http://www.radiovop.com
Charity Mukwambo, Mutare- January 01, 2012-One of
Zimbabwe’s leading timber
producing companies, Border Timbers is facing
closure after scores of
villagers settled themselves in the company’s timber
plantations.
The company’s vast timber plantations at Charter estate in
Chimanimani have
been virtually turned into small pockets of maize and
rapoko fields.
“About 2,500 hectares of our estate has been illegally
taken over by
villagers who have parcelled themselves pieces of land. Our
hands are tied
because the invasions are being coordinated by politicians,”
said a estate
manager who refused to be named for fear of
victimisation.
The manager said the most affected estates were Zipras,
Chinyai and Skyline
where the illegal settlers have cleared all the timber
and substituted the
trees with maize and rapoko crops.
“At Skyline
the invaders have also cleared all the indigenous trees which
the company
had left for soil conservations purposes. The soil in the area
is very
porous and is not suitable for any agricultural activity The area is
also
mountainous,” he said.
The manager said repeated high level efforts to
engage the Environmental
Management Agency (EMA) and the politicians
concerned over the rampant
environmental degradation in the area has not
yielded anything.
The company’s official also accused the invaders of
causing veld fires which
has destroyed most of the newly planted trees. The
councillor for the area,
Micah Chimene said the issue of settlers in timber
plantations has sharply
divided the Chimanimani rural district
council.
“I recently moved a motion in council for the eviction of the
invaders from
the plantations but our colleagues from Zanu (PF) are against
the idea.
About 70 percent of our revenue cames from Border Timbers and
if the estate
closes down, the council’s coffers will be crippled,” said
Chimene.
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com
By
22 hours 21 minutes ago
HARARE - After years of corruption and
abuse taking buses for Zanu PF
rallies without paying Government has
conceded that the prevailing dynamics
in the urban transportation system
have rendered the Zimbabwe United
Passenger Bus Company (ZUPCO) not viable
to operate.
While the commuting public has been calling on government to
recapitalise
ZUPCO, which is on the brink of collapse, government has
admitted that it is
not prepared to bail out the transport utility as it has
failed to compete
in the business.
The decline of ZUPCO can be traced
back from the 80s when Zanu PF used to
bus its supporters to political
rallies without paying for the services and
this comes on the back of
mounting problems at the national airline Air
Zimbabwe which is virtually
insolvent and had one of its plane seized at
Gatwick Airport in the United
Kingdom for unpaid debts.
Local Government, Rural and Urban Development
Minister, Dr Ignatius Chombo
acknowledged that the urban transportation
system has dramatically changed
with most people preferring commuter
omnibuses.
ZUPCO, which has been in financial challenges for a long time,
requires a
capital injection of US$60 million.
Apart from having old
fleet of buses, the company is also failing to pay its
workers.
With
most people in rural areas preferring conventional buses because of the
nature of the road infrastructure, experts have also said the congestion in
the City of Harare by commuter omnibuses can only be addressed if more
conventional buses are allowed in the transport sector.
Zimbabwe
United Passenger Company (ZUPCO) is a parastatal in Zimbabwe, which
used to
operate urban and long-distance bus routes. ZUPCO came into
existence soon
after Zimbabwean Independence from the former name Harare
United Omnibus
Company (HUOC).
HOUC was founded under the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia Unity
Government to provide
state participation in the public transport sector and
was the successor of
Salisbury United Omnibus Company (SUOC).
HOUC
changed name and management to ZUPCO soon after Independence and by
1993
ZUPCO was operating 1,200 buses on 426 routes.
ZUPCO operations however
declined following deregulation of the urban
transport sector, and the
uprising of individual based mini-bus "combi"
services inspite of the fact
that most developed countries in the West still
run public transport
companies.
In 2006, former ZUPCO chairman Charles Nherera, a close
relative of Local
Government Minister Ignatious Chombo was arrested for
corruption in relation
to bus procurement and was jailed.
Nherera a
Zimbabwean educationalist and Zanu-PF loyalist was founding
Vice–Chancellor
of Chinhoyi University of Technology who ended up chairman
of the parastatal
Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO).
Deputy Information Minister
Bright Matonga, another relative of Minister
Chombo also went on trial for
the same high-profile corruption case.
Matonga was charged with receiving
a 10,000-US-dollar bribe in 2004 from
controversia Zimbabwean Asian
businessman, Jayesh Shah, who was involved in
several deals with the
state-run bus company ZUPCO. Matonga was chief
executive of ZUPCO at the
time the alleged offence was committed.
The deputy minister was charged
jointly with the former ZUPCO chairman,
Charles Nherera, who was already
serving a jail term for another corruption
conviction involving
Shah.
The case also suck-in the wealthy Local Government Minister, who
was called
to testify during Nherera's earlier trial. A the time, the
magistrate
presiding over that case, Lillian Kudya said evidence supplied by
Chombo and
Matonga left a lot to be desired.
During trial, the Court
heard that documents crucial in the corruption
prosecution of the Deputy
Information Minister Bright Matonga and Zupco
board, mysteriously
disappeared while in the custody of Central bank
governor Gideon
Gono.
Asked by defence lawyer Wilson Manase if the documents that
vanished "were
in custody of Gono and his personal assistant Chari", the
investigating
officer Superintendent Phillip Ncube answered:
"Yes".
Meanwhile, controversial Asian Zimbabwean businessman, Jayesh Shah
who was
at the centre of the ZUPCO scandal was arrested over the brutal
murder of
Indian doctor in Zambia in her home in 2007.
Shah, a
controversial figure in Zimbabwe, was the administrator of Dr
Nalini;s
estate. He is the owner of Gift Investments, a transport firm
embroiled in
the bribery scandal with Zupco. Zambian police contacted
Interpol who nabbed
Shah in Zimbabwe.
Another Zanu PF loyalist and Zupco chief executive,
George Chigora was
embroiled in a multi-million dollar scandal as NOCZIM
Board Chairman and War
veteran Godfrey Mawarura, a former United Passenger
Company operations
director was involved in a brutal murder of his wife at
family home in
Avondale accusing her of infidelity and dumped her mutilated
body in the
backyard of Heavy Industrial site buildings.
This year,
The City Council evicted the embattled bus from its largest depot
in Kelvin
industrial sites over non-payment of rates and rentals.
According to the
council minutes, the cash-strapped public transporter owes
the city council
US$107 573, 90 in unpaid rates and rentals as of June 2011.
The council,
according to the minutes, resolved that ZUPCO should
immediately vacate the
Kelvin North premises and only retain the City Hall
selling office and Khami
road depot which the company is leasing from the
local
authority.
ZUPCO's Division Operations Manager, C.Z Muwoni, wrote a
letter to Bulawayo
city council pleading with the local authority to recede
its decision over
the issue.
"ZUPCO maintained that it required
retention of the three premises which are
stand 2200A Steeldale, Khami road,
and stand 13274 Kelvin North and the City
Hall tickets office. ZUPCO intends
to increase its fleet before the end of
this year; the increase in fleet
would be beneficial to the community in
Bulawayo urban and undoubtedly
restore order in the industry," reads part of
Muwoni's letter to
council.
However, council shot down ZUPCO's request saying the company
was
negotiating in bad faith and had failed to pay its rentals and
rates
"Zupco has not increased its fleet. The few buses seen around are
only
plying rural areas and therefore not servicing Bulawayo,” said the
Director
of Housing and Community Services, Isaiah Magagula, in his response
to
ZUPCO'S request.
ZUPCO has been facing serious viability problems
over the past years.
Company buses have been used to carry Zanu (PF)
supporters to party
functions such as conferences free of charge. ZUPCO
buses have also been
forced to ply less profitable rural routes, in a
development widely viewed
as an attempt to appease rural voters. The company
has also been riddled
with allegations of corruption and
mismanagement.
http://www.israelidiamond.co.il/
01.01.12, 10:13
Four hundred
kilograms of diamond ore was reported stolen last week from a
truck
belonging to Marange Resources, one of four companies mining diamonds
in
Zimbabwe’s Marange fields, the Voice of America reports.
According to
VoA, which quoted the state-run Herald newspaper, the truck
broke down in
the diamond field. A group of 10 robbers armed with an AK-47
rifle and
slingshots reportedly spotted the vehicle, overpowered guards, and
escaped
with the ore, whose value could be millions of dollars.
According to
Deputy Minister of Mines and Mining Gift Chimanikire, such a
robbery had to
have been an “inside job.” A special police unit is
investigating the theft
of the diamond ore.
http://www.radiovop.com
Harare, January 01, 2011-MDC-T Parliament
Portfolio Committee on Home
affairs and Defence,chairman Paul Madzore said
the promotion by President
Robert Mugabe of Army Brigadier General Douglas
Nyikayaramba at the end of
the week to Major General was null and
void.
“To us we see the promotion as reward of the terror and
intimidation he has
caused among the citizens of Zimbabwe. He has been
promoted for abusing and
stifling democracy in this country and as MDC we
say he should rather be
demoted than being promoted.
“We believe that
any serving defence force member should be promoted on
Merit, for example
the late General Solomon Mujuru who in this country ever
doubted his
credentials? That is what we respect.
“We seriously think that
Nyikayaramba’s behaviour calls for urgent security
sector reform so that the
country has a non partisan defence force. Even if
MDC is to rule this
country tomorrow we do not want a partisan security
force. We want them to
serve and defend the nation and its citizen’s not
political parties and
their masters. We need a security force which respects
the rights of every
citizen without favour.
“The situation which is prevailing here today is
abnormal, that when
democratic forces including MDC demand or complain about
human rights they
are arrested and if a Zanu-PF cadre commits a crime he is
not arrested. In a
nutshell as MDC we are saying Nyikayaramba should be
demoted,”Madzore told
Radio VOP in an interview in Harare
Saturday.
Brigadier General Nyikayaramba was at the end of the week
promoted and
subsequently transferred from Mutare’s 3 Brigade to the Army
Headquarters
where he will be the chief of staff at the Outer
master
Nyikayaramba last year became one of the outstanding issues in the
Global
Political Agreement when he declared war against MDC-T by
denouncing its
leader Morgan Tsvangirai saying his party should not hold any
rally in
Manicaland.
Nyikayaramba who is President Robert Mugabe’s
ally said elections should
be held and only President Robert Mugabe was
suppose to win the poll.
While in charge of 3 Brigade Nyikayaramba
cemented his utterance by ordering
junior soldiers and traditional leaders
to crackdown on MDC supporters.
This then led MDC to approach South
African President Jacob Zuma who is the
facilitator of the political pact to
intervene.
http://www.bulawayo24.com/
by Staff reporter
2011 December 31
21:10:23
The National Social Security Authority (NSSA) says the year 2011
saw the
country witnessing 71 deaths in workplace related accidents,
reflecting a
decrease from the 84 recorded in 2010.
71 people were
killed at work or in work related accidents during the first
11 months of
the year in a period in which 3 744 injuries were registered.
Workers
continue to die in work related accidents as most employers are not
prioritising occupational health and safety issues amid fears that the
accidents and deaths will increase as the country's industry begins to show
signs of growth.
NSSA Acting Director for the Occupational Health and
Safety Department, Dr
Humphrey Mapuranga confirmed that the number of deaths
is alarming
considering that industry is performing far below
capacity.
"As NSSA, we are worried about the frequency of work related
accidents. We
have had 71 deaths and this is not right for a country like
Zimbabwe, which
is emerging from the woods. We have inspectors as well, but
they are
sometimes overwhelmed," said Dr Mapuranga.
The work related
accidents were mostly recorded in the mining sector,
manufacturing as well
as in the agricultural sector.
Zimbabwe has experienced some of its worst
work related accidents in the
past dating back to 1972 when 427 mine workers
perished at Hwange Colliery's
Kamandama Mine.
Other terrible
occupational accidents include the CABS Millennium Towers
along Samora
Machel Avenue in Harare when15 construction workers died in
2001.
http://nehandaradio.com
December 31, 2011 8:40 pm
By
Charles Mangongera
The just-ended Zanu PF conference confirmed beyond
doubt that Mugabe has
succeeded in imposing himself as the party candidate
for the next elections,
whenever they will be held.
Vice President John
Nkomo, Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa (who led the
CIO during the
Gukurahundi Massacres) and President Robert Mugabe
Vice President John
Nkomo, Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa (who led the
CIO during the
Gukurahundi Massacres) and President Robert Mugabe
The conference
resolutions also show that Mugabe and a small clique of
securocrats and
civilian hardliners have prevailed in pushing through their
selfish
interests at the expense of national interest by cajoling the party
into
endorsing an election that no sane Zimbabwean wants.
The Bulawayo
conference was not a serious platform for the party to
deliberate on
policies and issues affecting it, but a charade by Mugabe to
legitimise his
selfish election agenda.
Mugabe was anxious to get endorsed as the
party’s candidate because he is
aware of how unpopular he has become in the
party. A running thread in all
the WikiLeaks cables involving Zanu PF
politicians is that they all view
Mugabe as a liability to the party and
would rather see his back soon.
The elective Mutare congress had already
endorsed Mugabe as First Secretary
of the party, effectively endorsing him
as the party’s candidate at any
election. But because of his paranoid
delusions Mugabe thought it necessary
to get another affirmation from the
Bulawayo conference. This explains his
insistence in the build up to the
conference that it was almost like a
congress.
That Mugabe’s
candidature in the next election would be confirmed by the
conference was in
no doubt. By the time the 6 000-odd delegates gathered in
Bulawayo all the
provinces had grovelled at Mugabe’s feet, falling over each
other to be the
first to endorse him as their candidate.
I argued in this column that
Zanu PF had once again squandered an
opportunity for serious
self-introspection and leadership renewal by
endorsing a man who will be 88
years old next year as their candidate. What
the party needs to urgently do
is retire Mugabe and replace him by a younger
and more energetic leader
before the next election.
Frankly, I do not see how Mugabe will manage a
gruelling electoral campaign
given that his health is fast deteriorating due
to old age. My suspicion is
that the cabal of civilian hardliners and
securocrats has assured Mugabe
that they will deliver “victory” to him the
same way they did in 2008. What
this means is that they hope to craft a
highly militarised electoral
campaign that is akin to the 2008 presidential
election run-off.
Mugabe and his strategists hope that they can deploy
war veterans and other
auxiliary outfits including the youth militia into
communities to not
necessarily beat up opponents, but to demonstrate that
they are still there
and they can unleash violence.
Their calculation
is that communities are still traumatised by the 2008
violence and that with
minimal violence and intimidation Mugabe can claim a
legitimate election
victory.
The rabid rumblings by war veterans’ leader Jabulani Sibanda
about some
“dogs” that cannot protect their territory are a clarion call to
his
followers to start mobilising within communities. The architecture of
violence, which has just been lying dormant, will become more visible at the
beginning of next year.
Ominously one of the resolutions from the
conference specifically talks
about targeting non-governmental
organisations, which party secretary for
legal affairs Emmerson Mnangagwa
accused of “meddling in the internal
affairs of the country”.
The
strategy is to target civil society organisations doing human rights
defence
work. They have been a constant irritation for Mugabe and his
henchmen
because of their capacity to expose rights abuses both internally
and
externally.
Mugabe views them as part of the regime change agenda and he
detests them
the same way he detests the MDC. In the run up to the 2008
presidential
election run-off many rights groups were forced to close shop
as they had
become targets of repression.
Only last week The Patriot
newspaper, a shadowy Zanu PF-aligned publication,
ran a series of stories
accusing rights NGOs of receiving US funding. What
the paper did not bother
to tell its readers is that the same US government
is also providing
millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to the
people of
Zimbabwe.
Such articles are being carefully worded to portray rights NGOs
as agents of
Western interests. Ironically it is the same US government that
top Zanu PF
officials have been running to and holding secret meetings to
discuss
confidential internal party affairs.
Mugabe’s plan is to also
target the private media as he views it as a
critical bastion of opposition
voices. In the past journalists have been
arrested and detained with
impunity for doing their job. Party heavyweight
Mnangagwa told the Bulawayo
conference that the party would craft a
“response mechanism” to the media
including users of social platforms.
Zanu PF strategists are fearful of
the power of both traditional and new
media in exposing electoral fraud and
in mobilising citizens in the event of
a sham election. Only recently
another Zanu PF functionary Herbert Murerwa
was blaming Facebook for the
revolutions in the Arab North.
Will Mugabe succeed with his election
plan? He faces a Herculean task. The
biggest hurdle to his game plan is
Sadc. Despite the hullabaloo about the
Government of National Unity (GNU)
not working, Mugabe knows that he is
entangled in it and he cannot afford to
unilaterally pull out of it.
That explains why in the past he has
unsuccessfully attempted to cow the MDC
into pulling out of it by
arbitrarily arresting its senior officials,
deliberately frustrating Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and being rabidly
recalcitrant.
He hoped
that the MDC would pull out of government and be to blame for the
collapse
of the GNU. The MDC has seen through Mugabe’s Machiavellian schemes
and has
stuck it out in the GNU.
Sadc will not allow any of the parties to leave
the GNU and will not agree
to a hurried election. They see it as the only
hope for a permanent solution
to the crisis. Jacob Zuma will stick to his
guns insisting that the parties
adhere to the roadmap that outlines a raft
of reforms that have to be
undertaken before the next election.
The
days of Mugabe bullying Sadc are over. The regional body is determined
to
find a lasting solution to the Zimbabwean crisis. They see it as a blight
on
the regional bloc’s quest for political stability and sustainable
economic
growth.
Moreover, events in the Arab North have spurred Sadc to act
decisively in
resolving regional crises in order to pre-empt foreign
intervention. Sadc
leaders are tired of being viewed as an ineffectual group
that is beholden
to Mugabe.
The Livingstone Troika meeting and the
Sandton summit attest to this. They
have already warned Mugabe that he risks
being swept away by an Arab-style
revolution if he continues to suppress the
will of Zimbabwean citizens.
Given these factors getting an election past
Sadc will be a hard sell for
Mugabe. He would not countenance acting
unilaterally. Never mind the bravado
and fist waving, Mugabe knows that he
cannot afford to thumb his nose at
Sadc like that. Being the shrewd
political tactician that he is, he
understands the implications of
alienating Sadc.
He has not forgotten the fact that it was Sadc that
threw him a lifeline by
forcing the MDC to go into a power sharing
government with him when he had
clearly lost legitimacy. He also understands
that South Africa will not
brook a flawed electoral process.
It has
borne the brunt of the Zimbabwean crisis with the influx of millions
of
political and economic refugees into that country. The Zimbabwean crisis
has
become a domestic issue for Zuma.
Here is how I think Mugabe and his
strategists will move. They will seize
the election momentum from the
conference and try to plunge the whole
country into an election
psyche.
Their eyes will be on Sadc and if the regional bloc bats an
eyelid they will
move with haste to call an election. For the reasons that I
have mentioned
above, my sense is that Sadc will not bat an eyelid and this
will force
Mugabe to adhere to the terms of the roadmap to elections
including the
completion of the new constitution and the reform of state
institutions.
Realistically this means he can only have an election in
2013. Whether he
has the political stamina and physical health to last until
then is a debate
for another day.
Charles Mangongera is a political
analyst based in Harare. This article was
first published in the Journal of
Zimbabwean Politics.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com
31/12/2011 00:00:00
by
SAPA
SIMON Mhlanga, the 41-year-old suspect charged with alleged
human
trafficking after 16 Zimbabwean children were found in a truck in
Mafikeng
two weeks ago, will again appear in the Mmabatho Magistrate’s Court
for a
second bail application on January 12.
Police spokesperson Brig
Thulane Ngubane said the suspect was kept in
custody because they could not
confirm his physical address. He was denied
bail by the court on
Wednesday.
The truck he Mhlanga used was parked in the Mafikeng CBD and was
spotted by
a passerby who alerted the police.
Three children from the
group, two boys and a girl, allegedly escaped when
confronted by the police,
who are still searching for them.
The remaining 13 were kept at the Grace
shelter in Mooinooi.
“They had no official documentation and we know
their destination was Cape
Town. We are treating it as a human trafficking
incident,” Ngubane said.
Police said the Mhlanga went to Zimbabwe on
December 9 and returned to South
Africa, dropping off the children near the
Botswana border from where they
entered South Africa and from where he later
fetched them.
http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/
The decision to more or less
permanently leave home is a gut wrenching one.
For months on end, families
are torn apart as they debate whether to uproot
everything and leave or stay
with an uncertain future. This was the case for
millions of Zimbabweans
between 2000 and 2008. Granted, young people had
been leaving Matebeleland
steadily for years since Ghukurahundi in the early
1980’s, but that was
because they did not identify themselves with a future
Zimbabwe that had
literally ignored genocide. They felt they did not belong
and their parents
encouraged them to go down to the city of gold where they
could easily
integrate because of the similarities in language between the
Ndebele spoken
in the Matebeleland region and Zulu, the most widely spoken
national
language in South Africa.
From 2000, however, every Zimbabwean had been
affected by human rights
violations of one form or another. Either they were
directly affected or
they certainly knew of people that had been. From the
violence arising out
of land reform, arrests of business people for flouting
draconian price
control laws, the invasion of factories by war veterans to
extort money and
the widespread need for the man in the street to move
around with a Zanu PF
flag or scarf to avoid possible violence all coupled
with all the wrong
global records for economic disintegration, the reasons
for leaving the
country far outweighed the reasons to stay. Families were
suddenly split up.
For the first time, literally every Zimbabwean had a
relative in far flung
countries like New Zealand, Canada and Australia.
Grandparents raised
children while their own children tried to set up new
homes overseas. For
those who could not afford the airfare to go overseas,
South Africa proved
to be a cheap and affordable destination. Or so they
thought.
There are an estimated 3 to 4 million Zimbabweans living in
South Africa.
Generally well educated and displaying a work ethic that is
the hallmark of
immigrants who need to work twice as hard as the locals to
survive,
Zimbabweans quickly established themselves as employer favourites
who apart
from admiring the qualities that the Zimbabwean displayed, were
also happy
to exploit them for their lack of legal papers. The Zimbabweans
got jobs,
the South African employer reduced his labour costs. The local
working
masses did not like it.
In the sprawling politely named
informal settlements, life is a daily
exercise in a life and death struggle.
There are several reasons for this.
Pervasive crime targets everyone equally
in the areas where the poorest of
the poor live. More often than not,
however, Zimbabweans and other
foreigners are fingered as the criminals. The
result is suspicion and
vigilante attacks that include the stoning to death
by angry mobs of
Zimbabweans, sometimes with the active support of local
political leaders.
In 2011, a young Zimbabwean was stoned to death by a
frenzied mob in the
informal settlement of Diepsloot in Johannesburg North.
It was a grisly
affair as young children participated in the terrifying
episode. Another met
his fate in a similar manner in Limpopo province. The
foreigners live in
fear.
The Zimbabweans who manage to acquire
housing trigger off bouts of jealousy
among the local people who have been
on waiting lists for government
subsidised accommodation for over a decade.
Despite the best efforts of
national political leaders in South Africa,
local community organised
marches and demonstrations against foreigners or
alleged corruption in the
allocation of housing accompanied with threatening
letters with eviction
deadlines are common place on a regular basis across
the country. Often,
Zimbabwean workers will leave home for work not knowing
whether their shack
will still be standing or not on their return. That
coupled with the fear of
losing all their possessions, purchased after long
periods of commission
based work with no salaries is enough to drive anyone
around the bend.
Zimbabweans, therefore, find themselves living through a
psychological
nightmare that threatens to reduce them in to numbed victims
stuck between
escape and a return to an uncertain future back home in
Zimbabwe and an
uncertain and risky stay in the informal settlement. They
choose to stay
because Robert Mugabe’s government has made returning home a
daunting
prospect for emigrants who remember the violence and economic
difficulties
they left behind.
The law enforcement authorities will
more often than not respond to mass
threats to Zimbabwean nationals wherever
they occur. On an individual basis
though, the relationship between poor
immigrant and badly paid policeman is
one that is characteristic of servant
and master. In this case, it is the
master who regularly demands bribes of
the servant on the flimsiest of
grounds. A common trick is to ask them for
their papers, reject the
photocopy they travel around with and threaten them
with detention all to
solicit a bribe. Zimbabweans living in these areas are
forced to carry loose
change with them every single day in case they have to
part with a bribe.
It is not only the Zimbabweans who live in
marginalised areas who are
targeted. As if getting a loan is not difficult
enough, (foreigners are
required to come up with 50% deposit for car loans)
Zimbabweans who get
stopped at traffic lights face demands for bribes to
avoid delays to their
journey through a thousand and one questions on the
ownership of the car,
the type of driver’s license allowed, the traffic
register and anything the
police officer can come up with once he has been
shown a Zimbabwean or
international driver’s license.
The press
generally does a good job of highlighting xenophobia but
individual and
influential radio dj’s and talk show hosts are guilty of
fanning the flames
of hate and hate speech. For instance, when a local
competition ran in 2010
on what visitors could do to make the soccer world
cup successful, a popular
DJ of one of Johannesburg’s biggest radio stations
quipped: “take a
Zimbabwean with you!” Talk show hosts are guilty of
highlighting the
nationalities of criminals while down playing those of
locals in a
sub-conscious sub text that says foreigners commit most of the
crimes when
the statistics show the opposite to be true. It is very common
for
Zimbabweans to be asked when they are going home by locals because of
this.
That proud bastion of African nationalism and pride, Robert
Mugabe, should
be thoroughly ashamed of what he has reduced his country men
and women to.
The humiliation they endure is the direct result of his
political party’s
automatic recourse to violence each time someone disagrees
with him.
Zimbabweans who lived in what was known as Africa’s paradise are
now second
class citizens in a country, which is still struggling to provide
for its
own. Back home, the city of Bulawayo has all but died and only
briefly
stutters to life during the international trade fair or when it
hosts a
major political party conference for a few days. Further north,
despite the
blood money flowing from the diamond fields of Marange in to the
leafy
suburbs of the capital city Harare, life is just as uncertain. The
satellite
city of Chitungwiza is better known as sewage city with water and
power
outages that are more the norm than the exception. Outbreaks of
typhoid and
cholera have occurred and the loss of dignity of Zimbabweans at
home is
almost complete. At least no one is stoning them to death there…yet.
There
are no excuses for Xenophobia but it is understandable that the
poorest of
the poor will turn against the foreigner when shared resources
are far and
few in between. This is what has happened in South Africa and
Zimbabweans
who represent the largest number of foreigners, there, are
bearing the brunt
simply because a political party that casually engages in
violent conduct
will not accept that the people have rejected it at the
polls.
This entry was posted by Citizen JD on Sunday, January 1st, 2012
at 8:00 am
