This Urgent Appeal, drafted by the General Manager of MWEB Zimbabwe, was forwarded it to us by a Sokwanele supporter. Please circulate the information widely. We will post further information as soon as we have it.

Urgent Appeal

I am taking this opportunity to write personally to all MWEB subscribers. MWEB has recently completed its year-end and as General Manager of MWEB I would like to thank you for your loyal support throughout the years. It has been a year fraught with challenges for the telecommunications industry, but also a year in which we saw a significant upgrade in bandwidth provision by TelOne. However I am writing to you today to appeal for support of a different kind.

Yesterday a tragedy unfolded, a tragic event that could have been avoided, one that led to the unfortunate loss of life. I overheard a conversation at lunchtime at Royal Harare Golf Course. A woman was on her cell phone and was looking for a person whose blood group was B+. My blood group is B+, so I approached her. She said that someone desperately needed surgery, but there was no B+ blood available. The operation, unfortunately could not take place until a donor with that particular blood type was found. I went to the Avenues and rushed up the stairs to ICU to donate my blood. As I arrived on the 3rd floor I was met by the family outside ICU and was told that the person needing the blood transfusion had passed away 3 minutes ago. The family had been desperately searching for a donor since 10h00 that morning.

3 minutes! That is tragic!

If I had known about this desperate need for blood, I could have arrived at the hospital sooner, and managed to save a life. Instead I was eating lunch, entertaining clients, when someone needed my blood less than 2km away!! I could have made a difference if only I had known, more to the point - if only someone had known how to get hold of me.

The country is desperate for blood. Even if one is a regular donor, this does not guarantee that there will be adequate stock when it’s needed most.

The young man in need of blood had been involved in a car accident on Harare Drive earlier that morning. He had been hemorrhaging and they needed to operate to save his life but could not do so without blood. What I wish to propose is a three-point plan, which needs your support and action in order to make a difference;

1. Blood Donation Day. MWEB will arrange a blood donation day at Meikles next week. MWEB will provide you with free parking, tea and biscuits and a 10% discount on one month’s subscription if you come and donate blood. Any new subscribers joining and donating on the same day will receive 1 month’s service for free. So tell someone and bring them along!

2. Database. MWEB will collate a database of people’s contact details, landline, cell and blood group, as well as their residential area. If ever the urgent need for blood arises, this web-based database can then be logged into and the type of blood can be searched for. The database will come back with a list of all the people with that particular blood group in the area nearest to you, and all their contact details. This facility could be the difference between life and death. Anyone with Internet will have access to it.
3. Capture your details online. Once preparations for a website dedicated to this blood donor database are complete, (a week from now) you will be able to log onto http://www.mweb.co.zw/bloodbank and capture your details online. All you then have to do is be available and prepared to donate blood to save a life in an emergency.

We will send out another email to let you know at what times and in what room at the
Meikles Hotel, the blood donation exercise will be carried out. We hope to have this database up and running within the next 10 days, and we appeal to you to please help us to help save lives.

Lets make a difference through making this work. If you have any queries or require further information please contact us at MWEB on (04) 25 33 33

I look forward to your response and action.

Regards
Mike Ehret
GENERAL MANAGER
MWEB Zimbabwe

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I was on a bus from Bulawayo to Harare the other day and sat next to a girl who had just come back from South Africa. She told me that she was coming back home for a holiday from university in South Africa. She said that she was on a full government scholarship (they pay for tuition and her living expenses for the whole time she is there for her degree - four years!) along with several hundred other Zimbabweans. I realise that this is good in that they are getting educated, but what is wrong with our Universities in Zimbabwe? We have paid millions in taxes to build them and now they spend even more money sending people out of the country to get educated and for their living expenses the whole time they are there. This raises the question - who are the people being sent over? Government officials children? I am very angry that we are paying more and more taxes to send people on holiday in South Africa while we have perfectly good schools here.

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My voice on the blog has been inert, silent, saddened and more than anything overwhelmingly depressed. Intellectually, of course I knew the elections would be stolen and rigged, but in my heart of hearts I harbored foolish hope – I so prayed for a bright future for our bedeviled nation and our impoverished people.

This morning, as usual, I logged on to check the international news and I was outraged that once again Zimbabwe is on the United Nations Human Rights Commission – now it is confirmed that the whole world has gone mad. Would you invite Joseph Mengele to run the WHO or Osama Bin Laden to oversee UNICEF? I long ago lost hope in the integrity of our neighbours, but one was able to maintain a modicum of hope in the United Nations - that hypocritical body should be immediately dismantled and relegated to the dustbin of history as yet another failed attempt by the world to work for peace.

How do I tell my children that this is the way of the world? How do I instill in them a sense of trust in authority and democracy? How do I face the starvation, depredation and suffering in my home city? Where do I turn to for help?

Selina laughed nervously this morning when we discussed the country’s empty grain silos, what else can she do? She suggested that perhaps her children can eat the carcasses of Chinese jets, ak47 bullets or the dirt of untilled farms.

The people of Zimbabwe are wracked with fear and misery but remain cowed by the dictatorship that clutches them in its grips. No food, no fuel, no jobs, no health, no education. The regime clings to power oblivious by trodding on the backs of starving children and turn deaf ears to the nation’s grieving voice.

I fear that the simmering pot will boil over, giving rise to anarchy and chaos, the prospect which has the regime gleefully rubbing its hands over as an excuse to exercise martial law. All I can do right now is pray – may the madness soon end.

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Organised by the <
a href="http://www.zimvigil.co.uk/">Zimbabwe Vigil Coalition. Please email savezimbabwe@hotmail.co.uk if you have any questions about the protest.

The outcome of the recent parliamentary elections, have left Zimbabweans back home in a state of shock and confusion. We, in the diaspora, need to act to help those back home. Reflecting this, the Vigil has been approached by Zimbabweans in the UK wanting to become more active. Plans are underway for a demonstration outside the Embassy from 1400 - 1800 on 30th April to protest against the stolen elections and to launch a campaign for Zimbabweans in the diaspora to work together to take a more active role in helping our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe.

What you can do

• Come and join us
• Spread the word
• Make banners and placards

Some suggestions for banners, placards etc.

1. Each day of Mugabe’s regime is a day too long. Every 24 hours 96 Zimbabwean children die of AIDS. Zimbabwe has highest child death rate in the world. (Unicef Report)*
   * reported by BBC, 17th March 2005

2. Zimbabwe’s Stolen Elections

• Huge discrepancies between votes cast and votes announced.
• Voters’ roll numbers 5.7 million, actual electorate 3.2 million - over 2 million ghost voters.
• Army believed to have filled in ballot papers for these ghost names ahead of the elections.
• Police and army in charge of manning all polling stations.
• South African President Thabo Mbeki declared Zimbabwe’s elections to be free and fair before the elections.
• No American and European monitors allowed.
• Half the electorate has fled the country and was not allowed to vote.
• Zanu-PF withholds food from suspected opposition supporters.
• Villagers warned that constituencies voting MDC would be denied food after the election.

Vigil co-ordinators

The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of human rights by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe.

www.zimvigil.co.uk

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There must be worse ways to start your day, but for me, starting the day eating cornflakes without sugar is it! Yesterday, we at least had some icing sugar - yes - that’s right, icing sugar on our breakfast! Are we a bit odd? Not really - we just live in Zimbabwe. But then again, living like this is likely to make us a bit eccentric!

We have been reduced from a major sugar exporting country to a country to one that can’t even guarantee supplies for its own domestic market! We also used to produce ethanol from sugar cane to blend with our petrol to reduce the forex bill for fuel. Now, there is no ethanol to blend, and even if there was, petrol is in such short supply that it goes directly from import to distribution.

No alcohol? …… now there’s a crying shame!

If that wasn’t bad enough, we now find that sugar is being exported.

Someone whose friend of a friend of a friend who works at Triangle, where the sugar is produced and packed, insists that Bulawayo is getting regular deliveries. But it certainly is not hitting the supermarket shelves. So guess where is it going? Straight to the black market! Yep - every
little Tom, Dick and Harry are peddling bags of sugar at exhorbitant prices.

But that can’t be it all? Nope - there are even more enterprising souls than that in Zimbabwe! It is being exported! Quoting another totally reliable source - another friend of a friend of a friend, it is going to Namibia. This friend was coming to work along Basch Street in Bulawayo and saw five Family Choice trucks - full rigs with two trailers - packed to the top with bags of sugar. Family Choice is a Namibian company.

And the real joke? Family Choice sugar was previously on our supermarket shelves! So maybe if we wait a bit we’ll see our sugar coming back, freshly repacked, at three times the price?

There’s nothing sweet about Zimbabwean situation at the moment!

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Hey but it’s getting cold in Bullies and not much looking good here.

I went to buy smokes at the garage yesterday, you can’t get petrol, oil or even air at a garage any more, but the kiosks are still pretty good. But they run out of my brand. I couldn’t believe it – Zim the kings of tobacco and we can’t even get my favourite fags anymore.

Then I tried to get some beers for me and cooldrinks for a treat for my sister’s kids – running out of those too. Yasses, you can’t smoke yourself to death here and you can’t get pissed either. Never mind the insane price of the drinks you can get, now I been told the reason you can’t get drinks is that the bottling company has got no money to bring in the bottle tops.

Then I heard about the new zupco buses mugarbage has brought in from China, one of my mates at work told me he checked one come on its ass in Harare last week because the geniuses in our transport ministry brought in low clearance vehicles that can’t get over the capital’s speed humps never mind our buggered urban roads, huge big potholes and rural dirt tracks. What a bunch of wallies.

I used to laugh at the okes on mud island slaving away in the freezing cold, but these days it’s looking like I gotta get my skinny ass over there too.

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I’m fed up! Fed up about the lies being peddled about the economy! But one good thing is that since the elections, the lies are becoming more difficult to hide. Firstly, prices are shooting up exposing the lie about the inflation rate – I don’t know what it really is, but I know it’s not the 110%-or-so published officially. Secondly, I hear that there is going to be an official devaluation – but there wasn’t supposed to be any exchange rate except the official one of $6000 approx to the US dollar – now we’re being told that actually there IS a parallel market, and that we will have to devalue by about 90% to bring the official rate to the street rate. Which brings us to a related point (number three) – 90% devaluation will hardly achieve that end – by my calculations, it should be closer to 150%….. And of course the fuel queues which are getting longer and more chaotic – that’s point number four. I’m sure there are more, but my mind can’t get round it all. All I know is that I’ve got less money in my pocket to feed my family now.

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Tomorrow is opening day for Trade Fair 2005. The local rag reported yesterday that “NOCZIM has made a special arrangement with 12 service stations in Bulawayo that will sell fuel during the ZITF this week”. There are two things about this that struck me as being totally shameless.

Firs
tly, the fact that they have made this arrangement to see us through this week alone. What about after the Trade Fair? A quick fix solution to quickly disperse the daily queues so the few international exhibitors think all is well.

The second is that the owners of these twelve ‘chosen’ service stations have openly agreed to this ‘arrangement’. Why, I wonder? It does not seem to concern them that the rest of the country will see something sinister in the deal. For convenience, they are listed in the paper: Modern Motors, BP Shell (showgrounds) will be selling at the NOCZIM price. Others listed are Exor Main Street, Comoil Airport Road, BP Shell Retreat, Mobil Ascot, Total Victoria Service Station.

Oh, and I must mention something to all unsuspecting Zimbabweans here who think they may stand an equal chance of receiving some of this fuel. BP Shell (showgrounds) service station is the same garage that refused to provide service to a friend of mine when she could not produce a zanu-pf party membership card. I expect our new friends from the ‘look east’ campaign will have no problem here, so, for this week alone, we will once again be able to give the impression that all is normal - free and fair in Zimbabwe.

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It’s 10.00 am on a beautiful, sunny morning here in Bulawayo, and I am working contentedly in my office when suddenly a thunderous noise is heard overhead. A plane flying over, but it is far too low for an ordinary flight, and no commercial flights over-fly the city at this time anyway. By the time I get across to the window the plane has gone, but I am left wondering.

A few minutes later the same thunderous noise of a low flying jet but this time it is approaching from the other side of the building (travelling from south to north). But as I get to my office window I see it disappearing to the north of the city. What dangerous nonsense is this? The pilot should be grounded for such crazy antics.

I have barely sat down again when, unbelievably, I hear the jet approaching again from a north-easterly direction. This time I am by the window in a flash and I have a full view of the plane as it roars past at low altitude. I am no aviation expert but I can guess easily enough what I am looking at. This is one of the six new K-8 trainer jets recently purchased by Mugabe (with God knows what money) from China. These are the military aircraft intended to replace the old fleet of British Hawk fighter/trainer jets for which the regime can no longer get spare parts. And the K-8s are not built for air-to-air combat but for ground assault.

God, it makes me angry that the dictator spends millions of dollars of real money to terrorize his own people, when half the population is close to starvation. I am fuming with indignation when, a few minutes later, the jet thunders by again, travelling north. Does the dictator really think he will cower us all into submission? Fighter jets or no fighter jets, we will bring him to justice one day!

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Jeremiah died on Friday morning. No … let’s put that correctly - Jeremiah was killed on Friday morning.

Jeremiah worked for one of our contractors - their office messenger. I’d met him often as he came by to drop off a wad of paperwork nearly every day. Seeing him from my office window, pedalling in slowly and resignedly on his delivery bicycle, I’d always think that he should have already retired a couple of years ago. Save for the sheer necessity to feed himself, I guess he would have - but there’s no such luxu
ry in Zim today for people like him. It’s work until you drop.

He managed remarkably well for a man of his age and size, I often remarked to myself - a large, heavy set man, puffing a bit as he swung off his bike and leaned it against a pillar. He had a heart problem, and had been off work for some time earlier this year. Yet, here he was still pedalling away, almost a fixture in our lives.

“Morning, Mister Pat” was all I’d get out of him as he wandered past and dropped papers onto the desk. Zimbabweans have a quaint way of making up nicknames for you when they don’t know or can’t pronounce your name. I never did find out how he’d decided on “Mister Pat” - but then a greeting from Jeremiah was a great honour, so I wore his nickname with an inner smile.

Smile? - a smile for him was a great rarity - his face normally impassive as if weighed down by the past …. or was it the present? His wife had died a year or two ago - I forget exactly when. That, together with his health problems, was hardly a great introduction to the harsh realities of Zim today. Faced with the enormous pressures of ekeing out a livelihood in our country, it is no wonder that our life expectancy has almost halved in twenty-five years of “independence” - or should that be “oppression”?

Jeremiah was a victim of the politically-driven onslaught that is crushing the ordinary person in Zimbabwe, a victim of corruption and mismanagement which is dragging the country’s economy down on our heads - a corruption that pervades throughout society like a slow-acting poison. To resist it requires the inner strength of a saint. I guess that’s one of the things that makes me so proud to call myself a Zimbabwean - because we must have millions of them! How our country still runs at all, how anyone resists the corruption, how anyone survives in the hell we call an economy - I still haven’t figured out.

The poison finally caught up with Jeremiah - indirectly. As the establised commuter transport system in the country crumbled since independence, the informal sector responded by using private vehicles to transport commuters - “pirate taxis” as we used to call them. In a typical response, the government “legalised” this mode of transport (party-based entreprenuers had sensed easy profits in a loosely-policed industry), and so the “commuter omnibus” was born - another tentacle of corruption! They soon became almost a law to themselves, fast money earners, low input costs, and not enough police to keep them under control. Not openly violent, not openly lawless, just “bending” any rules that exist - a sort of affable lawlessness. Driving at breakneck speeds, they defy anyone to tame them and laugh as they cheat death. Such are the effects of the poison.

It was one of them that killed Jeremiah on that Friday morning as he pedalled his way to work. No warning - just a quick screech of brakes - no pain, just instant oblivion for him. A crowd of curious onloookers formed a brief roadside requiem.

They phoned me from the office to tell me the bad news. A stunned silence followed, and I put down the phone. I wept inside. Not for Jeremiah …. No, his Zimbabwe is now at peace. I wept for our Zimbabwe, my Zimbabwe, the living, the ones who still suffer this Godless regime. Hamba gushle, Baba. You are home now. Pray for us.

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Bulawayo Public Library is one of the few social services still operating to a high standard in the city, but is suffering from a huge drop in its grant income because its City Council grant, which formerly covered 50% of its running costs, has now shrunk to less than 1% due to inflation.

Although the Library has increased its charges and started new services such as an Internet cafe, which has seen income increase from Z$6 million in 2002 to Z$350 million in 2004, staff salaries are now
only half the amount paid to staff in other local libraries and we are seeing senior staff leave to work in the Municipal Libraries, which pay double the Public Library salaries. The Public Library currently has 17,000 users - the highest it has ever had in its history, and close to 300,000 books are borrowed every year, but inflation and the resulting drop in the value of grants are making it difficult to survive.

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Had an unwelcome memory from the past come back to me last Monday - I sat in a petrol queue! It was over half a kilometre long!

We all - black, white, asian, taxi drivers, managers, housewives - became one again, all through zanupf’s mismanagement and destruction of a once-beautiful country! All trying to be patient, all trying to help each other along with jokes and idle chat as we sweltered in the early winter sun, or sighing with relief as we passed a shady tree.

I did finally manage to fill up my tank with my temper intact, no thanks to the owner of the Burnside Garage (corner of Burnside Road and Arnold Way in Bulawayo). He is a pig! Speaking to one of the guys in the queue, he was there alone because his wife had been banned from the filling station.

Her crime? She had the audacity to complain that they were happily filling up queue-jumpers (most other garages turn away this kind of low-life in the interests of fairness and public order)! And she is in good company - many others who have stood up for fair play have been turned away.

To start with, the queue sat for over an hour as car after car of ‘favoured customers’ were waved in ahead of the queue. A few days later they were “employees of Southern Petroleum”. Yeah right!

Justice will come one day, Mr Burnside Garage, just as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow!

Oh, by the way Mr Burnside Garage, we’re all still wondering: where does a man with a politically-incorrect skin colour manage to get petrol and diesel aplenty - for six consecutive days - when most other garages in Bulawayo are running dry, or have already run dry……..?

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My friend went to visit her mother this weekend at her rural home. She arrived home this evening broke and full of stories. She is over three hours late. The taxi had no fuel for the return journey so they had to wait in a queue. The trip which is about a two hour drive cost her $120,000. It was a treat. She says she will not return for a long time, as the transport costs are beyond her budget.

She said that the area is very unsettled. The families living in the village were recently ordered by the headman to pay $10000 each towards the “independence day celebrations”. People who live in the rural area are unemployed. A few have family members who live in the cities to work and earn money, but like my friend few can afford the trip home. With inflation eating away at wages earned, there is little money left (if any) to send back home. This particular area is an MDC area and the village is still angry at their stolen vote. The residents refused to pay the headman.

My friend said her home is dry and desolate. There has been no rain. There are no crops growing and no food stored. Two family members have been refused service in the local store as they have been marked ‘MDC supporters’. My friend worries about her mother’s future and how her family are going to survive. She commented that mugabe said that only the mdc supporters will suffer in retribution for voting for the opposition. She said that if the election result was genuine, it would infer that her village is a zanu stronghold. She asks, if that is the case, then
why are they suffering?

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Back to work today. Not one person has mentioned “Independence Day” which was a public holiday yesterday. It was not a day of celebration. Today, we continue the daily grind. Join the petrol queue in the hope that there will be a delivery as promised. Search for stocks in short supply.

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I bumped into on old friend at the shops today. Noma now lives in London. She went to the UK originally to earn money to send back home. As a single mother she could no longer afford the school fees on her local salary.

Slowly she saved up, bought plane tickets for all of her family and one by one they joined her. Noma said she did not particularly like living there and had to come home just ‘to put my feet on African soil’.

After five years abroad, Noma still longs to be back home where she was born.

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