizarre and so completely ludicrous that they effectively rubbish any pretence that the just-held Zimbabweean harmonised elections (Presidential, House of Assembly, Senatorial and Local Government) were free or fair.

Firstly, after an emergency meeting of the ruling party’s politburo last week, they issued a statement saying that they would participate in a run-off for the presidential poll.

Secondly, shortly after that, the very same zanupf announced that they will be demanding a recount on the presidential vote. Last but not least, the government has ordered the arrest of ZEC officials for allegedly understating the official presidential vote figures! (more…)

At 11.25 pm Sunday evening, the ZEC finally broke its silence over the election results. Justice George Chiweshe spent nearly 20 minutes trying to maximise the ZEC’s image and belittle that of zim’s electorate and other interested parties – particularly the international press.

Through his arrogant and over-extended explanation, he attempted to defend his commission’s almost total blackout of information for the last 12 hours. He confirmed that the ZEC would only start announcing the official results at 6 am on Monday morning, 31st March – with the qualification – “if they had been received”.

He “expected most results to be received by tonight”.

He went to great lengths to sarcastically indicate that the ZEC – and the ZEC alone – were the sole legal and authentic source of the election results.

He went on to berate “some sources” who had “taken it upon themselves” to announce results.

He was supported by a toadying presenter who prompted him with several questions designed to show him and the commission in a favourable light, and leave the listed wrongdoers standing in the spotlight.

These related to:

• their legal right to do what they did and how they did it, whether right or wrong.
• their being up to the task at hand, with the necessary technical ability and resources to deal with 220 parliamentary seats, 60 senate seats, 1000+ council seats, and the presidential election.

  Here he had to stress that “by any standards” it was providing very early results, and that “in other countries” the process takes much longer – “up to a week”.

  He felt that this this was a record time for an “election of this magnitude”.

• ensuring that the public knew just how big a task he was doing and how import it was to the future of the country – like we don’t know that!

He couldn’t understand the impatience of other stakeholders who had been putting pressure on him. He asked how he could be expected to be independent when “locked up with howling journalists”. He tried to stress that he had been “very accessible” to the media both internal and foreign.

Maybe he should take into account the fact that there were virtually no public announcements for over twelve hours?

Maybe someone should tell him that we all know that they were playing for time while the government decided how to convert a massive defeat into a comfortable win?

Well now! What have we here? Another admission of failure by the zanupf government? Or another act of paranoia by bob?

‘What is it?” you may ask, and indeed, well you may.

These days, the zanupf government seems to alternate from shooting itself in the left foot, then the right, then the left…… ad nauseum!

Well, I’m talking about the latest news that Angola is supposedly going to be sending 3000 of their “ninja” police militia to Zimbabwe, and that, in fact , these guys are due here any minute now. So – is it true? Have bob’s thugs been busy behind closed doors, making careful strategic plans to rescue mugabe from the stewpot?

I really wonder if this is true, or just another figment of the propaganda monster’s well-fertilised imagination. I recall, over the past few months, huge business deals with the Russians and the Chinese that were reported by government ministers, only to have the so-called partners, denying it within days.

So – should we be shaking in our boots? Should we lock ourselves in our rooms at night? Should we underfeed the dog to make sure that he is extra hungry and ready to attack strangers on sight? I’m not so sure myself.

One problem I foresee is that the average rank and file militia man is neither well spoken in his own language, nor fluent in others. Are these portuguese-speaking demons, coming with their own translators, or have they all been issued with the Angolan militia’s standard Portuguese-to-English/English-to-Portuguese camouflage mini-dictionaries? I posed the question to my brother: “That’s easy to solve”, he replied, grinning, holding up his right hand in a familiar (and rather impolite) gesture. “I’m sure they’ll understand sign language!”

Another thought – I wonder how the National Youth service will feel about these guys – (lets not be too formal – lets call them the “ninnies”) having earned their title of “green bombers” (let’s call them the “greenies”) by unleashing well trained, drug and alcohol heightened assaults with blunt weapons on unarmed, untrained and unsuspecting civilians, whilst backed up by armed police and army (ooh – that takes a lot of bravery that does!).

Are they about to be knocked off their perch? Are they going to be upstaged? Beware the backlash bob!

Then what about you mr gideon gono – financial wizard and saviour of our bankrupted nation? Has bob told you that he is bringing these guys in? Has he told you what it will cost to feed and maintain them? You can bet your collection of silver teaspoons that Angola will not be sending them at their own expense.

Yes sir, the “greenies” get Z$1.2 million a month. What will the “ninnies” be paid, seeing as they will not be on home soil and will need danger pay? I’ll bet my collection of beer cans that they won’t want Angolan rupees (or whatever they use in that part of the world). Nope, I bet they’ll want US dollars. So remember! When you next trade your forex on the street – that buyer may well be gideon in disguise, buying up all your US dollars to pay the “ninnies”. Sorry, “greenies”, but you’re no longer going to be flavour of the day!

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Mugabe, propaganda, Angola, military

Boy, is my neighbour steamed up! He is the kind of guy who regularly pays his bills on time, and always used to get that little note printed on his electricity bill “Thank you for keeping your account up to date”. However, loyalty to customers seems to be slipping into obscurity as far as ZESA (Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority) are concerned, as they try desperately to rake in every cent they can to save it from financial (zanupf – caused) ruin .

On 20th of October he got a phonecall from home, to say that ZESA had paid a visit and left a disconnection notice. Now that is something you don’t ignore in Zim. If they say you are going to be disconnected, you jump around – it can take many days to get re-connected. When he got home, he examined the document and found that in fact , he hadn’t paid his bill, so they were going to charge him not only what he owed – Z$5,300.00 – but a penalty of Z$3,000.00, and just for good measure, a re-connection fee of about Z$8,000.00! The trouble was – he had not received a bill from them for the outstanding amount.

Just to add insult to injury, he received his bill in yesterday’s post. The date of the bill was the 22nd September and the due date was 6th October. But the date on which the bill was posted? – 1st November – over 3 weeks AFTER it was due for payment!

I sympathise with him – I have my own billing problems with ZESA. Over the past month, I had a no less then seven bills from ZESA for the same account. This comes after not having received any bills for most of the past year. It seems that ZESA had a flaw in their billing system. Because sometimes they are unable to read meters, the system was designed in such a way that they could send out bills based on an estimated figure. They built in a “safety mechanism” that if the customer’s meter was not read within three months then the system would just stop billing until such time as the problem was resolved. That’s all very well if your meter readers do their job! However, when you have a disinterested bunch, they find any excuse not to do the job.

As a result, the system couldn’t bill the customer and ZESA could not disconnect the customer because the billing system did not see them as being in default. I tried to get around to the system by phoning in my meter readings but sadly, that didn’t work – my account was on the problems pile! Instead I resorted to making blind monthly payments so that I would not be in default when they finally caught up.

But now ZESA seem to have altered the system – they can produce as many estimated bills as they want and boy, are they going wild! I have had a veritable flood of bills. Not knowing that they were going to be more bills coming soon, I have been diligently paying each bill as it came.

I must say that ZESA is NOT my favourite supplier at this point in time – I am literally all billed out!

And – just to make matters worse – I still owe then more money!

Technorati Tags: ZESA, Zimbabwe, power cut, energy supply

Well, that is scary! But then again, with the current shortages in Zim, it had to happen.

My wife went to check her tyre pressures today – one tyre was looking a bit soft. She pulled into a petrol station, only to be told by the disinterested fuel attendant, “Ahh, no pressure”. She tried another petrol station. This time the attendant was more helpful, but once again it was, “Sorry, but we’ve got no air”. She tried several more stations, but with no luck.

Guess what folks? It’s official – Zimbabwe has run out of air!

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, inflation, economy

It was a relatively small, but significant, show of defiance. Today, a group of Christian Pastors, accompanied by members of their congregations, staged a peaceful march and prayer service in Zimbabwe‘s second city, Bulawayo - our City of Kings.

Originally banned by the police, the event went ahead after the High Court granted them a last-minute go-ahead yesterday. And go ahead they did – despite the presence of baton weilding police patrolling the route of the march. It was estimated that, in all, about three hundred people took part.

So – what of it? Well – in the first place – it was to mark the first anniversary of mugabe’s horrific “Operation Murambatsvina“. Secondly, it was to show solidarity with the victims of this inhuman abuse of Zimbabwe’s poorest, and to remind the world of thier continued sufferings. I can almost hear so many people around the world saying, “So what? Dry your eyes!”. Lets face it – most of the world has heard of Murambatsvina, and what has been done by the international community? The plight of it’s victims has largely been ignored by the world, so why bother doing re-runs of re-runs? It’s just a case of another African dictator flexing his muscles isn’t it? No ways – it isn’t! Not to anyone who has a heart it isn’t! These are people that are being abused – our people! We will see justice restored, and we will see justice done!

So what was really significant about this march? Firstly, it says to mugabe and his pitiful followers that the people of Zimbabwe are not afraid to stand up to them – even though we stand defenceless against thier tear gas, their batons and their guns! Secondly, personally, I see it as a wake-up call for mugabe and his overfed band of theives. He has pushed the freedoms of the Zimbabwean people to the limit. The one freedom that he has not directly legislated against is the one fredom that will be his downfall – the freedom of worship. True – he has tried to silence the churches by using and abusing POSA. But he hasn’t been able to, has he? While many have been silent, for some time the spotlight has been on the Catholics and, in particular Archbishop Pius Ncube, in their condemnation of the excesses of the mugabe regime. But all that has ended today. The regime tried to deny the right of Zimbabweans to exercise their constitutional freedom to prayer, and once again – they failed! This marks a turning point in the unity of Christians in Zimbabwe – today many of the other Christian churches closed ranks against mugabe and his abuse of power!

Many pastors addressed the crowd today, many sad stories of victims were told, and many words of wisdom were spoken, but it was the words of a poet who addressed the crowd that were reported by a friend of mine:

“My brothers and sisters, our country’s salvation will not come from the West, nor will it come from the East. It will not come from the North, nor the South. It will come from above! Pray my people, pray Zimbabwe!”

Amen, my Brother … Amen!

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Bulawayo, Operation Murambatsvina, Murambatsvina, mugabe, worship, POSA, Archbishop Pius Ncube, prayer, Christian, churche, pray

This story comes from a close friend. It grabbed my attention immediately, not just because he is a friend, but because the depth of his caring has helped reinforce my belief that there is hope for us all yet.

Some years ago, he employed a gardener called Simon. He was a rare breed – one of those people that you like as soon as you meet them. Over the years I got to know him quite well on visits to my friend’s home, and on the odd occasion when he came to help us out with a special task. He was the proverbial gem – polite and hardworking, with an air of wisdom about him. It was surely one of God’s unfathomable mysteries that had made him accept the menial post of gardener.

After about five years, Simon was summoned by his father. His father was a Veteran from the Liberation War, and had been allocated a piece of land as a gratuity. His father was getting older now, and could not continue developing his small farm. Accordingly, he called his son to take over from him. Just to take the shine off the deal, the farm was in one of those real undeveloped middle-of-nowhere places that had a dodgy rainfall record. It was about 400km away by road and about 250km North of Bulawayo as the crow flies. Simon’s elder brother had actually refused his father, but Simon – being Simon – reluctantly but dutifully agreed to his father’s request. To our shame, I have to admit that we all tried to sway Simon’s decision, but he would have none of it. My friends finally and sadly accepted the fact that he was leaving. We all pitched in and gathered together for him all sorts of useful tools and materials that would help him set up a home and a new life, and said a tearful goodbye to Simon, his wife and two young children. We heard nothing from Simon for some time, but about 6 months later my friends finally received a letter from him. It was an upbeat letter – he and his family had been blessed with a good rainy season, and were literally reaping the rewards of their hard work. Some months later, came another letter. Simon had taken the plunge, and taken up a position as a Christian Minister in his rural home area. His family were leaving the farm in the hands of a co-operative, and following him. All seemed set for him.

No-one heard from Simon for about two years. But, this is Zimbabwe – there are few fairy-tale stories to be heard – unless you listen to Gideon Gono and his financial plans for the economy! Drought happened to drop by, closely followed by political devastation of the economy. Late last year, another letter arrived from Simon – bad news this time. He was in serious financial difficulties, and could someone help him to get a job? My friends wasted no time in welcoming him back, and he arrived in early December, leaving his family at their rural home. He settled in and things were going smoothly until Simon received a message from the co-operative who were running the farm. They had a bank account, but their signatories had left and could not be traced. Could Simon, who was still a signatory, come and help them sort their account out? It really was urgent! True to form, Simon agreed to go back to the farm and help out. He would also visit his family on the way back. Reluctantly my friends gave him an advance and he left on a truck that was heading past the farm.

That was the last they heard of Simon until about 10 days ago – nearly 2 months later! They had been extremely worried – Simon was not the kind to take the money and run. Was he sick? He often had recurring bouts of malaria in the rainy season. Had he run out of money? Had he been robbed or injured? All the awful pictures sprang to mind! The longer they waited, the more they worried. Then came the phonecall! It was from someone who they had never heard of, calling from a place they had never heard of, near Simon’s rural home. The caller said that he had received a letter from Simon, who had asked the caller to contact his employer. Simon had run out of money, the caller said. He had found his family on the verge of starvation, and had spent all of his money buying food. He was now stranded with no money, no transport, and was running out of food. How could they help Simon, my friends asked. The simple answer was – money! If they would just transfer money to the caller’s bank account, he could then draw it and give it to Simon, and all would be okay. How much money was their next question. Oh – about four or five million should be okay, came the reply. Four or five million! They gasped – inflation is hitting them hard, and that was still a large amount of money for them. What would he need that much for, they queried. Well, he explained, first there is the bus fare back, which is about one and a half million. That sounded right – a trip of about 600km with the black market price of fuel running at over Z$200,000 a litre! And the rest? Well – you know how it is in the rural areas, went on the caller. Ordinary people are not allowed to buy maize from the Grain Marketing Board depot – only people with political clout are allowed to purchase grain – at the subsidised government-controlled price. They then resell it to the “ordinary” people at a fat profit! The current price for a twenty litre bucket of unmilled grain was Z$800,000! (It sells on the black market in Bulawayo for about Z$300,000!) Their blood ran cold!

I blew my top at this news! How can you not get angry at such a blatant, murderous abuse of power! Villagers in an underdeveloped and impoverished rural area have virtually no hope of finding this sort of money! Without outside help, they WILL starve to death, while those with political clout will live to deny their part in what can only be called genocide!

My friends were now in the most awful quandary! How could they help Simon? Should they borrow money (they have a big family). If they did that, could they really consider sending money off to a total stranger in the middle of nowhere in the vain hope that some of it might get to Simon? We talked it over with them. It was probabably true that Simon and his family were stranded and short of food. But then, was this person – the caller – with both a phone and a bank account, a real friend? Or was he another of those with “political clout” who had figured out a way to take Simon’s starving family for their final ride?

Our thoughts and prayers are with Simon and his family, wherever they are now. We are desperately trying to track down a relative, to try and find another way to get in touch with Simon, so that we can help them. Please pray with us that we get there in time!

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, rural, maize, food supply, inflation, poverty, corruption