Back in the 50’s the then political leadership of Northern and Southern Rhodesia conceived the idea of an audacious project – they would build a dam on one of the worlds greatest rivers, the Zambezi. The financing came from the World Bank, at the time it was the largest single project ever funded by the Bank in the world and was built by an Italian contractor. Two new cement factories were established for the project and millions of tonnes of concrete were poured into shuttering to close the gap between the walls of the Kariba gorge. It remains today, one of the largest concrete structures in the world.

The river raged; huge floods smashed the cofferdams and swept away the temporary bridges. Hundreds lost their lives, both on the construction of the dam and in the subsequent rage of the river. The river rose to a 1 000 year record level – but to no avail, the concrete walls slowly strangled the river where it was most vulnerable.

Once closed, the river behind the hills spilt over its banks and began to engulf the surrounding land. The wildlife was mystified – how could the river flood like this in the dry season? Many were caught on high ground and too late found that they could not cross to safety. A rescue effort run by Rupert Fothergill was launched and a fleet of small boats and National Parks personnel with volunteers spread out over the thousands of square kilometers of country affected by the rising waters. Dangerous large mammals like buffalo were shot; everything else from snakes to antelope and lion, were sedated and moved to safety. The effort received worldwide attention at the time, films were made of the hero’s of the effort. It was great TV.

But another drama was being played out in the Zambezi valley, a human saga, no less dramatic but far less newsworthy. A quarter of a million people lived along the banks of that magnificent river. They were shielded from the influence of the white man and the missionary by wide swathes of inhospitable bush, teeming with wild life and other perils – malaria, black water fever, cholera, sleeping sickness. Few ventured beyond the wide escarpments that marked the boundaries of their domain. The odd hunter, the occasional prospector, a once a year foot patrol from the BSAP. Contact was minimal.

They were relics from our ancient past, a simple people who had learned how to live in the confines of their magnificent valley. Their way of life had not changed for centuries, why change when everything worked so well for them? They had everything they needed and more. Then the river began to rise – not as normal when the floods from the Congo came down from the north, but slowly and with no retreat. White men came on the river and through the bush to say that the river was blocked and that they must move to higher ground. Impossible they replied, who could stop the spirit of the river? When they walked the 300 kilometers to the nearest traders post or town, they heard talk of a dam, they traded their skins and tobacco for what they wanted and then walked home, anxious but not perturbed – how could puny man change something so great as the river Zambesi?

I left college in 1962 and joined the Ministry of Internal Affairs as a "Land Development Officer". I had three years of farm experience, a diploma in Agriculture and a dog and I found myself in the Gokwe district in charge of 8 million acres of virgin land where there were more elephants than people. My immediate boss was the District Commissioner – known locally by the disparaging name of Kamunu. He spoke fluent, even classical Shona but had little regard for the people for which he was the "Gurumende" or Government. He loved the bush and spent a lot of his time hunting, I can still recall my horror when I walked into his office and found the floor covered with ivory tusks.

My task was to move 30 000 people from the basin of the Kariba Dam to higher ground – some of it 150 kilometers from their beloved river. The same thing was happening in Zambia and in the next door district of Binga. I had a small fleet of trucks, bulldozers and graders and 5 borehole drilling units. We had a small staff compliment including Andrew – my personal attendant, a wonderful Afrikaner mechanic know locally as Blossom and some real characters who had chosen to move to the end of the earth to work in lonely places. One of the borehole operators had a classical education from one of the best Universities in England and played a guitar with his caravan packed with books. Others were less savory – they came for the chance to hunt and fish.

In the sky above us the first satellite was spinning its way across the blackness of outer space and Kennedy was facing an assassins bullet. On the ground I was building roads into the valley, drilling boreholes on the high ground for the people being displaced. When ready I took down empty trucks and forced the quiet river people onto them with their few possessions. Communication was difficult – they spoke little else but their native Tonga and many had had never seen a white man let alone a heavy duty truck backed up by bulldozers. By now they knew the truth, the rising waters were flooding their valley and they were resigned to the fate of their traditional homes. Even so, the first people we moved simply picked up their few belongings and walked back to their abandoned homes. We had to load them onto trucks and then bulldoze their homes while they watched to ensure they did not return.

We then fed the people we moved each month for two years while they settled down. Rations were made up according to lists of people made from records of those moved. The fact was that they had never eaten refined maze meal, did not know what to do with dried milk. Their children died like flies from new diseases and malnutrition. They did not know their neighbors who came from other parts of the country to be resettled – Chirumanzi, Bikita, Gutu, they spoke dialects of Shona, other people the Ndebele of the south. They were given the crude tools with which to farm, but had never owned or used oxen and donkeys. The land was hot and dry and the boreholes from which they obtained their water, deep and difficult to pump by hand, Often the water was salty or highly mineralized.

They were "resettled" at a time when the missionaries were retreating everywhere so schools and clinics were slow in coming. When they did come, the standards were low and service poor. Despite every effort they remained a shattered, dislocated people, less educated, less able to cope than the strangers they forced to live amongst. Some found their way back to the lakeshore where they started to resume life as fishermen but it was not as it used to be.

When the war started the Tonga supported Zapu and Zipra soldiers found a home in their villages. At independence they thought life would get better – it did not. Initially marginalised because they were a Zapu area, they were then marginalised because they were not Shona speakers. During the period when schooling and health services were expanded rapidly following the political changes in 1980, they were left behind. Still they kept their language and their culture. They remained distinct, that was their problem.

When the MDC was formed in 1999, they sent representatives to hear what the new party offered. They heard that these new people were not racists, they promised a better way of life, they offered change – not just in politics but in the way things were being done. Perhaps they thought, we might get a better deal from these people. They joined the MDC and in 2 000 they voted solidly for the "new people". In March 2 002 they repeated this giving Tsvangirai a huge majority in their areas, then in September 2 002 they voted to return a majority of rural district counselors, completing the change in local leadership.

It was too much for Mugabe – they would be punished for their political allegiance. A drought in the summer of 2001/02 created the opportunity as their crops failed totally and they were left to rely on food imported to the area by commerce or the state. When they refused to bow to political pressure in the September elections the orders went out – food from the Grain Marketing Board depot was for "Shona speakers only". NGO operations were shut down and the Catholic missions refused permission to feed 58 000 children under 5. When protests were made they grudgingly allowed the child feeding to resume – but nothing for the people who voted MDC. All commercial food supplies were halted, roadblocks went up on the main roads into the district and any significant food supplies confiscated. The NGO operations were shut down and their stocks of food locked behind closed gates.

The Tonga, those wonderful, quiet, cheerful people – displaced from their beloved river by "progress" and then shattered by neglect and racist discrimination from both black and white government. Turned again to the wilderness to survive. For three months they have lived on seeds and tubers from the wild on which their forefathers depended for centuries. Their children under 5 got one meal a day from the Catholics – "permitted" by the Zanu PF governor, but nothing for the others. The message is quite simple "vote Zanu PF or starve". They choose to starve. Once we gave them a dam on a river – do we give a damn today? I do.

I was in Binga this week, we visited about 20 villages, and deaths were reported in all of them. In one we saw a man in his late 40’s, a living skeleton, in others whole families led by brave women who were doing their best to keep them going. What is their future? Do you give a damn? How much longer are we going to tolerate the actions of Mugabe as he tries to subjugate his own people in the pursuit of power and privilege?

Eddie Cross

Bulawayo, November 21^st 2002.