Poor, deluded, unhappy man - Mugabe thinks he is the only one in step. Let him allow just and lawful treatment for the people he oppresses with his iron fist.
The news from Zimbabwe that his `close confidant' Nathan Shamuyarira is still helping to prop up this pathetic old man's ego does not bode well for Shamuyarira's place in history. His name will be recorded beside that of his crazed boss, Zimbabwe's first executive President. The tyrant has already entered the category of shame and ignominy that fits men who are utterly corrupted by power. Like his patron, Nathan promised nobility but has delivered a land which will be fit only for scavengers after its surviving liberation heroes and true democrats have died or fled the country. Oh yes, as Stephen Talbot,indicates in his piece `From Liberator to Tyrant: Recollections of Robert Mugabe'[he means `on' Mugabe,surely?], the smooth-tongued politician had us all fooled at the beginning. Talbot confesses to being a starry-eyed worshipper when he met Mugabe in 1977 at the Kilimanjaro Hotel in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. I was in that same hotel, collecting nationalists' biographies for my book in late 1975, shortly after the assassination of Herbert Chitepo in Lusaka. At that moment the destiny of Mugabe and all other contenders for the prize of ruling the future Zimbabwe was still being debated by all parties involved in the matter. Bishop Muzorewa's men were there in the hotel,losing ground as the military men in the camps at Mgagau declared `We will choose our own leaders'. Ndabaningi Sithole was there also, giving interviews but already on the ropes. He had confessed it himself. He had told us,a deputation of white liberals in Rhodesia's capital city, Salisbury, quietly and without emotion:`You are talking to the wrong person (about future leadership), I am regarded as a spent force' - or words to that effect. I have a record of the meeting in Jeremy Broome's Jameson Avenue office with that old warrior, founder of ZANU. The golden light of late afternoon bathed us all. Sunsets in Rhodesia were always portentious. We had a rare close up of this one. Eddie Cross leaned forward and tapped Ndabaningi's knee and called him `Sekuru' (uncle).
Besides me, Eddie is the only one still alive to report it. We knew that Joshua Nkomo tried to do a deal with Ian Smith. Meanwhile, Mugabe, showing only contempt for the white men who had imprisoned him, had not yet been recognised by the Frontline States as the man destined to lead the future Zimbabwe African nationalist Liberation Army (ZANLA). Fast forward, we know how that story ended. But I have news for Stephen Talbot: men like Joshua Nkomo had experienced the power and the potential for absolute ruthlessness of his brother in arms. Why else would he have preferred to try to tame the white man? Unlike Nkomo, Smith was incapable of understanding what he was up against - the advance of a great wave, the ultimate expression of slavery's retribution. Mugabe used centuries of African history to his own advantage, cleverly disguising his personal ambitions until, with infinite cunning, he had gagged and bound us all - even his so-called confidant, Shamuyarira.
As for the reason he went to Lancaster House to negotiate with the colonial master - Talbot seems unaware of the role of the late, great Samora Machel. It was he who advised that Mugabe should negotiate. It was he who had provided the important base in Mozambique from whose borders the war on the Rhodesian Front regime could be waged. He talks, on film in Granada TV's `End of Empire'- if proof of this is needed.
And now, Mugabe's end is near, he cannot live forever. His legacy: the destruction and misery he has brought to the beautiful country he inherited from his former oppressors is assured. But he rages on, like the blind King Lear:
"We tell the world from this sacred (National Heroes') Acre that Zimbabwe is not about to die, in fact it will never die. What Zimbabwe needs is a just and lawful treatment by the Western world, a recognition that it is a full, sovereign country which has the right to own and control its resources, the right to chart its own destiny unhindered".
Yes, a thousand times yes. Zimbabwe has the right `to own and control...' Robert Gabriel Mugabe has usurped it.
Copyright © 2006 Diana Mitchell
Friday, June 30, 2006
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
COPYCATS, PLAGIARISTS large and Small
I have been copied. Am I flattered? - since imitation is supposed to be the highest form of flattery.
My recent blog, giving unsolicited advice to Dan Brown's publishers re charges of plagiarism has elicited a comment or two. Right now the media reports are working us up about students copying their assigments from internet sites. Now this is a skill that requires you to be a dab hand at `surfing the net'. This is a habit I have not developed, neither the surfing, nor the skilled copying. But when a new friend asked if I had ever had a book published, I referred him to the internet and told him to type my name and add Zimbabwe on the end of it. {MMPZ}It dawned on me that I myself had not taken this ego trip for several years and now was a good time to check. I found, very flatteringly, a substantial body of work. Most rewarding was the occasional reference to my published Who's Whos of Rhodesia's and Zimbabwe's African nationalist leaders. (End of commercial). Most satisfying, however was to discover that my work is being plagiarized by Zimbabwe's state media. Nowadays, I have no time at all for the Herald, that grossly defective instrument for the disemination of information. Its daily dose of ruling party propaganda is so blatant as to be fairly harmless - but have a look at this which appeared on the internet in the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe Report No.38, after the ste madia's eulogising of the dead Vice President Muzenda:
"ZBC also changed its programming to make way for documentaries on Muzenda. For instance, ZTV devoted time from 7pm to 8pm from Monday to Thursday to a special programme where ZANU PF officials discussed their selected positive personal experiences of Muzenda.
This abject eulogizing saw The Herald (22/9) carry (sic) a plagiarised obituary, Life, tribulations of relentless fighter. The article, which was written by Shingai Rukwata Ndoro, was apparently lifted from Diana Mitchell’s book entitled African Nationalist Leaders in Zimbabwe - Who is Who 1980...
and
(re the closure of the independent Daily News):
"While the government-controlled media [avoided such analysis and] gave the impression that the closure of the paper was lawful, The Standard (28/9) tried to expose how the State was selectively applying the law by failing to reprimand media practitioners working for the government-controlled media. It reported that Zimbabwe Union of Journalists had petitioned ZIMPAPERS to take action against its circulation manager Rukwata Ndoro, who plagiarised Mitchell’s book in his obituary of Muzenda. According to ZUJ, Ndoro “ is neither trained nor registered and has been churning article after article, sometimes as a columnist and the latest as a reporter.” Despite this, no arrest has been made so far. Ends"
Now that was something I lifted from the internet. With attribution of course.
As to talk of arresting the hopeless Ndoro, I must say I am more flattered than offended. His bosses in the ruling party would never have allowed my tribute to Muzenda, written 25 years ago when things in the Zimbabwe garden were rosy, to appear under my name in today's screwed up Zimbabwe media. But plagiarism is plagiarism and is not to be recommended.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
My recent blog, giving unsolicited advice to Dan Brown's publishers re charges of plagiarism has elicited a comment or two. Right now the media reports are working us up about students copying their assigments from internet sites. Now this is a skill that requires you to be a dab hand at `surfing the net'. This is a habit I have not developed, neither the surfing, nor the skilled copying. But when a new friend asked if I had ever had a book published, I referred him to the internet and told him to type my name and add Zimbabwe on the end of it. {MMPZ}It dawned on me that I myself had not taken this ego trip for several years and now was a good time to check. I found, very flatteringly, a substantial body of work. Most rewarding was the occasional reference to my published Who's Whos of Rhodesia's and Zimbabwe's African nationalist leaders. (End of commercial). Most satisfying, however was to discover that my work is being plagiarized by Zimbabwe's state media. Nowadays, I have no time at all for the Herald, that grossly defective instrument for the disemination of information. Its daily dose of ruling party propaganda is so blatant as to be fairly harmless - but have a look at this which appeared on the internet in the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe Report No.38, after the ste madia's eulogising of the dead Vice President Muzenda:
"ZBC also changed its programming to make way for documentaries on Muzenda. For instance, ZTV devoted time from 7pm to 8pm from Monday to Thursday to a special programme where ZANU PF officials discussed their selected positive personal experiences of Muzenda.
This abject eulogizing saw The Herald (22/9) carry (sic) a plagiarised obituary, Life, tribulations of relentless fighter. The article, which was written by Shingai Rukwata Ndoro, was apparently lifted from Diana Mitchell’s book entitled African Nationalist Leaders in Zimbabwe - Who is Who 1980...
and
(re the closure of the independent Daily News):
"While the government-controlled media [avoided such analysis and] gave the impression that the closure of the paper was lawful, The Standard (28/9) tried to expose how the State was selectively applying the law by failing to reprimand media practitioners working for the government-controlled media. It reported that Zimbabwe Union of Journalists had petitioned ZIMPAPERS to take action against its circulation manager Rukwata Ndoro, who plagiarised Mitchell’s book in his obituary of Muzenda. According to ZUJ, Ndoro “ is neither trained nor registered and has been churning article after article, sometimes as a columnist and the latest as a reporter.” Despite this, no arrest has been made so far. Ends"
Now that was something I lifted from the internet. With attribution of course.
As to talk of arresting the hopeless Ndoro, I must say I am more flattered than offended. His bosses in the ruling party would never have allowed my tribute to Muzenda, written 25 years ago when things in the Zimbabwe garden were rosy, to appear under my name in today's screwed up Zimbabwe media. But plagiarism is plagiarism and is not to be recommended.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Sunday, May 28, 2006
TSVANGIRAI - PRINCIPLE UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
HAS POWER CHANGED HIM ALREADY? CAN HE HIMSELF AVOID CHANGING WITH `CHINJA(!)'?
Andrew Marr interviewed Morgan Tsvangirai on the BBC this bright Sunday morning. I was as interested in what he had to say as I was the first time he rose to address us as the Chairman of the NCA back in 1998. Marr came straight to the point: "Is the split in the MDC a personal one?" Morgan's answer, well rehearsed I am sure: "No it is ideological." Still on the edge of my seat, I waited for more enlightenment: The pro-Senate people wanted to do a deal with the regime, Mugabe's ZANU (PF) government and I did not - or words to that effect - is what he blithely alleged.
He lost me there. I have never let my eyes stray from the reports - from whatever quarter - about what went on in that catastrophic series of meetings which ended in disaster for the MDC as a bright hope for all Zimbabweans looking for new and better leadership. In a ten-minute interview, Marr couldn't possibly ask him: "What about the violence which began with the attempt on the life of one of your `internal' critics? What about the overriding of your party's constitution when you ignored the majority decision to go into the Senate?" And finally: "Is this allegation about the motives of the pro-Senate group really true? Why should some of the most dedicated of your followers turn against you? Did you not dismiss their concerns about your apparent change of character when you condoned internal violence and ignored your own party Constitution? Have you not considered that they went into the Senate because `realpolitik' dictates that you become irrelevant if you do not participate in the political process - however distasteful that may be?"
I say: Morgan, you have been less than truthful. You have a great following and they are so sick of the current regime that they will remain loyal to you no matter what. This looks worryingly like history repeating itself. Deja vu and all that. A quarter of a century ago,Zimbabweans were so sick of the suffering they endured in the liberation struggle that they allowed themselved to believe that their troubles would be over under Mugabe's leadership. Little was known about his character except that he was clever and embraced violence as the path to power. We all know where that has led us. Your own character has now been closely examined and until the first moment of the `split', you came through as a man who could be trusted with high office - a man of principle, a true democrat. Well, democracy went out of the window after that unfortunate man nearly did at the hands of your youthful thugs at Harvest House (and as you yourself narrowly missed doing when attacked by ZANU (PF) thugs at the start of your political leadership. Principle is what is now under the microscope.
The pre-independence Zimbabwean `masses' as Mugabe liked to call them, were denied access to information about nationalist leaders by the previous regime - mostly by default, since they were the rural poor, with little access to the print or electronic media. Far worse, today: positively no access to information about opposition leadership. They have only your rallies - and a few copies of the independent newspapers reaching them - to be persuaded that you are brave, that you are against the current dictatorship and that you are willing to go on leading them however hard the battle has become. What your former admirers need to know is, where are you leading them? Do you know yourself? Does your leadership require you to demolish your internal opposition by fair means or foul - just like ZANU (PF) - whatever it takes? And will you be able to hold on to the principles enshrined in your Constitution, of non-violent change and adherence to your party's promises of a better leadership? Can your leadership remain faithful to the rule of law within your own party and be ready to deliver justice to Zimbabweans within a restored rule of law - should you achieve the power to do all these things?
Weighty questions, but they need answering. If you yourself are changed too much in the process of bringing about change, what greater disaster can befall Zimbabweans?
This is an `I was there' commentary as far as his first five years in political leadership proceeded. I watched him with admiration as he chaired our NCA (National Constitution Assembly) meetings and my respect for him grew as he faced each new challenge as the undisputed leader of the MDC. This was a man who distinguished himself as a Trade Union leader: self-made, confident and daring, rather than opportunistic, in joining the NCA and taking on the leadership of the MDC at its inception. His next launching pad was made before the people and those others living outside of Zimbabwe who still cared about the country's future.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Andrew Marr interviewed Morgan Tsvangirai on the BBC this bright Sunday morning. I was as interested in what he had to say as I was the first time he rose to address us as the Chairman of the NCA back in 1998. Marr came straight to the point: "Is the split in the MDC a personal one?" Morgan's answer, well rehearsed I am sure: "No it is ideological." Still on the edge of my seat, I waited for more enlightenment: The pro-Senate people wanted to do a deal with the regime, Mugabe's ZANU (PF) government and I did not - or words to that effect - is what he blithely alleged.
He lost me there. I have never let my eyes stray from the reports - from whatever quarter - about what went on in that catastrophic series of meetings which ended in disaster for the MDC as a bright hope for all Zimbabweans looking for new and better leadership. In a ten-minute interview, Marr couldn't possibly ask him: "What about the violence which began with the attempt on the life of one of your `internal' critics? What about the overriding of your party's constitution when you ignored the majority decision to go into the Senate?" And finally: "Is this allegation about the motives of the pro-Senate group really true? Why should some of the most dedicated of your followers turn against you? Did you not dismiss their concerns about your apparent change of character when you condoned internal violence and ignored your own party Constitution? Have you not considered that they went into the Senate because `realpolitik' dictates that you become irrelevant if you do not participate in the political process - however distasteful that may be?"
I say: Morgan, you have been less than truthful. You have a great following and they are so sick of the current regime that they will remain loyal to you no matter what. This looks worryingly like history repeating itself. Deja vu and all that. A quarter of a century ago,Zimbabweans were so sick of the suffering they endured in the liberation struggle that they allowed themselved to believe that their troubles would be over under Mugabe's leadership. Little was known about his character except that he was clever and embraced violence as the path to power. We all know where that has led us. Your own character has now been closely examined and until the first moment of the `split', you came through as a man who could be trusted with high office - a man of principle, a true democrat. Well, democracy went out of the window after that unfortunate man nearly did at the hands of your youthful thugs at Harvest House (and as you yourself narrowly missed doing when attacked by ZANU (PF) thugs at the start of your political leadership. Principle is what is now under the microscope.
The pre-independence Zimbabwean `masses' as Mugabe liked to call them, were denied access to information about nationalist leaders by the previous regime - mostly by default, since they were the rural poor, with little access to the print or electronic media. Far worse, today: positively no access to information about opposition leadership. They have only your rallies - and a few copies of the independent newspapers reaching them - to be persuaded that you are brave, that you are against the current dictatorship and that you are willing to go on leading them however hard the battle has become. What your former admirers need to know is, where are you leading them? Do you know yourself? Does your leadership require you to demolish your internal opposition by fair means or foul - just like ZANU (PF) - whatever it takes? And will you be able to hold on to the principles enshrined in your Constitution, of non-violent change and adherence to your party's promises of a better leadership? Can your leadership remain faithful to the rule of law within your own party and be ready to deliver justice to Zimbabweans within a restored rule of law - should you achieve the power to do all these things?
Weighty questions, but they need answering. If you yourself are changed too much in the process of bringing about change, what greater disaster can befall Zimbabweans?
This is an `I was there' commentary as far as his first five years in political leadership proceeded. I watched him with admiration as he chaired our NCA (National Constitution Assembly) meetings and my respect for him grew as he faced each new challenge as the undisputed leader of the MDC. This was a man who distinguished himself as a Trade Union leader: self-made, confident and daring, rather than opportunistic, in joining the NCA and taking on the leadership of the MDC at its inception. His next launching pad was made before the people and those others living outside of Zimbabwe who still cared about the country's future.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Monday, May 22, 2006
MY RAVE ON BREEDING WHITE LIONS IN SA
I cannot resist commenting on a TV news item regarding the `re-introduction of white lions into the wild' by a wild life conservationist in South Africa's Western Cape.
Here is why:
About twenty years ago, I decided that I should try to depart from my serious and wholly unprofitable (in the financial sense) writing about the business of politics in Rhodesian Front- ruled Rhodesia. Peter Joyce, the writer,(he wrote the first published book 'Rhodesian Rebel' about Ian Smith) nobbled me with a proposal for co-authorship of a surprising (to me)genre of writing. I have since lost contact with Peter and our book was stillborn for a reason I will explain further on. He persuaded me that the way to bust out into literary moneymaking was to write a successful Mills and Boon novel! He had got stuck when his own attempt at income generation along this route (the path to a peaceful retirement to an island where the Great Novel could be written)when the first delicate episode of sex reared up in a book intended for the delight of `those bored and frustrated matrons who don't want to read anything dirty'. He warned me that the book had to be well written and would stand only about a 5% chance of publication. His own literary `Blue' from Cambridge was well up to the task. So why ask for my collaboration? "Because I can't write about those silly things you women think about" was his reply. Huffily, I picked up the three slim volumes he threw down for me to read and got through two of them before dawn the next day. "I can do this! Easier than falling off a log. Just let the imagination rip" I said.
Peter had worked out the plot in fine detail. But, to get back to the subject in hand, the story was of a wild life conservationist (heroically handsome) breeding a pride of white lions in a South African game reserve. We had great fun with the daily progress discussions - he left me to do all the first drafting whilst he got on with his "coffee table" books and promised to polish the final version before submitting it for publication. Unhappily for the book's future, its theme at a time when South Africa was threatened at that very moment with `disinvestment'- an anti apartheid project invented by Teddy Kennedy - our story of a rich, white Saxonwold businessman's romantic adventure with a white lady and a lot of white lions would not go down well with publishers. Without Peter, I have never had the courage to review and change the plot. Tawny lions in a Rainbow nation? Impossible.
But my point here is that Peter had researched well and come up with the facts:the white lion was an albino - not, as portrayed today, a lost species to be `re-introduced into the wild'. Certainly not in Africa where the natural tawny coat is a brilliant protective camouflage in the lion's grassland habitat. Snow lions? Well that needs further research.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Here is why:
About twenty years ago, I decided that I should try to depart from my serious and wholly unprofitable (in the financial sense) writing about the business of politics in Rhodesian Front- ruled Rhodesia. Peter Joyce, the writer,(he wrote the first published book 'Rhodesian Rebel' about Ian Smith) nobbled me with a proposal for co-authorship of a surprising (to me)genre of writing. I have since lost contact with Peter and our book was stillborn for a reason I will explain further on. He persuaded me that the way to bust out into literary moneymaking was to write a successful Mills and Boon novel! He had got stuck when his own attempt at income generation along this route (the path to a peaceful retirement to an island where the Great Novel could be written)when the first delicate episode of sex reared up in a book intended for the delight of `those bored and frustrated matrons who don't want to read anything dirty'. He warned me that the book had to be well written and would stand only about a 5% chance of publication. His own literary `Blue' from Cambridge was well up to the task. So why ask for my collaboration? "Because I can't write about those silly things you women think about" was his reply. Huffily, I picked up the three slim volumes he threw down for me to read and got through two of them before dawn the next day. "I can do this! Easier than falling off a log. Just let the imagination rip" I said.
Peter had worked out the plot in fine detail. But, to get back to the subject in hand, the story was of a wild life conservationist (heroically handsome) breeding a pride of white lions in a South African game reserve. We had great fun with the daily progress discussions - he left me to do all the first drafting whilst he got on with his "coffee table" books and promised to polish the final version before submitting it for publication. Unhappily for the book's future, its theme at a time when South Africa was threatened at that very moment with `disinvestment'- an anti apartheid project invented by Teddy Kennedy - our story of a rich, white Saxonwold businessman's romantic adventure with a white lady and a lot of white lions would not go down well with publishers. Without Peter, I have never had the courage to review and change the plot. Tawny lions in a Rainbow nation? Impossible.
But my point here is that Peter had researched well and come up with the facts:the white lion was an albino - not, as portrayed today, a lost species to be `re-introduced into the wild'. Certainly not in Africa where the natural tawny coat is a brilliant protective camouflage in the lion's grassland habitat. Snow lions? Well that needs further research.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
CAN `TEETERING ON THE BRINK' GO ON FOREVER IN ZIMBABWE?
The vultures who reign in Zimbabwe feed on carcases not quite dead.
In today's ZWNEWS featuring Reuter's Stella Mapenzauswa's "Zimbabwe unions back strikes amid economic chaos" I am inclined to dyslexia in mid-sentence. Should we not hope that Zimbabwe unions strike back? Without the ZCTU, the opposition MDC would never have got within striking distance in its attempt to scare giant ZANU(PF)scavengers off the dying Zimbabwe bird. The first, generally observed teeterings came from the king vulture himself in in August 1997 when the war vets camped outside his office and frightened him temporarily off his perch. He moved adroitly to a stronger one, closer to the cliff edge where he could not be reached. For (so far) another eight years he has sharpened his talons to perfection and it is his victims, critically wounded by the destruction of the country's economy, not the king vulture himself, that have been `teetering on the brink'- to borrow from Stella's words.
It is a source of amazement that with most formal commercial business destroyed or in the process of destruction(the banks being the last bastion of survival are now regularly `teetering')the ZCTU can still gather a body of protesting `workers' together. Unemployment, estimated at 80% is a frightening thought. With this week's news of the government - predictably - banning entry into the country of Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU)general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and turning away most international delegates invited to a two-day meeting in Zimbabwe (they include leading trade unionists from Zambia and Swaziland and Norway)we are in no doubt that Trade Unions still represent a threat to the ruling ZANU (PF). Convential wisdom has it that Mbeki's fear of COSATU power is one of the reasons he has been so dilatory in the defence of freedom and full human rights for fellow Africans in Zimbabwe.
If the trade unions' intention was, as reported by The Star (SA) on May 20, to `decide whether the ZCTU will go ahead with strikes to protest against the country's rocketing inflation and poverty' the very best of luck to them, I say. I can't help dreaming of the day that my vulture image turns to one of a dead bird, though not the allegorical albatross, strung around the neck of an ancient. Only this has to be a landlubber and if my metaphor is to hold, the ancient will have need to kill himself and thus put an end to the suffering of his victims, the people of that once great country, Zimbabwe.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
In today's ZWNEWS featuring Reuter's Stella Mapenzauswa's "Zimbabwe unions back strikes amid economic chaos" I am inclined to dyslexia in mid-sentence. Should we not hope that Zimbabwe unions strike back? Without the ZCTU, the opposition MDC would never have got within striking distance in its attempt to scare giant ZANU(PF)scavengers off the dying Zimbabwe bird. The first, generally observed teeterings came from the king vulture himself in in August 1997 when the war vets camped outside his office and frightened him temporarily off his perch. He moved adroitly to a stronger one, closer to the cliff edge where he could not be reached. For (so far) another eight years he has sharpened his talons to perfection and it is his victims, critically wounded by the destruction of the country's economy, not the king vulture himself, that have been `teetering on the brink'- to borrow from Stella's words.
It is a source of amazement that with most formal commercial business destroyed or in the process of destruction(the banks being the last bastion of survival are now regularly `teetering')the ZCTU can still gather a body of protesting `workers' together. Unemployment, estimated at 80% is a frightening thought. With this week's news of the government - predictably - banning entry into the country of Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU)general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and turning away most international delegates invited to a two-day meeting in Zimbabwe (they include leading trade unionists from Zambia and Swaziland and Norway)we are in no doubt that Trade Unions still represent a threat to the ruling ZANU (PF). Convential wisdom has it that Mbeki's fear of COSATU power is one of the reasons he has been so dilatory in the defence of freedom and full human rights for fellow Africans in Zimbabwe.
If the trade unions' intention was, as reported by The Star (SA) on May 20, to `decide whether the ZCTU will go ahead with strikes to protest against the country's rocketing inflation and poverty' the very best of luck to them, I say. I can't help dreaming of the day that my vulture image turns to one of a dead bird, though not the allegorical albatross, strung around the neck of an ancient. Only this has to be a landlubber and if my metaphor is to hold, the ancient will have need to kill himself and thus put an end to the suffering of his victims, the people of that once great country, Zimbabwe.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Slow but sure emergence of real history: part 1
WELSHMAN NCUBE
An article in The Standard (Harare) (Ncube breaks down over Gukurahundi) today describes the anguish of Prof Ncube as he recounted the terrible experiences of his family in the `gukurahundi' massacres perpetrated in Matabeleland by Mugabe's notorious 5th Brigade. At last! I wondered when these - quite literal - home truths which explain his determination to remove the ZANU (PF) regime by constitutional means would emerge. His private grief had to enter the public domain only when he was ready to introduce it himself.
Welshman, the consummate constitutional lawyer, has been unjustly accused of `supping with the devil' because he has been unrelenting in his quest for a change of regime. He is an extraordinary man; he has let nothing shift him from his objective, no matter how impossible the task may seem. His differences of political strategy which have so seriously separated him from Morgan Tsvangirai are not what this blog is about; it is about the impressive political integrity of a person who otherwise could have been driven mad, as was his beloved brother, as a consequence of the onslaught of Mugabe's agents on the people of his home region. But it has become clear that he has great resilience - possibly his seeking legal redress for his family's experience of torture and death is precisely what has made him so strong.
In the late nineties and well before the MDC opposition party was formed , Welshman attended a conference on the media held in Nyanga. This was the first opportunity I had to have a heart to heart discussion with him. His clear and unemotional views on the country's constitution were already well known. He had given generously and tirelessly of his time at every possible opportunity to explain the importance of the rule of law in a free Zimbabwe, but I was interested in what motivated him. It was on that occasion he told me quietly of his brother having been driven out of his mind by what he had witnessed happening to his family and his fellow Ndebele people.
From that day, I have never doubted that Welshman would hold firm to his resolve. He put in unconscionable hours designing a constitution for the country under the aegis of the NCA in 1998, he recruited some of the best brains and most dedicated characters in the MDC. The catastrophe of the MDC split, with Welshman leading the legal argument about the voting in the final countdown has resonated for me as starkly as the tragedy of suffering people, then as now, especially in Matabeleland.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
An article in The Standard (Harare) (Ncube breaks down over Gukurahundi) today describes the anguish of Prof Ncube as he recounted the terrible experiences of his family in the `gukurahundi' massacres perpetrated in Matabeleland by Mugabe's notorious 5th Brigade. At last! I wondered when these - quite literal - home truths which explain his determination to remove the ZANU (PF) regime by constitutional means would emerge. His private grief had to enter the public domain only when he was ready to introduce it himself.
Welshman, the consummate constitutional lawyer, has been unjustly accused of `supping with the devil' because he has been unrelenting in his quest for a change of regime. He is an extraordinary man; he has let nothing shift him from his objective, no matter how impossible the task may seem. His differences of political strategy which have so seriously separated him from Morgan Tsvangirai are not what this blog is about; it is about the impressive political integrity of a person who otherwise could have been driven mad, as was his beloved brother, as a consequence of the onslaught of Mugabe's agents on the people of his home region. But it has become clear that he has great resilience - possibly his seeking legal redress for his family's experience of torture and death is precisely what has made him so strong.
In the late nineties and well before the MDC opposition party was formed , Welshman attended a conference on the media held in Nyanga. This was the first opportunity I had to have a heart to heart discussion with him. His clear and unemotional views on the country's constitution were already well known. He had given generously and tirelessly of his time at every possible opportunity to explain the importance of the rule of law in a free Zimbabwe, but I was interested in what motivated him. It was on that occasion he told me quietly of his brother having been driven out of his mind by what he had witnessed happening to his family and his fellow Ndebele people.
From that day, I have never doubted that Welshman would hold firm to his resolve. He put in unconscionable hours designing a constitution for the country under the aegis of the NCA in 1998, he recruited some of the best brains and most dedicated characters in the MDC. The catastrophe of the MDC split, with Welshman leading the legal argument about the voting in the final countdown has resonated for me as starkly as the tragedy of suffering people, then as now, especially in Matabeleland.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Sunday, April 9, 2006
ZIMBABWE SHOOT - ANIMALS and PICTURES plus ROYAL ATTRACTION
CAN YOU HEAR THE SOUND OF GUNFIRE?
Its coming from the game conservancies. Ask Webster Shamu, formerly Charles Ndlovu; he is named in the The Mail on Sunday as the Zimbabwean Minister who enables rich American and other hunters to bag big game in Zimbabwe - without much in the way of care for the seasons or the sustainability of the country's wild life. The paper suggests that the national exchequer - near bankrupt at this time - is not profiting much from the slaughter. Nathan Shamuyarira should reign in his entrepreneurial relative. The Mail on Sunday has done a great job exposing the slaughter and given its British readers a four-page report with full colour pictures from a very brave woman who pretended to be a hunter. There was no other way that she could have got her stuff out of Zimbabwe. It will be interesting to see the official response: the denials, the recriminations and the blame game that will almost certainly follow.
I have a feeling that wild animals facing death in Zimbabwe will get more sympathy from the Mail's readers at this time than the thousands of innocent men, women and children similarly threatened, but by the deliberate cruelty of their own rulers. Death by starvation and disease is already stalking the land and cutting down the population. But the point of this blog is one which I am sure has already been noted by anybody who cares two new pence about a once great little British former colony. The real interest in Britain and elsewhere, will centre on Chelsey and Harry. Pictured in the corner of the Mail's front page is Chelsey Davy, a stunning little Dolly Pardon look-alike (sans the wig)juxtaposed with a shot of her boyfriend, a Prince of the Realm. Harry is rakishly attired in a pirate's headscarf and wears a beautiful tan, a hot jersey and dark glasses. We understand that Chelsey's Dad was the founder of the hunting firm from which he (the Dad) has derived a part of his fortune but that he is `distancing himself' from direct association with the ongoing slaughter right now. The full colour, full page spread (doubled again in a centre spread) shows a dead, huge-horned buffalo bull, slain by a brave young American hunter who poses triumphantly with his quarry. (His courage, sad to say, is far outmatched by that of his countrymen and women facing real danger in Iraq). Altogether, it is a dreadful but timely expose of a whole can of worms, not least of which is the naked racism of the hunters towards their black workers, as reported by Caroline Graham.
For my part, I am amazed that in these times when animal rights and the fast-diminishing strongholds of wild life have come to occupy the consciousness (and often the conscience) of the so-called civilized world - that hunting wild life for sport is still in vogue. In my childhood I went out into the Rhodesian bush with my hunting father and thought it natural when he posed for a Kodak box camera with the horns of a bull kudu and carried home a little buck antelope to eat as venison or dried meat (`biltong') and sell the skin for a few shillings. Poorer, pre-war, Depression-hit settlers were mildly hungry. Richer folk had those wall decorations - the horns of big game festooning their homes, hotels and clubs. I had hoped that all that was custom and imagery of the past. As an adult, concerned with the protection of wild life I went out with dedicated professionals, participating in `schools in the bush' organized by the local Hunters Association. Their aim was to educate the Youth about the necessity of carefully conserving wild life for its own sake as well as for tourism's attraction - and for the happiness of future Rhodesian/Zimbabwean generations.
Its bad enough that people are starving now in Zimbabwe and having little choice in the matter of consuming their wild game if and when they can poach it. Far worse is foreigners killing for sport - and paying relatively cheap prices for their kills. Worse still is the fact that most of the profits from the slaughter are not going back as to villagers as they once did under an organized conservancy program, in a once-civilized Zimbabwe.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
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