LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA !

Friday 10th August 2007

I don't know who it was who said 'All publicity is good publicity' - probably a newspaper magnate - but in Zimbabwe's case I'm not at all sure it's true. Sky TV's footage this week of burly white farmers manhandling desperate black Zimbabweans fleeing the chaos over the border was certainly publicity but it did no one any good. What it did was to reinforce the stereotypes of the past; memories of white men armed with whips and assisted by vicious dogs in apartheid South Africa and Smith's Rhodesia only appeared to emphasise the point that what is happening on the Zim/South African border in 2007 is simply a continuation of the racial divisions and hatred that tore the two countries apart in the past. The Sky footage may have intended to highlight the desperate plight of the Zimbabwean refugees but the over-whelming feeling left in the viewer's mind was antipathy towards those South African white farmers. Geoff Hill's earlier report on SW Radio Africa of what's really happening on the South African border had tried to put the record straight; Geoff pointed out that the white farmers also deserved our sympathy as they suffer daily incursions, theft and damage caused by the fleeing Zimbabweans but no words could erase the image of the farmers handcuffing terrified black people.

What the Sky report failed to do was to point out that the white farmers would not have had to resort to vigilante tactics if the South African police and immigration authorities had been doing their job properly. The truth is that South Africa is totally unable or unwilling to address the problem of Zimbabwean refugees , even refusing to call them what they are: refugees fleeing a country where every aspect of life has become unsustainable; a country which South Africa has consistently failed to criticise for its gross abuse of human and property rights over the last ten years, a country which has been brought to its knees, in part because of South Africa's moral cowardice and failure to confront Robert Mugabe. Even now, at the eleventh hour when Mbeki is mandated by SADC to facilitate crucial talks between the Zimbabwean government and the opposition, he continues to allow Mugabe and Zanu PF to dominate the proceedings with their lies and deceit about the true situation in the country. You would think that the presence of thousands of refugees on South African soil should alert Mbeki to the collapse of the neighbouring state. But, when it comes to Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, Mbeki remains silent, apparently tongue-tied by his fear of Mugabe's maniacal response to anyone who dares criticise the actions of the 'Hero of the Liberation Struggle' and the Pan-Africanist cause.

Speaking of maniacal responses, SW Radio Africa's interview with Florence Chiwenga this week demonstrated perfectly that not all publicity is good publicity! Anyone with a modicum of sense, even within the ruling party, who listenined to Chiwenga's crazy ranting would have to be as convinced as I am that when it comes to Zimbabwe the lunatics have taken over the running of the asylum.The inimitable SW reporter, Violet Gonda, never one to resist a challenge, picked up her phone in London last week and rang the Commander in Chief's wife to ask her about her attack, verbal and physical, on the members of Morgan Tsvangirai's party as they toured the Makro wholesale outlet in Harare. Tsvangirai had gone there to see the effects of the government's price blitz on the availability of goods. Accompanied by journalists he toured the huge store only to come face-to face with Florence Chiwenga, a fire-eater if ever there was one. Quite what the lady was doing there was not entirely clear but I suspect she was after a bargain or two that she could resell on the black market. After all what's the point of backing the government's crazy price reductions if one can't take advantage of them! What followed was pure lunacy as la Florence screamed abuse and unprintable insults at all and sundry and physically assaulted a journalist.

Violet, like the good journalist she is, followed up on the story and simply wanted to ask Mme Chiwenga what it was all about; why had the sight of the opposition leader provoked such a rage? Whether Violet really expected a sensible answer, I somehow doubt. Chiwenga is after all the woman who told a white farmer whose farm she wanted that she hadn't tasted white blood for a long time. It's hard to believe that one would get a sane response from such a person. What Violet got in answer to her always courteous questioning was a positive barrage of nonsense about a lying foreign media, enemies of Zimbabwe etc etc. We have all heard it so often that it's not even worth getting angry about; all you can do is laugh and that's exactly what Violet did when Chiwenga threatened to sue her for one billion US dollars for daring to phone her private number! With that, the phone was slammed down and when the intrepid Violet tried to phone again the amount had gone up to two billion.It's all utterly insane but there's a chilling side to it; my mind went back to when my daughter's farm was first invaded and there was a gang of rabid war vets at the gate on a daily basis ranting and raving a la Chiwenga. The scary thing about them was there was just no way one could actually communicate; there was simply no talking to them as fellow human beings, no common sense or reason in what they said. Any kind of normal human exchange becomes impossible with people so brain-washed that they no longer know right from wrong.

As more and more 'dissident' thinkers leave the country or are arrested and imprisoned there's a terrifying prospect that only the madmen, the ranters and ravers will be left to negotiate Zimbabwe's future. And that is a very frightening prospect.

Ndini shamwari yenyu. PH.