ZIMBABWE - LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA !

19th December 2008.

Dear Friends.

This will be my last Letter from the diaspora for 2008. It has been a truly terrible year for Zimbabwe culminating in the cholera outbreak that is now sweeping the country, creating a humanitarian crisis of massive proportions. It is unutterably painful to be here in the UK and see the collecting boxes out in the charity shops and realise that Zimbabwe has fallen so low that it has now become the subject of public charity. Somalia, Dafur, the DRC have all been on the list of failed states requiring charity for their suffering people. Now we have Zimbabwe, the once 'shining jewel' of Africa' added to the list. Starvation and disease, state violence and political repression now reign supreme where once was peace and plenty. The truth has been subverted for lies and propaganda as greedy, power-hungry men and women prey on the nation and leech on its human and natural resources. It seems on the face of it that all that is good and fine in our African culture has been devoured for the sake of short-term gain for the few.

But hope is not lost. Listening to stories from inside Zimbabwe, I am constantly struck by the way Zimbabweans, black and white, help each other out in the incredible hardship of everyday living, sharing the little they have with each other. Away from the media and the glare of publicity, neighbours look out for each other, mindful that they are all in the same situation. While government ministers sound increasingly demented and deranged in their pronouncements about how it's all the fault of the Brits or the Americans, ordinary people get on with their lives as best they can in the nightmare of poverty and near-starvation that Mugabe and Zanu PF have created through sheer bad governance and lack of leadership.

Sadly, what 2008 has shown us once again is that the Zimbabwean people can expect no help from the AU or SADC. Their only interest appears to be in protecting Robert Mugabe and attacking the west's racism and 'neo-colonial intentions' South Africa, which might have been expected to be more than a little concerned about the flood of refugees crossing its borders - not to mention the spread of cholera - says nothing about the brutal abduction of Mugabe's political opponents or the disappearance of journalists. Instead, the Secretary General of SADC announces that SADC will investigate Patrick Chinamasa's claims of 'compelling evidence' that the MDC has training camps in Botswana for what he calls 'opposition rebels' preparing for war in order to bring about regime change. The hypocrisy and double-speak of the South African government is breath-taking. Once again they block any move to censure Mugabe at the UN yet continue to push for the formation of a Government of National Unity in the apparent belief that the political crisis in the country will be solved by Mugabe's virtual retention of power. Zimbabwean soldiers are fighting and dying in the DRC and South Africa utters not one word of condemnation of Mugabe's intervention in a war which is none of his concern unless it is to protect his diamond mines and ensure that he keeps his generals sweet.

Zimbabweans are a deeply spiritual people and the events of the last two weeks:- the death of Elliot Manyika; the shooting in mysterious circumstances and the motor accident which has put Joseph Chinotimba is hospital - have not gone unnoticed or unexplained. The spirits are angry and those with innocent blood on their hands are paying the price.

As we move into 2009 and resistance to the Mugabe regime mounts as it surely will, there will no doubt be more innocent blood shed. Mugabe 'threatens' the country with an election and we all know what that entails. He is fond of telling people that the liberation war was won through the barrel of a gun- nderopa, through blood but as he becomes increasingly isolated in his paranoid delusions he would do well to remember that he too is just as mortal as the rest of us. Despite what he may claim, Mugabe has not been granted the gift of immortality; Zimbabweans are a patient - some might even say passive - people and Mugabe takes full advantage of that. He 'knows his people' he would say, but he would do well to remember that the people's patience is not endless. They may be slow to anger but fearsome when the anger boils over. The Old Man needs to make his peace with the ancestors before it is too late.

Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.