ZIMBABWE - LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA

28th March 2009.

Dear Friends,

According to a Zimbabwean journalist whose comments I read this week, it is now considered to be 'unpatriotic' in some circles to criticise the Government of National Unity - or Inclusive Government. Neither label precisely describes the strange hybrid that now purports to run the country but many Zimbabweans both in and outside the country must be finding it hard to come to terms with the notion of sharing power with the very same people who were intent on beating your brains out yesterday. Indeed, it's pretty difficult to be whole-heartedly in favour of this arranged marriage when one considers the very mixed messages coming out from the country. Events over the last week perfectly illustrate this point.The so-called Government of National Unity has been in place for 44 days. On the surface all is sweetness and light; no more overt inter-party violence and the ordinary man and woman in the street now see supermarket shelves loaded with goods. Strange that no one tells us where all these goods have come from! Are we really supposed to believe that Zimbabwe's own food industy has suddenly swung into production again? The truth, I suspect, is that these are all imported goods. Incredibly, most people – at least in the urban areas - seem able to access foreign currency to pay for them. It's s very different story out in the villages. A friend phoned me the other day from my old hometown, right on the edge of a huge rural area. My friend wanted to thank me for a parcel I had sent him back in January. (It had just arrived!) Of course, I asked him about life now and how he was getting on under the new political dispensation; his cheerful answers amazed me.

Admittedly, he is not the brightest or most astute political observer there is, but what worried me was the fact that he seemed to have been completely hoodwinked by the sugar, cooking oil and other goodies that he can now buy over the counter. I assume that my friend is now paid in foreign currency so he can find the necessary rands or dollars. "But what about Baba?" I asked, "How is he getting on down there in Mount Darwin? He hasn't got US dollars, how is he managing?" There was no real answer to that question but he did admit that 'Nzara' was still the problem down there in the rurals. 'Nzara' means only one thing, of course, no mealie meal for sadza, that's the only food that really counts for rural Zimbabweans, unlike their urban brothers and sisters who can fill their empty stomachs with western take-away food. In the rural areas, food relief is controlled by the chiefs and they are not known for their even-handed approach to members of the opposition. What opposition you may ask? According to Robert Mugabe's comments to the Norwegian envoy this week, "We no longer have an opposition and we are working together towards the same goals we have set as government." Ah, so now, it all becomes very clear! This is what Robert Mugabe and his party mean by 'A unity government' The MDC cannot claim that they were not warned; if you join this sham of a Unity government, you will be swallowed up by Zanu PF. Already after just 44 days Zanu PF chefs are telling people out in the rurals that there is no longer any opposition party, they have merged with Zanu PF and all those people who had deserted the ruling party must now come back to the one true party, Zanu PF, that won them their liberation from the hated British imperialists. Will the people swallow that lie? The answer, sadly, is that they may very well do just that. After the long years of suffering and hardship under Mugabe's disastrous misrule, people are only too ready to believe that Zanu PF have had a change of heart and now want a genuine power-sharing government. The sight of old enemies hand in hand, like the Deputy Prime Minister and the Vice President at the recent Women's Day celebrations, seems to suggest that all is indeed sweetness and light but fine words and hand clasps are not enough to convince me that this is genuine unity. We should not forget that Zanu PF as a political party is always in election mode and even now their collective minds are concentrated on the next election in two years time.

If this is a true 'transition' government than 2010 will be the year when Zimbabweans go to the polls again. We are told that the process of constitutional reform is about to begin in accordance with the Agreement signed between the parties. Let's hope that Zimbabweans have not forgotten the deluge of violence that followed after the last Constitutional Referendum when the people voted NO in February 2000. That defeat as I remember was blamed on the whites, though even then they were less than 1% of the population. And if Mugabe has his way there will be no white farmers left at all in Zimbabwe by 2010. Fewer than 100 of them now remain apparently and violent farm invasions have gone on all week. The MDC appears powerless, or unwilling, to stop them for fear, perhaps, that such a move will wreck the so-called Unity Government. The Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, says that if Zimbabwe does not get financial assistance from the west very soon the Unity Government will collapse and complete anarchy will ensue. Perhaps the Honourable Bits needs to be reminded that the rest of the world is watching events in Zimbabwe very closely and have made it absolutely clear that there will be no budgetary assistance until human rights, including property rights, are restored and all political prisoners released. Robert Mugabe and his Foreign Minister Samuel Mumbengegwe both deny that Zimbabwe has any political prisoners in its lice infested stinking gaols but at the same time the MDC releases the names of abducted activists whom they want released. Meanwhile, Mugabe refuses to swear in the MDC's Deputy Agriculture Minister on the grounds that he is facing a serious criminal charge.

My 'unpatriotic' question is what is really going on in Zimbabwe? Jan Raath, a respected journalist wrote this week that it brought a lump into his throat when he saw for the first time in ages municipal workers in his hometown of Harare clearing away piles of stinking, rat-infested garbage from the city streets. On the face of it, that certainly seems a sign that things are changing for the better but set that beside eye witness accounts of the conditions in Zimbabwe's gaols where men and women are dying on a daily basis of starvation, reduced, said Roy Bennett, to emaciated skeletons that he likened to Holocaust victims. And this is happening under a 'Unity' government! The truth is that 'Unity' is a meaningless concept unless it is a true partnership of equals. Looking in from the outside, I see very few signs that Mugabe and Zanu PF are really committed to equal partnership and true change in the country. It is much more than 'changing Zimbabwe's image' as Professor Mutambara would have us believe; it's about changing the reality of life for all Zimbabweans.

Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.