Press release from WOZA just arrived:

The 36 WOZA/ MOZA members arrested yesterday remain in police custody. It has emerged that there have been threats to separate Jenni Williams from the rest of the group in order to severely beat her or worse. WOZA’s lawyer has also been threatened with arrest, for “interfering with the course of justice” whilst trying to attend to her clients.

You are requested to call Bulawayo Central Police Station and let them know that the world is watching and will not tolerate further assaults on WOZA members. Their numbers are +263 9 72515, 61706, 63061, 69860.

Background via SW Radio Africa:

At least 63 members of the pressure group Women Of Zimbabwe Arise, including six babies, were arrested in Bulawayo on Wednesday. Four members of the group Men of Zimbabwe Arise were also arrested when police allegedly used brutal force to break up a peaceful launch of the activists People’s Charter.

WOZA spokesperson Annie Sibanda said an ambulance had to ferry people to the hospital after they sustained serious wounds from police beatings. Those taken to hospital include a baby with an injured leg and a woman who may have a broken leg. Unprovoked the police officers embarked on a vicious attack on the demonstrators, who had sat down as police arrived.

WOZA leaders Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu and a Presbyterian priest are among those arrested. The arrested were taken to Bulawayo Central Police Station while another vehicle is believed to have been diverted elsewhere, as some members who were arrested were not at Central.

It’s reported the level of the brutality was so extreme the police had to take 6 of the victims to Mpilo Hospital themselves. An emailed report from a Bulawayo onlooker says he witnessed police assaulting people before some of them were bundled into police trucks; “I saw devilish beatings inflicted by the riot police on these women at Hyper Supermarket. Kuudzwa kunyimwa mbare dzekumusana (seeing is believing). Satan would have smiled to himself and marvelled what faithful followers he has.”

More than 300 demonstrators had successfully walked several blocks through the streets of Bulawayo to the government offices at Mhlanhlandlela where they began reading out the People’s Charter to the assembled workers at the government complex. Annie Sibanda said, “Approximately 30 riot police arrived and in customary WOZA fashion – the women sat down and prepared to be arrested.”

Despite being International Human Rights Defender’s Day the riot police surrounded the group and in a violent outburst; “began to viciously beat both women and men with baton sticks.”

Sibanda added; “I saw 6 people being offloaded from an ambulance. People cut in their faces from where there were beaten over the face. One woman is bleeding profusely from her leg.”

She said the security forces also chased the crowd down the streets beating the unfortunate ones in the process. “I personally witnessed a person who was sitting in a parked car being pulled out of his car and being bundled into a (police) defender,” Sibanda narrated.

The activists said the brutality today was unspeakable saying “it was obvious that the Zimbabwe Republic Police were there to spill blood because that is certainly what they did.”

A senior police officer at Bulawayo Central told us he was not allowed to comment, referring us to Police Spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena in Harare. It was not possible to get him.

WOZA said Wednesday’s launch of the People’s Charter was a result of a year long countrywide consultation. They say it was launched on International Human Rights Defenders Day as a fitting day to launch the Charter and demand social justice for all Zimbabweans. Bulawayo, the WOZA stronghold, was seen as an appropriate start to a series of protests that will roll out around Zimbabwe.

Technorati Tags: WOZA, MOZA, Jenni Williams, Zimbabwe Republic Police, Zimbabwe, justice, human rights, International Human Rights Defenders Day, torture, violence, police brutality

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Many will remember Jacob Zuma as the former Deputy President of the ANC, but most will remember him as the man who went on trial for rape, and during the course of the proceedings admitted that he had not used a condom even though he KNEW the woman was HIV positive. (This from the former Deputy President of a country which has among the worst HIV/AIDS statistics in the world!). He was cleared of those charges, and he was also recently cleared of charges of corruption. Zuma is a controversial figure.

The Sunday Telegraph (UK) recently carried an article featuring an interview with him (via The Fishbowl). It wasn’t the controversy which caught my eye, it was his choice of language when he rejected comparisions between himself and another controversial (to put it mildly) figure; namely, Robert Mugabe.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph before addressing a rally in Durban, Mr Zuma, 64, rejected comparisons with the Zimbabwean leader.

“As a member and a leader of the ANC all I do is carry out ANC policies,” he said. “How could you have an individual who would become such a monster? The ANC system does not allow for that kind of thing.”

So we have a senior figure in the ANC calling Robert Mugabe a monster. But any hope we might feel is quickly squashed by equivocation:

Mr Zuma said he could not give “a yes or no answer” to whether he supported Mugabe but made clear his sympathy for the view that Britain is to blame for the crisis in Zimbabwe, because it did not live up to its promises to fund land reform.

But if Mugabe is blameless, why the choice of the word monster?

The beginning of the title also jumped out at me - ‘I’m no Mugabe [...] - it reminded me of Mugabe saying “I’m no Idi Amin” a few years ago.

I wonder if Zuma used those words at all? Regardless, the moral outrage of these dubious characters makes me laugh. I wonder if there’s some kind of ‘monster’ scale in their minds that they measure themselves against - the Despot 100 Ranking. Mugabe looks to Amin and says “I’m no Amin”, but who does Amin look to? Zuma looks to Mugabe and says “I’m no Mugabe”, but who looks to Zuma and says “I’m no Zuma”?

Bessie Head, in her wonderful book Maru, writes a scorching paragraph on racial prejudice and ‘monster’ ranking:

Before the white man became universally disliked for his mental outlook, it was there. The white man found only too many people who looked different. That was all that outraged the receivers of his discrimination, that he applied the technique of the wild jiggling dance and the rattling cans to anyone who was not a white man. And if the white man thought that Asians were a low, filthy nation, Asians could still smile with relief–at least, they were not Africans. And if the white man thought that Africans were a low filthy nation, Africans in South Africa could still smile–at least, they were not Bushmen. They all have their monsters.

Seems politicians have their monsters too, and maybe they want us to make allowances for them because they can say ‘at least I’m not [fill in the name of another despot of your choosing]‘.

Sorry guys, you’ll be judged for who YOU ARE, not for WHO YOU ARE NOT. You’d be well advised to remember that!

Technorati Tags: Jacob Zuma, ANC, Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe, Bessie Head, Maru, South Africa

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Do we need any further proof that the Zimbabwean government’s repression apparatchiks are incapable of the brain stretch required to grasp the principle of freedom, and the human right to free expression and free speech? The logic and fundemental values simply do not compute in their brains.

Zimbabwe’s military has said the country’s cellphone operators are threatening national security by using independent connections to the outside world, official media reported on Tuesday.

“The mobile-service providers have their own international gateway system, and from a security point of view, this is dangerous to the state because we need to monitor traffic coming in and outside, but at the moment we can not,” the Zimbabwe Defence Forces director for communications, Colonel Livingstone Chineka, was quoted by the Herald newspaper as saying.

Chineka said the three cellphone firms should route international calls through the state-owned fixed-line operator TelOne, and not use their own gateways, in order to make it easier to monitor international traffic.

There was no immediate comment from the three operators.

[...]

Chineka, who was giving evidence on the Bill, said security forces would give their input before the proposed law is passed by Parliament, adding that cellphone operators should be given at least a month to be connected to TelOne’s gateway.

“We want to listen, to make sure the nation is safe. If we liberalise the gateways then it means there would be a group of people who would communicate without our knowledge,” Chineka was quoted as saying by the government-controlled Daily Mirror. (via the Mail and Guardian)

Like he has an automatic sensible right to know who is communicating. Grrrr!

Besides, how can he even begin to imagine that moving everything to TelOne is a viable option? This is what Peta Thornycroft, writing for The Telegraph, said on her blog titled Communication breakdowns yesterday:

Does Zimbabwe have the worst mobile networks in the world? It can take hours to get through to a number, even on the same network.

Zimbabwe’s mobile phone networks are in a sorry state

There are three networks: Econet, Netone, (government owned) and the small Telecel. Econet used to be the good guys, and the people who run it are pleasant.

Their service is as bad as the government monster, and Econet keeps on selling new lines while complaining that it doesn’t have enough foreign currency to keep the network in shape.

The government monster (aka, TelOne) is used as a basic indictor to reflect a status of ‘beyond abysmal and sliding fast’.

I don’t know what Colonel Livingstone Chineka is worrying about anyway, if no one can get through what can they say that’s so threatening to security? Maybe something, very fast like ‘pleasecallmeonalandline…‘ before they’re cut off.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, freedom, human right, free expression, free speech, military, national security, Zimbabwe Defence Forces, mobile, TelOne, telecommunications

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In a country such as Zimbabwe, where the media is far from free, still greater reliance than normal is placed on international reporting of the gross human rights abuses that are being perpetrated within our borders. Here, journalists are threatened with arrest and imprisonment under the draconian AIPPA (Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act), accreditation by the regime is required, and foreign reporters and press agencies are selectively banned. Accordingly, Zimbabweans learned of the biased reporting policy practised by the South African national broadcaster with a profound sense of shock and dismay.

The shameful news of the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) informal reporting policy came to light in September after an internal commission was set up to investigate the News and Current Affairs Managing Director Snuki Zikalala.

The commission - under former SABC head Zwelakhe Sisulu and advocate Gilbert Marcus SC - found that the SABC had indeed blacklisted certain commentators and analysts. It was not official policy, but rather “by instruction” that certain commentators and analysts were not used because they were critical of President Thabo Mbeki. Those on the blacklist included commentators on both South Africa, and on the Zimbabwe situation. The commission found that these “instructions” were not always objectively justifiable, particularly in the case of reporting on Zimbabwe.

The commission found direct evidence that Zikalala gave instructions that Moeletsi Mbeki, Elinor Sisulu and Trevor Ncube should not be used as commentators on Zimbabwe. Both Mbeki and Sisulu appeared before the commission. “Contrary to Dr Zikalala’s impression that they were out of touch, both struck us as having deep roots and connections within Zimbabwe,” the report says. “This is especially true of Ms Sisulu.” It adds: “We find that there was an instruction given not to use Mr Mbeki and Ms Sisulu for reasons which are not objectively defensible. We also find that Mr Ncube was directly informed by Dr Zikalala that he could not be used for reasons which are not justifiable.”

The obvious question to which these revelations gives rise is why these persons in particular were “blacklisted”. Elinor Sisulu is an active member of civil society both in South Africa and in Zimbabwe; Moeletsi Mbeki is a former journalist and now businessman and head of the South African Institute of International Affairs; and publisher Trevor Ncube is a successful Zimbabwean newspaper editor, whose stable includes the Zimbabwe Independent, and the South African Mail and Guardian. None of these eminent persons conform to South African President Thabo Mbeki’s agenda of quiet diplomacy - indeed, all have been outspoken in the cause of freedom and democracy in Zimbabwe.

Nor is this interference in objective media reporting confined to the last few months. Back in April 2005, the then Head of News at SABC Radio, wrote Zikalala a letter outlining her concern:

…if your instruction was not to use Moeletsi Mbeki, Archbishop Pius Ncube, Trevor Ncube or Elinor Sisulu, all legitimate public figures, then I submit that it is so unreasonable to be unimplementable. It would be morally wrong, professionally wrong, and ethically wrong, and violate not only our editorial code but the spirit of our Constitution.

Tellingly, that letter elicited a one-sentence reply from Zikalala the same day: “I don’t think that I will have the time and energy to be involved in such arguments”.

The fourth name blacklisted above, Archbishop Pius Ncube, is that of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, a courageous and outspoken critic of the Mugabe regime, who is also far from pursuing the “quiet diplomacy” of Thabo Mbeki.

Still more tellingly, at the conclusion of the commission’s mandate, SABC sought to keep its findings secret, going to court to get an interdict forbidding The Mail and Guardian from publishing the full text of the report. Thankfully, the High Court Judge dismissed their application, saying, “I don’t believe that it is okay to suppress information or to hide information written in the report”, and stating that the content of the report was of extreme importance to the public as the SABC was a public broadcaster.

Franz Krüger, a senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand’s school of journalism, said the SABC had “handled this whole episode very poorly”: “I think it’s a real indictment for a news organisation to try [to] interdict another from publishing something that’s clearly in the public interest.” He said that The Mail & Guardian Online’s decision to release the report was “a completely appropriate decision and that there was no justification for keeping the report under wraps”. “People need to see what the commissioners actually found,” he said. He added that the fact that the report found that people were excluded was “horrific”. “I don’t see how [Snuki Zikalala] can survive this but he probably will. He’s doing what the board wants him to do. The board wants coverage that is sympathetic.”

The questions that this affair raises are, firstly, from how far up the chain of command did this reporting policy originate; and secondly, what are the implications for Zimbabwe (not to mention, of course, for South Africa)?

To address the first question, as was pointed out above by Wits’ senior lecturer Franz Kruger, the policy employed was almost certainly dictated by the board of SABC. It is highly unlikely that Zikalala would have been acting on his own initiative. It was even reported, directly after the event, that the Group Chief Executive of SABC, Dali Mpofu, was “reconsidering his options”. So SABC - the national media house of South Africa - has been exposed as having, albeit unofficially, a policy of biased reporting.

Would SABC take this stand on its own initiative? This seems unlikely. Here, it is pertinent to look at the official government attitude in South Africa to the situation north of their borders, in Zimbabwe. Thabo Mbeki has been employing a much-criticised tactic of “quiet diplomacy” for a number of years now. Initially, this was not unreasonable, his rationale being to work behind the scenes with Mugabe to effect policy changes in Zimbabwe. However, as the months and years have passed, any such efforts that he might have been employing have been demonstrated to be worse than useless because the regime has become progressively more entrenched and more intractable. Accordingly his tactic has been increasingly criticised in the international community.

So did the instruction to the SABC come from the man at the top himself? That we cannot say for sure, though there are many indicators that point in that direction.

As to the second question, the most serious implication for Zimbabwe is that the current political and economic crisis - and the attendant humanitarian catastrophe - will deepen without the benefit of the objective reporting and informed analysis one would have expected in South Africa.

People are dying in Zimbabwe. Aids, poverty and malnutrition have taken their toll on the population, so much so that the average life expectancy has fallen to 34 years for women, and 37 for men. We need this news to be publicised; we need people - influential foreign leaders - to realise the depth of the humanitarian crisis here and to intervene. As already stated, Zimbabwean journalists are hamstrung by draconian laws and by the threat of the ever-present and much-feared (and rightly so!) Central Intelligence Organisation (the CIO, Zimbabwe’s secret police). As such, we rely heavily on South African media houses who are on our doorstep, to report the situation accurately and objectively. They have an historic opportunity to play a part in exposing, not only the humanitarian disaster which is unfolding within Zimbabwe but the massive crisis in governance which has created, and is now prolonging, that situation. If they should fail to seize this opportunity now in effect they would be contributing to the perpetuation of misrule and suffering. Biased reporting - or simply looking the other way - is costing lives in Zimbabwe.

“Publish and be damned” runs the old adage of intrepid reporters who refuse to allow themselves to be intimidated by tyranny in any guise. For Zimbabweans however who have no free press of their own, it is more a case of certainly being damned - condemned to untold further suffering - unless the truth about their country is published.

Zimbabweans are as united in their resolve today to remove the Mugabe regime as ever South Africans were to remove the cancer of Apartheid from their country. It is a Zimbabwean struggle of course but, critically, they need the understanding and strategic support of South Africa - as the liberation movement in South Africa once required the strategic support of the international community. The international community can criticise Mugabe and his regime but, with silence from South Africa and President Mbeki, this can all too easily be dismissed by Harare as “white neo-colonial interference”. What is needed is for Mbeki, as a black African head of state to stand up to the bully and say “No”. Mbeki has the power and influence that comes with being the leader of the economic and financial powerhouse of Africa to lead the way for a concerted international push on Mugabe to step down and hold free and fair elections.

We can be thankful that the evil of SABC’s reporting policy has been exposed: when matters come to the light they can be dealt with; whilst they remain hidden, the evil can work unhindered. We hope that the findings of the commission, and the subsequent subterfuge, will prompt all South Africans to pose hard questions to their elected representatives. We trust this will lead to a purge of the web of deceit that has been spun, and a new openness to objective, truthful and balanced reporting.

Most of all, we look to the day when President Mbeki will wake up to the fact that the disaster on his doorstep will not go away unless he and his government act decisively. Forget the old liberation war credentials - we need to be rid of the tyrant - and we need President Mbeki to act as senior African statesman to make this a reality.

Wake up, South Africa !

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, AIPPA, South Africa, South African Broadcasting Corporation, SABC, Snuki Zikalala, Thabo Mbeki, quiet diplomacy, freedom, democracy, media, journalism, news, reporting

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Congratulations to Zimbabwean filmaker Tawanda Gunda Mupengo who won first prize at the Dakar film festival for his short film titled Spell My Name. The film is about a young albino girl sexually abused by the headmaster of her school and a young teacher who stands up to protect her (via the Mail and Guardian)

I made this film to make it a talking point, to inspire debate and discussion so we can try and protect our young girls. There are so many stories in the [Zimbabwean] press about girls abused by uncles and teachers.

The four day film festival coincides with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and brings together filmmakers from all over Africa, all of whom have submitted entries devoted to ending violence against women in Africa. See here for more information on the festival.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Tawanda Gunda Mupengo, Dakar, film festival, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, violence against women, Africa, gender, sexual abuse

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Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. We mark the day with an image as a point of discussion. Chaz Maviyane Davis, a brilliant Zimbabwean graphic designer now based in America, came up with this winning poster design contributed towards the QUANTOproject. Chaz’s poster is one of the final 36 chosen out of 400 entries to be exhibited in Venice. Visit here to see the other thought provoking entries.

Technorati Tags: International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Chaz Maviyane Davis, Graphic Design, poster, art, prostitution, power, women

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WOZA Press Release
Theme: “Advance Human Rights - End Violence Against Women”

The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) defines violence against women as ‘any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, force or denial of freedom, whether happening in public or in private life.’ Women of Zimbabwe Arise and Men of Zimbabwe Arise invite all Zimbabweans to join in this year’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, from 25 November to 10 December. The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international movement, which began in 1991. The dates 25 November (International Day Against Violence Against Women) and 10 December (International Human Rights Day) were chosen in order to link violence against women and human rights and to show that such violence is an abuse of human rights. This year, Zimbabwe will join the rest of the world in recognising 29 November, which is International Women Human Rights Defenders Day. OUR SPECIAL DAY!

What Should We Do: Bang Pots, Make Noise in Protest
When: For 2 minutes at 8pm every night from 25 November to 10 December

To get involved, to give support, to join together please contact WOZA on wozazimbabwe@yahoo.com

Join WOZA by sending your application letter to P.O. Box FM 701, Famona, Bulawayo. Tell us who you are and why you want to join WOZA. Write in any local language. Send us a self-addressed with postage stamp for us to send your Sisterhood Promise. Once you have signed this and posted it to us we will send you your membership card in the second self-addressed and postage paid envelope. We will then bring you into our WOZA family.

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Technorati Tags: women, Women of Zimbabwe Arise, Zimbabwe, Gender Violence, International Day Against Violence Against Women, International Human Rights Day, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, WOZA

On the 20th November the army with the assistance of the Chiredzi police forcibly evicted a French Mauritian cane farmer from his homestead, even though he was protected by the BIALATARIL INVESTMENT PROMOTION & PROTECTION AGREEMENT (BIPPA)

There are now only about 18 white cane growers left from some 50+ growers before year 2000, and those remaining are only subsisting on about 20ha each.

The private Cane growers at Hippo Valley and Mkwasine have been plagued with jambanjas, violent takeovers for the past 6 years now. This has left the cane industry in turmoil due to the low yields produced by the new owners who in fact did not outlay any capital to purchase the farms. Several of these properties are now derelict and produce no cane at all and only employing a few people.

Lowveld News, 22nd November 2006 (via email)

Sokwanele Note:

This is a separate incident to the one blogged about yesterday.

Zimbabwe has signed several Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPA), compelling it to protect the investments and properties of participating countries’ citizens from arbitrary expropriation. Zimbabwe has such agreements with all the SADC countries, COMESA member countries, Germany, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, Malaysia, Indonesia and China. BIPPAs should act as a safeguard for property rights but, to be credible, they need to be consistently adhered to both in respect of foreign and domestic investments.

Technorati Tags: Chiredzi, BIPPA, Zimbabwe, Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements, sugar cane, international law, human rights, property law

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Our nightmare began when we heard a car drive up to the farmhouse gate, and a person in senior military uniform stepped out and gruffly announced to us that he was taking our house from us and that we had 24 hours to leave.

We felt particularly threatened by him and his tone and his threatening attitude towards us, as well as the fact that he was from the army.

Over many years of hard work we had built up a productive farming enterprise that employed hundreds of people who would have otherwise been in complete poverty in this particular remote rural area. Our work also earned the country valuable foreign currency. We even had a tourist lodge on the farm and offered a warm welcome to much needed foreign tourists.

The military guy who told us to leave only gave us enough time to load our personal belongings on board a truck and then set out on a journey to Harare.

We are now left destitute: we have lost our livelihood and life savings and everything that belonged to us - everything except the few items we could load on the back of a truck. We feel helpless as victims of callous and brutal authorities who have instituted a vicious policy of ‘cleansing’ anyone they think might be a political rival. Our hopelessness and frustration is exasperated by the fact that the world looks on and in its silence seems to condone blatant violations on international law and basic human rights.

If this was to be happening on the doorstep of Europe, in the Americas, or indeed even parts of the rest of the developing world, there would be uproar. But we in Zimbabwe are committed to suffer in silence.

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Technorati Tags: army, farming, international law, human rights, Zimbabwe

This Sokwanele cartoon picks up on the fact that Mugabe’s fast track land-redistribution policy has benefitted the elite and Zanu-PF supporters rather than re-dressing inequalities and helping the landless poor majority. These ‘new farmers’ are locally referred to as ‘cell phone farmers’, using their mobile telephones to issue instructions from a comfortable distance, seldom getting their hands dirty. In contrast, Zambia, post Mugabe’s fast track land distribution policy, is enjoying a vibrant surge in their farming sector. Their farmers and farmworkers - many of whom are former Zimbabweans - farm the traditional way. The result is a country that does not need food aid.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Zambia, maize, farming, farmers, corruption, cartoon

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Recently our telephone number developed a fault. We called the local office and reported the failure.

Some two days later nothing had materialised so we called again. This time they said that they had no fuel.

Getting more frustrated we called them a day after and offered to collect them to come and check our phone. This time they made another excuse. We need to take ladders!!!

Today we phoned again and suggested that the technicians do not need ladders to check the line, but they might be required once the cause of the problem is identified.

We’re still waiting.

Meanwhile, in a nearby suburb, after wild storms had hit the area, the electricity lines came down. The local Power Supply personnel arrived but had forgotten to isolate the area and switch the power off. A man was severely electrocuted in the process but fortunately seems to have survived the ordeal. One wonders if enough money is being spent on training?

Their charges are sub-economic and they cannot continue to offer a service when their electricity is about the cheapest in the world.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, power, electricity, ZESA, telephone, communications, economy, inflation

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Last week I wrote a post about the fact that Zimbabwe has the lowest life expectancy rate in the world for women. Today, on Universal Children’s Day, I can tell you that our country can also lay claim to the fact that it has the highest orphan rate in the world in relation to it’s population.

“Zimbabwe has the highest number of orphans per capita in the world,” James Elder, a spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) told the media.

“Most of these cases are due to HIV and Aids,” he said.

And HIV/AIDs adds another bitterly cruel twist to the dimension:

Meanwhile, an alliance of local child rights group on Sunday expressed concern at the growing incidence of child abuse.

The Child Protection Working Group (CPWG) said there were 8 600 cases of child abuse in Zimbabwe last year.

“That is 24 every day, or one every hour,” the CPWG said in a statement. “More than half of all cases reported involve sexual abuse of children.”

The statement said the rise in child abuse could in part be attributed to prevalent myths such as the belief that Aids and sexually transmitted diseases could be cured by having sex with a virgin.

Are you proud, Robert Mugabe, of the legacy you and your government have left for our nation - a country where mothers die well before their time and children are left alone and at the mercy of abusers?

For our government’s reference, this is the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child:

The General Assembly

Proclaims this Declaration of the Rights of the Child to the end that he may have a happy childhood and enjoy for his own good and for the good of society the rights and freedoms herein set forth, and calls upon parents, upon men and women as individuals, and upon voluntary organizations, local authorities and national Governments to recognize these rights and strive for their observance by legislative and other measures progressively taken in accordance with the following principles:

Principle 1

The child shall enjoy all the rights set forth in this Declaration. Every child, without any exception whatsoever, shall be entitled to these rights, without distinction or discrimination on account of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, whether of himself or of his family.

Principle 2

The child shall enjoy special protection, and shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and by other means, to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity. In the enactment of laws for this purpose, the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.

Principle 3

The child shall be entitled from his birth to a name and a nationality.

Principle 4

The child shall enjoy the benefits of social security. He shall be entitled to grow and develop in health; to this end, special care and protection shall be provided both to him and to his mother, including adequate pre-natal and post-natal care. The child shall have the right to adequate nutrition, housing, recreation and medical services.

Principle 5

The child who is physically, mentally or socially handicapped shall be given the special treatment, education and care required by his particular condition.

Principle 6

The child, for the full and harmonious development of his personality, needs love and understanding. He shall, wherever possible, grow up in the care and under the responsibility of his parents, and, in any case, in an atmosphere of affection and of moral and material security; a child of tender years shall not, save in exceptional circumstances, be separated from his mother. Society and the public authorities shall have the duty to extend particular care to children without a family and to those without adequate means of support. Payment of State and other assistance towards the maintenance of children of large families is desirable.

Principle 7

The child is entitled to receive education, which shall be free and compulsory, at least in the elementary stages. He shall be given an education which will promote his general culture and enable him, on a basis of equal opportunity, to develop his abilities, his individual judgement, and his sense of moral and social responsibility, and to become a useful member of society.

The best interests of the child shall be the guiding principle of those responsible for his education and guidance; that responsibility lies in the first place with his parents.

The child shall have full opportunity for play and recreation, which should be directed to the same purposes as education; society and the public authorities shall endeavour to promote the enjoyment of this right.

Principle 8

The child shall in all circumstances be among the first to receive protection and relief.

Principle 9

The child shall be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation. He shall not be the subject of traffic, in any form.

The child shall not be admitted to employment before an appropriate minimum age; he shall in no case be caused or permitted to engage in any occupation or employment which would prejudice his health or education, or interfere with his physical, mental or moral development.

Principle 10

The child shall be protected from practices which may foster racial, religious and any other form of discrimination. He shall be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace and universal brotherhood, and in full consciousness that his energy and talents should be devoted to the service of his fellow men.

Technorati Tags: Universal Children’s Day, HIV, AIDS, orphans, Zimbabwe, Mugabe, Zanu PF, poverty, child abuse, human rights

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It’s been a long time since I had the energy to write a word, but today, the 20th November, is Universal Children’s Day.

And I shed a silent tear for Zimbabwe’s children.

That’s a day that will certainly not be marked with celebration in our blighted nation.

What voice do the children of Zimbabwe have? What future do they have to look forward to?

With over a million orphans here, Aids ravaging the nation and health care a thing of the past, who is tucking our lonely children to bed tonight?

With the lowest life expectancy in the world, how many of our youth will die tonight? How many babies will make it through the night tonight?

With schools collapsing, teachers paid a mere pittance, books, pens and paper unaffordable, school fees beyond the reach of so many, what bright light shines for our children?

With unemployment over the 80% mark, what future can our children look forward to?

With starvation stalking millions of Zimbabweans, how many little bellies are wracked with hunger tonight?

Who in the world gives a damn? Everyone knows this country is shattered. So is any country, government, aid organization or whatever going to zip into Zimbabwe and fix this fractured mess?

I think, absolutely not.

So what is going to happen? Is there a Zimbabwean solution to the chaos? Once I thought there was, but now I see no leadership arising, no individual or group equipped or willing to take on the fight.

My silent tears overwhelm me.

Still here, but not really here.

Technorati Tags: Universal Children’s Day, Zimbabwe, children, orphans, Aids, starvation, education

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This is the front page of The Independent (UK) today. The image of grave after grave after grave accompanies a harrowing article about life expectancy in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are dying like flies - Zimbabwean women, in particular, are dying at a younger age than women anywhere else in the world. I was gratified to see the article use a particular word to describe the horror - a CULL - responsibility for their early deaths set full square at the feet of Robert Mugabe and his government.

This cull is not an act of God. It is a catastrophe aggravated by the ruthless, kleptocratic reign of Robert Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980. The Mugabe regime has succeeded in turning a country once fêted as the breadbasket of Africa into a famished and demoralised land deserted by its men of working age, with its women left to die a silent death.

A world used to associating language like that with weapons of mass distruction and bloody warfare played out in the streets of war torn nations might find the use of a word like ‘cull’ misplaced in an article like this. But David Coltart, in his most recent emailed letter, reminded us of a horrifying quote from one of Robert Mugabe’s most senior ministers - Didymus Mutasa, the current Minister of State Security - who in August 2002 said:

“We would be better off with only six million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle; we don’t want all these extra people.”

You don’t need chemical weapons to kill people in their thousands, nor do you need nuclear bombs or ruthless soldiers rousting people from their homes in the dead of night in order to dispatch hundreds of people to an early grave. All you need to do is ensure people can’t eat, that they can’t access the vital medication that they need to survive, and that they don’t have shelter over their heads. Disease, starvation, and brutal environmental elements are a deadly combination in a despot’s arsenal, and are as certain to kill as the most sophisticated military weapon. They are even more certain to kill if the nation you preside over has the worst HIV/AIDs statistics in the world.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that the crumbling economy is the root cause of all these problems: Mugabe has set out to achieve all of these things DELIBERATELY. We’ve written about it all on this blog as it happened - Operation Murumbatsvina is vicious and has deprived thousands people of shelter; food has been withheld and politically manipulated to meet Mugabe’s own objectives; and ARV drugs are a low priority for Mugabe’s government, despite the fact they know they preside over a population suffering from the worst HIV/AIDs statistics in the world. Funding is calculatedly steered away from the principle of caring for Zimbabweans, and directed instead to the CIO whose primary purpose is to control, intimidate, terrify, torture and repress Zimbabweans. And who controls the CIO? None other than Didymus Mutasa, the man who would like to reduce the population to only those who supported the liberation strggle (i.e., support Zanu PF and Robert Mugabe).

I think the word cull is fair and entirely appropiate in this context.

The average Zimbabwean woman can only expect to live to the age of 34. This is an age where women in stable democracies are thinking about careers, starting families, or buying homes. While they look towards their bright futures, Zimbabwean women face a painful cruel death.

There isn’t a person in Zimbabwe who doesn’t know several people who have died of AIDs, and I am no exception. Last year two women I knew very well, both work colleagues, died. One was a women in her fifties. She was infected with the virus by her husband who had left Zimbabwe to try and earn an income in South Africa so he could do more for his children. Long absences from home turned into a string of encounters with ladies of the night. And these in turn resulted in Jessie’s death from the AIDs virus when he brought the disease back home to her. I don’t know what happened to Jessie’s husband, but I expect he’s dead too now. And that means their children, the very reason he left the country in the first place, have joined the country’s swelling AIDs orphan statistics.

The other women was Tenjiwe. Tenjiwe was a lovely person, a woman who laughed loud and often and had flaring feuds with work colleagues that lasted five minutes and then were instantly forgotten. We all liked her -we liked laughing with her and we even enjoyed the shouting matches. Whenever it was her birthday she’d say, ‘I’m one year closer to forty now… I’m going to be forty soon’. I asked her why this was such a big deal after all, forty is a much talked about age which signals an end to child-bearing years and a transitional period to the next stage of life. But to Tenjiwe it simply meant that surviving to forty meant she’d have outlived many of the other women she knew, and it meant her son would have reached an age where he was less dependent on her.

And she nearly made it too. Tenjiwe lived to 36. But we watched her fading before our eyes for several years before that - her battle with HIV extended by the support our employers gave her - vitamins, food supplements, extra food to take home. But without retrivirols, which her employers struggled to find for her, she stood no chance.

The last time I saw her she was in hospital, thin and frail, her mouth too swollen with sores to be able to eat the liquid supplements we’d clubbed together to buy for her, and her body to frail to cope with any nutrition at all. She didn’t expect to have work colleagues visit her, and when we walked into the room she turned towards us and cried silently. We said nothing the whole time we were there, we all cried, and then we said goodbye knowing we’d never see her again. Her family took her back to her rural home and she died less than a week later, leaving behind a son - another AIDS ophan.

Tenjiwe survived to 36 becase she had people who tried to do all they could to help her live as long as she possibly could. She is also one of the very few (20% of the population) who had a full time job. But even her income, higher than the lowest paid levels in Zimbabwe, was so ravaged by inflation that she couldn’t begin to meet the financial demands she faced as a single mother trying to raise a child. So Tenjiwe turned to ‘friendships’ with older men - sugar daddies - who paid the school fees and helped to keep her child clothed, fed and educated. They showered her with gifts, cell phones and cheap jewellery from the markets, and they also gave her a disease which eventually destroyed her.

Tenjiwe had a job; most in Zimbabwe do not. She had one child while most Zimbabwean women have more than one. She had a support network of people who cared for her; most Zimbabwean women have to fight to survive alone. As unlucky as Tenjiwe was, she was still, in a Zimbabwean context, far luckier than a lot of other women. And how terrible is that.

The anger and despair I felt when I saw Tenjiwe for the last time is indescribable. We cried at her bed because there was nothing more we could do - we had all tried everything. I felt as if she was on death row - an innocent victim sentenced to a cruel death overseen by dispassionate wardens - and we and her family were the helpless bystanders wracked with emotion, standing on the other side of the glass and watching her die. My anger, my frustration, my sense of helplessness left me feeling out of control and beside myself with rage at the senseless futility of her death.

My feelings are NOTHING compared to those her family must have experienced.

Mugabe and his government are those cruel wardens. They are responsible for the decisions and choices they make, and they are accountable for the effect it has on the lives of all Zimbabweans. The women who are dying before the age of 34, silently and forgotten, are all innocent victims of his ghastly policies and his ruthless deliberate attempts to keep himself and his government in power no matter the costs. His crimes are immense. As far as I am concerned, his failure to do the right thing leaves him accountable for the deaths of thousands and thousands. It is a cull.

Please read this (also here on ZWNews) and this for more about the women in Zimbabwe who are dying so young.

Technorati Tags: Mugabe, women, Didymus Mutasa, HIV/AIDs, Murumbatsvina, ARV, Zimbabwe, AIDs, orphan, HIV, Zanu PF, life expectancy

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A friend of mine lives in an area quite close to Llewellyn Barracks (Imbizo) just outside Bulawayo and many young men from his area join the army as there are no jobs. However, HIV is now spreading rapidly through the community in Ntabazinduna and every village and kraal has someone sick. My friend’s own son is now dying because he used to go beer drinking with soldiers and says he spent time with women who move about.

The hospital at the barracks is full of dying people and it is the same at the Support Unit (Police Hospital). My friend was told that if you have money you can get ARV’s, but the trouble is this just makes the problem worse as the rich officers don’t care about anyone else anymore. The disease is being spread more by those who are rich and can buy drugs and believe that they are now saved and can carry on their lives as before. But they are still sick, and making others sick.

My friend says there are funerals every day in his area, and it seems as though nothing can stop it.

The people that have the least food are the ones to die first, and there are many children without parents. It is other family members, especially the very old, that now have to look after them.

The hospitals cannot help us, we are short of food, and the people at the clinics don’t care. What is going to happen to us?

Technorati Tags: Llewellyn Barracks, Bulawayo, army, HIV, ARV, Zimbabwe, HIV/AIDS, health

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