Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

NEVER THE SAME AGAIN !

Dear Family and Friends,

It took the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission almost five weeks to verify less than two and a half million votes that were cast in our Presidential ballot. In a country where junior school children have learnt to count, add, subtract and even multiply in millions and now billions in order to survive our collapsed economy, five weeks is insulting and highly suspicious to say the least.

After five weeks the ZEC declared the following results:

Morgan Tsvangirai: 1,195,562 votes (47,9%)

Robert Mugabe: 1,079,730 votes (43,2%)

Simba Makoni: 207,470 votes ( 8,3%)

Langton Towungana: 14,503 votes ( 0,6%)

ZEC went on to declare that since no candidate had received more than 50% of the votes cast, a run off election must be held at a date yet to be announced.

In the five weeks while ZEC were 'verifying' those two and a half million Presidential votes, the country has come to a virtual standstill: lives and businesses have been on hold and we have waited and waited and waited. In between the daily 16 hour electricity cuts we have followed every rumour, whisper and news bulletin. We have scrambled for precious newspapers and crowded around short wave radios for any information. It has also been a brutal five weeks filled with fear, violence and retribution. More than twenty people are dead, hundreds are injured, thousands have been left homeless and everyone has seen the horrific images of people with broken limbs, bloodied, bruised and burnt bodies.

Many are calling this the rural Murambatsvina and when you see the pick up trucks overflowing with people coming into towns from the rural areas you know why. The faces are gaunt, the eyes frightened and a weary, grey exhaustion surrounds the images to all who care to see.

The American Ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee, said he was personally recording incidents of violence and interviewing victims. Mr McGee said: "We are looking and taking note of the people responsible for the violence. Out of the 500 cases that I have handled, only one has been attributed to the MDC as an aggressor. We have affidavits; we have the names of the perpetrators. We know the perpetrators and there will be justice at the end of the day."

In these five weeks, aside from the fear and exhaustion, daily life for all Zimbabweans has reached ever more desperate levels. When we voted on March 29th a loaf of bread was 7 million dollars; last week it cost 40 million dollars; this week it is almost impossible to find. A friend who takes life sustaining drugs paid 345 million dollars for her tablets at the end of March. Just five weeks later the same tablets cost her 4.6 billion dollars.

As I write it is not yet known if Morgan Tsvangirai will take part in a second election. Whatever the MDC decide, the ordinary people of Zimbabwe know one thing : the MDC won the 2008 elections; they won a parliamentary majority and their candidate got more votes than Mr Mugabe in the presidential count. For the first time in 28 years Zimbabweans have begun freeing themselves from the clenched fist of Zanu PF. Real courage, real bravery and a decade of intolerable hardship has finally guided their hands in the ballot boxes. Zimbabwe will never be the same again.

Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Copyrightcathy buckle 3rd May 2008.http://www.cathybuckle.com/My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available in South Africafrom: books@clarkesbooks.co.za and in the UK from: orders@africabookcentre.com