Mandebvhu Talks “Zimbabwe”…

Given that the entire world’s leaders have foolishly decided to criticise your magnificent election, I shall take it upon myself to congratulate you on a job well done! Goodness knows nobody else will be calling you (assuming the phone lines still work?) with warm wishes.

It has been a hard and tough-fought campaign. The opposition ran a crooked and evil competition, but ultimately the will of the people was truly reflected in your absolutely overwhelming victory at the polls. The people have spoken! They want you! Again…

…you might have run unopposed, but that’s a minor formality in the face of your glorious triumph, placing you at the pinnacle of democratic expression. Those whiner-babies at the MDC could not put a dent in your old-school, down-to-earth style and sheer charisma. Allegations of mass-murder, rape and general tomfoolery by your hired goons are rightfully dismissed as simple diversionary tactics by the opposition.

I can sympathise with your struggle. It’s not easy running a country that has been driven to the dirt by those no good white devils, intent on pillaging our wonderful state with their irrigation techniques, foreign aid infused with genetically-modified poisons and their foreign-inspired notions of ‘good governance’. No, your complete victory at the polls is because of your exemplary leadership, your refusal to allow any manner of foolishness into your economic policies, your stellar adoption of agrarian reform and your fair and just attitude towards democracy would be worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, if that award itself weren’t tainted with the hands of Europeans.

So on this, your magnificent democratic triumph I congratulate you. May you reign long, may the people ever enjoy the warmth of your pragmatism and may democracy never die in your fantastically-liberated country. I hope your example truly serves as a beacon for other African leaders who rely on archaic methods of governance handed down to them by their colonial masters.

Hugs, Kisses and a .50 BMG Between the Eyes

John

(Source)

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With just days to go before the second round of the presidential election in Zimbabwe, violence seems to be escalating.

Reports of intimidation against opposition supporters have included severe beatings, murders and sexual violence.

But ZANU PF, the ruling party of President Mugabe, denies these reports, blaming the violence instead on the opposition MDC, led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

In the first round in March, which was relatively peaceful, Morgan Tsvangirai gained about 120,000 more votes than Robert Mugabe but still not enough to avoid a run-off, according to official results.

BBC website readers in Zimbabwe tell of their recent experiences as the vote approaches. Their names have been changed to protect their identity:

As I write this message police officers are queuing to vote using postal votes. There is no way one can vote for Morgan Tsvangirai because seated on the voting table in Masvingo is the senior commissioner flanked by the assistant commissioners. They tell you ‘vote for our father Mugabe’ and show you where to put your X. Even police officers who were not registered voters were registered after the 29 March elections. I was surprised to see my name and many more others appearing and giving me a constituency. Observers should visit centres where postal ballots are cast because this is rigging at its best. Please let the world know about this forced postal voting.

Tendai, Masvingo

I am a student in my final year of university but I wonder if I will finish my degree. There are rumours of a war breaking out regardless of which party wins. My uncle, who resides in a small town called Chiredzi, fled the country and is now in exile in South Africa. My neighbour who was an independent candidate for the House of Assembly is also in exile. Many people in my parents’ social circles have also left for S Africa. But my dad is being stubborn and refuses to go into hiding. What kind of a country is this? There is such greed and such cruelty. I do not see our nation ever being truly independent as long as Mugabe or his party is in power. They are doing exactly what the regime of Ian Smith regime used to do. This kind of oppression is worse because it is brother against brother.

Kennedy, Chiredzi

I am very disturbed by the situation in my country. What we need is divine intervention because we tried our best by voting for the president we wanted, but now we are being killed, harassed and tortured for exercising our rights. The world should condemn Mr Mugabe and his government for taking the people of Zimbabwe for granted. Only God knows what will happen next.

Chris, Harare

Against the background facing us especially in Masvingo province’s Bikita district, it is inconceivable that the elections will be free and fair. Here a bloody reign of terror has been unleashed on us such that we have resorted to hiding in mountains and other areas for the sake of our security. There is maximum brutality here as ZANU PF militias step up their whacking of the MDC supporters with the direct help of a few deployed soldiers and local ZANU PF supporters.

Michael, Masvingo

This is a nightmare. If anyone were to call this environment conducive to free and fair elections, one must question their sanity. We had three people killed yesterday (one said to be the driver of the MDC MP elect) and now ZANU militia and soldiers have put up road blocks and if you don’t show your support for Mugabe by chanting slogans, you will be severely beaten. They have even gone as far as stopping staff buses and beating up workers on their way to their jobs. Mugabe surely is the devil and these demon friends and supporters of his are ruthless! Powerless as we are, I feel we are heading towards a massacre like the one in 1985-7 and it’s a big ask but the international community has to help us. We need help!

James, Kadoma

I live in an upmarket suburb of Harare and even here the ZANU PF youths have moved in en-masse. They have taken over a piece of wasteland where they drink the local moonshine and smoke ‘mbanje’ before patrolling the streets, carrying hammers, pangas and other assorted weapons, insisting that any person going about their daily business go with them. After they’ve gathered up enough people (to refuse results in a sound beating) they take them back to the wasteland and make them sing patriotic songs and chant ZANU PF slogans for hours. If you don’t do this with enough enthusiasm you are threatened and beaten. People are terrified.

Jane, Harare

The violence just needs to stop. ZANU PF and MDC thugs have taken over and are abducting and killing each other at will. This is not an election, it’s a murderous campaign of senseless killings which will achieve nothing. We are on the brink of absolute anarchy and we shudder to think whether we will be able to retrieve the country from where it is being taken to. God help us.

Farai, Harare

The whole thing has gone out of hand and without intervention we are sitting ducks waiting to be picked off one by one. The elections should not go ahead, they are an excuse for bloodshed. We have been summoned for a meeting in Seke, Unit M - we expect hell if we go but if we don’t go its worse. From a town dominated by MDC less than a month ago to not even one opposition supporter in sight, we must be a bunch of spineless Africans. I’m scared for my family!!!

Joseph, Chitungwiza

(Source)

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His Excellency President Robert G. Mugabe

Office of the President

Munhumutapa Building
Samora Machel Avenue/ 3rd Street
Harare, Zimbabwe

17 March 2008.

Your Excellency,

RE: Retirement and Acceptance of the Presidential Election Outcome

I am an exiled Zimbabwean citizen, respectfully writing to express my unreserved revulsion to your deafening silence as both the President of Zimbabwe and the Commander-In-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF), over the recent toxic and provocative utterances by your appointed Military, Para-military, and Police Commanders.

Mr President, the era of repressive military adventures in modern Africa is over. Incendiary seditious threats of a coup d’état and to democracy, belong to the past. Your esteemed office has to repudiate the offending Defence Force Officers, who have pre-emptively threatened the imminent will of the people.

May I humbly remind you, Mr President that your muteness on this grave matter is clear acquiescence to the impending violations of international humanitarian law which shall inexorably occur and of which you shall be clearly culpable.

Zimbabwe is eagerly awaiting a peaceful election and subsequent transition.

My umbrage with the intentional misuse of military power and your government’s constant flagrant violations of the supreme law of the land, our constitution, compels me to advise you to plan for a graceful exit from the Zimbabwean political landscape after the elections.

I trust Mr President, and appeal to your good office, conscience, and lucid judgement, that the elections are free and fair. I further request that you proclaim your austere adherence to the African Union (AU), Southern African Development Community (SADC), United Nations (UN), and internationally accepted election standards to which Zimbabwe is a signatory.

Africa and the international community await your dignified exit and long overdue retirement. At 84, Mr President, you are now too old, have failed to understand the youth of the nation, and cling to archaic antiquated ideals. Zimbabwe seeks to reclaim its rightful place amongst the league of progressive nations. Do what is best for Zimbabwe and end your legacy honourably.

Yours Sincerely,

Phil Matibe.

(Source)

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Until about five minutes ago, this article was focussing on the reaction by the head of the now emasculated ZEC, Justice Chiweshe.

He wanted to know if the MDC were calling him a liar. In a word - yes.

But I was beaten to the punch by an announcement on BBC News24 that the High Court in Harare had rejected the application by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the Presidential election results to be released.

I have not read the reason behind the decision, but I can tell you that the logic will be twisted out of all proportion.

The Presidential election result in Zimbabwe for 2008 would appear to be the best kept secret in the land - although everyone knows who won!

Robb WJ Ellis
14th March 2008

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On Saturday, 29^th March 2008, I sat in front of my machine and fielded email after email and read article after article on the internet about the ongoing election in Zimbabwe. It was a tiring but very exciting day for me as I built up a picture of the events in that country.

I felt good as the day passed with little or no reports of the normal violence that accompanies Zimbabwean events of this nature. Indeed, we do not have to look back very far through the history books to confirm that Mugabe normally gets his own way with intimidation, threats, violence and the rigging of the poll.

But apart from one unsubstantiated report that alleged a member of parliament had been caught with ballot boxes stuffed with ZANU PF votes, it all went very quietly. (I have seen no other reports since to lend credence to this story.)

I was not only impressed, but was extremely proud of my fellow Zimbabweans for not only their tenacity in exercising their democratic right, but keeping tempers and tensions at bay.

But not long after the polling stations closed, the shenanigans started.

The parliamentary election results began to trickle through on the Sunday. The supposedly autonomous Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) - appointed by the then Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe - released the results on an almost ‘one for me, one for you’ basis.

Now I haven’t been a freelance political commentator for very long, but I wasn’t born yesterday - or the day before that. For three days I watched the results come through, and it was always ‘neck and neck’ - a choreographed release - probably designed to cause as little political ire as possible, and probably never before seen anywhere else in the world.

Zimbabwe will go down in history for many ‘firsts’ - and this will be amongst them.

It was Tuesday before the final results found air, and the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by the erstwhile Morgan Tsvangirai, had indeed secured a majority in parliament. Whilst jubilation was felt, it failed to trigger any celebrations as all of our attention then switched the three way election for the President of Zimbabwe.

We were largely kept in the dark, and today, eleven days after the election, the two main protagonists had people in the Zimbabwean High Court - just to have the result released!

This case has been daily deferred - causing untold tension and suspicion within Zimbabwe - and across the world. Yesterday, the case was deemed ‘urgent’…

The feeling in Zimbabwe is that Morgan Tsvangirai has beaten Robert Mugabe in a straight fight - but Mugabe is playing with all aspects of life in the country in an attempt to cow the people, steal the election and hang on to power.

A number of events have overtaken the legal battle for the results.

War veterans - or at least people calling themselves war veterans - have invaded over 100 of the few remaining white-owned commercial farms in the rural areas of Zimbabwe. We have seen a list of military hierarchy that are responsible for the co-ordination of the invasions, together with instructions to make the people pay where ZANU PF members of parliament lost their seats.

Mugabe’s party - which I now hesitate to call ‘the ruling party’ - have announced allegations that the MDC bribed members of the ZEC to queer the count in their favour - and have demanded the recounting of 16 constituencies. Seven members of the ZEC have reportedly been arrested and will appear in court in due course. The ZANU PF call for a recount is outside the 48 hour Statute of Limitations - but that won’t stop Mugabe having a go.

Interestingly, in the event that any recount overturns the MDC winning of these 16 seats, then the parliamentary majority would slide back to ZANU PF. Morgan Tsvangirai’s majority on paper is just 2, but we have to factor in the ten seats won by the Arthur Mutambara faction of the MDC.

Three seats have yet be decided as candidates died between registration and poll dates. These will be decided in by-elections at a later date.

Although the Presidential results are ostensibly unknown to anyone except the ZEC, Mugabe’s party has claimed that the numbers do not give a clear winner and that a run-off - Tsvangirai versus Mugabe - is needed.

Now this is the point of my article.

Mugabe continues to masquerade as President of Zimbabwe. This is not only unconstitutional, but is against the will of the people. Not that Mugabe has ever worried what his people think, need or want. He hangs on to power with his very fingernails.

The loss of parliament he may be able to stomach, but the loss of the Presidency would be the end of him - in more ways than one. Unless he has a confirmed exit plan and the resignation to live in exile, Robert Mugabe could conceivably spend the rest of his days in a prison cell.

With the rejection of his rule, Mugabe finds himself no longer the loved African leader he may once have been many, many years ago.

Whilst waiting for the election results to come through, I was listening to some music. And I heard the song “The King Has Lost His Crown” by Abba, and thought to myself, how fitting!

Disaster and disgrace

The King has lost his crown

His world comes tumbling down

Suddenly

His world is upside down

The King has lost his crown

But Mugabe refuses to go quietly.

Today in High Court, the legal representative of the ZEC – remember that this is a Mugabe-appointed body - stated that the release of the figures would be ‘dangerous’.

How does the release of election figures - which should have been done by Friday midnight under the Constitution of Zimbabwe - translate as ‘dangerous’? Is this a veiled threat on the judiciary, seen largely as pro-Mugabe - or is this a hint that the election was lost by Mugabe?

As things stand right now, Mugabe rules the country by proxy - by ignoring the Constitution - and certainly not by public choice. And he is massing the war veterans, the youth brigades and the militia, the police and the army to take on the country. And then take over the country.

Mugabe can conceivably use Presidential powers - which I believe are no longer his to use - to delay any second round of voting for the Presidency from 21 to 90 days, but I also discovered that if his party call for, and are granted, a re-run of the Presidential election, he can continue to rule (I use that word advisedly) for 365 days…

Note that I wrote ‘re-run’ as opposed to ‘run-off’…

When do we start calling Mugabe’s actions in the last five days, a coup…?

He is stirring public indignation at and in his actions, and is hoping that somewhere the tensions will snap, and violence will ensue. If it doesn’t happen spontaneously, then he will plan that spontaneity… (go figure). Using that violence as a premise, he will declare a State of Emergency - and the Constitution flies out the window (not that he has paid much attention to it anyway).

Once the military are in charge, Mugabe can relax, knowing that his rule will be in tact and only military force will change that. And who is going to take on Mugabe’s armed forces? Not many people. Not because they are a formidable fighting force - far from it - but because the free world want nothing that Zimbabwe has…

It has no oil. It has mineral deposits but nothing of any attractiveness. It has an economy bare stripped by government greed and inability, a broken infrastructure through government inconsistency and corruption - and a currency which has the rapid and repetitive use of the words ‘million’ and ‘billion’.

And any military intervention would result in the unacceptable death of Zimbabweans - something which must be avoided at all costs.

So the good Zimbabwean people are to be abandoned to the wiles and excesses of Mugabe and his party, ZANU PF. The free world has no intention of swooping in and saving the day.

Now - Abba’s words ring loudly in my ears. It is indeed a disaster and a disgrace…

Robb WJ Ellis

9^th April 2008

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What will we say when our children ask what we did to end Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship?

When our children learn the history of post-colonial Africa, they will be confronted with a case history: Zimbabwe.

They will learn how the bread basket of Africa descended into chaos, with the highest inflation rate in the world.

They will learn that about four million Zimbabweans fled hunger and political persecution.

They will learn about a kleptocracy that lined its pockets while the poor died.

This will not be a history lesson. It will be a dissection of a massacre.

By the elections of March 29 2008, our children will read, the average life expectancy of a Zimbabwean woman was 34 years and that of a man 37.

Television footage of that day will show women with babies on their backs crawling under barbed-wire fencing into South Africa in the hope of finding food, safety and a life for their children.

Election day 2008 will be a slice of tragic history.

Our children will learn that, in a country with one of the highest literacy rates in the developing world and blessed with a vibrant press for more than two decades, only two daily newspapers inside Zimbabwe reported on these elections.

Both were owned by the state and neither published a single positive story about the opposition in the run-up to elections.

On that day, election observers from Europe and the US were banned from the country. Only SADC observers were allowed in.

Our children will learn that during the previous election the South African observers were beaten up by police. And that those bandaged heroes declared as free and fair an election universally condemned as rigged.

Election day 2008 will be remembered for the fact that broadcasters such as Sky News filed their stories from Beit Bridge in South Africa because they were banned from entering Zimbabwe. Independent stations such as South Africa’s e.tv were also banned.

Our children will learn that police inside the polling booths “assisted” Zimbabweans to vote. They will read that these same police had, for 10 years, put a stop to any kind of democratic activity by the opposition or civil society.

They will learn that, only a year before these elections, the same police officers destroyed the homes of thousands in President Robert Mugabe’s inhumane “Operation Murambatsvina”.

Our children will learn that these same police beat opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to within an inch of his life only a year earlier, forcing him to seek medical treatment in South Africa.

At this point our children will ask the teacher (perhaps a Zimbabwean who is a naturalised South African): “But what did our parents do? What did South Africa say when all this was happening?”

And our children will learn that for nine years the president of South Africa pursued a senseless, immoral policy of “quiet diplomacy”.

In essence, the policy meant that South Africa chose to be friends with Mugabe, aiding and abetting the dictator while desperate Zimbabweans fled torture and imprisonment.

They will learn that Nelson Mandela, the iconic first president of the new and democratic South Africa, spoke out about leaders who clung to power at the expense of their people and was told to shut up; that Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu spoke up and was vilified by the dictator Mugabe, the South African presidency and its acolytes.

And they will learn that most South Africans expressed neither outrage nor shame at what was happening just across their border; that they went about their business without a care.

Our children will learn that a good man, Father Paul Verryn, gave refuge to hundreds of Zimbabweans in his church in central Johannesburg. And they will learn that police raided the church and arrested refugee children as young as five months old.

By the time our children ask what South Africans did about this outrage, Zimbabwe will be just another African country paying off massive debt to the World Bank when it could have been a beacon of peace, prosperity and hope.

The silence of your parents, the history books will say, was deafening.

About Justice Malala

Justice Malala is one of South Africa’s most respected political commentators and journalists.

A former newspaper editor, he is currently a media consultant and is the resident political analyst for independent television channel e.tv.

Malala was an executive producer on Hard Copy I and II, a ground-breaking television series on SABC 3 which recently won the Golden Horn Award for best television series.

Malala was founding editor of ThisDay, the quality, upmarket South African daily newspaper which was launched on October 7 2003 and folded a year later. Between 1999 and 2002 Malala was the Sunday Times Correspondent in London and New York.

Malala was awarded the Foreign Correspondents Association’s Award for Outstanding Journalism in 1997. He also won the Adult Basic Education Book of the Year Award for his novella, Before the Rains Come, that year.

His work has been published internationally in newspapers such as The Guardian, The Independent, Financial Times, Institutional Investor, The Age and The Observer.

(Source)

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I have just had the misfortune of watching the Zimbabwe Ambassador to Mozambique being interviewed on the BBC.

I could not believe the lies coming out of his mouth.

He says that Mugabe is ‘principled’ - he says Mugabe is ‘in touch’ with the people - and says that Mugabe has brought land to ‘the majority of the people’.

He also says that the country is under ‘international sanctions’ and he knows of no country that was able to operate under unternational sanctions.

Mugabe is not ‘principled’ - he is a megalomaniac.

Mugabe is not ‘in touch’ with the people - no leader ‘in touch’ with his people would subject them to Operation Murambatsvina or fail to house them adequately, even if the demolition campaign was ‘principled’.

Mugabe has not brought land to ‘the majority of the people’ - he has brought land to the majority of people within his government and in the armed forces. The landless blacks in Zimbabwe are probably even more in number than when he started, after Murambatsvina.

To look for a country that has survived under ‘international sanctions’ (even though the Mugabe regime is the subject of TARGETED sanctions), the Ambassador doesn’t have to look very far at all. Rhodesia was under international sanctions, and the economy was good, the agricultural produce was sufficient to feed the country.

The Ambassador represents the government that took over that economy - and they should have been advantaged because that not only took it over, but the sanctions were lifted. Why then, did Mugabe and his government fail in their remit?

Sadly the BBC has not put the interview up - I don’t blame them!

I say no more.

Take care.

‘debvhu

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I speak to many people all over the world. Some know about the situation in Zimbabwe, some lived there, and even more lived there before it was Zimbabwe. One such soul mentioned the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War” to me and it piqued my interest.

First a very brief synopsis from IMDB: “In the early 1980s, Charlie Wilson is a womanising US congressional representative from Texas who seemed to be in the minor leagues, except for the fact that he is a member of two major foreign policy and covert-ops committees. However, prodded by his major conservative supporter, Joanne Herring, Wilson learns about the plight of the people that are suffering in the brutal Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. With the help of the maverick CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos, Wilson dedicates his canny political efforts to supply the Afghan mujahideen with the weapons and support to defeat the Soviet Union. However, Charlie Wilson eventually learns that while military victory can had, there are other consequences and prices to that fight that are ignored to everyone’s sorrow.”

So I watched it last evening. I wasn’t sure whether I was angry or cheated when it finished.

I do realise that it is a true story, and that I find all the more shocking. I knew that the Russians were being financed by the CIA/US and then the tables turned and the financing went to the opposing side - and the deaths are unacceptable.

The duplicity is unacceptable. And I fail to understand the political kudos in such an action.

Just what did the US gain by playing the two ends against the middle? A few friends?

And today, the main players in the “Axis of Evil” were, to begin with, sponsored by the West…

As was said in Frankenstein: “I have created a monster.”

The writer got it right when he saw the opportunity to highlight the injured children. Because that, I believe, is what it is all about. The next generation. If they grow up with the hatred and loathing that we might feel - or, indeed, DO feel, then this world is in for a seriously wild ride.

And when I compare this film to the sanctions that Rhodesia fought under, I shake my head. Super powers were financing the terrorists, and democracies were starving the Rhodesians - how brilliant were our sanctions busters? How on earth did we sustain hit after hit after hit and so very nearly have it beat on the ground?

For what? To allow the do-gooders to hand the country to a man who took just a few years to break the country’s spirit, break its economy and deride its people…

Unfortunately stories and pictures in the press and on the internet do not have the same power as a movie, a documentary or the like. Have you ever seen “Beyond Borders”? A brilliant movie - but one which rubbed the heart raw with the abuse that the human body, the human mind and the human race takes at the hands of despots, dictators and megalomaniacs. But I digress…

Will there ever be a book or film about the truth how the West handed such a brilliant country to its destroyer - and how they tried to tell the world that what they had done was right? Somehow I doubt it. The West will never allow a film to be shot from within its midst that shows them in the worst possible light.

And any movie shot outside of the West that attempts to tell the story honestly, truthfully and with conviction (use the word advisedly) will be ridiculed - even if it made it to foreign shores.

Thatcher, Carter, Kissinger, Wilson - and so many others. The blood is on their hands - but they don’t see it because they are wearing rose-coloured spectacles to begin with, and are so busy counting their money, that they seldom see their hands. That, and the fact that they are without any conscience…

I think that the makers of “Charlie Wilson’s War” deserve a medal - and they should be already writing the script for another foray - on the truth behind Zimbabwe.

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I’ve had it with elections. Zimbabwe has been in election mode since 1999. No fundamental change seems to come from any of it. So I am changing tactics. I have looked at everyone’s manifesto for 2008 and it’s all same old hot air. I am tired. But I am still going home to vote: this time for the man who will rev my engine. Yes, I am voting for a presidential candidate who I can bear to look at for five years. We have three presidential candidates, Bob, Morgan and Simba. This whole nonsense in Zimbabwe of calling the leader of a two-person party “the President” is what gets to their heads. Three years ago I parked my car outside Harvest House (MDC HQ), only to be shooed frantically away by a rather aggressive pimply youth: “Get away, that’s the president’s parking spot.” I wondered why Bob needed yet another parking spot, but I discovered this is what they call Morgan. Similarly, Arthur Mutambara had barely led his MDC faction for five seconds when I heard a friend in his party say: “Let me talk to the president first.” As another friend put it in utter frustration, when a country has three presidents and none of them can end this mess you know you are f*$%*d! But I digress, back to the line-up.

Bob

Bob is just too ancient. Despite guzzling Lucozade and obsessive exercising, he has become terribly unattractive to look at. Not that he ever was, with that little Hitlerite moustache. Saville Row suits - or is it now Shanghai flea-market row? - won’t make him look better. As they often do on terribly old men who can’t behave their age, the suits look oversized and ostentatious in the middle of such poverty. Around election time though, Bob dons those awful Mobutu-style shirts with his mug all over them. I will never forgive Bob for foisting this style of dress on women in his party. Somehow the tailors who make those clothes always manage to get his picture smack in the middle of a woman’s ample bosom, or worse, on equally ample buttocks. Though it must be said there is something quite satisfying about squashing that face as one sits down after being forced to attend a long rally in the 37-degree heat of Muzarabani. Failed governance aside, Bob as a man is quite frightening. His tendency to bang tables like Nikita Krushchev doesn’t say “come closer”. Neither does his foul mouth. Seven university degrees just haven’t bought him good manners. The most important reason I am not voting for Bob is the way he never acknowledges his wife in public. Notice how he often leaves Grace a few steps behind. Granted Bob was born in the days when men had to walk in front of their wives so they could protect them from lions, but now?

Morgan

Let’s look at Morgan. A president should dress well, so Morgan please lose the ugly cowboy hat. Morgan just hasn’t got the message that those hats are so… thuggish, so tacky. They don’t do anything for us girls. They make short men look like ducks with a disability. By the time the man emerges from under that hat - after talking interminably on his cellphone - I, for one, will have lost any inclination to listen to his economic plan. Those hats breed cowboyish unilateralism; we saw it with George W, Jonathan Moyo and now Morgan. Coupled with the Papa Doc routine that Morgan and his security men have now adopted, my heart just sinks. He will arrive at a rally in a convoy of 4×4 vehicles - a statement of the party’s values if ever there was one - with a dozen or so young men hanging out from open doors, wearing dark flea-market shades. Dreadfully unattractive. These same tontons macoute will proceed to shoo the poor working masses out of the way. Even some of us who still regard him as our “Comrade Boycott”, former chair of the NCA (National Constitutional Assembly), are too scared to come anywhere near the tontons. Morgan has an equally foul mouth, especially at his rallies, and in Shona. There is something quite crass about a president “shouting,” as we say at home, like that. Thankfully some of Morgan’s rough edges have been smoothed by a glammed-up wife. Susan looks ever so refined thanks to facial treatments from Theresa Makone, Morgan’s mate’s upwardly mobile wife. But, like Bob, Morgan always forgets that Susan is right beside him. Not a touch. Not a smile.

One who got away

I am so sorry Arthur dropped out of the presidential race. If nothing else the fellow knows his Pierre Cardin from his Yves St Laurent. I am sure he took the grooming and sartorial elegance module at university. Oh, and our prof can use power point! I don’t think Bob can turn on a computer. Can he? Every time he goes to donate computers to schools he always stands a safe distance from the critters. Arthur so loves his laptop. Takes it everywhere. His presentations might lack substance, but they are so well accessorised his audience is always agog. Sadly there is not much electricity in Zim these days, so he has to resort to his student politics ways of shouting - too stridently. Perhaps it is a good thing Arthur has dropped out, he needs to grow up a bit. The last thing Zimbabwe needs is a Thabo Mbeki. Too much book is not good. Look at where Bob got us having “eaten so much book”.

Simba

The man of the moment is Simba. I for one don’t care how many gallons of ZANU PF milk he was reared on. I will ignore that his manifesto barely talks about women’s rights. I just want his picture hanging in my office for the next five years. Who doesn’t want to walk into a government office and be greeted by that smile? Those funky little glasses just do it for me. Arthur, please pass on to Simba the power-point skills, and I am sold. And he ate just the right amount of book. Simba speaks calmly. Diplomatically. As a president should. He acknowledges his wife, Chipo. Since that day he lovingly held her hand as he went into Parliament to present his first budget as minister of finance, I just knew this man was going to go far. At his campaign launch the message I got was, this is my partner and we share a life. My big problem with Simba is his so-called backers, who love the Morgan-like big hats. Their looks and their politics just scare us girls off. Lose the men with the hats and big tummies, they are bad for your image and your future, Simba. On the plus side Simba has so far eschewed the convoys and the insignia with his visage and other undesirable paraphernalia on women’s anatomy. Long may it stay this way. Ideologically, the men on that ballot paper are interchangeable. So technically, Bob has nothing to be afraid of. There is no regime change in the offing, just a photo change. I am voting for the man whose looks and habits I can live with for the next five years. At least when he messes up, I have set the political bar so low it won’t matter. After 27 years of the ugly and ancient one, give me a younger and better-looking man, in a PINK shirt. Got ticket, will vote.

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The destruction started from day one but the Zimbabwean people have trusted the lions to live with goats in the same cage without checking. By the time we started to notice that some goats were missing, nothing really was left.

This is why I am demanding as a citizen the involvement of the people in the government’s business. It helps for checks and balances. They are using all these dirty tricks we are seeing today towards elections just to protect each other.

These ZANU PF thugs are all together because they know what they have stolen from us. Vote for either of them and see how they are going to press for the last drops of our blood. Again, there is no independent ZANU PF in this world. Makudo ndemamwe kuuya kwemuridzi wemunda anotaurirana.

Many people were in the country months or years before corruption flames erupted to the ordinary citizens for survival. So in actual sense Mugabe has forced people to be corrupt because their pockets have been eroded for too long.

That also covered ZANU PF but the heat has increased each day and people are demanding why this all happened. Let us demand the truth and get the answer now than latter it sounded all fine then until the thugs swept everything for themselves and people couldn’t just afford anything.

Today Zimbabweans are scattered all over the world including Zambia and Mozambique. Smith must be weeping in his grave looking back into the former bread basket of Southern Africa’s potential to be very far today.

Many Zimbabweans in the country are traumatized mentally and emotionally because of the pain they are going through. We really need to recover and the process to achieve that is very necessary right now than latter.

We need a gradual awareness of ourselves as a people. We can only start to be aware of ourselves as a people of a country by exposing what really happened since 1980.

This is when I think the Zimbabwean people especially from Matabeleland can see, feel, and have faith in the process of change and rebuilding. This will also be a catalyst for a healing process.

I picked Matabeleland because the region has been marginalized by ZANU PF from day one. This is not time for Mashonaland, but Zimbabwe as a country.

ZANU PF leadership which includes all those who are trying to stand tall helped to destroy our solid culture. The destructive culture that was set up by ZANU PF has destroyed our society and families.

We don’t have a society that we had yesterday before Mugabe came. We don’t have the family that we had when we teamed up with Mugabe to fight Ian Smith.

Why did Mugabe kill that after he has used us? If there are few who are still being used by Mugabe they must know that it is not taking them far from now. Run to the shelter before it rains.

We just need to be processed altogether so we can enter into a new Zimbabwe. Africanism is okay but if it is used by leaders to benefit themselves on the expense of the majority, I say it is an evil weapon used by these African leaders to blame the West when it is their fault. This must stop and people must step up for that to happen.

It is widely known to be a true fact that Zimbabwean life style from top to bottom is unmanageable. No matter how hard working Zimbabweans can be, it remains a fact again that living is not just working.

Zimbabweans are enduring life if not living it. This is why I say time is now to make the change and only those in the country can do it through the ballot in large numbers.

Re-identification of our origin must be part of the rebuilding process in order to make the change. Zimbabweans must surrender Mugabe’s instillation of corruption into our culture.

By so doing we will be regaining trust within ourselves as a society that has been derailed of its solid culture by a single minded dictator. We need each and every citizen to have the willpower that will invigorate the building momentum in the country.

It is willpower within a society that can bring people together and rebuilding of trust within the destroyed society. New leadership must ignite this and must have open door policies if not closed up like we have lived up with for the last 28 years.

As a people, we need to know each other and understand ourselves in order to be a solid society unlike what ZANU PF has made us to be so divided of a people.

The division is just benefiting them as corrupt leaders because divided people are not powerful enough to face their leaders. We must make our own destination otherwise we will always be put in this predicament we are facing today in the country.

Let us make our own era that is for the benefit of all of us and giving ourselves a position to make decisions in our own country as a society.

This new era of setting our own pace as a people will begin our experience to built new behaviours, and detach ourselves from Mugabe’s corrupt instillation into our society. We will be in a new era of caring for each other and nurturing our own building process as a new society.

Since Zimbabweans have already started the journey in September 1999 of regaining their country back from the renegades of ZANU PF, we have faced many problems.

These problems include such as the world’s worst inflation, 80-90% unemployment, rampant killings of activists and oppositions leaders, infiltration of ZANU PF CIO’S into our party, and last but not least mushrooming of little Mugabe’s.

These little Mugabe’s have been trying to kill the people’s party but not this time around. This syndrome of little Mugabe’s has been studied closely and time is now that they must be buried together with their old aged master.

The bag of tricks must be empty by now as we see the running around of ZANU PF thugs denying their god of corruption. Those who are running away now and try to stand tall to take over from their master have done so too late.

Re-integration is encouraged but the truth reconciliation must be in place in order to thoroughly investigate what transpired in ZANU PF for the past 28 years. Such an exercise will motivate all Zimbabweans scattered all over the world to go back home and help to rebuild our country.

A true new Zimbabwe must be seen comfortable and welcoming to all Zimbabweans. The powerless who also are the majority must be given the chance in the making of a new Zimbabwe.

Leaders of the new Zimbabwe must break the secrecy barrier if Zimbabwe is to come back home. Trust, accountability, and transparency must be our first step after the elections.

Nicholas Nickson Mada
US based activist

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