My pic at 76
This is an experiment just to see if I can manage pics, a skill I have not practised enough.

A blog for today can only say that I have read of the crass brutality of one Aquilina Katsande in Zim's violently led ZANU (PF) and am horrified. I am regretful that it is likely that I shall not live long enough to see this woman and her ilk brought to account in this world. There is not much else one can say so long as the current regime rules.


Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

A Post Script on Zim Farms tragedy

Today, on reading the First Post's item on greenhouse gas emissions and their connection with flatulant cattle, I was struck by the statement made by a serious scientist:

"The developed world should focus on increasing efficient meat production in developing countries where growing populations need more nutritious food. In developing countries, we should adopt more efficient, Western-style farming practices to make more food with less greenhouse gas production."

Zimbabweans know that beef is probably next after sadza to the nation's favourite food.

The cattle industry was once equal to the best in the world. From 2000 onwards, Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU (PF) government destroyed the country's "more efficient, Western-style farming practises" built up over the 88 years of colonial government and twenty years of sovereign independence.

What more is there to be said?
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

TAGUTA means we have eaten enough

This is a time of year for attempting to tidy up one's email files. I have a tendency to hang on to everything I read so this can be a daunting task. It will never be finished before the year 2009 is out so I have decided to stop deleting and record the following, found in a 2006 file. I have lifted it from the Solidarity Peace Trust, presided over by the revered, reverend Pius Ncube and another cleric. The supreme irony of the words they have quoted from Zimbabweans nearly four, long years ago remains, entirely undiminished as we approach 2010.
Before I go on with this, it occurs to me that ZANU (PF) should rename itself Taguta. Its leaders and followers have surely eaten enough. By now they are, to put it crudely, full to bursting.

Here are the words:

“We applaud the Zimbabwe Defence Forces for taking up the challenge by strapping their guns on their backs and rolling up their sleeves to till the land under Operation Maguta. Under this programme, no doubt a huge food gap will be closed, effectively saving foreign exchange to go towards other priority sectors of the economy.”

GIDEON GONO, Reserve Bank Governor
February 2006

“Not even a single person has benefited from the irrigation this year”.

PLOT HOLDER 1, Matabeleland South
March 2006

“We made money by growing vegetables but all that was ploughed down by the [army] tractor. So now I have not one cent….

PLOT HOLDER 2, Matabeleland South
March 2006

“Destruction of market gardening has destroyed the economic independence of these irrigation communities: where people were self sufficient, they will now be poor and have to look to government to provide everything.”

Ex AREX officer, 27 March 2006

As of now they give us 500 cobs [100 kg] of maize[of our entire harvest] and say that’s enough, we have to wait until the next harvest. Maybe then they won’t give us any…. We had bought our own seeds and fertilisers from Bulawayo and we hired a lorry to carry it for us, and we planted it, before the army arrived.”

PLOT HOLDER 3, Matabeleland South
March 2006

"Nothing in this Act shall prevent any person: who is the producer of a controlled product from using any such controlled product for consumption by himself, his household, his employees or his livestock".

GRAIN MARKETING BOARD ACT (35) (1) (c)

I feel sure that these quotes should be copied and copied again until they find the conscience of Gideon Gono or any other powerful person who feasts and grows fat on Zimbabwe's rapidly dwindling numbers of local farmers and food suppliers.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

Time to stop the swop Jonathon Moyo

December's big, political decision-making moment has come around once again for ZANU PF.

Who will rule the party and the country? Which of the favoured sons - or daughters - will prevail in positions of wealth, power and authority? Asset grabbing of what is left of a destroyed economy is so much easier when the generals salute your leader and the CIO directs provincial and traditional leaders to obey him.

The factional infighting has reached epic proportions and for the weary and cynical but still half-interested observer nothing is so hard to believe as the re-emergence of Jonathon Moyo, recently reincarnated as the prodigal son.

This scurrilous son of the soil first emerged in 1989 as a champion of democracy. His impressive speeches and talent for a scholarly critique of the ongoing sea-changes that heralded the end of the Cold War made him many friends among the democratically-minded, including this writer. He got good jobs, great commissions with wealthy sponsors and in respectable academia.

Then, surprisingly, he swopped sides.

There is much evidence that his personal life was in disarray while at the same time he was running into financial storms. The US Ford Foundation and SA Wits university were witness to that. Back in Harare he took a high profile position on the Constitution Commission whose object was to constitutionally entrench Robert Mugabe in power. He was clearly well rewarded for putting his skills at the disposal of the ruling party. He lost badly as the February 2000 Referendum showed. No matter. After destroying the last vestiges of freedom of expression while a junior Minister of Information, he pops up championing some skull-duggery to manipulate the leadership of his party and he is thrown out of his powerful position.

Tjolotjo is his constituency which returns him to parliament and he seems, for a time, to be of independent mind.

The swop to political independence is not convincing and certainly not financially rewarding - this writer has had experience of the latter - and he returns to the ZANU PF fold. The fact that the ruling party takes him back is proof positive of how weak the party has become now that the opposition has made significant progress. How long before he sees his future looking more promising if he makes yet another swop?

Who will trust him now?

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

THE `WAR' IN ZIMBABWE IS NOT AGAINST WHITES

BEN FREETH has eloquently described (most recently in The Spectator, November 7) what has happened to him and his family, and by extension to most white farmers in Zimbabwe. It is a terrible tale and among many similar stories, some are even worse. His description of the cruel and wanton destruction of his farm and that of his in-laws, the Campbells, deserves the widest exposure just as he and most white farmers who have become Mugabe's favourite targets deserve to be honoured today for their brave attempts, however hopeless it may seem, to stand against the tyrant.

That being said, I must disagree with his conclusion that `Zimbabwe's nationalist leaders today hate the white man just as Nazis despised the Jew". The men (and a few women) he calls nationalists are not nationalists, such as they once were; they have evolved into indescribably greedy, stupid and probably frightened bullies who hate what they fear most, the rightness of the white farmers' cause. Given the freedoms that Mugabe claims to have fought for, they could feed the nation and restore a once-viable and vibrant economy. The `blame' for the chaos that he (Mugabe) has created belongs firmly with that vain, cunning and wicked old man and his cronies (not, least the military supremos) who hang on to his coat tails - and well we know it.

Today's Zimbabwean tragedy is not only a wholly unjustified `war' against white farmers; there has been an undeclared war against his political opposition, demonstrably an opposition comprising a majority of his own black population. That is what he really hates and he is lashing out against white farmers in the fast-fading hope of restoring his popularity by giving away their lands and their lawfully earned possessions.

He is emboldened now because he no longer needs the farmers to generate the precious foreign currency that bought the loyalty of the military and his party apparatchiks. Diamonds, lots of them, have been found. Who needs oil when your military can kill peasant diamond miners with impunity and grab this new source of wealth. You can't eat diamonds but if you are wealthy enough you can import your victuals. Let the people starve and blame it on the white farmers.

No, Mugabe does not hate whites, he loves power.

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

Taking it all in

A JUSTIFIABLY ANGRY UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICIAL, MANUEL NOWAK
I am sure I am not alone in finding it difficult to get my thoughts down after reading/hearing the news each day. No sooner have I composed my thoughts and opened this new blog page than some newer development (sometimes personal) intervenes and the moment is lost.
For this reason I shall blog more like a twitter-er, or give lengthy tweets on this page at whatever level in time and space the day allows.

Starting today: all oppressed Zimbabweans' hopes for help or redress in the realm of Human Rights have been dashed by the coarse behaviour of the ZANU (PF) representatives of the government. Nothing unusual here. What is cheering, in a perverse sort of way is the full coverage given to the angry statement from the UN's Manuel Nowak. This capering of ZANU(PF) is a further demonstration of the weakness and insecurity of the so-called ruling party. One must use this latter adjective because we know that the MDC's part in `ruling' has been rendered almost useless, except for the efforts of the noble Tendai Biti who has managed to make a little progress in Finance, allowing people to get a few US dollars with which to feed themselves and stay alive a little longer.

The deliberations of SADEC today will be more interesting, if not more meaningful than usual.

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

Tsvangirai in London too ambivalent

THIS IS BAD NEWS! MUST I `EAT CROW'?
A reliable friend in Zimbabwe is patently angry with me for `blogging' re my feeling upbeat about Morgan Tsvangirai's overseas visit and my welcoming his prospects for persuading his audiences that he will bring change to Zimbabwe. Here is my worthy friend's argument:

"We would like to see how/why you can feel upbeat, even vaguely; but we cannot afford to go online to read blogs any more at US42 cents a minute! As far as we and most people we know, things are worse by the day-----water (despite amounts of aid unseen for years), electricity, phones , violent crime (we have spent more on security in last 4 months than in previous 40 years) , inflation (only country in world to have inflation in real terms), extortionate charges by government, parastatals, utilities etc, decline in economic activity ([a family business], amongst many, closing down--worst 4 months ever), corruption, farm-grabbing, harassment of MDC members, civil society groups, journalists etc etc. Mr T and MDC are delusional and ineffective, their MPs unapproachable and out of touch with their supporters and reality; the only issue on which they have been vocal, forthright and united is the affront they have suffered by being given twincabs instead of something superior (i.e. Mercedes). The only exception to this sorry state is Coltart who has had some impact in education.
The current joke doing the rounds is that despite all this, Eddie Cross still writes interestingly------but about another country. They are losing urban support by the day and our ZANUPF acquaintances becoming quietly confident that if there is no dramatic change they will be able to win next election even without tricks.
The jeering at Southwark Cathedral is indicative of general feeling here. Of course one still hopes all this will change but what is the evidence out there, that we don't see here, that it might? What we saw on TV today was'nt it."

My previous blog, `Tsvangirai Telegenic..etc' was greeted by the rest of the folk I sent it to, with no comment. Does this silence speak volumes?

I will keep this missive short and await more commentary from those on the spot who clearly know better than I just how much hope there is or is not for the current regime in Zimbabwe.

In conclusion I must repeat, however, that the image of Robert Mugabe and his cronies basking in the sunshine of goodwill that warms Morgan and the MDC is not a pretty one.

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell