Newspaper billboards today read ‘beer prices slashed’

Well, that’s OK then. We can all afford to get smashed drunk, and maybe that way we can get through the elections next year, endure the Mugabe regime a bit longer.

In fact, if we get really really really drunk - so drunk we can’t think, speak or walk - maybe we won’t care that we can’t feed or educate our children; that we have no jobs; that nothing works anymore.

Is this Zanu PF’s idea of a joke? Or are they really so desperate they have no idea what to do anymore, so getting the nation drunk seems like a good plan.

Its farcical!

The background to this is as follows: the Zanu PF government, with predictable economic stupidity, has announced sweeping price cuts in a bid to curb inflation (this is now ‘officially’ at 4,500% so unofficially is bound to be much higher). Industry Minister Obert Mpofu announced price cuts of up to two-thirds on a range of basic goods and services.

Apparently the state-controlled media have been asked to comply as well - something I’m delighted and amused about - and the response from the Justin Mutasa, chief executive of ‘The Horrid’, the main government mouthpiece, said the price of newspapers would go down only when the cost of newsprint, ink and other materials went down. “We welcome the latest intervention in the spirit that the same will be extended to suppliers.”

Welcome to the real world Justin!

Given that this is a government with degrees in violence and masters of verbal intimidation, we should know by now that the policy will be accompanied by viciousness and threats. So it comes as no surprise to hear that a unit drawn from Zimbabwe’s security agencies has been tasked to enforce the cuts. This will be the vicious Green Bombers, no doubt.

The problem is, the country is on its knees and a lot of businesses survive by buying foreign currency on the black market and buying supplies in from outside Zimbabwe. They are forced to price their goods according to the costs there. Is Mpofu going to send his green bombers across the borders to threaten and intimidate South African and Botswanan suppliers if they don’t drop their prices as well. Honestly, is the man a lunatic?

Businesses are struggling to work out what exactly is required, but no one seems to know. Rumours of managers and shop owners being arrested are already circulating. The price slashes mean that businesses will have to sell goods at lower prices than they paid for them - immediate losses across the board if they do this. A few people I know have simply closed their doors to traders: if they drop their prices, their businesses will have to be closed for good. Very few are making profits these days, most are ticking over, trying to keep their businesses alive as long as they possibly can.

A friend of mine speculates that the real reason behind this is probably a calculated attempt to force businesses under so that they have to lay off staff. This will leave the population even more unemployed and desperate as supplies dry up. Maybe they’ll take to the streets then and start rioting. My friend thinks that if that happens, Mugabe doesn’t have to bother with elections, he’ll just declare a state of emergency and rule openly through fear and curfews and use of force from the army. It’s a plausible hypothesis to me, because he is that egocentric (I believe) and he certainly is that evil, but why would younger members of Zanu PF go along with this. That’s what’s baffling. Is that old man so important that they’d scupper all their futures just to sustain him a few years longer?

I am quite looking forward to seeing how ‘The Horrid’ copes. Great! That’s one ‘business’ I wont be sad to see fail - and I’ll especially enjoy it if it fails because of Zanu PF’s lunacy.

I have lots of questions, and am completely stunned with disbelief at the stupidity of what’s going on.

But, hey, I should look on the bright side; at least I can go out and get drunk!

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, beer, alcohol, economy, hyperinflation, inflation, Obert Mpofu, poverty, business, foreign currency

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I just saw a packet of viennas for Z$997 000, yes you got it - nine hundred and ninety seven thousand dollars. If you consider that Gono(rrhea) slashed three zeros from our currency less than a year ago, that makes it in reality Z$997 million. Ok, I know that viennas have always been a bit of a luxury, but the meltdown is now nuclear reactor bubbling.

Please note that I said I SAW the viennas, because who the hell is going to pay that?

I just stared in open mouthed amazement. My house only cost me Z$25 000 in 1985, 4 bedrooms, garden, good location. In today’s terms that would be Z$25! So one packet of viennas today could have bought you 39,880 houses just twenty years ago!

Yes, we can all have a giggle at the numbers while sitting comfortably at our office computers, but my fear is lurking close to the surface. What are we going to do? How will this end? Will there be violence on the street or are we going to have a nation of gaunt, starving faces?

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, inflation, hyper-inflation, poverty

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Today, 26 June, is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. One day out of a year to support the victims of torture is not enough in Zimbabwe. Every day should be a day where we support those who have suffered this horrific form of abuse at the hands of Mugabe and the Zanu PF regime.

You may have heard the phrase “winning hearts and minds” before, a political euphemism to describe a campaign to win over restive populations, usually in military situations but sometimes used during political campaigning too. The term is only as meaningful as the intentions of the speaker, and critics would argue that it is often little more than empty propaganda; nevertheless, “winning hearts and minds” is a useful marker to use to differentiate between Zanu PF policies, and the policies of some our neighbouring countries where human rights and democracy are important.

Look at the following quotes* made by Robert Mugabe over the years of his stranglehold on power - are these the statements of a man who is concerned with ‘winning over hearts and minds’?

1983 - in response to victims in the Gukurahundi:

“We have to deal with this problem quite ruthlessly. Don’t cry if your relatives get killed in the process … Where men and women provide food for the dissidents, when we get there we eradicate them. We don’t differentiate when we fight, because we can’t tell who is a dissident and who is not.”

2000:

“Those who try to cause disunity among our people must watch out because death will befall them…”

2002 - At a party conference in Victoria Falls:

“This is total war. We will have a central command centre. This is war, it is not a game. You are all soldiers of ZANU (PF) for the people. When we come to your province we must see you are ready. When the time comes to fire the bullet, the ballot, the trajectory of the gun must be true.”

2006:

“We hear others say we want to go into the streets to demonstrate, to unseat a legitimately elected government. It will never happen and we will never allow it. If a person now wants to invite his own death, let him go ahead.”

2007 - Directly after the world had seen the evidence of police brutality in the form of images of bruised and badly injured civic leaders, an unrepentant Robert Mugabe uttered these ugly words:

“Our arms of Government, the police will act very vigorously and severely on those who go on a defiance campaign. We hope they have learned a lesson. If they have not, then they will get similar treatment.”

The combination of real violence combined with public promises of more violence and threats of reprisals clearly reveal that this regime is not at all interested in winning over the “hearts and minds” of the population. On the contrary, torture, violence and mass intimidation are carefully used, with calculated deliberation, to trample on the care and consideration that Zimbabweans have for one other - to create divisions, to fragment our society, to drive us apart and turn us against each other. Zanu PF’s tactics of force-feeding our nation a diet of lies, hate and fear is an attempt to fill our hearts and minds with anxiety and dread, to use torture and intimidation as a tool to control us. They want to bruise and damage our hearts; they seek to scar and break our minds.

There are many among us who have been kicked and literally felt the hard boots of cruel thugs, or felt blows being delivered with hatred on their bodies. Many who have suffered terrible physical injuries and still struggle today to reclaim their minds from the awfulness of their experiences. Those who haven’t felt those blows may consider themselves ‘lucky’ to have not had the experience.

But don’t kid yourself: when the Zanu PF government tortures a few amongst us, we all end up carrying the burden of fear and we all share the scars of pain. The Mugabe regime understands this, and deliberately builds seeks to maximize the effects of mass torture, riding high on the symptoms they provoke in an entire nation of people.

The UN Convention Against Torture defines the term as follows:

“Torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”

So ‘torture’ includes deliberate state-sanctioned verbal abuse, intimidation, threats of violence, promises of reprisals - all delivered with the purpose of intimidation and coercion.

This is Mugabe’s Zimbabwe: as a nation we are all subjected to regular threats of death, threats of violence, and non-specific but all-encompassing promises of “wrath”, whatever that may mean. All of this is mainlined directly into our private lives and homes through our televisions, radios and newspapers, right to where our parents and children can see and hear it too.

The intimidation has no boundaries and extends into every aspect of our lives: our need to source food, our need to buy petrol, to run our businesses, to provide healthcare to the sick among us, to educate our children. Every facet of our lives, what is important to us as civilised human beings, has been infiltrated with the Zanu PF policy of violence and verbal filth.

The price that torture exacts on its victims is considerable. A study** carried out by psychologists between two groups of people - those who had never experienced torture, and those who had - found clear evidence of significant consequences. As a person living in Zimbabwe, ask yourself if you, or anyone you know, experiences symptoms like these (all of these being symptoms extracted from the study results): nightmares; diminished interest in previously enjoyed activities; restricted expectations; sleep disturbance; irritability; concentration impairment; hyper vigilance; startled reactions; living with a continued state of tension; avoidance of trauma and any thoughts of causes of trauma; detachment from others.

It simply isn’t possible for a nation of people to live unaffected by an atmosphere of pervasive fear. Nor is it possible for a nation to avoid the reverberations of fear and intimidation that occur when a few among us are singled out for deliberate calculated violence and cruelty. When Mugabe’s police / army / green bombers / war veterans torture some of our friends and colleagues, all of us end up with a burden that feels slightly heavier, all of us inherit a little of the fear, all of us feel a little more joy stolen from our lives, all of us sink a little further into despair struggling with the knowledge that our children’s future has become a little darker.

Victor Frankl was a man who experienced and witnessed the worst extremes of torture at the hands of the Nazis in the Concentration Camps during WWII. He understood the price that torture exacted from its victims, but he also recognised that humans have the capacity to withstand atrocities in even the most awful circumstances. Frankl says it best in his own words, and so we include here an extended quote:

“The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become moulded into the form of the typical inmate.

Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him - mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.” ***

We all know that we are engaged in a fight for big important principles: democracy, justice, human rights, freedom and equality. But what we need to understand too, is that we are all engaged in a fight for our “hearts” and our “minds”. This is a fight that party politics can’t touch; we as individuals have to cling to our hearts and minds ourselves, and it us up to us alone to stand strong in the face of fear and intimidation.

We also need to understand that, just as we all can’t help but inherit a little of the burden of the victims pain, so we all have the power to choose to lighten the burdens of others. We need to stand by those who have felt the extreme range of violence, and we need to understand that by supporting them, we support ourselves too because in doing so we are ‘fighting back’ and salvaging a little bit of the humanity that the Mugabe regime tries so hard to strip from us.

26 June 2007 is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. This is our day, a day when we need to spend time reflecting on how we can support those who have felt the worst extremes of torture, as well as supporting ourselves through the side-effects of having our minds washed daily with putrid abuse. We need to renew our commitment to our sense of humanity, our dignity, our sense of personal purpose and pride. And we need to do this knowing that we do so in the face of a deliberate calculated strategy that seeks to batter our hearts and minds into submission. Ask yourselves today if you really want to remain passive in the face of torture, or if you’d prefer to fight for your hearts and minds and reclaim some of your freedom. As Frankl would say, ‘choose your own attitude, choose your own way’. Only you can make that choice.

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* All quotes taken from the May 2007 report by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, “Their words condemn them: The language of violence, intolerance and despotism in Zimbabwe”
** AM J Psychiatry 1994; 151: 76-81
[http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/151/1/76]
*** Taken from Frankl’s book titled “Man’s Search for Meaning”

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, torture, human rights, Mugabe, International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

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The Gestapo is alive and well and it is practising its art in the police cells of Zimbabwe. Long after the age of barbarism, a despot is actively using torture to suppress a humble and peace loving people as he struggles against the tide to retain political power. It is not surprising as, not only does he sport the moustache, he is happy to be called Hitler. As recently as last week, members of the opposition have been abducted and tortured by militia masquerading as police officers, spurred on by Hitler’s exhortation to “bash” people who do not toe the line.

At the opening night of HIFA, one of the singers wailed Bob Marley’s line from Redemption song: “How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look?”

Beware, the peaceful people of Zimbabwe are neither docile nor stupid! The regime mistakes patience and wisdom for weakness and fear. Let it be known that the list of names of the perpetrators of torture is on record and growing. Justice will prevail. She beckons from the halls of the International Criminal Court and no person will have been a victim in vain. Modern society has a funny habit of keeping a memory. Oral history fades, modern technology keeps it alive.

Meanwhile, we appeal to those that are at a safe distance from harms way to not let up in their condemnation of what is going on in Z. Societies thrive when individuals are held accountable. There is a group of some few hundred men and women who are holding an entire population to ransom and we ask you to bear witness to this moment in Zimbabwe history. Zimbabweans on their part will not abandon their country even in the face of torture because we know Justice will prevail through your good works.

To the diplomats, we urge you to ask your governments to maintain the pressure. Please keep the facts flowing to your respective capitals and let the truth be known about this tyrant. He must not be allowed to strut the world’s stages and posture while his hands drip with the blood of innocents.

To the brave doctors, nurses and psychiatrists, we say persevere. It is getting darker and darer and there must be a heavy toll on your weary minds working without drugs, electricity and with extremely low wages. The weak and helpless need you. Stay and help record every detail for justice will prevail.

To the real police, we say resign rather than sup at the devil’s table for while your tummy may be full for a few hours, your mind will not recover from the torture of a fellow human being. This is not what the war of liberation was for. The sacrifice of your older brothers and sisters will have been in vain when you actively maim their siblings twenty seven years after “liberation”. We were not meant to be liberated in to captivity. Do not completely lose your humanity.

To the people: The war for liberation was a huge sacrifice. It must never be in vain. Your minds, souls and bodies are tortured today. Tomorrow, we should be ready to testify against those in your midst who deprive mothers of the joy of seeing their children grow up. Parents should not bury their children.

On this international day of torture, it is not about slavery, colonialism or diplomacy. It is about human lives, physical pain, humiliation and degradation, emotional scars … all to keep a fearful ageing despot in power. And it is not right. Let the world speak!

Technorati Tags: International Day of Support for the Victims of Torture, Zimbabwe, Mugabe, justice, freedom, human rights

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The Zimbabwe dollar crashed dramatically moving from 180 000 to the US$ to as much as 350 000. One side effect of this is the dangerous impact that rapid devaluation has on cash flow as well as cash resources. In the space of just 5 trading days cash requirements have all but doubled and there is a rush on banks to provide the balance. Presently, the Reserve Bank has decreed that no company can issue a check exceeding 50 million dollars and this recent devaluation has resulted in a massive increase in the number of electronic transactions that must take place. The consequence of this is that there is huge congestion in the system and such transactions are taking up to 4 days to complete which, in itself, means losses of up to 15% over that time period. This is directly related to day by day inflation. More and more companies are beginning to “dollarize” in order to protect their companies.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Business Watch, economy, devaluation, inflation, economic crash, currency

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The definition of a clinical psychopath fits the description of Robert Mugabe so perfectly, it is spine-chilling:

“In current clinical use, psychopathy is most commonly diagnosed using the checklist devised by Emeritus Professor Robert Hare. He describes psychopaths as “intraspecies predators” who use charm, manipulation, intimidation, and violence to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs. Lacking in conscience and in feelings for others, they take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without guilt or remorse. What is missing, in other words, are the very qualities that allow a human being to live in social harmony.” (Wikipedia)

Could it be that the Zimbabwean President is insane? A few examples of his behaviour would seem to bear this out:

• His theft by violence and manipulation of every election since 1990, while insisting that democratic principles were being upheld.
• The creation of the 5th Brigade, followed by the Green Bombers (Youth Brigade); both militias deliberately trained and deployed for one purpose, to murder and mutilate defenceless citizens.
• The Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland - with no subsequent remorse or guilt shown.
• His sincere assertion that: “No-one could have managed the (Zimbabwe) economy better than me.”
• Operation Murambatsvina in urban centres nation-wide, followed by a second, pitiless repetition of the ‘clearouts’.
• Gloating over the prospect of starving to death his political opponents in Matabeleland.

Most Zimbabweans by now have noticed a clear trend: Mugabe’s reaction to negative emotions is to commit impulsive, violent acts. He has exhibited this behaviour every time he is challenged or frustrated, or when he feels insulted - e.g. by the intrepid Peter Tatchell. The trend started mildly, with small things such as creating a law against insulting the President, but has escalated rapidly since then. His reaction to defeat in the Constitutional referendum in 2000 was dazed disbelief, after which he unleashed the violent land invasions and farm evictions. Whenever he sees a real or imagined threat to his rule, he perpetrates vicious warfare against the unarmed population, while at the same time seeing it as “preserving the peace”!

During his career Mugabe has often changed the law of the land in order to justify and allow his actions. This is consistent with psychopathic behaviour:

“It is thought that any emotions which the primary psychopath exhibits are the fruits of watching and mimicking other people’s emotions. Psychopaths show poor impulse control and a low tolerance for frustration and aggression… However, they understand that society expects them to behave in a conscientious manner, and therefore they mimic this behavior when it suits their needs.”

It would thus surprise nobody if Mugabe put a bill through his parliament to legalise murder and torture. He would then feel that he had done the right thing in terms of societal requirements. More importantly he would expect to be in a position to claim innocence in the event of having to face someone else’s justice.

“Nothing I have done is illegal,” he would proudly declare - and believe it!

The Zimbabwean President may also be schizophrenic, as evidenced by the fact that he always refers to himself in the third person.

“We”, he often says,“Do not tolerate any threat to our security…”

But perhaps he simply wishes so ardently to be the like the Queen that he mimics her royal plural (a custom dating from the time when a sovereign was believed to rule by divine appointment). One of Mugabe’s favourite words is ‘sovereignty’.

His narcissism is evident in all that he does and says; another major symptom of the psychopath. He believes himself to be irresistibly attractive - handsome, virile, a genius and practically immortal. He revels in the admiration of his fellow African heads of state and the attention of the world media.

No reasoning, nor appeals for compassion or mercy has the slightest effect on Zimbabwe’s head of state. He has boasted of his ‘degrees in violence” and that his perceived enemies “must fear death.” But he has never publicly uttered a word of compassion, pity or kindness. The closest he has come to showing remorse for the Matabeleland massacres, is to describe them as “ a moment of madness” - perhaps he knows he is a monster. He prefers to see Zimbabwe in a state of chaos and misery, than to consider any relaxation of his death grip on personal power and prestige. His manipulative cunning - yet another hallmark of the psychopath - is well known even among his closest associates.

“They have no empathy, remorse, anxiety or guilt in relation to their behavior. In short, they truly are devoid of conscience.”

If the President is mentally ill, could a spell in hospital straighten him out, enabling a welcome return to good governance?

Apparently not: “..(Psychopaths) are generally considered to be not only incurable but also untreatable.”

It is easy for the layman to conclude, from the abundant clues on public record, that Robert Mugabe is a human predator with an incurable sickness. If that is the case, he is unfit to hold office. A professional psychological assessment would be very interesting.

The Zimbabwean constitution allows for a President to be removed from office in the event of insanity. If the evidence contained in Robert Mugabe’s words and actions over the last ten years was analysed, and an official diagnosis of illness reached, could a motion for impeachment be tabled in Parliament?

And who would be in a position to try?

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United States Ambassador Christopher Dell says President Robert Mugabe plunged Zimbabwe into the current socio-economic and political mess because he never realized his expiry date after independence amid indications that the country will hit a record inflation rate of 1 500 000 percent by the end of this year.

Speaking to journalists on Monday this week in the second capital Bulawayo where he paid his last visit before departing to his new diplomatic post in Afghanistan, Dell said Mugabe should have gracefully left his presidential post long back and handed power to his successor.

He said: “Here is a man who has plunged his unquestionably huge historical role of the liberation struggle, a legacy that everybody should be proud of.

“Sadly, his (Mugabe’s) problem is that he did not realise his expiry date. He has stayed in power for too long and squandered his legacy resulting in the current economic disaster and oppression of his people.”

He said Mugabe was a great man who was supposed to leave a great legacy but decided to ruin his life by clinging onto power.

“The further you (Mugabe) run the more you get nowhere and … in turn get too exhausted,” said the controversial ambassador who has over the years declined to be bullied by Mugabe who has constantly blamed the US and Britain for causing the current chaos in Zimbabwe through imposing crippling sanctions.

Dell said in the 1980s, Zimbabwe was a symbol of African hope but today it had serious social, economic and political problems which it would fail to solve single-handedly.

He said: “Many economists, businesspeople and key stakeholders agree that Zimbabwe’s problems cannot be solved by this country alone. The country needs a lot of help but we are saying there should be major reforms such as the return of the rule of law and free and fair elections if we are to assist Zimbabwe.

“There is a strong belief that the country will hit a record inflation figure of 1 500 000 percent by the end of the year leading to the possible collapse of the economy. No country has ever sustained an inflation figure with four digits.”

Turning to next year’s parliamentary and presidential polls, he said the whole world was eager to see the outcome of South Africa’s current mediation process.

Dell said: “If the South African mediation process results in free and fair elections, we will recognize the outcome of the elections as representing the will of the people of Zimbabwe.

“If the election results are fraudulent and the current regime steals the vote, then Zimbabwe will not possibly recover from the current mess. Everything depends on Thabo Mbeki (SA president).”

Sokwanele Note:

The Guardian Newspaper (UK) carry an article today that features an interview with Christopher Dell. Read it here.

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Yesterday was World Refugee Day. Many Zimbabweans have been left homeless and struggling to survive as a result of the government’s senseless ‘Operation Murambatsvina’ - a policy of ‘clearing out the trash’, which manifested itself in the destruction of homes, trading stalls and the theft of property. What kind of leaders, are these, who destroy peoples’ homes at the height of a harsh winter leaving women and children at the mercy of the elements? What kind of mind conceives such an evil and heartless thought? We asked a supporter to write us a piece that included real-life stories of Murambatsvina refugees in Zimbabwe. Names have been changed in this article.

It is winter again, a time when the majority of Zimbabweans are reflecting on the beginning of the most barbaric and catastrophic act, by a totalitarian regime, in 2005. The satanic act, which was engaged without proper consideration of the repercussions, continues to wreak havoc on the lives of millions of poor Zimbabweans. Since 2005, winter has been characterized with bitter memories of the loss of homes, house hold property, flea markets, offices, the pain from beatings and torture and unfortunate deaths of some loved ones, during another act of madness by Mugabe, the second after Gukurahundi.

Mugabe, Chihuri and Chombo defended “Op M” (Operation Murambatsvina) as a clean up exercise meant to wean the unwanted garbage, which later turned out to be humans in the form of city dwellers, perceived to the sympathetic to the opposition MDC.

Tempers were beginning to boil two months after another rigged 2005 parliamentary election which pitted the ruling Zanu PF party against the MDC, giving the ruling party the required two thirds, to amend the constitution. To counter a possible uprising, Mugabe acting upon intelligence from the JOC (Joint Operation Command) embarked on the operation which not only caused massive sufferings but invited condemnations from the UN and the world over.

Society was disintegrated, those with rural homes leaving towns for good. The remaining folks were with either forcibly moved to unknown places or detention centers where they were quarantined. Sources of income were destroyed and rentals shot to alarming rates, making the cost of living in cities very high. The drama is still unfolding.

Sally Phiri (35), a mother of three and a widow, had her flea markets along what was formerly Union Avenue and Rezende Street, closed, losing all her wares in the process (the Police and City Police claimed vendors goods for themselves).

“I lost everything, they took goods worth $30 million by then, I remember a police officer complaining that we should suffer because we voted for MDC” Sally Phiri said.

Back home, Sally’s brick walled cabin was destroyed in Mbare, leaving her with nowhere to go. As a ‘Phiri’, Sally’s origin is Malawi – a country she has never even visited before. At the Malawi High Commission, she was asked to denounce Zimbabwean citizenship before attaining Malawian status since she is above 21 years of age. The dilemma Sally found herself in has reduced her to a beggar, and she now lives in the open air in the same yard of her former lodgings.

Sally’s new home has beds, wardrobe, cardboard boxes and plastic functioning as walls, exposing her and her three children to cold and rain.

Sally Phiri is not the only one in this predicament. Currently in most high-density areas of Harare, families are still sleeping in the open, especially in back yards. Those with houses had their extensions destroyed leaving as much as twelve people in the same family sleeping in two or three roomed houses. Thus the social moral fibre has been eroded since boys and girls are forced to sleep in one room.

“All I need is a place where I can access a toilet and clean water. I will never forgive Mugabe and his people for doing this to me” said Sally.

In Kuwadzana Stembile Moyo (38) a divorcee and mother of four now lives in an old and disused car at a former home industry site where the only toilet was closed. The place has no clean water and the few families now living there fetch their water from a well, where litter such as “used condoms” are found.

“ I cannot afford to pay rent anymore so I was chased from by lodgings. I am a vendor at a beerhall as well as a lady of the night, but I am still finding it tough because customers are shying away because of the HIV/AIDS scourge” said Moyo.

Both Phiri and Moyo expressed bitterness at the criteria used by the Zimbabwean government to allocate “Operation Garikayi” stands and homes. Coincidentally they both registered to benefit from “GariKai” at the same time but were shocked to hear that only civil servants from the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Zimbabwe National Army, Air Force and Zanu PF activists and other government departments benefited instead.

Those allocated stands at Snake Park, Hopely Farm and Calidonia Farm, have however not been allowed to finish building, not even their toilets. The places do not have running water except at Caledonia farm, where an NGO donated a borehole, which also feeds the entire Tafara area. The plastic walls demarcating the houses have been blamed for fueling prostitution as privacy no longer exists.

School girls have also been reported to be engaging in prostitution as well because their families were displaced by Op M and forced to relocate to areas far from their schools. Parents are failing to give them bus fares, leaving them vulnerable.

In the run up to the Budiriro by-election in 2006, unconfirmed reports from MDC indicate that, most people who registered to benefit from Op Garikayi had their names obliterated from the voters roll. MDC argued that without a general nation wide election, there was no way the government could have known who might have relocated from Budiriro. In essence the Mugabe regime started their preparation for the 2008 election long back.

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Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Murambatsvina, refugees, World Refugee Day, Mugabe, poverty, homeless

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Anyone visiting the passport office in the capital Harare will have encountered the hordes of people trying to get documents so that they can leave a country where the economy is in freefall and the political impasse makes the prospects of recovery remote. They are also likely to be familiar with the corruption engendered by a shortage of passports, the low pay of public servants and the sheer desperation of their customers. I learned this the hard way, when I was invited to attend a week-long seminar in South Africa at the beginning of May.

My passport expired in 2005, and although I submitted an application for a new one in early 2006, I am still waiting. The registration authorities resumed issuing passports only recently after getting an injection of funding from Zimbabwe’s central bank. The registrar-general, Tobaiwa Mudede, said recently that his office had a backlog of 300,000 applications.

The passport office at Makombe Complex is packed with Zimbabweans all trying to get the documents they need to leave the country. Professionals are abandoning ship, heading for Britain, Canada, Australia and the United States, while poorer people visit neighbouring states to trade.

With no passport in sight, I joined the many people applying for an Emergency Travel Document or ETD – a temporary permit valid for six months. I assumed the procedure would be simple enough, as I had a formal letter of invitation.

I soon realised my mistake.

ETDs are intended for emergencies only, but the Makombe Complex office issues at least 100 a day, often to people planning to cross into Mozambique, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa to buy cheap goods for sale back home. Friends abroad help by supplying fake letters of invitation and false addresses.

The booming demand generated by the cross-border trade – itself a product of Zimbabwe’s dire economic circumstances – has opened up a lucrative seam for corrupt passport officials. At the core of the business is a syndicate of men and women who appear to control the number of applications issued per day. By doing so, they create an artificial shortage, making applicants willing to pay a premium to get the right document.

The speed at which you get your ETD then depends on your willingness to pay an extra “fee”, or on having the right connections.

The application form is of course free of charge, but even that is hard to come by. When I got to Makombe Complex, the forms had run out.

At this point, I was approached by a young man who told me his name was Adam and said he could help me get an ETD for 300,000 Zimbabwe dollars, ZWD. It is hard to translate this sum – at the official rate it would work out as 1,200 US dollars while at the parallel market rate it is just about eight dollars – but bear in mind that it represents a month’s wages in Zimbabwe.

Adam told me to go to a particular office and see a woman called Maggie. “You can get your ETD in three hours,” he promised, as we exchanged details.

When I got to the right office, I asked for Maggie. Somebody pointed her out to me among a bevy of ladies chatting idly behind their desks. When I mentioned Adam’s name, she handed over a photocopy of the form with a nonchalance that belied her knowledge of what was going on. “Fill in the form and take it to Window 7,” she said coldly.

At Window 7, located outside the complex, people shove their way forward to submit completed application forms or to collect their ETDs.

After 40 minutes of pushing, I submitted my form, two passport-size photos and the letter of invitation explaining the urgency of the application. The form was stamped, and I was packed off to yet another office, where I paid the official fee of 5,000 ZWD. Then I had to go back to Window 7, where I was told to return the following day to collect the ETD.

My mobile phone rang three hours later. It was Adam. He gave me the name of a building in town, an office number and the name of a woman to whom I was to give the 300,000 ZWD as payment for the express service.

I queried this, since I had not actually received the ETD. “You got the form,” came the answer. “You would never have got it otherwise. We want to process your ETD.”

I did not go and pay. After two hours, Adam phoned again to find out whether I had settled the bill. I said I was not going to pay 300,000 ZWD for an application form. He said he was prepared to send someone over to collect the money if I wanted. “It’s up to you,” he said and hung up.

The following day, I was at the ETD collection window early in the morning, along with the usual crowds. The collection times are indicated as 9 am, 11 am and 2pm. I waited for my name to be called out but nothing happened all day.

“Check tomorrow,” said Maggie casually, when I enquired at her office. It was the same story every day for a week. Meanwhile, I was pestered about the outstanding payment every two or three hours.

I saw many other people collecting their ETDs although they had submitted their applications after I did. From the conversations taking place, I could tell money was changing hands somewhere.

I was running out of time, as I would still need to get a South African visa processed afterwards. It was becoming evident that it was up to me to achieve progress.

On the Tuesday of the second week, I telephoned a senior government official whom I know and told him my story. “No problem,” he said. “Let’s meet at the passport office tomorrow morning.”

As soon as we entered the office where Maggie worked, everybody greeted my friend warmly, although no one seemed to recognise me at all. He explained that I was a colleague of his and needed to travel abroad urgently.

Maggie asked for my application form as if I was a complete stranger. When I reminded her that I had submitted an application the previous week, she feigned surprise.

“Go to the collection window while I check what happened,” she said. She quickly dialled the extension, and as we got to the collection point, the ETD was being processed.

I took it, thanked my influential friend, and left in disgust.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, passport, corruption, inflation, travel, ETD, emergency travel document

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Every day, business has to cope with attacks from all directions. At the moment, Government is drawing up indigenisation legislation that will effectively steal shareholding of 51% of every “organization, association and business that operates for gain”. Furthermore, the Minister, through the board he appoints, reserves the right to co-opt “indigenous” shareholders of the Board’s choice if the board so desires. The most astounding aspect of these proposals is the business may be levied in order to raise the funds to assume the 51% shareholding. This undoubtedly paves the way for the system of patronage to continue in order for an unpopular regime to maintain conditional support at a time when there is growing discontent among senior party officials. The USD rose to new heights of ZD 180 000 up from ZD150 000 two days ago signaling a huge jump in inflation in the forthcoming weeks.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, business watch, economy

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The Netherlands institute for Southern Africa (NiZA) mounted a powerful protest outside the World Forum Convention Centre in The Hague. They formed a ‘Living Museum’ in solidarity with the millions of Zimbabweans whose human rights are violated on a daily basis.

The demonstration, organised by the Dutch-based NGO ZimbabweWatch, draws specific attention to Zimbabwean Minister of Environment and Tourism, Mr. Francis Nhema, who is attending the 14th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in The Hague. The Minister is to talk about issues concerning endangered wild animal species. His attendance is exceptional because the EU has imposed a travel ban on him, like it did on all prominent members of the predatory ruling elite in Zimbabwe.

Click on the image below to view NiZA’s full brochure. And scroll to the end of the post to view a YouTube video they posted. And send them an email to say ‘thank you, and great work!’

(Hat tip Kubatana)

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Mugabe, Francis Nhema, NIZA, action, protest, endangered species, cites

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I have friends both in the police force and the teaching profession.

Teachers are giving one days notice before disappearing to South Africa where there is a shortage and they are prepared to give up their pension and other benefits to make the move to feed their families.

My police friends tell me that they are under constant surveillance and pressure by their most senior officers to toe the line. They are repeatedly threatened with “unspecified action” if they leave the force.

However, the resignations and desertions continue as the Rand salary that they can earn wipes out any benefit from the state pension within weeks.

What upsets me is that my taxes have been paid to help South Africa as it costs a lot of money to train both teachers and policeman and SA gets them for free.

This is an example of what is happening to all our skilled people and it is simply not cost effective any longer to deny people their basic right, the right to survive and provide for our families.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe. South Africa, police teachers, brain drain

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Tomorrow is Youth Day in South Africa, a day that recalls forever the determination and bravery of the students who took it upon themselves to confront the apartheid government. On the 16th of June 1976, thousands of black students walked from their schools to Orlando Stadium for a rally to protest against having to study in Afrikaans at school (for many a second or third language). What happened on 16 June will never be forgotten.

Live ammunition was fired into the crowd and 23 people were killed. The photograph of a dying Hector Pieterson (only 12 years old) being carried by 18 year old Mbuyisa Makhubo, with Hector’s sister Antoinette running alongside them, is a frozen moment capturing the horror of that day. Hector was the second child to be killed that day; the first child to die was 15 year old Hastings Ndlovu, but there was no photographer present to mark the moment of his death, or the deaths of many other children. Instead, that single stark image has made Hector Pieterson a figurehead for all those who were killed or injured while they tried to take a peaceful stand against apartheid and totalitarian rule.

Much more recently, on Sunday, 11 March 2007, people converged on the Zimbabwe Grounds Stadium in Highfields, Harare, Zimbabwe, to attend a peaceful rally called by church leaders and human rights activists working within the Save Zimbabwe Campaign. They were coming together to protest against the oppression of Robert Mugabe government. Gift Tandare, the youth chairperson of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) local structure in a Harare suburb, was among them. Just as the South African police responded to the 1976 rally with violence, so did the Zimbabwe police respond with violence: live ammunition was used against the peaceful crowd.

Gift, who had come to attend a peaceful rally for change, was shot in the chest. He expected to be standing alongside other like-minded activists, praying for freedom and peace for our country, instead, he died on the side of a road. It didn’t end there: his friends tell how the police refused to allow them to call him an ambulance. Two days after his death, police shot at mourners visiting his family’s home. Then on learning that Gift’s family planned to bury him in Harare, Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operatives stole his body from a mortuary, and forced the family to bury him in Mt Darwin instead. Gift died, but his family were terrorised by Mugabe’s thugs long afterwards: they were threatened with torture if they failed to disclose the names of the NCA activists who attended his funeral in Mt Darwin.

We don’t have an iconic image, like the one of Hector Pieterson, which captures Gift’s last living moments. Robert Mugabe understands the power behind a picture and as a result press freedom in Zimbabwe is deliberately stifled. It is controlled so rigorously that journalists are literally risking their lives to capture atrocities on film. One such person was the cameraman Edward Chikombo.

Edward Chikombe was abducted a short while after the thwarted Save Zimbabwe Campaign rally by four armed men believed to be part of Mugabe’s CIO. His friends fought to prevent him being carried away, but the abductors beat them back with rifle butts in their faces. On the 31 March Edward’s body was found in a field: he had been badly tortured and beaten to death. Why? The CIO believed Edward to be one of the cameramen who shot footage of Morgan Tsvangirai emerging from the courthouse showing evidence of his torture injuries while in police custody. Just as the image of Hector said a lot about apartheid, so those images said a lot about the kind of government under Robert Mugabe. The government believed Edward was responsible, so without trial or proof or just cause, they killed him. Mugabe’s spokesperson, George Charamba, described Edward in this way and his comment clearly reveals the government’s attitude towards journalists doing their job: “if he was doing media work he was doing so as a spy using media equipment which may explain his case”.

So when you see that famous image of Hector Pieterson on the 16 June, as you surely will, we ask you to think of Gift Tandare, because just like Hector and the youth who walked to the rally at Orlando Stadium on 16 June 1976, Gift was also a young man trying to make a stand against oppression. Just like Hector, it cost him his life. And also like Hector, we will never forget how brave he was and what he was trying to do for all of us. We know that we will be free one day, and that Gift, like Hector, played an integral role in helping us get there.

There are many more young people just like Gift, living in Zimbabwe and fighting for justice and peaceful change. Their fight brings them face to face with a ruthless government that thinks nothing of killing and torturing civilians so that they can cling to power. We ask South Africans, on Youth Day, to think of those young people and to ask themselves what role South Africans can play in helping their neighbours achieve a future free of tyranny and filled with hope.

We ask you to look at that picture of Hector, and think about the power it has to tell the truth, and to think of journalists like Edward Chikombe, who put their lives at risk trying to capture the truth so that people around the world - people like you - will truly know the extent of Mugabe’s oppression of the Zimbabwean people.

It is a terrible shame that Hector Pieterson didn’t live to see 1994, the year when he and many others saw their actions translate into freedom: finally, at last, all South Africans could queue and vote regardless of race, colour or creed.

In 1994, Zimbabweans shared in South Africa’s joy. In 1994, we ourselves stood with a few years between us and the horror of the Gukurahundi in the 1980s, a time when Mugabe unleashed his army on Matabeleland and killed 20,000 civilians. We were beginning to hope that like yours, our future might also be getting better, and that those days of horror were behind us.

But we didn’t know, as we revelled in the glow from your Rainbow Nation, that we were in the eye of the storm, and that it would be only six short years before Mugabe lost his referendum in 2000, and started his second war against Zimbabwean civilians. He has told those carrying out the atrocities on his behalf: “We are at war again . . . If one of you is asked why you are killing, you say, it is not us, it is the President”.

It is impossible for Zimbabweans to listen to stories of the struggles that South Africans went through in their fight against apartheid, and not think of our own struggle for freedom today.

When you celebrate your Youth Day today, we will be thinking about our youth in Zimbabwe. Young people who are forced to join militia camps where their bright minds are dulled with free alcohol, drugs, rape and violence in a sophisticated brainwashing procedure – all part of Mugabe’s efforts to create himself a Nazi Youth. We think about our young people who want to avoid the horrors of Mugabe’s militia camps, desperate for employment and a future, and who see your country as their only hope. But this is a choice fraught with its own dangers, one that involves a life-threatening swim across the Limpopo and the risk of incarceration in a South African holding camp.

If Hector Pieterson had survived, he would be in his early forties now. We don’t know what kind of a man he would have become because his life and his future were stolen by an oppressor’s bullet. But we hope he would have continued to stand against oppression, and we hope that all those who survived to enjoy freedom while he and others made the ultimate sacrifice will do so too. Apartheid was never just a South African problem; it was an African problem, a human problem. And the world stood by the oppressed. Robert Mugabe’s tyranny is not a Zimbabwean problem alone, it is an African problem, one scarring our continent and giving it a bad name.

South Africans know very well that there is no future for youth in a country ruled by oppression and tyranny, through violence and terror. You don’t need us to show you pictures of our dead and dying to know our story, or to hear our stories of young people trying to find a future, trying to find their way to a safe and happy life, because you’ve lived through it yourselves. Just look to your history and remind yourselves where you’ve been and how far you’ve come.

Then reach out, and stand with us today.

[This article is being mailed to our subscribers today. Click here to subscribe to the Sokwanele mailing list.]

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Mugabe, Gift Tandare, Hector Pieterson, Edward Chikombe, Youth Day, South Africa, apartheid, Soweto Uprising, Human Rights, free speech, oppression, 16 June 1976

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Sent to us by email:

I am involved in the Dry Food business in Zimbabwe and we source and supply various commodities from protein based products to cereals.

At this time of year, we get this in to stock as the demand increases as domestic maize supplies diminish particularly in the rural areas.

In attempting to buy large quantities of Kapenta (Dried Fish) and also nuts, I found that stocks were all but non existent.

I was told that the Government is paying cash (notes) to the suppliers with the word that they wish to buy everything.

We have elections coming up early next year and they will occur at a time when the food deficit will be at its worst. In the past, they have used maize and maize meal to lure voters by placing stock in the vicinity of polling stations added to which is word that they will get food if they vote the right way.

Each polling station (mostly in schools) counts the vote right there and therefore the authorities can determine just how the local population chose their candidate.

I have no doubt that as Maize is in desperately short supply this year, this type of food will be used to cheat the system once more.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Mugabe, food supply, famine, votes, electoral rigging, elections

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It’s a pretty insulting piece of legislation, although not unexpected from a government that violates human rights left, right and center. ISPs will undoubtedly lose business as a result of this, as I suspect most people don’t like being snooped on and having their privacy violated no matter what they’re doing or talking about. I’m wondering how, with business down even further, ISPs will manage to pay for it?

Or maybe that’s the plan?

Putting ISPs totally out of business is probably the best form of censorship there is. And as the next post after this one shows, Mugabe doesn’t care about the negative consequences of his actions - he’s prepared to destroy an entire nation just to control dissent. He’d rather be king of a dunghill than not be king at all.

This via the BBC.

Zimbabwe’s MPs have passed a law to allow the government to monitor e-mails, telephone calls, the internet and postal communications.

Opposition MP David Coltart called it a “fascist piece of legislation” aimed at cracking down on political dissent.

But Communications Minister Christopher Mushowe defended it, saying it was similar to anti-terror laws elsewhere such as in the UK, US and South Africa.

“These are countries which are regarded as the beacons of democracy,” he said.

The Interception of Communications Bill now passes to the Senate, where it is expected to face little opposition, Reuters news agency reports.

President Robert Mugabe’s government already faces criticism for laws that curtail free speech and movement.

Web records

The bill obliges internet service providers (ISPs) to install equipment, at their own expense, which will allow a monitoring service to intercept e-mails.

The communications minister will be able to issue warrants for interception.

And senior police, security and revenue service officials will be able to apply to the minister to issue a warrant.

Critics say the law does not make provision for such decisions to be reviewed by the judiciary.

“This law is about the interception of fundamental rights of our citizens and this house should refuse such frivolous and out rightly undemocratic laws,” Nelson Chamisa, an MP for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said during the parliamentary debate.

“Most provisions are injurious and the law will be used as an arrow aimed against trade unions, civil society, media and political parties involved in genuine political engagements,” he said.

The MDC accuses President Robert Mugabe’s government of using all parts of the state to block its challenge to his rule.

Mr Mushowe said the need for such legislation was “indisputable”.

“We are aware, however, that it is always going to be a delicate balancing act to find equilibrium between the need for individual rights of citizens while ensuring that both the national security and public interest are protected,” Zimbabwean television quoted him as saying.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, censorship, free speech, human rights, censor, bugging

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