Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe

Ordinary Heroes

Saturday 8th August 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

As Zimbabwe commemorates Heroes Day in 2009 it again feels like a very partisan affair. For many of us who have suffered such trauma in recent times, it is appropriate to remember the ordinary heroes of our country who have died in the last decade. People who were not given state assisted burials and were not interred at Heroes Acre. Ordinary people who dared to work for change, dared to speak out and to stand up for democracy and who were murdered as a result. Ordinary people whose murderers still walk free amongst us in our cities, towns, villages and suburbs.

People like Morgan Tsvangirai's driver, Tichaona Chiminya, and his colleague Talent Mabika who were burned to death in a car set on fire by a gang in Buhera.

People like Patrick Nabanyama,an MDC polling agent in Bulawayo who was abducted nine years ago and has never been seen again.

People like 45 year old MDC supporter Milton Chambati, who was attacked by a mob, stabbed in the back and then beheaded in Magunge.

People like Tafi Gwaze, an MDC Polling agent who was abducted, tortured and beaten to death.

People like 22 year old MDC supporter Francis Chinozvinya who was shot in the chest during a Zengeza by -election and pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.

There are hundreds more people who have died because of their political affiliations since 2000.

There are thousands who will forever bear the physical and mental scars of being beaten, burned, tortured, raped or sexually abused because they supported the MDC. There are millions who have endured the pain of being separated from their families and relations, their homes and their country as they had no choice but to live in exile in the diaspora. And of course there are all the heroes here at home - all of us who have lived with hunger, sickness, destitution, fear and oppression.

Perhaps next year Zimbabwe will also honour its ordinary heroes.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

CATHY BUCKLE'S WEEKLY LETTER FROM ZIMBABWE

TITLE DEEDS ARE SACRED!

Dear Family and Friends,

As a youngster growing up I was always taught to save and, if possible, to invest in land or property which would hold or increase in value throughout my life. Title Deeds were sacred, I was told. They were the indisputable, unquestionable, legal documents which would always prove ownership.

So much has happened in Zimbabwe this last decade that for everyone except Zanu PF it has been the most horrific nightmare.

For most of us the real hell began when the people of Zimbabwe rejected a draft constitution in a referendum in February 2000. At that time I was a farmer living on a piece of land bought legally a decade before. The Title Deeds proving legal ownership of that property were in my possession. A fortnight later those Title Deeds were as good as useless,worthless pieces of paper when property rights in Zimbabwe were ignored and men in dirty overalls took over.

Despite losing the referendum and without holding another national vote, a Zanu PF parliament went ahead and changed the constitution anyway. In May 2000 the 16th Amendment to our country's constitutionstated that Britain had an obligation to pay for agricultural land compulsorily acquired for resettlement.

The MDC were one of many local and international voices who condemned the amendment. The MDC spokesman at the time was a constitutional lawyer and has been quoted in many references as saying: "We have no legal authority to compel the British government to do anything."

This week, nine years later, Mr Mugabe spoke at a conference to attract investment to the country. He said that Zimbabwe upholds the sanctity of property rights. For a moment I held my breath, thinking that maybe my Title Deeds were finally going to regain their rightful legal status. I was wrong as Mr Mugabe continued by saying that farms taken from Zimbabweans who had white skins would not be paid for by Zimbabwe and that Britain should be lobbied to pay compensation. Mr Mugabe went on to say: " We pay compensation for improvements. That is our obligation and we have honoured it."

Sadly that statement is not true and I am one of thousands of Zimbabwean farmers who has not received any compensation at all for the house, buildings or any of the fixed assets and improvements on a farm legally purchased in 1990 and then seized by a mob in 2000.

Shock turned to disappointment as MDC leader and the country's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai took to the podium of the investment conference. "The President is correct,' he said. "The constitution is clear. We pay compensation for improvements. If funds are available we will pay.' With sadness we realised that our Prime Minister supports an amendment made by a single political party to a constitution which belongs to all the people of the country.

There can be little hope of investment when property rights and TitleDeeds are clearly not respected in Zimbabwe - unless your skin colour and political persuasion are the same as those of the person holding power.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Births, deaths and voters!

Sunday 16th November 2008.

Dear Family and Friends,

Most nights between 11pm and midnight a Spotted Eagle Owl patrols my neighbourhood. He's a big grey and brown owl with bright yellow eyes and distinct ear tufts but it's his haunting, Hu - huuu call that alerts me to his presence in or near my garden. The arrival of the owl often comes at just about the time the electricity is switched on and I think that in the years ahead whenever I hear the Spotted Eagle Owl hooting I will always remember these darkest of days when my home country was collapsing. It is a time when the losers of an election held eight months ago are still clinging onto power even though they cannot even provide the most basic requirements of life..

If we are lucky nowadays the electricity comes on in the middle of the night when we are asleep. It doesn't last long. On good nights we have maybe five hours of electricity before it goes off for the next 19 hours. It is impossible to run a home, business or institution with just a fifth of our power needs. The electricity supply (ZESA) is a government run enterprise and is in a state of almost complete collapse. Zesa no longer send bills to customers - they say they have no paper on which to print the accounts. You have to volunteer payment, usually guessing what you owe, or risk disconnection - leaving you without even those four or five hours of power in the middle of the night. This week the government run ZESA refused to accept cheques from customers - customers who are paying them for not supplying electricity.

Water supply, controlled by ZINWA, a government enterprise, has collapsed everywhere and this week came the chilling news from Medicens Sans Frontiers that one million people in Harare alone are currently at risk from Cholera. In cities, towns and villages around the country our taps are dry most of the time, apparently because there are no chemicals to treat raw water. Desperate people resort to desperate measures including collecting water from shallow wells dug on open roadside land - even that alongside cemeteries - and from cloudy pools in stagnant streams where mosquitoes swarm in their thousands. Despite this, still we are required to pay water bills every month, for the dirty, smelly water that sometimes splutters out of our taps and into our toilets. ZINWA do not warn us to boil the water, they do not send out accounts and they say that from December they too will not be accepting cheques from customers - customers who are paying them for not supplying water, paying them for disease.

In the middle of this week I went with a cheque to pay for my telephone connection with Tel-One - a government controlled enterprise, and the only fixed line telephone system in the country. To connect to a number outside of my home town has become almost impossible in the last few months with the exchanges being out of order for multiple hours every day. Tel- One no longer send out accounts to customers so you must pay what you think you owe, or be disconnected. Tel- One refused to accepted a cheque for less than two million dollars. The next day a friend went to pay for their telephone connection and had a cheque for three million dollars. Tel- One refused to accept the payment saying they no longer accepted cheques for amounts of less than ten million dollars and said that from next month they will not be accepting any cheques at all.

Government controlled systems are collapsing all around us and ZANU PF have no solutions for any of the massive problems which are closing the country down, chasing away the tourists and leading a nation into starvation and disease. It is time for a new election in Zimbabwe, one in which losers actually lose and winners really win. I leave you with one last thought for those who do not know: the contentious Ministry of Home Affairs does not only contain the Police but also the Registrar General's office where births, deaths and voters are registered.

Until next time, thanks for reading,
love cathy.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

WE ARE READY !

Dear Family and Friends,

Now is not the time to give up! This is the rallying call in Zimbabwe and it's getting louder by the day as elections draw ever closer. This week I met a friend who had been transferred to a town nearly 400km away. We had not seen each other since August last year and those times, just six months ago, seem like they were from another era. It is hard to believe that back in August inflation had just topped one thousand percent and that now it's sixty six thousand percent. It's a percentage so high that none of us can comprehend what it really means. When I last saw my friend in August, a litre of milk was thirty thousand dollars; six months later it's five million dollars! My friend isn't surviving on his salary anymore. He can't afford for his wife and child to live with him and he survives only thanks to the subsidies given him by his parents who have a plot in the rural areas. My friend's entire monthly salary is sufficient to buy him a two litre bottle of cooking oil and one loaf of bread. It costs more than his entire monthly salary to travel the 400km back to the town he once lived in, to see his friends and relations. As is the norm in Zimbabwe today we talked about plans for survival. The usual question that was uppermost in the conversation was: Wouldn't it be better to leave the country? Go somewhere that has food in the shops, water in the taps, regular electricity and where even a menial job earns enough for you to pay your rent and buy a month's supply of basic foodstuffs. Despite all the hardships, we agreed that now was not the time to be making decisions and that we must wait till after the elections. Everyone is just trying to hold on until after the elections. Hope for real change is now less than six weeks away. It is undoubtedly going to be a gruelling six weeks. Since the Africa Cup of Nations football games ended, so too did the supply of electricity and many residential are as are back to fifteen hour a day power cuts. With these come water cuts and with 66 thousand percent inflation come prices that change at least once a day and businesses that are closed more than they are open.There is a feeling of real anticipation in the air of Zimbabwe and whether it is a protest vote or a ballot for a new democratic order, we stand ready to rebuild our battered land. Despite all the negatives attached to every aspect of the coming elections, we are ready.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle 16 Feb 2008www.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