Alec Douglas Smith died tragically young, recently. In an obituary (Independent Feb 2, 2006) Rebecca Saintonge states: `He was not the sort of person you'd think had been instrumental in averting a military coup.But this is what he did, and, in so doing, helped change the course of his country's history'.
I know little about Alec Smith, other than of his remarkable conversion from rebel son of the man who led my country into a disastrous rebellion against the Crown - or rather, against the British government in November 1965 - to friend of `moderate' African nationalists. But I know a fair amount about Ian Douglas Smith and a great deal about the character of African nationalism and -ists during that turbulent period of Rhodesia's history. I knew, personally, most of Bishop Abel Muzorewa's men (and a few women) including the Bishop himself and especially the Rev. Arthur Kanodereka who is the central figure in Saintonge's story. I shall do more research because thus far I have revised Alec Smith's `Now I call Him Brother' and re-read the relevant sections in Ken Flower's `Serving Secretly' - and, of course, Ian Smith's `The Great Betrayal' but it is not in these books that historians will necessarily arrive at the whole truth of the matter. Not that I doubt the claim that it was Alec who got the peacemaker, Arthur to meet his (Alec's) powerful father and thus created a bond of mutual understanding between the two men. But I seriously doubt whether it was Arthur and Alec alone who influenced the course of events leading to the averting of a potentially catastrophic coup. In any case, Arthur was assassinated long before the question of a coup was remotely considered, shot by night on a lonely roadsideby unknown assailants. This was possibly by agents bent on destroying the short, successful progress that his boss, Bishop Muzorewa, was making in his alliance with Smith. That alliance I know for sure, was forged yearsl before the events flowing from the Lancaster House peace agreement were under way. I know exactly how the RF regime `came around' to dealing with the ANC. I was there, I repeat - moving among the Bishop's ANC leaders including the Bishop himself. (Ask him: he may remember a meeting for the Bishop with Sir Henry McDowell, arranged by the Centre Party leaders, including myself). We were all agreed that dialogue was the only way to stop the war. Muzorewa poked his forefinger directly at my sternum "I see that we (the ANC) are preaching to the converted (McDowell and the 'liberals' of the CP)" he said. "go and get the people in power (your RF friends) to talk to us". I was nowhere near Ian Smith at any time, having personally and politically waged a twelve year campaign in opposition to his politics but I beat a path to the office of Senator Sam Whaley, a powerful member of Smith's party. He knew that I moved among nationalist leaders (see my 1997 Who's Who of African Nationalist leaders) and gave me a polite but defiant hearing. Then I tried Hilary Squires, my former friend and fellow student at the University of Cape Town who had joined the RF (he is currently in the SA News for presiding over the Shaik case) He was defensive of Smith but would have been sure to carry the message of the Bishop's willingness to negotiate with the RF.
So you see, I have a good memory of this and other events leading up to the Rhodesian Front's capitulation to the demands for African majority rule. As for the conditions prevailing when Governor Lord Soames was briefly in charge in Salisbury during the infinitely delicate moment of the final preparations for the handover of power to the African majority, I doubt they were conducive for the intervention of Ian Smith (and his General, Peter Walls) at that moment when there was a real danger of a coup (see Ken Flower's final chapter). But I was there (see my Foxtrot blog above) in Enkeldoorn, on the way to an Assembly point, hearing in that famous village pub, talk about the mutterings of the Rhodesian army who would have liked to stage a coup..... but more later.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
FOXROTt 3 - Moment of Danger
FOXTROT 3 The Moment of danger
Standing with the military on the podium were representatives of officials from the Rhodesian government - the Ministry of Social Welfare and other relevant arms of the administration including the CID (plain clothes police). We, the pathetic six white journalists had stood in front of the podium taking our photographs and recording the speeches which were mainly about the benefits of peace - schools, dams, homes, jobs and such enticements, all such marvelous promises. I do not recall that there were promises of land, but assume that land would have ranked high in the expectations of most of the guerrillas. It might well have been taken for granted that redistribution of Zimbabwe’s richer soils would be on the agenda since the constitutional agreement had been signed at Lancaster House a few weeks previously. Everybody was sick of the war anyway except, of course, Robert Mugabe. It has become clearer now that he would not have given a hoot if a continued war might have resulted in a scorched earth and it was Samora Machel who nudged him to settle. (By 2005, he had personally overseen an economic scorching - described by the United Nations in that year as the fastest declining of a national economy in a country not at war).
When the British flag was symbolically lowered and the Zimbabwe national flag had just been raised, military salutes and hand shaking done and speeches not quite finished the tranquil scene ended. A strange and very ominous murmur, rising to an increasingly angry pitch arose from the throats of the thousands of guerillas who started to edge forward, closing the hard square. I could make nothing of the events that immediately followed. It all happened so fast that I had to ask Elijah - now into mega-trembling mode - what was going on. A senior commander whose name I was told was Dan - spoken of with great respect I remember - blew his whistle and shouted an order for the assembled soldiers to step back. They instantly obeyed. At the same time, a corridor of British and ZANLA soldiers protecting the dignitaries opened up behind the podium and the official party was quick-marched out of the arena. A few seconds later, military helicopters flew overhead, carrying the visitors and Nhongo’s High Command out of the apparent danger zone - never mind the cluster of pale-skinned journalists left to face whatever had caused the guerrillas to frightn them.
But goodwill prevailed that afternoon. When the order came to dismiss, a huge roar of shouting, singing, ululating, whistling and stamping men and women went up from the great throng of guerrillas surrounding us. They were celebrating the end of hostilities, the end of wartime bloodletting, death and destruction. They broke into spontaneous dances, stirring up clouds of dust. I had a close-up view of the smartness of the uniformed men and the many women soldiers. It was quite wonderful to be able to photographe and record on my little machine the scene of such jubilation.
Elijah, still sweating and looking fearfully around had explained the cause of the sudden departure of the officials: a section among the guerillas had spotted a black Rhodesian, a former intelligence agent, among the officials on the podium. A deep note, like a long grunt had rumbled threateningly all around the square We could only imagine that the soldiers, these trained killers or their friends and relatives, had not been well treated in previous encounters with the former enemy whose representatives were standing there at their mercy.
But now it was it was time to go back without army escort or protection of any kind through that dangerous country - and I badly needed fuel. No luck. There was none on the ground. A guerilla leader looked at me with utter incomprehension when I asked for help and the British soldiers were nowhere to be seen. So I had to freewheel down every hill urging my little car to get us safely through the ninety miles back to Enkeldoorn.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Standing with the military on the podium were representatives of officials from the Rhodesian government - the Ministry of Social Welfare and other relevant arms of the administration including the CID (plain clothes police). We, the pathetic six white journalists had stood in front of the podium taking our photographs and recording the speeches which were mainly about the benefits of peace - schools, dams, homes, jobs and such enticements, all such marvelous promises. I do not recall that there were promises of land, but assume that land would have ranked high in the expectations of most of the guerrillas. It might well have been taken for granted that redistribution of Zimbabwe’s richer soils would be on the agenda since the constitutional agreement had been signed at Lancaster House a few weeks previously. Everybody was sick of the war anyway except, of course, Robert Mugabe. It has become clearer now that he would not have given a hoot if a continued war might have resulted in a scorched earth and it was Samora Machel who nudged him to settle. (By 2005, he had personally overseen an economic scorching - described by the United Nations in that year as the fastest declining of a national economy in a country not at war).
When the British flag was symbolically lowered and the Zimbabwe national flag had just been raised, military salutes and hand shaking done and speeches not quite finished the tranquil scene ended. A strange and very ominous murmur, rising to an increasingly angry pitch arose from the throats of the thousands of guerillas who started to edge forward, closing the hard square. I could make nothing of the events that immediately followed. It all happened so fast that I had to ask Elijah - now into mega-trembling mode - what was going on. A senior commander whose name I was told was Dan - spoken of with great respect I remember - blew his whistle and shouted an order for the assembled soldiers to step back. They instantly obeyed. At the same time, a corridor of British and ZANLA soldiers protecting the dignitaries opened up behind the podium and the official party was quick-marched out of the arena. A few seconds later, military helicopters flew overhead, carrying the visitors and Nhongo’s High Command out of the apparent danger zone - never mind the cluster of pale-skinned journalists left to face whatever had caused the guerrillas to frightn them.
But goodwill prevailed that afternoon. When the order came to dismiss, a huge roar of shouting, singing, ululating, whistling and stamping men and women went up from the great throng of guerrillas surrounding us. They were celebrating the end of hostilities, the end of wartime bloodletting, death and destruction. They broke into spontaneous dances, stirring up clouds of dust. I had a close-up view of the smartness of the uniformed men and the many women soldiers. It was quite wonderful to be able to photographe and record on my little machine the scene of such jubilation.
Elijah, still sweating and looking fearfully around had explained the cause of the sudden departure of the officials: a section among the guerillas had spotted a black Rhodesian, a former intelligence agent, among the officials on the podium. A deep note, like a long grunt had rumbled threateningly all around the square We could only imagine that the soldiers, these trained killers or their friends and relatives, had not been well treated in previous encounters with the former enemy whose representatives were standing there at their mercy.
But now it was it was time to go back without army escort or protection of any kind through that dangerous country - and I badly needed fuel. No luck. There was none on the ground. A guerilla leader looked at me with utter incomprehension when I asked for help and the British soldiers were nowhere to be seen. So I had to freewheel down every hill urging my little car to get us safely through the ninety miles back to Enkeldoorn.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Saturday, January 28, 2006
FREEDOM FOXTROT : PART 2
MILITARY HANDOVER AT FOXTROT ASSEMBLY POINT continued
In order to be present at this important ceremony I drove, as usual, in my little Ford Anglia, this time through dangerous, guerilla infested country, carrying my photographic equipment. I was determined to witness what was going on out there in the bush but had no idea of the significance of the day until I snapped that picture, capturing guerilla General Rex Nhongo at the moment of his triumph. My photo, a real scoop, was published after I sent it to Peta Thornycroft, a journalist friend, who was then working for the South African Daily Express newspaper. I was ridiculously proud of my achievement at the time.
It had been quite a business getting to Foxtrot Assembly point. There were moments of real fear among my three companions, hitching a ride was a Portuguese journalist from Sao Paulo called George, a Belgian girl whose name I have forgotten and we were accompanied by our official Zanu PF liaison officer guide, a beefy, squat fellow named Elija Gararurimo. Elijah's fear was palpable. He probably knew better than we three ignorant whites in the car with him, just how dangerous was the territory we were entering. I suppose I was too stupid to be frightened. We were travelling ninety kilometers from the small town called Enkeldoorn, once a dubbed `The Repulic of Enkeldoorn’ because, as its Afrikaans name implies, it was a stronghold of Afrikaaner farmers. (The place has since been renamed Chivhu). For me, in the driving seat, the day was to end with heart-stopping worry about getting back before dark in that wild, destroyed part of the country. It was touch and go whether my little old Ford Anglia would make it back to civilization and reach a petrol pump.
I had set off on our epic journey in a tiny convoy with two other small cars, each driven by foreign journalists. They probably thought that I knew what I was doing. I should have guessed at the danger because, considering its news value, the event was seriously under-attended by members of the Fourth Estate. When I went to pick up my `permit' to enter the Assembly point, I found that a former, BBC reporter friend, Justin Nyoka, was in charge of issuing the permits from ZANU PF’s headquarters at 88 Manica Road in Harare. He was clearly on edge, scared stiff about the possibility of a mauling at least and a massacre at worst of white foreign journalists venturing into terrorist/guerilla territory. He was likely to be held responsible for our safety and any deaths among observers could set of a ripple of panicky violence and put paid to the whole peace process. When he saw me in the offices for the first time since we had met in Lusaka five years earlier (I went there to interview exiled nationalist leaders – another story here) he refused point blank, at first, to give me a pass. “You are a local writer – this is not allowed,” he said sternly. Who knows what was passing through his mind. He is long since dead, a tragic victim of a disease that is currently killing Zimbabweans at the rate of three thousand a week. But standing with me in his office that day were two of my colleagues and friends. They knew that I was well acquainted with most of the country’s future leaders through my political contacts (revealed in my published Who’s Who). My new friends ganged up behind me and told Justin that they were determined to go and they would not leave without me. Justin rolled his eyes, shrugged and caved in. Elijah Gararirimo, a former information officer from ZANU (PF)'s Maputo office in Mozambique, was assigned the duty of accompanying us. After the introductory formalities, he planted his ample rear on to the back seat of my little old car. The sight of my ancient vehicle, I realise, with hindsight, was reason enough for Elijah to appear extremely fearful of our prospects of traveling safely through former terrorist-infested terrain. It was almost deserted bush country and the roads were rough.
Just off to the sides of the tarred roads we passed small, rural villages that had been totally destroyed during the seven years of a bush war. The sight of the burnt out remains of the pathetic little trading stores along the route should have caused me to me quiver a bit, but I was only too happy to be able to get my first sight of the war zone. We had been safely insulated in the cities from all but some rare sounds war, the rumble of distant explosions when a very few small bombs had been planted in churches in Harare and a single fuel storage tank had been sabotaged in the industrial sites by infiltrating guerrillas towards the war's end.
Our first sight of a human being came as we neared the Foxtrot assembly point.
A British soldier, serving with the international monitoring force overseeing the ceasefire came out in his military vehicle to escort us into the camp, driving to meet us across a stony river bed that marked the boundary to its entrance. Before we reached the camp and following behind his sturdy, camouflaged vehicle, marked with the white cross of the monitoring forces, our soldier escort had warned us, “Whatever happens, DO NOT STOP, just follow me into the camp”. We were loaded to the back axles with photographic equipment, handbags and effects filling every space inside the car - and Elijah’s girth wasn’t helpful. Unsurprisingly, we got thoroughly stuck on the rocks in the middle of the crossing. Emerging from beneath the trees lining the river banks, a small swarm of guerillas advanced towards us. They swiftly inserted their arms inside my vehicle, trying to grab our bags. Now I understood why Elijah had been sweating so freely; he had seen them in action in the war. They killed people, especially white people.
But the British soldier, as I learned that day, is a brave fellow: Our escort stopped his vehicle and came raging (all alone mark you) towards the would-be thieves. Roaring loudly at them he ordered them to fall back. I doubt they understood the words, but there was no doubting his body language. They shrank back, clearly having been given orders and dire threats by their own commanders about breaking the peace. `Shamwari chete” (only friends) they said meekly and melted back among the trees.
The Moment of danger
All had gone well with the speeches and the final raising of the new Zimbabwean flag, a multi-coloured one - now unfortunately identified as a ZANU PF flag rather than a national emblematic symbol - until after the handshake ...
PART 3 tomorrow
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
In order to be present at this important ceremony I drove, as usual, in my little Ford Anglia, this time through dangerous, guerilla infested country, carrying my photographic equipment. I was determined to witness what was going on out there in the bush but had no idea of the significance of the day until I snapped that picture, capturing guerilla General Rex Nhongo at the moment of his triumph. My photo, a real scoop, was published after I sent it to Peta Thornycroft, a journalist friend, who was then working for the South African Daily Express newspaper. I was ridiculously proud of my achievement at the time.
It had been quite a business getting to Foxtrot Assembly point. There were moments of real fear among my three companions, hitching a ride was a Portuguese journalist from Sao Paulo called George, a Belgian girl whose name I have forgotten and we were accompanied by our official Zanu PF liaison officer guide, a beefy, squat fellow named Elija Gararurimo. Elijah's fear was palpable. He probably knew better than we three ignorant whites in the car with him, just how dangerous was the territory we were entering. I suppose I was too stupid to be frightened. We were travelling ninety kilometers from the small town called Enkeldoorn, once a dubbed `The Repulic of Enkeldoorn’ because, as its Afrikaans name implies, it was a stronghold of Afrikaaner farmers. (The place has since been renamed Chivhu). For me, in the driving seat, the day was to end with heart-stopping worry about getting back before dark in that wild, destroyed part of the country. It was touch and go whether my little old Ford Anglia would make it back to civilization and reach a petrol pump.
I had set off on our epic journey in a tiny convoy with two other small cars, each driven by foreign journalists. They probably thought that I knew what I was doing. I should have guessed at the danger because, considering its news value, the event was seriously under-attended by members of the Fourth Estate. When I went to pick up my `permit' to enter the Assembly point, I found that a former, BBC reporter friend, Justin Nyoka, was in charge of issuing the permits from ZANU PF’s headquarters at 88 Manica Road in Harare. He was clearly on edge, scared stiff about the possibility of a mauling at least and a massacre at worst of white foreign journalists venturing into terrorist/guerilla territory. He was likely to be held responsible for our safety and any deaths among observers could set of a ripple of panicky violence and put paid to the whole peace process. When he saw me in the offices for the first time since we had met in Lusaka five years earlier (I went there to interview exiled nationalist leaders – another story here) he refused point blank, at first, to give me a pass. “You are a local writer – this is not allowed,” he said sternly. Who knows what was passing through his mind. He is long since dead, a tragic victim of a disease that is currently killing Zimbabweans at the rate of three thousand a week. But standing with me in his office that day were two of my colleagues and friends. They knew that I was well acquainted with most of the country’s future leaders through my political contacts (revealed in my published Who’s Who). My new friends ganged up behind me and told Justin that they were determined to go and they would not leave without me. Justin rolled his eyes, shrugged and caved in. Elijah Gararirimo, a former information officer from ZANU (PF)'s Maputo office in Mozambique, was assigned the duty of accompanying us. After the introductory formalities, he planted his ample rear on to the back seat of my little old car. The sight of my ancient vehicle, I realise, with hindsight, was reason enough for Elijah to appear extremely fearful of our prospects of traveling safely through former terrorist-infested terrain. It was almost deserted bush country and the roads were rough.
Just off to the sides of the tarred roads we passed small, rural villages that had been totally destroyed during the seven years of a bush war. The sight of the burnt out remains of the pathetic little trading stores along the route should have caused me to me quiver a bit, but I was only too happy to be able to get my first sight of the war zone. We had been safely insulated in the cities from all but some rare sounds war, the rumble of distant explosions when a very few small bombs had been planted in churches in Harare and a single fuel storage tank had been sabotaged in the industrial sites by infiltrating guerrillas towards the war's end.
Our first sight of a human being came as we neared the Foxtrot assembly point.
A British soldier, serving with the international monitoring force overseeing the ceasefire came out in his military vehicle to escort us into the camp, driving to meet us across a stony river bed that marked the boundary to its entrance. Before we reached the camp and following behind his sturdy, camouflaged vehicle, marked with the white cross of the monitoring forces, our soldier escort had warned us, “Whatever happens, DO NOT STOP, just follow me into the camp”. We were loaded to the back axles with photographic equipment, handbags and effects filling every space inside the car - and Elijah’s girth wasn’t helpful. Unsurprisingly, we got thoroughly stuck on the rocks in the middle of the crossing. Emerging from beneath the trees lining the river banks, a small swarm of guerillas advanced towards us. They swiftly inserted their arms inside my vehicle, trying to grab our bags. Now I understood why Elijah had been sweating so freely; he had seen them in action in the war. They killed people, especially white people.
But the British soldier, as I learned that day, is a brave fellow: Our escort stopped his vehicle and came raging (all alone mark you) towards the would-be thieves. Roaring loudly at them he ordered them to fall back. I doubt they understood the words, but there was no doubting his body language. They shrank back, clearly having been given orders and dire threats by their own commanders about breaking the peace. `Shamwari chete” (only friends) they said meekly and melted back among the trees.
The Moment of danger
All had gone well with the speeches and the final raising of the new Zimbabwean flag, a multi-coloured one - now unfortunately identified as a ZANU PF flag rather than a national emblematic symbol - until after the handshake ...
PART 3 tomorrow
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Friday, January 27, 2006
FOXTROT ASSEMBLY POINT 1980 - I was there
I promised the Foxtrot story - not a ballroom dance but,literally, Zimbabwe's first dance of freedom. My blogspot went missing yesterday and I have reminded myself not to be paranoid about the Mugabe regime getting their Chinese friends to blot out my blog. So here's the first instalment of an eyewitness story which is going into the book I have been taking so long to complete.
FOXTROT
February 17th 1980:[check exact date] That was the day when the Rhodesian army Commander Bertie Barnard and the ZANLA guerrilla supreme, Commander, Rex Nhongo (now Solomon Mujuru) ceremoniously shook hands. They stood, for the first time side by side on a raised podium, saluting the Zimbabwe and British flags as they were raised and hauled down respectively (and respectfully I might add). Formed up in a hard square in front of them were thousands - call it a battalion or two - of ZANLA guerrillas smartly turned out in full uniform. The men and women stood rigidly to attention in the hot sun, guns at their sides, facing their officers and the dignitaries who had arrived by helicopter to conduct a solemn ceremony.
I was there that day, fully accredited for the occasion as a photo-journalist - the only Rhodesian (or new-named Zimbabwean) present with five foreign journalists to witness that historic event. We were there to record the death of Rhodesia's military machine and the first ceremonies heralding the birth of independent Zimbabwe. The scene would have justified the roar of a cannon or a roll of British military drums or, better still, a message carried by an African drumbeat. But the awesome moment passed in a resounding silence, far from the capital city, out there in the African bush. There was scarcely a movement anywhere, not a leaf trembled in the still air and there was not even the faintest bird call; indeed, nothing but quietness - like the moment of an eclipse of the sun.
I wished I could join with the solemn salute of the military officers, but I grasped my cameras and with a click of the shutter, my colonial Rhodesia had gone forever. On that historic day at Foxtrot Assembly point, I was greatly moved by the dignity and the finality of the event.
Before the day ended there was a dramatic and dangerous turn of events, but that is described in my next blog about Foxtrot.
A post script: Ian Smith's rebel Rhodesian Front rebel flag and the colonial Rhodesian flag (I have one in my collection of memorablia) had been consigned to history during the six weeks that the British governor, Lord Soames, had returned and re-raised the Union Jack in Salisbury. As Britain's last, legitimate representative of the crown it was his duty to sever his government’s ties with the `self-governing colony’ of Southern Rhodesia. The British flag had not been seen for more than fifteen long years of Rhodesia’s false Independence.
Once the peace agreement at Lancaster House had been concluded and the new dispensation began to evolve, there were several `handover' ceremonies, but one I had witnessed was truly unique in that the military supremacy of Ian Smith's army was formally and finally relinquished on that day. It was only after it was all over that the news filtered through that the Rhodesian army had plotted a last-minute coup, but was dissuaded by some sensible counsel prevailing in the political hierarchy. In any case, there were contingents of Rhodesian soldiers present in several designated assembly points and any attempt to bomb or blast the soldiers gathered in the camps would have taken their lives as well as those of the British monitoring force and, at Foxtrot, perhaps mine too. I was thankful, as on previous occasions, to come out of my adventures unharmed.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
FOXTROT
February 17th 1980:[check exact date] That was the day when the Rhodesian army Commander Bertie Barnard and the ZANLA guerrilla supreme, Commander, Rex Nhongo (now Solomon Mujuru) ceremoniously shook hands. They stood, for the first time side by side on a raised podium, saluting the Zimbabwe and British flags as they were raised and hauled down respectively (and respectfully I might add). Formed up in a hard square in front of them were thousands - call it a battalion or two - of ZANLA guerrillas smartly turned out in full uniform. The men and women stood rigidly to attention in the hot sun, guns at their sides, facing their officers and the dignitaries who had arrived by helicopter to conduct a solemn ceremony.
I was there that day, fully accredited for the occasion as a photo-journalist - the only Rhodesian (or new-named Zimbabwean) present with five foreign journalists to witness that historic event. We were there to record the death of Rhodesia's military machine and the first ceremonies heralding the birth of independent Zimbabwe. The scene would have justified the roar of a cannon or a roll of British military drums or, better still, a message carried by an African drumbeat. But the awesome moment passed in a resounding silence, far from the capital city, out there in the African bush. There was scarcely a movement anywhere, not a leaf trembled in the still air and there was not even the faintest bird call; indeed, nothing but quietness - like the moment of an eclipse of the sun.
I wished I could join with the solemn salute of the military officers, but I grasped my cameras and with a click of the shutter, my colonial Rhodesia had gone forever. On that historic day at Foxtrot Assembly point, I was greatly moved by the dignity and the finality of the event.
Before the day ended there was a dramatic and dangerous turn of events, but that is described in my next blog about Foxtrot.
A post script: Ian Smith's rebel Rhodesian Front rebel flag and the colonial Rhodesian flag (I have one in my collection of memorablia) had been consigned to history during the six weeks that the British governor, Lord Soames, had returned and re-raised the Union Jack in Salisbury. As Britain's last, legitimate representative of the crown it was his duty to sever his government’s ties with the `self-governing colony’ of Southern Rhodesia. The British flag had not been seen for more than fifteen long years of Rhodesia’s false Independence.
Once the peace agreement at Lancaster House had been concluded and the new dispensation began to evolve, there were several `handover' ceremonies, but one I had witnessed was truly unique in that the military supremacy of Ian Smith's army was formally and finally relinquished on that day. It was only after it was all over that the news filtered through that the Rhodesian army had plotted a last-minute coup, but was dissuaded by some sensible counsel prevailing in the political hierarchy. In any case, there were contingents of Rhodesian soldiers present in several designated assembly points and any attempt to bomb or blast the soldiers gathered in the camps would have taken their lives as well as those of the British monitoring force and, at Foxtrot, perhaps mine too. I was thankful, as on previous occasions, to come out of my adventures unharmed.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
CHEWING BITS OF STRING
`The chief defect of Henry King/Was chewing little bits of string.' HILAIRE BELLOC's whimsy is a long time favourite. I began my blogging in October last year with half a borrowed and a wholly fractured quote:`Let go the hand of Nurse' for my title. `Nurse' back then was my computer guide and helper. I was reluctant to strike out on this blogging thing without him, the worthy Parafeen. I was led to believe, when I left the political arena, that what I had to record, especially about Zimbabwe, might be worth a few minutes of a reader's time.
Now that the splintering of the MDC opposition party has taken us back to where we started in 1998 - with the search for a new constitution - we democrats are left with nothing new to say. We are left chewing little bits of string. The state is tottering, people are looking desperately for hope, for help ... and for now, for all of them, trapped by an infamous regime, there remains only a tyrannical old Nurse to hold on to. Methinks there is a long wait ahead... So now,I must go back and correct that quote:
`And always keep a hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse'
I shall keep slogging ... and blogging away on this machine. I plan to thrill my reader, starting tomorrow, with some excerpts from my memoirs - a Two for the Price of One, for the time being.
I leave you with a message of hope, more of Belloc:
'Oh let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about'
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Now that the splintering of the MDC opposition party has taken us back to where we started in 1998 - with the search for a new constitution - we democrats are left with nothing new to say. We are left chewing little bits of string. The state is tottering, people are looking desperately for hope, for help ... and for now, for all of them, trapped by an infamous regime, there remains only a tyrannical old Nurse to hold on to. Methinks there is a long wait ahead... So now,I must go back and correct that quote:
`And always keep a hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse'
I shall keep slogging ... and blogging away on this machine. I plan to thrill my reader, starting tomorrow, with some excerpts from my memoirs - a Two for the Price of One, for the time being.
I leave you with a message of hope, more of Belloc:
'Oh let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about'
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
A SELF-FULFILLED PROPHESY
A SELF-FULFILLED PROPHESY
OR
IT WASN’T TRUE UNTIL THEY MADE IT SO.
Successful farmers do not have to be white. Black farmers (not the `telephone farmers’ or the thieving politicians and their friends who only take farms for vanity or spite) are very able farmers. The proof would have been found in that brief moment after independence when the racial barriers to ownership of good land and good farming practises started to come down. The commercial farmers and the Union (GAPWUZ) of black farm workers who had become managers and foremen were producing crops, not merely for subsistence, but surplus food for the nation. All this can be traced in the statistics but that is not the point of this piece. Let me try to explain how pre-independence prejudice and doubts about the abilities of black farmers have turned into a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy.
Almost overnight, after the white farmers were driven so hastily and so violently away, the infrastructure that sustained their good farming methods started to collapse. A new farmer, ANY new farmer was going to find it heavy going, once the little islands of expertise in large and small towns serving the whole range of farming needs were gone. Where was the machine shop that repaired the tractor, the plough, the harrow and the harvester, the farm `bakkie’ and even the old office typewriter? What happened to the warehouse filled with agricultural lime, fertilizer, gypsum insecticides, veterinary supplies? How can the tonnes of seed be delivered before the planting season when the warehouses are empty or the supplier has no fuel? What about keeping the country roads accessible and in good repair? Where are the transporters and their managers both private and public keeping the trucks roadworthy, the goods trains running? Who mends and keeps open the bridges, the arteries of supply? Why can’t the grain for stock feed be delivered from the fields to be milled and widely distributed? What happened to the little factories, the grinding mills that need diesel fuel? These are just a few of the `downstream’ industries that a good farmer needs. They have been trashed, overrun, put out of business, their owners made bankrupt and keen to go somewhere else where business is not so difficult to do.
For a new farmer, operating in the absence of an infrastructure that took a hundred years to bring to near-perfection is not a practical proposition. Farming in such an environment as has existed in Zimbabwe since the mad rush to drive the commercial farmers off the land is impossible.
So there is no produce, the people are starving and the people who say that blacks can’t farm are now speaking the truth. They can’t farm, and soon, neither can whites or anybody else farm successfully in Zimbabwe.
Before independence Zimbabwe had developed over many decades to become a white farmer’s paradise and it has now become anybody’s hell. Droughts cannot be overcome because lakes and dams and river water reticulation are losing their pipes to thieves or their overhead irrigation equipment to vandals. A black farmer walked in to the white farmers’ paradise, looked around and saw that everybody who was needed to sustain it, was leaving, or had already left. They did not leave willingly, there was no farming going on to sustain them. It was a two way thing.
And now the filling station owner a few miles from the farm has closed his pumps and his little workshop because there were few vehicles running and there were sometimes no vehicles because there was no fuel. Or it could have been the other way around: there was no fuel and so there are no vehicles calling by every day to keep the business alive. Whichever way you look at it, it is all quite mad.
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance, Herbert Murerwa recently came up with a make-believe budget. He knows that agriculture was the bedrock of the country’s economy before his deranged boss destroyed it, but he has to pretend that there is such a thing as an economy without farmers – never mind the skin colour of the farmers. Tony Hawkins, the economist, giving his annual evaluation of the budget has no need to pretend. He has plenty of facts and statistics at his disposal. He pulls no punches: “If anyone was hoping the budget will alter the direction of the economy they are living in a fool's paradise” and “Murerwa's predictions on growth and a reduction in inflation from 411% at present to 80% by the end of next year were suspect”, he said. He was in no doubt about what happens to an economy whose foundations have been destroyed.
New, black farmers haven’t a hope of showing how good they might have been, given the supporting infrastructure that they need. It wasn’t true about black Zimbabweans being useless as farmers, until the ZANU (PF) government made it so.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
OR
IT WASN’T TRUE UNTIL THEY MADE IT SO.
Successful farmers do not have to be white. Black farmers (not the `telephone farmers’ or the thieving politicians and their friends who only take farms for vanity or spite) are very able farmers. The proof would have been found in that brief moment after independence when the racial barriers to ownership of good land and good farming practises started to come down. The commercial farmers and the Union (GAPWUZ) of black farm workers who had become managers and foremen were producing crops, not merely for subsistence, but surplus food for the nation. All this can be traced in the statistics but that is not the point of this piece. Let me try to explain how pre-independence prejudice and doubts about the abilities of black farmers have turned into a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy.
Almost overnight, after the white farmers were driven so hastily and so violently away, the infrastructure that sustained their good farming methods started to collapse. A new farmer, ANY new farmer was going to find it heavy going, once the little islands of expertise in large and small towns serving the whole range of farming needs were gone. Where was the machine shop that repaired the tractor, the plough, the harrow and the harvester, the farm `bakkie’ and even the old office typewriter? What happened to the warehouse filled with agricultural lime, fertilizer, gypsum insecticides, veterinary supplies? How can the tonnes of seed be delivered before the planting season when the warehouses are empty or the supplier has no fuel? What about keeping the country roads accessible and in good repair? Where are the transporters and their managers both private and public keeping the trucks roadworthy, the goods trains running? Who mends and keeps open the bridges, the arteries of supply? Why can’t the grain for stock feed be delivered from the fields to be milled and widely distributed? What happened to the little factories, the grinding mills that need diesel fuel? These are just a few of the `downstream’ industries that a good farmer needs. They have been trashed, overrun, put out of business, their owners made bankrupt and keen to go somewhere else where business is not so difficult to do.
For a new farmer, operating in the absence of an infrastructure that took a hundred years to bring to near-perfection is not a practical proposition. Farming in such an environment as has existed in Zimbabwe since the mad rush to drive the commercial farmers off the land is impossible.
So there is no produce, the people are starving and the people who say that blacks can’t farm are now speaking the truth. They can’t farm, and soon, neither can whites or anybody else farm successfully in Zimbabwe.
Before independence Zimbabwe had developed over many decades to become a white farmer’s paradise and it has now become anybody’s hell. Droughts cannot be overcome because lakes and dams and river water reticulation are losing their pipes to thieves or their overhead irrigation equipment to vandals. A black farmer walked in to the white farmers’ paradise, looked around and saw that everybody who was needed to sustain it, was leaving, or had already left. They did not leave willingly, there was no farming going on to sustain them. It was a two way thing.
And now the filling station owner a few miles from the farm has closed his pumps and his little workshop because there were few vehicles running and there were sometimes no vehicles because there was no fuel. Or it could have been the other way around: there was no fuel and so there are no vehicles calling by every day to keep the business alive. Whichever way you look at it, it is all quite mad.
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance, Herbert Murerwa recently came up with a make-believe budget. He knows that agriculture was the bedrock of the country’s economy before his deranged boss destroyed it, but he has to pretend that there is such a thing as an economy without farmers – never mind the skin colour of the farmers. Tony Hawkins, the economist, giving his annual evaluation of the budget has no need to pretend. He has plenty of facts and statistics at his disposal. He pulls no punches: “If anyone was hoping the budget will alter the direction of the economy they are living in a fool's paradise” and “Murerwa's predictions on growth and a reduction in inflation from 411% at present to 80% by the end of next year were suspect”, he said. He was in no doubt about what happens to an economy whose foundations have been destroyed.
New, black farmers haven’t a hope of showing how good they might have been, given the supporting infrastructure that they need. It wasn’t true about black Zimbabweans being useless as farmers, until the ZANU (PF) government made it so.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Thursday, December 1, 2005
FIGHTING OVER THE CARCASS OF PARLIAMENT
I haven't blogged for several days - ` so much to do, so little done'. Only relics like myself will instantly recognise the dying words of Cecil John Rhodes. That wicked colossus of British imperialism had at least managed to kick start a country before he kicked the bucket, while I generally waste my time.
This blog has been given freely to The Zimbabwean for later publication so my blog's three regular readers should not put it up for any prizes until it has been published. I joke about the prizes, of course.
SEVEN SENATE SEATS - A WORTHLESS QUOTA
Seven has always been my favourite number, but I am going off it. When the MDC’s pro-Senate faction won seven seats it set me thinking about numbers – not my favourite pastime – but words have begun to fail me since the whole sorry scenario of a futile and possibly fatal fight with the party’s President over the Senate seats began. So I ruminate over another historical, and equally unhelpful political win for seven opposition men whom I knew long ago. Working together in our little opposition political party, we helped them on their way to parliament. We were looking for political space; we were naïve enough to believe that we could change things. We were wrong. Our seven men won seven seats but they could do absolutely nothing to advance the cause of our party which fought for freedom from minority rule in our country.
Thirty five years ago, the parliament of Rhodesia was almost exclusively filled with devotees of the ruling party, the Rhodesian Front (which was the same as the government). The opposition could not even boast of the worthless quota – in seats, not in personalities - that the current Zimbabwean government (which is the same as the ruling party) has permitted their MDC opposition. It is by Mugabe’s ZANU (PF) party’s design that they currently occupy too few seats to be effective in either the upper or lower chambers of Parliament. A two thirds majority for the ruling party gives them licence to change the constitution, to do whatever they like. Twenty five years of increasingly brutal preparation for this achievement has seen to that. The parallels with Smith’s RF falter here because it has to be said that the majority of white voters followed him out of love (they wanted to believe that he could keep the country safe for them forever), and not, as in Mugabe’s case, out of fear.
In the general elections of 1970, undaunted by the same uneven playing field as exists today – correction, it wasn’t nearly so uneven then as it is today - the Centre Party put up eight good men and true, led by Micah Bhebe, for the eight seats that could only be contested by the very limited numbers of black people on the `B’ roll. Seven of them won (the eighth was won by a candidate from Masvingo called Gondo). All the whites, who contested on the `A’ roll, lost. We were not surprised but we were thrilled to bits with our seven men in parliament. The record (Hansard) reveals, however, that they could change absolutely nothing – just as is the case for the MDC in today’s parliament of Zimbabwe. The little opposition CP had no chance of making alliances in the House with other minority parties - because there were none, way back then, either - to outvote the ruling RF regime. Mere `window dressing’ it was then and window dressing it is now. A small quota of opposition seats was expensive window dressing, but well worth the cost as it presented our apartheid South African neighbours and others disposed to support white rule with the false face of a democratic dispensation. The uninitiated were given the impression that democracy could prevail in a country ruled by one party. We all know now that under the ruling RF, the minority whites eventually had to fight a bloody war,and power came to the majority blacks through the barrel of a gun.
MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai went against his party’s formal decision to contest for seats when he urged a boycott of the Senate election. He was ineffectively suspended, quite legitimately, but unwisely `at this point in time," as his party’s non-partisan Legal Secretary, David Coltart put it. He reacted by making things worse. "I don't want to get bogged down in legal interpretations. This is a political problem and would have to be sorted out politically,” he said, through Bango, his spokesman. William Bango is a good man but perhaps he should shoulder the blame for this awful blunder. Zimbabwe’s most powerful man, the cause of most of Zimbabwe’s problems has exactly the same attitude to `legal interpretations’. He has never allowed himself to get bogged down in them. The only interpretations he will accept are his own, and look where that has brought the country.
Morgan is on firm ground, however, with his reported remark “All this political fiddling while the country is reduced to ashes…” That is indeed a piece of political wisdom. The score between the two factions is just about even `at this point in time’. David got it. Now why can’t the rest of them get it?
The Seven Senate Seats provide a fine piece of alliteration for a headline. Unfortunately, the number Seven is as hopeless as it proved to be thirty five years ago. There really are no words worth concocting around the whole dreary episode of a fatal fight over the carcass of a once proud parliament. Except for the opportunity to play with words and numbers, it is an exercise in futility.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
This blog has been given freely to The Zimbabwean for later publication so my blog's three regular readers should not put it up for any prizes until it has been published. I joke about the prizes, of course.
SEVEN SENATE SEATS - A WORTHLESS QUOTA
Seven has always been my favourite number, but I am going off it. When the MDC’s pro-Senate faction won seven seats it set me thinking about numbers – not my favourite pastime – but words have begun to fail me since the whole sorry scenario of a futile and possibly fatal fight with the party’s President over the Senate seats began. So I ruminate over another historical, and equally unhelpful political win for seven opposition men whom I knew long ago. Working together in our little opposition political party, we helped them on their way to parliament. We were looking for political space; we were naïve enough to believe that we could change things. We were wrong. Our seven men won seven seats but they could do absolutely nothing to advance the cause of our party which fought for freedom from minority rule in our country.
Thirty five years ago, the parliament of Rhodesia was almost exclusively filled with devotees of the ruling party, the Rhodesian Front (which was the same as the government). The opposition could not even boast of the worthless quota – in seats, not in personalities - that the current Zimbabwean government (which is the same as the ruling party) has permitted their MDC opposition. It is by Mugabe’s ZANU (PF) party’s design that they currently occupy too few seats to be effective in either the upper or lower chambers of Parliament. A two thirds majority for the ruling party gives them licence to change the constitution, to do whatever they like. Twenty five years of increasingly brutal preparation for this achievement has seen to that. The parallels with Smith’s RF falter here because it has to be said that the majority of white voters followed him out of love (they wanted to believe that he could keep the country safe for them forever), and not, as in Mugabe’s case, out of fear.
In the general elections of 1970, undaunted by the same uneven playing field as exists today – correction, it wasn’t nearly so uneven then as it is today - the Centre Party put up eight good men and true, led by Micah Bhebe, for the eight seats that could only be contested by the very limited numbers of black people on the `B’ roll. Seven of them won (the eighth was won by a candidate from Masvingo called Gondo). All the whites, who contested on the `A’ roll, lost. We were not surprised but we were thrilled to bits with our seven men in parliament. The record (Hansard) reveals, however, that they could change absolutely nothing – just as is the case for the MDC in today’s parliament of Zimbabwe. The little opposition CP had no chance of making alliances in the House with other minority parties - because there were none, way back then, either - to outvote the ruling RF regime. Mere `window dressing’ it was then and window dressing it is now. A small quota of opposition seats was expensive window dressing, but well worth the cost as it presented our apartheid South African neighbours and others disposed to support white rule with the false face of a democratic dispensation. The uninitiated were given the impression that democracy could prevail in a country ruled by one party. We all know now that under the ruling RF, the minority whites eventually had to fight a bloody war,and power came to the majority blacks through the barrel of a gun.
MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai went against his party’s formal decision to contest for seats when he urged a boycott of the Senate election. He was ineffectively suspended, quite legitimately, but unwisely `at this point in time," as his party’s non-partisan Legal Secretary, David Coltart put it. He reacted by making things worse. "I don't want to get bogged down in legal interpretations. This is a political problem and would have to be sorted out politically,” he said, through Bango, his spokesman. William Bango is a good man but perhaps he should shoulder the blame for this awful blunder. Zimbabwe’s most powerful man, the cause of most of Zimbabwe’s problems has exactly the same attitude to `legal interpretations’. He has never allowed himself to get bogged down in them. The only interpretations he will accept are his own, and look where that has brought the country.
Morgan is on firm ground, however, with his reported remark “All this political fiddling while the country is reduced to ashes…” That is indeed a piece of political wisdom. The score between the two factions is just about even `at this point in time’. David got it. Now why can’t the rest of them get it?
The Seven Senate Seats provide a fine piece of alliteration for a headline. Unfortunately, the number Seven is as hopeless as it proved to be thirty five years ago. There really are no words worth concocting around the whole dreary episode of a fatal fight over the carcass of a once proud parliament. Except for the opportunity to play with words and numbers, it is an exercise in futility.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
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