I received a panicked phone call from a friend today. She told me that there have been a number of incidents where the police/army/green bombers/youth militia or whatever they are, have been going door to door in the residential suburbs (of Harare) and demanding to see people’s dog licences. Apparently if the licences cannot be produced immediately, the domestic pets are shot dead, there and then.

I have lived in this country for over 40 years and we have always had many dogs living with us in our home. My parents and their parents have had dogs too. My animals are my friends and I treat them with love and respect. I have never had a dog licence. My vet ensures that all my animals have had all vaccinations. When the injections are due again, I receive a reminder card from the veterinary surgery, which ensures that all my vaccinations are completely up to date. My vet has never asked to see my licence. In fact, nobody has EVER asked to see my licence. I did not know I had to have one, and I am not against purchasing one. I simply did not know that they existed!

Clearly, this regime is now doing everything and anything it can to mentally, physically and emotionally abuse innocent people. The trauma that it creates within a family when something like this happens is excruciating. How disgusting and despicable this government is! I suppose this is another swipe from ‘”Operation Murambatsvina”. The continuing Zimbabwean ‘tsunami’ widens its net.

I urge everyone who reads this, to please contact as many Animal Rights Organisations as you can to inform them of what is going on in Zimbabwe. Write to your RSPCA, your local MPs, anyone and everyone. We need your help to stop these horrific attacks now!

* Sokwanele note: The image here is of Shumba Gatsi. Her story was told by the ZNSPCA in 2003 – read it here. More ZNSPCA communiques available here

Zimbabwe, Animal Rights, Corruption

There are a series of frequently used views – I call them cop-outs – which tend to result in an avoidance of the ugly nitty gritty detail of what is happening in Zimbabwe. I wrote this out of total despair at a posting I read earlier today.

Black Looks posted a blog referring to Mugabe’s Operation Drive Out Trash here and the comments section drew a response that touched on a series of points I so often hear from my South African friends, but so seldom hear in my own country (unless its from a ZANU PF mouthpiece). All of the points ultimately do Zimbabweans a terrible disservice, and they join up into one big excuse to do nothing at all about what is happening in my country.

1/ That the Zimbabwean issue is exaggerated by the west

Quote: These inhuman action embarked by Mugabe government is a shame.There is no reason to justify such illegality. But,the truth of the matter remains that the western press have over-emphasised the whole issue.

Correct, the actions by Mugabe are illegal and inhumane. However, I’d say that describing them as a ’shame’, is a gross understatement of what Zimbabweans know is a grotesque cruel violation of their basic human rights.

But you are very wrong to say that the Western press has over emphasised the Zimbabwean issue at all. If anything, the full truth of what is happening in Zimbabwe hasn’t even begun to be heard. The reason why the people writing for this blog hide behind anonymous identities is because we’d be persecuted if the government knew who we were. We’d be beaten and imprisoned because of our writing. That’s our reality . Truth is not something that is valued by the Zimbabwean government.

Nevertheless, people in Zimbabwe risk their lives every single day to try and get images out to external audiences – African and Western – to prove to you all, to say ‘look, this is the truth, pictures don’t lie’. People struggle every single day to make external audiences take our story seriously, and occasionally, at big moments like elections and massive operations like Murambatsvina, the slumbering western media wakes up and reports. Ordinary Zimbabweans, without the might of a free media, cannot begin to scratch the surface of the truth. Even we, in our own country, struggle to know the full truth of what is happening in the rural areas. There is no way it has been exaggerated at all.

Maybe you can imagine the difficulty of achieving any attention from the west at all, but what you can’t begin to imagine is the deep and utter despair we feel when African audiences respond by saying ‘it isn’t that bad’.

It isn’t the self-interested powerful west that blocks freedom in our country. It’s an African continent too deeply locked into a historical discourse with the west to see past the rhetoric and face the unpalatable hard bitter truth. And that truth is that Zimbabweans have a liberation hero who is a very very bad person, who can no longer be described as a hero, who is truly evil, who is torturing and oppressing his people.

But worse than that for Zimbabweans, is that Africa – a continent which has experienced the worst excesses of oppression – is allowing him to do all his terrible deeds to innocent decent people, with impunity. These words written here do not come from the western press, they come from a despairing Zimbabwean, an African, whose faith and respect for the leaders in the African continent is at rock bottom.

2/ That the west is not even handed in its engagement with Africa

Quote: And i ask; What is the difference between what President Obasanjo is doing in Nigeria and what Mugabe is doing in Zimbabwe?

This point was picked up by the BBC a few days ago – see the full piece here – who offered this as the reason why Africa refused to do anything about Zimbabwe.

Yet many of those other African governments have overseen similar brutal evictions in their own countries, and yet have suffered very little outside criticism.

The sad truth is that what is going on in Zimbabwe at the moment is not at all unusual.

From one end of Africa to the other, governments have set about slum clearance schemes without any consideration for the people who live there, or any sense of responsibility for what happens to them afterwards.

I don’t understand, as a
Zimbabwean, why a lack of action in one country where human rights are violated becomes a reasonable argument for inaction in another country..?

Sure, lets talk about the fact that other people in other countries have been treated appallingly by their governments, and let’s put pressure on those governments as well as the Zimbabwean government. I don’t believe that action should only take place in Zimbabwe. I want it for the whole continent. I don’t ever want another African person to experience what we experience under a leader like Mugabe.

Why don’t we instead, as a continent say, I am sick and tired of African people being treated like ‘filth’ (to use the Mugabe government’ own description of its people) by African leaders. Instead, we weakly say, ‘Well, we did nothing when this country did it so how can we do something over here….?.

3/ That the entire Zimbabwean issue is about land

Quote: Mugabe’s sin is that he returned Lands to their original and lawful owners

The African public love this cop-out option. I’m sorry, but it really isn’t about land. If you believe this then the Mugabe regime has done a fantastic propaganda job on you.

The reality is this: every single person in Zimbabwe knows several people who have died of AIDS, we all know people who are struggling to feed and clothe their children – never mind educate them, most of us do not have jobs, we cannot afford to pay for treatment when we are sick, most of us are struggling to feed our families, every single one of us are battling with hyper-inflation.

The truth is we don’t want Mugabe in power anymore. Like any country that believes in the ideal of ‘one person one vote’, we want to get rid of the ZANU PF government so we can have the sort of choices and freedoms that other countries enjoy. We NEED a government that can feed us and provide healthcare in the face of looming famine and some of the worst HIV and AIDS statistics in the world. The other things, jobs, education, land – that would be nice too. But right now we’re fighting for basic survival here. Mugabe’s government has failed us badly. If we can’t find a solution (and Operation Drive Out Trash is NOT a solution, it makes things much worse) then we face many many deaths.

This is not about land – it is about life and death, basic survival.

Mugabe’s sins, if you want to know the truth, are many and varied. He murdered us in our thousands in Matabeleland during the 1980s – nothing to do with land. Where was Africa while we were dying?

Mugabe’s greatest sin is that there is nothing – absolutely nothing – that he won’t do to stay in power.

To give you a flavour of his sins – sins Zimbabweans (but apparently not other Africans) are deeply familiar with – I quote from the Breaking the Silence report:

Most of the dead were shot in public executions, often after being forced to dig their own graves in front of family and fellow villagers. The largest number of dead in a single killing involved the deliberate shooting of 62 young men and women on the banks of the Cewale River, Lupane, on 5 March 1983. Seven survived with gunshot wounds, the other 55 died. Another way 5 Brigade killed large groups of people was to burn them alive in huts. This was done in Tsholotsho and also in Lupane.

Read more here. Please note that this happened in the early 1980s, long before land was ever taken from white people.

If Africa is serious about African solidarity for African people (not solidarity for African leaders), then it’s long past time for Africa to realise the truth about Mugabe and his government, and to deal with it. To avoid it by hiding behi
nd familiar cop-outs, is to do African people a terrible and cruel disservice.

Africa, Zimbabwe, Human Rights, Justice

Sokwanele has just posted an article on our website which asks the question, ‘Where is the Church?’

As the horror of the Mugabe tsunami becomes clear for all to see, the question arises where is the Church in all this? Surely the Church has a role to play in condemning tyranny and calling delinquent rulers to account? Is it not the role of the Church to be a voice for the voiceless? Are there not historical precedents for the Church to offer shelter and sanctuary to the poor and homeless, and to victims of state-sponsored violence? And don’t the citizens of so-called Christian countries traditionally look to the Church for moral and spiritual guidance, especially in turbulent and uncertain times? So where is the Church in all this mayhem and madness? What has been the Church’s contribution to turning the country around from its present path to destruction?… read the full article here

Zimbabwe, Human Rights, God, Church, Refugees, Faith

It’s hard to find a scapegoat when you’ve already beaten them, killed them, or driven them away to other countries or out into the rural areas.

So what’s a poor President to do when the weather turns bad? Well, he can always play the good old ‘imperialist’ card.

Zimbabwe has a drought. Our people are starving and the commercial farmers with their local farming expertise and mass irrigation equipment have been forced off the land.

And you know whose fault it is that we have a drought…?

The Americans and the British of course. Who else…? Isn’t it totally obvious…?

Apparently those damned imperialists are deliberately manipulating climate change in Zimbabwe using ‘unconventional’ chemical weapons (I just love the inclusion of the word ‘unconventional’ in this context). Their intention is apparently to use the weather to force the region to capitulate to their demands for regime change.

“The prediction, which was the exact opposite of other forecasts, seems to confirm that the conspiracy to remove the Zimbabwean government has gone chemical.”

The BBC has the full story. Read it here, while I desperately try to stop myself laughing.

Zimbabwe span>, Mugabe, Climate Change, Drought

Belmont Motors, is the only garage in Bulawayo to have received fuel in the last two weeks.

Not only that, they have been getting such frequent deliveries of both petrol and diesel that the tankers actually have to wait until the underground tanks are emptied before they can offload their fuel.

All other garages have dwindled down to less than 5% of the normal delivery they used to get.

Why is Belmont Motors the only garage getting fuel?

Because it belongs to a friend of the Commissioner of Police, Augustine Chihuri, the very same man who has commanded Operation Murambatsvina which has caused so much destruction in Zimbabwe recently.

These queues must be the longest recorded since the fuel crisis began, at least 2 km long, such is the desperation of Zimbabweans for fuel.

Zimbabwe, Police, Corruption,

To the delight of the tens of thousands of Zimbabweans and huge numbers of supporters around the world who have been waiting for this day, Roy Bennett was today released from prison in Harare. Zimbabwe’s most famous prisoner of conscience and icon of the struggle for freedom and democracy, walked free from the regime’s notorious Chikurubi high security prison, which in recent years has come to represent the brutal face of Mugabe’s fascist tyranny.

There were emotional scenes when Bennett was reunited with his wife, Heather, outside the Chikurubi Prison. The reunion was a low key event deliberately because no one had known for sure that the regime would comply with even the most rudimentary standards of justice by observing the convention of remitting one third of the sentence for good behaviour. When they saw him, family and friends immediately commented on how thin the once burly Bennett now was – 27 kgs (4.25 Stone) lighter than when he was committed to one of Mugabe’s hell-hole prisons.

Roy Bennett was elected as Member of Parliament for the Chimanimani constituency in the 2000 Parliamentary Elections, representing the then fledgling Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). He subsequently suffered all manner of harassment, intimidation and outright persecution (see our article entitled ‘Supreme Court Challenge’ : 25 May 2005) at the hands of ZANU PF, culminating in his committal to prison on October 28 2004 by a clearly partisan and indeed vengeful group of Members of Parliament. In proceedings which were constitutionally irregular and clearly subject to political bias, ZANU PF used their Parliamentary majority to have Bennett sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for 15 months, with 3 months suspended. The sentence was manifestly excessive and disproportionate in any event to the “offence” which occurred in May 2004 when Bennett responded to verbal abuse from the Attorn
ey General Patrick Chinamasa by pushing him to the floor of the House. Bennett’s lawyers subsequently made several unsuccessful bids to have the sentence set aside, most recently on May 26 when the matter was argued before the Supreme Court. On that occasion, despite the urgency of the appeal and a concession by the Attorney General (later retracted) that the sentence was disproportionate, the Chief Justice reserved judgment – effectively denying Bennett his constitutional right to a speedy disposition of his case.

Bennett was again selected as the MDC candidate for the Chimanimani constituency for the general election in March 2005. However the regime effectively blocked him from contesting the seat by bringing heavy pressure to bear on the judiciary following a decision in his favour by an electoral court. Mugabe himself declared that the decision of the electoral court was “unacceptable”, and a higher court subsequently over-ruled that decision. His wife, Heather, stood for the MDC and was defeated in a disputed electoral result.

Though much thinner and physically weaker than when last seen in public, Roy Bennett appears to have lost none of his fighting spirit. He is due to give a press conference later today.

Zimbabwe, Human Rights, Justice

Jo’Blog asks the question which inspired this posting:

Who deserves a home better than people who don’t have one?!? And now, after he’s destroyed so many, he gets to build people new ones and act like the hero. Oh, and he thinks he’ll have it all started up by the end of August.

Think he’s built a house before? It’s gonna take a lot longer than that my friend…

Well Jo’Blog, to answer your question, yes he has a built a house before. This is his latest masterpiece, for himself of course, and boasting materials imported from all over the world. The design, you will note, is a homage to his latest pals – the Chinese.

A new wave of repression has hit Bulawayo’s western suburbs and is spreading rapidly. It is called after its Shona name “pfekazvakanaka”, meaning “dress well”. I first heard about it this morning from a youth from Mpopoma, let’s call him Vusa.

Vusa is a good looking youth who, until yesterday, used to sport dreadlocks. But he told me how on Friday (June 24) he and a girl friend found themselves cornered by group of about 30 so-called riot police. I say “riot police” because, as Vusa explained, they were wearing new riot police uniforms. Yet the people of Mpopoma did not recognise any of them, and when they spoke to one another, it was observed that they talked in Shona.

There were both men and women in the unit. One of their number carried a rifle across his shoulder while the others were armed with iron bars and sticks. All one can say with any certainty therefore is that they were a group of Mu
gabe’s thugs, masquerading as riot police.

The group stopped Vusa and his friend and demanded to know why they were not dressed properly. It soon transpired that they objected to the dreadlocks. They also objected to the trousers worn by Vusa’s girl friend. Patriotic youths, they were told, must dress properly (Phekazvakanaka). These other fashions were not acceptable.

With threats and coarse abuse they instructed Vusa to cut off the dreadlocks at once and the girl to change into some more modest attire. The unit was sweeping through the townships and if they came across the couple again and they had not changed, they would be severely beaten.

Then, just to make the point that they were the law now and any resistance was futile, they ordered Vusa and the girl to carry the big hammers they were wielding, to their next demolition job down the next road. Another structure was to be destroyed, another family instantly rendered homeless.

Vusa was very relieved, he told me, to get away with his girl friend from this menacing group, which he has a shrewd idea are in fact youth militia graduates. And yes, though he hates ZANU PF mis-rule with a passion, he wasted no time in removing the dreadlocks and his girl friend, he informed me, had taken to wearing a dress. The difficult part is that she only has one dress.

Pfekazvakanaka is the new ZANU PF rule, and though totally illegal, is being enforced in one centre after another across the country. The next wave of repression is upon us.

Zimbabwe, Human Rights, Militia, Current Affairs