• Pride and Dignity
• South Pacific condemns Zimbabwe over human rights
• Amin death turns focus on tyrants
• Mugabe re-appoints police chief
• Fringe cuts
• JAG Compensation Communique
• JAG Open Letters Forum No. 131
• JAG Job Opportunities
• MDC marches to a different beat
• Gadhafi is called root of instability all across Africa
• ‘Unelected despot’
• Police disperse striking guards
• A case for an Independent Electoral Commission
• No use negotiating with Mugabe now
• Mugabe has undone most of his heroic legacy

AUCKLAND, Aug. 16 — The 11 South Pacific members of the Commonwealth
condemned Zimbabwe on Saturday for continuing human rights abuses, saying no
progress had been made to end its suspension from the grouping.
       Leaders of the Pacific states, which include Australia and New
Zealand, issued a statement at the end of the Pacific Islands Forum noting
their ''grave concern at the situation in Zimbabwe, in particular continuing
serious human rights abuses and the worsening economic crisis.''
       They said Zimbabwe was showing an intransigence in its refusal to
move back towards democracy.
       Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has been accused of intimidation and
vote rigging during the March 2002 presidential elections, leaving his
African state racked with political violence.
       Earlier at the forum, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said
Mugabe was an ''unelected despot'' and Zimbabwe should not be readmitted to
the 54-nation Commonwealth. Howard chairs a Commonwealth troika, which
includes South Africa and Nigeria, set up to judge democracy in Zimbabwe.
       In March, Zimbabwe's one-year suspension from the Commonwealth, a
group of mainly former British colonies, was extended until the end of the
year after Australia, South Africa and Nigeria reported no progress in the
restoration of democracy.
       South Pacific leaders said the next Commonwealth leaders summit in
December in Abuja, Nigeria, would permit an objective discussion of
Zimbabwe's suspension, ''including further action that may be required to
address the deteriorating situation.''
       ''Leaders considered that concrete and practical responses by the
Zimbabwe authorities... were urgently required by the suffering people of
Zimbabwe,'' the statement said.
       ''Such responses were also essential prerequisites for any return by
Zimbabwe to full membership of the organisation.''
       Earlier this month, Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano said after
talks with Mugabe that he felt there was movement toward improving the
volatile political situation in Zimbabwe.
       But Pacific leaders said calls for the ''rule of law to be
restored... for political dialogue to be resumed, and for political violence
to be brought to an end, remained unheeded.''

NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) -- Ugandans say former dictator Idi Amin, who died
in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, used to keep the severed heads of rivals in his
refrigerator and once placed some on his dining table to remind guests he
was not to be crossed.

After almost 25 years of comfortable exile in Saudi Arabia, Uganda's
"butcher," who also fed the remains of victims to Lake Victoria's crocodiles
at one point, died aged in his late 70s unpunished for his crimes.

He is unlikely to be the last tyrant to see out the end of his days
unprosecuted.

Haiti's Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who fled his island in 1986 after
an upsurge of popular protest against his brutal 15-year rule, has been seen
driving his red Ferrari around the French Riviera.

Ethiopia's Mengistu Haile Mariam, whose "Red Terror" was marked by purges,
war and hunger, has been on a ranch in Zimbabwe granted refuge by his friend
President Robert Mugabe.

Uganda's Milton Obote, accused by domestic opponents of being even more
brutal than Amin, is in Zambia, while Paraguay's Alfredo Stroessner, who
gained a reputation as an iron-fisted leader who sheltered Nazi war
criminals, is in Brazil.

Sierra Leone's former rebel leader Foday Sankoh, indicted for war crimes and
reviled for launching one of Africa's most horrific wars, died in hospital
on July 29, never having faced trial for murder, rape, sexual slavery and
extermination.

Liberia's Charles Taylor, indicted by a U.N.-backed court for his role in
Sierra Leone's savage conflict, has been granted asylum in Nigeria.

As Amin lay on his death bed, many Ugandans asked themselves how such a man
could escape scot-free.

"While he is calmly exhausting his life-span in the splendour of a Saudi
Arabian hospital, our people are breathlessly struggling in the attempt to
salvage some life out of the debris of his destruction," a comment in the
New Vision newspaper said recently.

While many former tyrants are unlikely ever to face criminal proceedings for
their wrongs, analysts say the world today is more intent on trying those
once considered immune.

"There has been a real sea-change in the attitude of the international
community," Amnesty International's Christopher Hall told Reuters in a
recent interview.

"In the past, crimes were seen as political or diplomatic problems, now they
are seen as ordinary crimes of rape, murder, that all states have a duty to
investigate and to prosecute."

The 1998 arrest of Chile's Augusto Pinochet in London sent a message that
the days of impunity for tyrants were ending, even though he was later
released on grounds of poor health.

United Nations tribunals for crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and
Rwanda have also drummed that point home.

More significantly still, analysts say the establishment of an International
Criminal Court (ICC) may have set international law on an irreversible
course.

"Times are changing...exile is becoming harder to find," Human Rights
Watch's Reed Brody wrote in a recent editorial.

"It is unfortunate that Idi Amin will die in his "tent" without being
brought to justice for his crimes, but the world is a smaller and smaller
tent. One day the Idi Amins of this world will find they have nowhere to
hide."

Only about 90 countries -- with the notable exception of the United
States -- have so far ratified the ICC, which will be a permanent tribunal
to try individuals for the most serious international crimes such as
genocide and war crimes.

Ugandans will have to find their own ways to reconcile the wrongs of Amin's
1971-1979 rule. While many wish they had seen him punished, others say the
page should be turned on the past.

"He should be accorded a state burial as a former president," Kampala shop
owner Badru Mulongo said. "People say he killed many people but I think
there is no leader who has not killed."

Robert Mugabe has made it to the Fringe of the annual Edinburgh Festival via
a five-piece acoustic rock band, Mann Friday. The band, led by Zimbabwean
Rob Burrell, 25, performs each evening against a background of stills, some
as beautiful as sunset over the Victoria Falls, others disturbing: a woman
dying of AIDS, bloodied victims of Zanu PF thugs, a starving child. The show
is titled Zimbabwe Ruins, and Mugabe stares briefly from one of the stills
which, with the music and song, chronicle the country from shortly before
1980 independence - the group are all in their mid-20s - to the past four
years of accelerating violence, corruption and decline. Zimbabwe Ruins has
attracted a fair amount of attention for a fringe show - one of the hundreds
of gigs, short plays, readings, and comic or would-be comic turns performed
during August by often obscure artists in compact venues round the Scottish
capital. The Times of London carried a news story, and Edinburgh's Evening
News called Zimbabwe Ruins "A tale to empower every race, colour and creed."
For the group, recently arrived in Britain and hoping to make it in a highly
competitive world, the political message of this show is only a part of what
they hope to be about.

"We're not a human rights awareness group or anything," said Burrell. "We
decided to kill two birds with one stone - to play as musicians and at the
same time raise awareness of the situation in our country." Three of the
group are Zimbabweans, all born in Harare: Burrell, Angus Wakeling and Ryan
Koriya. The others are South African Justin Cocks, who teamed up with
Burrell at Rhodes University in South Africa, and Briton JP Sutcliffe. In a
style briefly reminiscent of Alexandra Fuller's account of growing up as a
white child in Zimbabwe, Burrell intersperses the music with a commentary on
his own life. For example, "I am 12 and I am a white boy with a maid called
Maria." And later Maria is dying of AIDS, and the 17-year-old Burrell and
his family visit her in a township in a room with no power. Then comes the
song: "Hold My Hand, I'm Tired." There are stills of 22-year-old "war
veterans" seizing white-owned farms, of opposition Movement for Democratic
Change offices burned and defaced, of elephants wandering lazily in the
bush, of a Harare suburban garden in flower; of mountain trails in Zimbabwe'
s Eastern Highlands. The finale to this entertaining and moving performance
with its sense of longing for a land that's been left had the audience
clapping along to the thudding beat of "Be Yourself, Be Nothing Else - And
Dance."

Elsewhere on the Fringe, Zimbabwean theatre company Over the Edge is
performing Wole Soyinka's play King Baabu, a "hilarious, explosive and
thoroughly African reworking" of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi (1896), which
satirised the French bourgeoisie, and which was itself a rewrite of
Shakespeare's Macbeth. The play traces the rise and fall of an African
dictator. Soyinka recently explained the play's relevance to Zimbabwe,
saying: "The Zimbabwean episode, for contemporary times, belonged squarely
in the theatre of Ultimate Cynism and the Grossness of Greed." The
Guardian's theatre critic described the performance: "Its
rough-around-the-edges style only adds to its energetic charm, and the
actors grow in confidence as this bloody tale unfolds. The term "shotgun
wedding" is given new meaning in a show that sees the funny side of an
African tragedy."

Despite the efforts of Col. Moammar Gadhafi to gain international
legitimacy, the Libyan leader remains active in conflicts across Africa,
usually on the side of leaders who are pariahs to the world.

Gadhafi's adventures are not the same as his government's support for
international terrorist organizations, especially those that directly
threaten the United States. But U.S. and European officials say his use of
his country's oil wealth to project influence around the African continent
is irksome and dangerous.

"If it were anywhere but Africa where he was meddling, we would scream
bloody murder," said a former U.S. official who dealt with Libya. "Because
it's Africa, we tend to shrug and let it go."

Even as the Bush administration welcomed Libya's statement Friday accepting
responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988, a
senior U.S. official said there continues to be "serious concerns" about
Gadhafi's African designs. The official cited Chad, Zimbabwe, Liberia and
Sierra Leone as being of particular concern.

"Gadhafi's money gives him entry into many places, and he seems happy to
spend it to gain influence," a U.N. official said. "If you look at the worst
situations in Africa, you can almost always find Gadhafi's hand."

He assisted President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in July 2001 when Mugabe was
facing international sanctions over political violence, a tough re-election
battle and crippling fuel shortages. Gadhafi not only donated $1 million to
Mugabe's campaign but agreed to barter a deal that gave Zimbabwe $360
million a year in oil.

Twice in 2001, Gadhafi rushed hundreds of troops, along with dozens of
helicopters and tanks, to the Central African Republic to back the embattled
government of then-President Ange-Felix Patasse. Hundreds of Libyan troops
remained in the impoverished country until the end of 2001, providing
security to Patasse. Patasse was ousted in March in a military coup.

For years, Gadhafi was a supplier of weapons to the brutal Revolutionary
United Front rebels in Sierra Leone and to former President Charles Taylor's
rogue government in Liberia. Taylor was long a Gadhafi protege. When Taylor,
under indictment by a U.N.-backed court for crimes against humanity, was
facing military disaster this month, Gadhafi flew in an airplane load of
weapons and ammunition. The cargo was intercepted, and Taylor was forced
into exile Monday.

In the 1980s, Gadhafi trained scores of African revolutionary leaders,
including those whose names are synonymous with brutality and corruption:
Taylor of Liberia, Foday Sankoh of Sierra Leone, Laurent Kabila in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Idriss Deby of Chad, and Blaise Compaore of
Burkina Faso. Libyan training camps "became the Harvard and Yale of a whole
generation of African revolutionaries," Stephen Ellis wrote in his book, The
Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of
an African Civil War.

Now, Gadhafi's dream seems to have turned away from revolution. His longtime
interest in Africa has grown since the late 1990s, when the Libyan leader
felt betrayed and abandoned by the Arab world, diplomats and analysts have
said. The turning point was in 1997, when Arab states refused to ignore U.N.
sanctions against his government, while many Africans did, as Gadhafi
requested.

His goal is to create a single non-Arab Africa, with no internal borders and
one army, legislature, judicial system and currency. His proposed capital of
the new nation is Tripoli. His mantra, repeated at pan-African conferences
and state visits, is "Africa for Africans. This land is ours. We are the
masters of our continent."

To further his dream, Gadhafi oversaw the transformation of the Organization
of African Unity into its successor, the African Union, which is supposed to
work toward uniting the continent.

To ensure that Libya could get the votes it needed to move its agenda
forward, Gadhafi paid debts and dues of at least 15 nations, totaling
millions of dollars, diplomats have said. In a sign of the sway Gadhafi
holds, 42 heads of state, out of the 53 member countries, showed up at the
inaugural conference in Libya in 1999.

In exchange for his largesse he often extracts deals that go far beyond
simply voting in international bodies.

Shortly after ensuring the survival of the Patasse's government, Libya and
the Central African Republic signed a deal giving Libya a 99-year lease to
exploit all of that country's natural resources.

In Zimbabwe, Gadhafi took ownership of at least 20 luxurious properties
after rescuing Mugabe, as well as getting a stake in some of the few viable
state enterprises still operating, according to diplomats and published
reports.

"He may be mad, but he is not crazy," one U.S. government official said.
"Nobody in Africa likes him, but everyone is afraid (to anger him). And he
has an open checkbook when you need it. Money talks."

      Zimbabwe was kicked out of all decision-making councils of the group
that comprises Britain and mainly its former colonies after

      Mugabe’s regime was accused of intimidation and vote-rigging in the
March 2002 presidential elections.

      Speaking on the sidelines of a Pacific leaders’ meeting in Auckland,
New Zealand, Howard said unless Zimbabwe moves back towards democratic rule,
it "should definitely remain suspended".

      "There’s no sign that Zimbabwe’s position is altering," he added.

      "Zimbabwe as a nation continues to suffer the ruin of a country that
has been in the hands of an unelected despot."

      Howard also said Mugabe should be barred from the next Commonwealth
meeting, scheduled for December in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.

      "I don’t think it would be helpful for the Commonwealth if Mr Mugabe
were to come to Abuja," he said.

      However, South African President Thabo Mbeki’s spokesman Bheki Khumalo
told the Daily News yesterday that Zimbabwe’s re-admission into the
Commonwealth would be decided by consensus at a summit of the group in Abuja
in December this year.

      Khumalo said by phone from Pretoria: "One country cannot determine the
fate of Zimbabwe. The issue of Zimbabwe’s re-admission will be determined by
consensus at the Commonwealth summit in Nigeria."

      Signalling widening rifts within the three-member special committee
comprising South Africa, Nigeria and Australia that suspended Zimbabwe from
the Commonwealth last

      year, Khumalo criticised Howard saying the Australian leader’s stance
would not help resolve the Zimbabwe issue.

      He said: "This increasing rhetoric by Prime Minister Howard ahead of
the summit will not help matters."

      South Africa is mobilising African support for Zimbabwe’s re-admission
into the Commonwealth, which brings together some of the world’s richest and
poorest nations.

      Pretoria is also pushing Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party to resume
dialogue with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to
strengthen its case for Harare’s re-admission in Abuja.

      But an initiative to revive dialogue between Zimbabwe’s biggest
parties led by local church leaders appears to be stumbling because ZANU PF
is undecided on whether to endorse the initiative, according to party
insiders.

      Although both Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai promised the
leaders of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, Evangelical Fellowship of
Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference that they were
committed to resumption of dialogue, ZANU PF is still to present its
position paper to the three-member church team.

      The MDC, which this week warned it had not abandoned mass action to
force Mugabe to negotiate, has already submitted its position paper.

      ZANU PF chairman and Special Affairs Minister in Mugabe’s office John
Nkomo yesterday dismissed Howard’s criticism of the Zimbabwean leader,
saying Canberra should keep its hands off the southern African nation.

      Nkomo said: "Howard is an irrelevant person on all issues pertaining
to Zimbabwe. He is not qualified to speak on behalf of Zimbabweans where
Zimbabweans themselves have decided that Mugabe was their choice."

      Staff Reporter/AP

      The 200-odd workers of the privately-owned Safeguard security company
went on strike, demanding a minimum monthly salary of $72 380 from the
current $47 000, while the security company’s management is offering the
workers a minimum of $62 660.

      The striking workers gathered at the company’s headquarters in the
Graniteside industrial area and ordered office employees, including the
management to vacate their offices.

      "It was after we had ordered everyone out of the offices that the
management decided to call in the riot police who started beating everyone
and also used tear-gas to disperse the workers," one of the guards said.

      A director at Safeguard, Vanswell Masengu, said he was not able to
comment on the issue as he was still being briefed on what had taken place
yesterday.

      "I cannot comment on what happened as I was out of the office when the
strike started and at the moment I am being briefed on what exactly took
place," Masengu told the Daily News.

      It is alleged that four of the workers who included a female guard had
to be treated of

      injuries allegedly after being beaten up by the police.

      After dispersing, some of the guards later moved around the industrial
sites and the city centre ordering other guards from their company manning
business premises to abandon their posts.

      One departmental store in Harare was forced to call in a new security
company to man the premises after all Safeguard security workers left to
join the strike.

      "Our management has shown that it is unwilling to co-operate with us
and as a result we have resolved to stay at home until our issue is resolved
than to meet at the company’s premises as the riot police will be called in
again and beat us," a safeguard security worker told the Daily News.

      Staff Reporter

      According to the opposition party, an audit it carried out of voters’
rolls for Gweru supplied by the Registrar General (RG)’s Office revealed
thousands of people listed to vote in council elections in the city but who
did not reside in the municipality.

      Other names were listed but there were no addresses to show whether
they lived in Gweru or even in Zimbabwe in the first place.

      And God knows how many more thousands of ghost voters will turn up at
the polls on 30 and 31 August in Gweru and in other municipalities to tilt
the scales not in favour of the people’s choice, but in favour of the
powerful and well connected.

      The lame excuse given by that useless body called the Electoral
Supervisory Commission (ESC) – that the listing of voters’ names in the
wrong wards or against the wrong addresses was because of the continuous
movement of people from one area to another – only goes to show exactly why
Zimbabwe’s electoral machine needs a complete overhaul.

      ESC spokesman Thomas Bvuma said: "Some people may have been registered
a long time ago and people are moving to new areas like (land) resettlement
schemes.

      "Those are factors which should be considered by people going through
the voters’ rolls. In fact, people are moving to new residential areas
without effecting transfers on the voters’ roll with the RG’s Office. That’s
a general problem that exists."

      But who said voters should not change homes once they are registered
in a particular area?

      Does it not occur to Bvuma and the Registrar General, Tobaiwa Mudede,
that the voters’ rolls need to be updated – and updated by Mudede’s office
and not by voters – on a literally continuous basis?

      Is it any wonder then, that Zimbabwe’s voters’ rolls are in shambles
and elections are always chaotic if the best that those in charge of
preparing and maintaining the rolls can do is to sit in their offices
waiting for voters to come forward and update the register?

      The validity of any election begins with a clean and accurate voters’
roll, something which Bvuma and Mudede should be aware of.

      Part of the reason why President Robert Mugabe’s re-election last year
is being contested is because of the anomalies in the voters’ register used
in that election.

      But clearly it would be futile to expect Mudede or Bvuma, some would
say the entire government, to appreciate the importance of a proper voters’
roll in an election.

      What Zimbabwe needs is an independent authority charged with
registering voters in the country and maintaining a proper roll of those
voters.

      The current flawed Electoral Act should be literally thrown away and
replaced with fair and democratic legislation empowering the independent
electoral authority or commission to run transparent and truly democratic
elections.

      Without these changes to ensure that Zimbabweans can freely choose who
and who should not lead them, this country is doomed.

      Even after he was deposed, Milosevic still demanded a role in Vojisluv
Kostunica’s government.

      No dictator has ever relinquished power voluntarily.

      Therefore, when Mugabe calls for the opposition to "repent" and "walk
like us, talk like us and dream like us", this is a clear indication that he
is himself still dreaming that he has many more years left to continue
ruining the country.

      I say no, no no. It is high time we stopped talking about negotiating
with him and took decisive action against this man and his group of looting
ministers.

      Jennings Rukani

      UK

      At a time many people look forward to visiting relatives in far-flung
parts of the country, this year a record number of Zimbabweans couldn’t.
This was not only because of the fuel problem and the expense of travelling,
but because for the third month, they could not withdraw enough of their own
money from the banks because there is a shortage of currency.

      In our 23rd year of independence, most of the people we are given as
examples of heroes by the Mugabe government have long been dead, and
virtually all the acts of heroism we are reminded of took place before 1980.

      Isn’t it strange that there are so few people in the ruling
establishment who are considered to have been heroic since the attainment of
independence?

      While acts of heroism may be most noticeable during times of hardship,
such as during a war, the opportunities for heroic behaviour present
themselves all the time. What changes from time to time are what actions are
considered to be heroic.

      Most people would certainly grant Robert Mugabe credit for his
unflinching pursuit of the goal of majority rule in the liberation war era.
Whatever dirty deeds it is alleged he committed against some of his comrades
will not take away the fact that he was a principled, uncompromising fighter
for independence.

      His pre-independence heroism is all the more reason his
post-independence record, particularly in the last several years, has been
so disgraceful.

      Mugabe is a unique case of someone who scaled the heights of heroism,
only to then work very hard to destroy his own heroic legacy. A ruler who
embodies the commonly understood traits of "heroism" cannot look around
Zimbabwe today and feel proud to be presiding over the country as it is.

      If reclaiming land from a white minority was a heroic act, it needed
to be done in a way that improved the living conditions of the majority
blacks on whose behalf it was being taken. Yet, it is those same blacks
whose lives and prospects have deteriorated, at the expense of a small
number of Mugabe’s cronies. All the pointers suggest that life will only get
worse in the next few years for the millions of Zimbabweans it is claimed
the "Third Chimurenga" was executed on behalf of.

      How has Mugabe undone much of his own once heroic legacy? He has been
as callous and cruel towards his own people as the colonialists were.

      None of those who argue that the whites were/are an arrogant and
irredeemably racist group has explained why "teaching them a lesson" has
meant the rape, torture, dispossession and killing of so many blacks. Where
is the heroism in causing more suffering among the people you claim to be
acting on behalf of than on the "enemy"?

      If many of our freedom fighters gave us inspiring examples of a
selfless heroism in the sacrifices they made to bring about majority rule,
most of our present rulers are splendid examples of anti-heroism.

      One quality that is suggested by the word "hero" is to stand for a
principle despite all the costs to oneself. Mugabe had to endure many years
of imprisonment for his uncompromising stance in favour of dignity and
self-rule for Africans. Yet it is that same Mugabe who looks for all manner
of tactics to limit the freedom of the people he helped liberate to speak,
gather and demonstrate as they wish.

      We now have ministers like Jonathan Moyo, a man who had to repudiate
his whole life’s work to become a member of the Mugabe regime, making laws
limiting the liberties of Zimbabweans.

      And it says a lot about how far ZANU PF has fallen from its early
heroic days that it felt quite comfortable accepting that its former most
eloquent critic could become its principal spokesman. Two parties that once
exemplified courage and principle are now united by their common harlotry.

      Moyo is the most contemptible minister in Mugabe’s regime, not just
because of his undignified, unministerial demeanour. His whole life suggests
that he does not stand for anything, but will blow with the wind, taking any
position he considers to be to his benefit at any given time, the exact
opposite of what a principled hero would do.

      So, among the many things we have learned about heroism is the fact
that it is not a permanent condition. Those who were heroes yesterday can
easily become cowards, prostitutes and villains tomorrow.

      This is why ZANU PF and the government can only recycle the heroic
acts of the dead. All those who were once heroes in the liberation struggle
and are still alive and part of the ruling establishment have given up their
heroism to greed, cowardice, hero-worship and other anti-heroic vices.

      Many of those who were once willing to risk their very lives for
majority rule are now inexplicably afraid to mention how the revolution has
been betrayed by its own authors.

      Those who were once courageous enough to go into battle, knowing very
well they might never experience the majority rule for which they were
willing to risk their lives, can now be bought off and silenced by being
given a luxury car, house or a Cabinet portfolio.

      That is all it takes many of the heroes of yesterday to renounce their
heroic ideals today. One quality of a hero is to think and act beyond one’s
own immediate needs. People like Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Herbert Chitepo and
many other liberation era icons were privileged in being educated far beyond
the level that was available to most Africans. They could have done
relatively well for themselves materially by working for the colonial
system. Yet they chose to forfeit personal comfort and gain for a higher,
communal ideal.

      Now the top echelons of our government are chockful of small-minded
men and women who cannot think beyond their next corrupt deal. Some of our
most visible and prominent ministers are common thieves on a big scale –
their thievery known to both the President and the general public.
Well-known crooks have the power and authority to talk about "the rule of
law, according to our laws".

      From the dizzy heights of heroism people like Mugabe and many others
once showed us it is possible to aspire and rise to, we have sunk to the low
level of having a person of the calibre of Patrick Chinamasa as the minister
of "justice".

      By his statements and actions, this is a man who has proven to be the
very antithesis of the lofty ideals of justice and heroism. A person of his
level cannot seem to understand that once having been appointed by the
President, one’s loyalty should be more to the nation than to whichever
individual occupies the President’s chair.

      Hence, you find non-elected appointees like Chinamasa and Moyo
tripping over themselves to prove how "radical" they are to the President
who appointed them, far more than they are concerned about leaving a legacy
of heroism for the good of the nation in their respective portfolios.

      Whereas our pre-independence heroes could be motivated by the dream of
a Zimbabwe they knew they might never get to see, many of our prostitute
ministers cannot think beyond the size of the house and swimming pool they
have seized from some white farmer. This is about as high as they dare to
think and imagine. You cannot expect any heroism from such harlots.

      We have corrupted and limited the concept of heroism by making it a
quality that is conferred on a dead prominent individual, usually a
politician allied to the ruling party. We all have the capacity for heroism
in the many roles we play in life. If we just look to people like Mugabe and
his ministers for heroic qualities, we are sure to become cynical and
disappointed because they no longer represent the best that we are capable
of as a nation.

      While Mugabe incompetently rules over us with his corrupt ministers
and other aides, many Zimbabweans are quietly, heroically overcoming the
many difficulties they have bequeathed us. We are learning survival tactics
and strengths we never knew we had as we struggle to make ends meet in the
Zimbabwe Mugabe and company are leaving us. For instance, many old people
are heroically taking care of their grandchildren, when they should be
slowing down and resting, because of the way AIDS is killing many of us.

      As we lament the cynicism exemplified by Mugabe and his regime, there
are many examples of quiet heroism around us if we could only make the
effort to spot them. The low standard set by our politicians does not need
to be the yardstick by which we judge the prevalence of heroism among us.

      Despite the incompetent, brutal and uncaring way we are ruled by
Mugabe and company, there is enough of a reservoir of unheralded heroism in
Zimbabwe to enable this country to reach its potential once he and his
ruinous, anti-heroic regime have been deservedly kicked out of power.

      By Chido Makunike
     Chido Makunike is a social and political commentator