ZIMBABWE- LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA

Dear Friends,

"Don't make us pay for working with Mugabe"- that was the heading given to an article Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai wrote in The Times on April 1st. The article was presumably aimed at the world leaders as they gathered in London for the G20 Summit. Despite all the razzamatazz, with leaders jetting in from all over the world, the chances of the Summit succeeding were not reckoned to be high. By Thursday, however, when the Summit ended there was an agreement of sorts with the world leaders agreeing to a one trillion dollar package to rescue the world's economies. Will any of that money come Africa's way and perhaps there is some hope in the fact that the World Bank and the IMF will directly benefit from the one trillion dollar package. There was also the provision of Special Drawing Rights of 250 billion which would make loans available to lowest-income countries depending on their contributions to the IMF (and we all know Zimbabwe has not done too well in that area). There was a good deal of rhetoric about the necessity of avoiding protectionism in trade but it remains to be seen whether developed countries battling the recession will be either willing or able to encourage the free trade which is the lifeblood of capitalism.

None of this offers much comfort to Africa and the developing world.
In truth, it could not be a worse time for an appeal to the G20 to help Zimbabwe, bearing in mind the fact that Zimbabwe's troubles are self-inflicted: the result of gross mismanagement by Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party. In Prime Minister Tsvangirai's article he set out the principles that underpinned his participation in the Inclusive Government: "To create a country where…we are united by our respect for the rights and dignity of our fellow citizens…Our success on this journey will depend on this new transitional Government, our people and the international partners who will work with us to realise this vision for our country."

Noble sentiments, but the truth is, that however noble and sincere the sentiments expressed by Morgan Tsvangirai, the distrust of Robert Mugabe, his partner in the Inclusive Government, is deep rooted. Gone are the days when Mugabe was ‘the blue eyed boy' of the west. They see very clearly what he has done to his country and why we are now in such a desperate state. Zimbabweans themselves who have been the victims of Mugabe's ruthless abuse of power share the distrust and while they may welcome the easing of the everyday miseries of life, the more perceptive among them recognise very clearly that the leopard has not changed its spots.

Even as world leaders were gathering, perhaps with Morgan Tsvangirai's words ringing in their ears, the Zimbabwean police continued their violent abuse of human rights. The Zimbabwean Human Rights Forum, issued a report showing that "The formation of the Inclusive Government did not bring an end to civic repression". On the contrary, there were 435 incidents of political discrimination and repression reported in February compared with just 78 in January. Until the MDC ‘partners' in this government can stop the blatant partisanship of the police and restore the rule of law in the country, I can see little hope that Morgan Tsvangirai will get the financial assistance Zimbabwe so desperately needs; even SADC, which pushed, some say forced, through the so-called Global Agreement cannot raise the money to help the new Inclusive Government.

Meanwhile, little changes in our poor, benighted country. Hidden behind high prison walls there is unbearable suffering and degradation with as many as twenty prisoners a day dying from a combination of starvation and disease. SABC sent a secret camera team in to film the horror over a three-month period in three different prisons. I watched extracts from the film on Channel Four last night and can only agree with Roy Bennett - and he should know having experienced prison life at first hand - the resulting images resembled nothing less than the nightmarish images of victims of the holocaust. And what was the response of our esteemed Minister of Justice? Patrick Chinamasa totally denied that the film shown on South African television last week, was an accurate portrayal of reality. His lame explanation is that the film was shot in some other part of Africa! It could not have been Zimbabwe says Chinamsa because "cameras are not allowed inside Zimbabwean prisons"! Chinamasa's ridiculous excuse typifies the kind of Zanu PF logic we have all become used to. He and many of his colleagues in the once all-powerful ruling party simply cannot accept the truth even when it stares them in the face. Paradzai Zimondi the man in charge of the prisons joined in the chorus of denial, this despite the fact that both men had earlier admitted that the prisons were in a dire state. Zimbabwean commentators refer to this Zanu PF habit of denying the truth as ‘being in denial' but I prefer to call it what it is: just plain lying. Too many innocent Zimbabweans have suffered incarceration in these hellholes to be deceived by Chinamasa's lies. While Zanu PF ministers lie and steal, Robert Mugabe himself is the picture of smiling reconciliation these days. He leaves it to his ministers to tell the lies, denying the brutality of the police or the violence of the ongoing land invasions. They seem unaware that in this age of mass communication anyone can see what is really happening in Zimbabwe. Watch the You Tube video of one particular farm invasion in Chegutu and you see the horror being experienced on a daily basis by the remaining white farmers. It is no good Morgan Tsvangirai saying that he will stop these invasions when we all know that he is powerless to prevent the downright theft that is going on. While he and his party may be absolutely sincere in their desire to restore the rule of law, his partners in government are content to go along with business as usual. Police brutality was demonstrated again only yesterday when HIV and AIDS patients were attacked with batons for daring to demonstrate against excessive hospital fees. The words of one demonstrator sum up for me the precise reason why Morgan Tsvangirai's appeal to the west may fail, "We did not imagine such kind of behaviour from them( the police) in this new political setup."

Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.