LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA !

Friday 17th August 2007

Dear Friends,

'Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe was greeted with thunderous applause by delegates as he arrived at a meeting of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) at which his country's crisis tops the agenda.'So writes Chris McGreal in The Guardian today Friday August 17th 2007.

All week long we in the UK diaspora have been hearing and reading comment and analysis of the likely outcome of this meeting in Lusaka. Just this morning the BBC's Today programme carried an interview with the MDC man in London and one George Shiri, a British based academic - or that's how he's described - on the prospects for the talks. Shiri has been in this country for close on twenty years, he is in effect the ruling party's spokesperson in London and can always be relied on to parrot the party line.

For anyone who knows anything at all about the situation in Zimbabwe it was a shoddy piece of journalism. The BBC presenter clearly had not done his homework; he asked innocuous questions and completely failed to respond when Shiri, questioned about the violence in the country and the attack on the MDC leaders, replied with the usual unproven allegations that it was all caused by the MDC themselves. They were mounting a violent attack on a police station at the time of the attack, Shiri claimed. And he was allowed to get away with that preposterous allegation. No one, not the BBC man nor, I'm sorry to say, the MDC representative had the wit to challenge Shiri or to remind him of Mugabe's own words at the time, 'We will bash them…they deserve it.' which would have pinpointed for the listener exactly where the violence is coming from and who is directly responsible for it all.

And this is the same man who receives 'thunderous applause' from the SADC leaders as they gather in Lusaka. Maybe Zanu PF bussed in a whole lot of cheer-leaders, I wondered? How else could grown men, leaders of their countries, cheer for a man like Mugabe who permits no opposition, muzzles the press and beats his own people . Have these leaders lost all decency and humanity that they continue to back the man who has time and again shown his utter contempt for the people's suffering? With literally thousands, of refugees flooding over their borders, SADC leaders continue to applaud the man who has brought about his country's downfall and reduced the population to starvation, misery and desperation so great that they will risk everything to get out of Zimbabwe.

Mugabe will fly back to Harare once again, his ego undiminished, to claim that he has the full support of his African brothers and the state-owned media will trumpet his success on the front page and shout it aloud on every news broadcast. And once again the Zimbabwean people, those that are left in the fast-shrinking population, will hear the same old lie: that it is the British who are responsible for the whole mess. I wish that someone would explain to me how sanctions against named individuals have caused the total collapse of Zimbabwe's economy. Sanctions! scream the Zanu PF apologists. UK led sanctions have destroyed the economy and the SADCC leaders believe –or choose to believe - the lie. Even while they benefit from British aid and trade they swallow the lie because they must not be seen to attack a 'liberation leader' and break so-called African unity.

Today's article in The Guardian reports that The Zambian president who in March this year described Zimbabwe as a 'sinking titanic' heaped praise on Africa's liberation leaders, including Robert Mugabe and urged all Zimbabweans to ' maintain peace and stability.' What kind of nonsense is this? Morality is turned on its head and Mugabe's blood-soaked present is overlooked on the grounds that twenty-seven years ago he was a great liberation leader. In the twisted logic of the SADC leaders' thinking the past liberation history excuses all present crimes against his own people. There is something terribly wrong with that logic; rather like telling oneself that one great, heroic deed in the past excuses all present crimes.

Winning freedom from colonial rule was a great achievement but the liberation leaders would do well to remember that they would never have won that battle without the support of millions of ordinary men and women who gave their lives for freedom. But that was then and this is now, the twenty-first century. Thousands of young Zimbabweans have no memory of the liberation struggle. The only struggle they know is the struggle to survive in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. He will be long gone while the born-free generation will live on with his dreadful legacy.There was one tiny ray of hope - and unintended humour - in The Guardian report. The Zambian information minister, speaking to Associated Press commented' Zambia cannot impose its will on Zimbabwe just as Zimbabwe cannot impose its will on Zambia. But we can quietly whisper to each other our concerns.'So now we know! A combination of Mbeki's quiet diplomacy and Zambia's quiet whispers seems to be all that will come out of this SADC extravaganza. Will the softly-softly approach be loud enough to awaken the collective conscience of the SADC leaders? Maybe even Mugabe himself might hear a distant murmur of disquiet from his neighbours and change his ways. Somehow I doubt it - but miracles do sometimes happen!

Ndini shamwari yenyu. PH.