HARARE - Amnesty International has petitioned the
government to take immediate action to protect some 250 people who were
forcibly evicted from their Harare settlement last week.
Their homes
and possessions were set alight during a night raid by armed
police.
Members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) raided an
informal settlement in the Borrowdale suburb of Harare on Wednesday morning
and torched the residents’ homes.
“Driving people forcefully from
their homes in the middle of the night cannot be justified in any
circumstance,” said Michelle Kagari, Deputy Africa Director at Amnesty
International. “The brutality with which this forced eviction was carried
out is alarming.”
Following the eviction, 55 residents, including five
children, were taken to Harare Central Police Station and detained without
access to lawyers.
The lawyers who attempted to attend to them at the
police station, were not informed why they had been detained. A total of 52
of the detainees were released without charge later the same
day.
Residents at the Gunhill settlement have previously been the victims
of police raids in which they were arbitrarily arrested, detained and
subsequently released without charge in what appears to be a pattern of
harassment by the police.
The community families have since returned
to the settlement and are living in the open.
“Amnesty International
is calling on the Zimbabwean authorities to provide those made homeless with
emergency shelter.They must also ensure that the victims receive adequate
reparation, including adequate alternative accommodation and compensation,”
said Kagari.
“The unity government must end the deplorable practice of
forced evictions and give the Gunhill community assurances that this
terrifying ordeal will not be repeated,” Kagari added.
Most of the
Gunhill residents are victims of Operation Murambatsvina (Restore Order), a
programme of mass forced evictions implemented by Zimbabwean authorities in
2005 in which an estimated 700,000 people lost their homes.
“The
government has repeatedly failed to compensate or relocate the victims of
Operation Murambatsvina. Hundreds of thousands of people continue to survive
in deplorable conditions, and many face an ongoing threat of repeated forced
eviction,” said Kagari.
Written by Tony Saxon Saturday, 28 August
2010 13:22
BUHERA - Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party says
soldiers are forcing villagers in Buhera constituency to attend Zanu (PF)
political education meetings where they are coached what to say during
constitutional outreach meetings. Buhera in Manicaland province is the
home district of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. MDC Manicaland provincial
spokesman Pishayi Muchauraya told The Zimbabwean on Sunday that the soldiers
led by one Major Svosve have set up camps at two business centres in the
district at Masasa and Mutiusinazita from where they regularly go around
surrounding areas ensuring villagers attend the Zanu (PF)
meetings. Muchauraya claimed the soldiers were working with officers from the
government's dreaded spy Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) as well as
war veterans and Zanu (PF) militia in the campaign to intimidate villagers
to support the views of President Robert Mugabe's party on the proposed new
constitution. "The soldiers (and) CIOs are patrolling the areas,
force-marching people to Zanu (PF) meetings," said Muchauraya. Efforts to
get comment from both the army and Zanu (PF) were unsuccessful. But both
have in the past denied charges that they are on a campaign to intimidate
citizens especially in remote rural areas to support Zanu (PF)'s views on
the new governance charter. The drafting of new constitution is part of
reforms meant to entrench democracy in Zimbabwe. The coalition government is
expected to call fresh elections once a new constitution is in place
although there is no legal requirement for it to immediately do so.
Zimbabweans hope a new constitution will guarantee human rights, strengthen
the role of Parliament, as well as guaranteeing civil, political and media
freedoms.
Fresh measles outbreak reported in Zim -
Health authorities in Zimbabwe Friday reported an outbreak of measles in a
district in the south of the country, but no deaths have so far
occurred.
They said medical teams had been sent to the district, and
expected the latest measles flare up in the country to be soon brought under
control.
A medical director in the south of the country, Robert
Mudyiradima, said the first case was reported seven days ago, and so far 15
measles cases had been reported in Zaka district.
'It is true that
there has been an outbreak of measles over the past seven days in some parts
of Zaka, but there have been no deaths,' he said.
'Our teams are on the
ground to make sure that the situation does not get out of hand,' he
added.
Zimbabwe has suffered frequent outbreaks of measles in recent
years, and earlier this year the disease killed hundreds of people in
several parts of the country.
Lack of vaccination, and refusal by
some religious groups to get treatment, is normally blamed for the
outbreaks.
HARARE -- President Robert Mugabe yesterday questioned whether
Zimbabwe has produced the quality of farmers needed to restore the country’s
status as a bread basket and said the supply of critical agriculture inputs
remains a major challenge.
Mugabe’s supporters seized white-owned
commercial farms, often violently, in 2000 saying this was meant to redress
nearly a century of skewed land imbalances but the drive was blamed for
plunging agriculture production by 60 percent and fanning food
shortages.
Critics of Mugabe’s land reforms say the majority of black
farmers who grabbed farms do not have enough skills to till the land and
failed to access badly needed inputs like seed and fertiliser, which has
seen vast tracts of land lying idle.
Zimbabwe has struggled to feed
itself in the past decade and agriculture plumbed new depths in 2008 when
farmers produced 500,000 tonnes of the staple maize against national
requirements of 2 million tonnes.
Production has picked up since last
year thanks to international aid targeting provisions of free seed and
fertilisers for farmers in the once famine-threatened country, better use of
land, and the end of hyperinflation following the formation of a unity
government between Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
“As
we celebrate the 100 years of exhibition excellence in our 30th year of
independence, we should ask ourselves whether we have produced the quality
of farmers that we desire,” Mugabe told a gathering marking the centennial
celebrations of the Zimbabwe Agriculture Show yesterday.
“The supply
of agriculture inputs remains a major challenge. We need to overcome the
perennial programme of failing to provide inputs on time as we also need to
seriously address the credit lines from banks and agro industry plus the
high cost of borrowing.”
Mugabe said the lack of financial support to
farmers remained a sore challenge, which left most farmers feeling abandoned
by the government.
The 86-year-old said despite the mid-season drought
the combined cereal and small grains during the 2009/2010 season had risen
to more than 1.5 million tonnes and put the national requirement at 1.7
million tonnes.
“Several questions need to be answered to strengthen our
farmers. Our farmers have increasingly felt abandoned when after harvesting
they find that the market and the producer price on offer do not seem to
quite acknowledge the hard work and higher that preceded crop production,”
Mugabe said. – ZimOnline.
Steel industry experts said that Harare misfired when it dumped
the South African subsidiary of global giant ArcelorMittal following that
firm's earlier successful bid for ZiscoSteel
Gibbs Dube | Washington
27 August 2010
The Zimbabwean government should reconsider its
decision to seek a medium-sized partner instead of a large international
corporation to restructure and recapitalize the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel
Company or ZiscoSteel, economists and business analysts say.
Steel
industry experts said Harare misfired when it dumped the South African
subsidiary of global giant ArcelorMittal following that firm's earlier
successful bid.
They said a smaller company will not have deep enough
pockets to pay creditors, invest millions of dollars, update technology and
revive production after two years of downtime at ZiscoSteel.
They
noted that the government wants to maintain a tight grip on ZiscoSteel even
if the new strategic partner takes a controlling stake in the insolvent
state enterprise - not a formula for a smooth partnership.
Economist
John Robertson told VOA Studio 7 reporter Gibbs Dube that the government
must develop sounder policies when privatizing or restructuring troubled
parastatals like ZiscoSteel.
Economic commentator Rejoice Ngwenya said it
is unlikely the government will find the kind of medium-sized strategic
investor for ZiscoSteel that it says it is seeking.
BULWAYO - Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy,
Arthur Mutambara have praised the leadership qualities of the late Gibson
Sibanda describing him as an icon of stabilisation in the unity government
and the political developments that the country has witnesses over the past
three years.
Tsvangirai on Saturday said he regretted the acrimony
that ensued between him and the late trade unionist after the MDC party
split in 2005.
"The split represented the saddest moment in our 25 years
of association and I deeply regret it. I am sorry for whatever I said. It
was not worth it," Tsvangirai told hundreds of mourners who packed the
Wesleyan Methodist Church in Bulawayo.
Tsvangirai said he and Gibson
Sibanda had provided a formidable combination of "youthful exuberance and
stabilizing maturity" in confronting the government over the socio-economic
decline that was unfolding in the country which compelled them to form the
MDC.
Deputy Prime Minister, Mutambara said the late MDC vice president
was an epitome of a freedom fighter who understood the difference between a
position of authority and leadership.
"He never sought to be a leader
but showed rare leadership qualities. Sibanda never compromised on values
and principles and fought hard on the issues of human rights. When others
thought they had arrived with the coming of independence Gibson Sibanda said
there was still a lot to be done," Mutambara, said.
The church
service which was attended by politicians from most political parties and
trade union officials heard former Bulawayo town clerk Mike Ndubiwa regret
why government had denied such an illustrious politician national hero
status.
Ndubiwa described Sibanda as a man who was passionate for the
well being of the country and who was ready to discuss national issues with
anyone from whatever political party.
"To us in Woodlands suburb, his
national hero status looms large all over us. Only the enemies of this
country would deny the liberation role that he played," said
Ndubiwa.
The late minister of state will be buried at his Silalatshani
home in Filabusi Sunday.
THE powerful leader of the young wing of South Africa's
ruling African National Congress (ANC) has railed against "permanent
leaders" as he called on Zimbabwe' President Robert Mugabe to "hand over to
young chaps".
And speaking at the ANC Youth League's annual convention in
Midrand on Friday, Malema also warned ANC leaders they could be removed at
any time.
"In as much as we support the revolutionary programme in
Zimbabwe," Malema said, "President Mugabe must hand over to those young
chaps so that we engage with [them] on the same level. We will never agree
with permanent leadership."
Malema visited Zimbabwe earlier this year
and met Mugabe. He used the trip to attack Zimbabwe's opposition parties,
saying they would "never find friendship" in the ANC.
A key proponent
of the nationalisation of mines and land reforms, inspiration of which he
found in Zimbabwe, Malema however insists leaders must respect popular
will.
"You must be careful, you'll be on the streets if you don't respect
the power of the masses," Malema told Youth League delegates at the
convention where he received an emphatic new mandate.
"Sometimes
power makes you drunk."
Malema has pointedly refused to give President
Jacob Zuma his backing ahead of an ANC congress in 2012 at which the Youth
League is also plotting the ouster of the party's secretary general Gwede
Mantashe and replace him with Fikile Mbalula, a past leader of the
League.
"Permanent leaders or old horses refusing to leave are not
welcome," Malema said. "To lead is a privilege not a right. We are the
future; we want to inherit the ANC which is intact."
Malema told
delegates that they must constitute over 70% of the ANC's mid-term policy
gathering in Durban where the League hopes to add impetus to the land
redistribution agenda as well as the nationalisation of mines push. "You must
be guaranteed that everything we discuss here will be adopted by the ANC,"
he said.
"We are going to take land back... but we will compensate ...
that compensation will be determined by the state and not the owner. The
willing-buyer willing-seller principle is not working, One needs money to
buy land, leading to it being owned by foreigners, because they have the
money to do so."
The ANCYL's push for the nationalisation of the
mines emanated from the Freedom Charter, which states "land shall be shared
among those who work it".
Malema was disciplined by the ANC earlier this
year following his Zimbabwe trip after the party said he had publicly
criticised Zuma and compromised his mediation efforts in Zimbabwe with his
public support for Mugabe's Zanu PF.
Ironically, Zuma's deputy
Kgalema Motlanthe - seen as the only leader safe at the 2012 congress - was
the Youth League's guest of honour at the Congress. He got a rousing
reception as he described the League as a "good problem". A "hyperactive"
Youth League was better than a passive one, he said Friday.
Harare - Two Cabinet Ministers Nicholas Goche and Priscilla
Misihairabwi - Mushonga are among the individuals who stand to lose
properties after they benefitted from an illegal money lending scheme run by
a controversial businessman, Frank Tawanda Buyanga.
Goche and
Mushonga are said to among the several politicians who borrowed money from a
loan scheme run by a Harare businessman, Buyanga, reportedly wanted by
British police on charges of fraud.
The two ministers borrowed amounts
ranging from $70 000 to $100 000 from a scheme run by Frank Tawanda Buyanga
but failed to repay it.
Goche is the minister of transport and
infrastructural development while Misihairabwi -Mushonga is the minister of
regional integration and international cooperation.
Over 500 people,
including politicians, musicians and businessmen have reportedly lost their
houses and residential stands worth millions of dollars to a local
businessman running an alleged illegal money-lending scheme.
Police
in Harare are also reportedly investigating Buyanga, who is being accused of
selling houses and stands belonging to his victims after lending them
different amounts of money.
Buyanga, a director of Hamilton Finance, is
also being sought by police in the United Kingdom, on charges of conspiracy
to fraud.
But Buyanga said he was not wanted by police anywhere in the
world. But Deputy chief police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Oliver
Mandipaka said they were still investigating the cases.
"So far our
members from the CID are investigating 33 fraud cases, involving houses,
committed by the suspect," he said.
Buyanga claimed his debtors, who
included powerful politicians, had connived against him in a bid to avoid
repaying their loans.
"These people came to my office voluntarily looking
for money and we entered into agreements of sale where I bought their
properties in return for cash," Buyanga said.
"The agreements of sale
had options where they could buy back the houses, if they paid back the
money within an agreed period which was usually between three and six
months. But, if they failed the buy-back option, the property would be
forfeited. And this was agreed on."
Bunyanga is alleged to have started
selling some of his clients' properties before they had settled their
debts.
Some of the houses and residential stands allegedly sold are in
such areas as Milton Park, Hatfield, Braeside, Belgravia, Bluff Hill,
Borrowdale, Norton, Highlands, Mandara, Glen Lorne, Greendale, Mufakose,
Greystone Park and Waterfalls.
A British scholar stirs up controversy with his theory that a 700-year-old
artifact in Zimbabwe is a copy of the Ark of the Covenant, created by a lost
tribe of Jews.
Tudor Parfitt visits the Museum of Human Sciences in Harare,
Zimbabwe. Parfitt's theory is that the 700-year-old relic is a copy of the Ark
of the Covenant. (Tsvangirayi
Mukwazhi, AP / August 28,
2010)
By Angus Shaw, Associated Press
August 28, 2010
Reporting from Harare, Zimbabwe -
Tudor Parfitt has spent years chasing a theory that a lost tribe of Jews
wound up in Southern
Africa. But his latest leap has landed him in a minefield.
The subject at hand is this British scholar's contention that the remains of
a 700-year-old bowl-shaped relic that he tracked down in a Zimbabwe
museum storeroom in 2007 could be a replica of the Ark of the Covenant that
carried the Ten Commandments.
According to African legend, white lions
of God and a two-headed snake guarded the "drum that thunders" in a cave in
southwestern Zimbabwe's sacred Dumbwe mountains. Parfitt's theory has sparked
fierce reactions from some Zimbabwean scholars, who suspect a plot to
superimpose foreign origins on what is purely a product of African culture.
The artifact, which disappeared from public view after its discovery in the
1940s, is on display at the Harare Museum of Human Sciences. The piece, about 45
inches by 24 inches and 27 inches tall, has a pattern of shallow engraving on
the outside that could have held gold threads. Scorch marks on the base inside
were possibly left by primitive gun powder.
Parfitt, a professor of Modern Jewish Studies at the University of London's
prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies, says he first heard of the
vessel during his two-decade search for Jewish tribes lost in Africa.
At the center of that research is a Southern African ethnic group variously
called Lemba, Remba or waLemba. Parfitt says 52% of them carry a Y chromosome
known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH), unique to ancient priestly Jewish
communities and raising the possibility that they are descended from Aaron,
Moses' brother. Other groups in Zimbabwe have no CMH.
The waLemba are also set apart from other tribes by such Jewish customs as
observing a weekly Sabbath, practicing circumcision, shunning pork and
slaughtering animals by methods similar to Jewish kosher rules.
Parfitt acknowledges that theories counter to his are "wholly plausible," and
the museum is careful not to take sides. The materials accompanying the exhibit
that opened this year outline two theories on the relic's origin.
One says the original Ark of the Covenant may have been destroyed when the
Babylonians invaded Jerusalem in 586 BC, that several copies probably were made
and that one was taken to Ethiopia
by Prince Menelik, the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Another could have
found its way to ancient Zimbabwe, the exhibit says.
The other posits that it is a purely African relic, and that according to
legend, was made by waLemba craftsmen for royal elders to give them magical
powers.
In the Zimbabwean Shona language, the artifact is called Ngoma Lungundu, the
drum that thunders, while the waLemba call it "the voice of God."
Parfitt says that according to oral tradition, the waLemba could have been
among peoples who left Judea in biblical times and migrated through Yemen to
East Africa, Ethiopia and beyond, bringing the ark with them.
Eminent Zimbabwean historian Rob Burrett disputes Parfitt's theory.
"He is on the wrong track. Wooden drums - ceremonial drums and war drums with
great powers similar to those attributed to the ark - are an integral part of
African culture," Burrett said.
The genetic test "doesn't prove anything," he said, noting that early
European explorers of the east African coast found a strong presence of Arab and
Jewish traders moving into the African interior.
"These people were certainly not celibate and would have created mixed-blood
communities along the way," Burrett said.
African traditionalists believe the Ngoma is a royal drum so powerful that it
imploded and was rebuilt on the original wooden base 700 years ago. Indeed, a
splinter from the top of the artifact has been carbon-dated to about 1300,
making it probably the oldest surviving wooden object in Southern Africa.
Only carbon-dating of the entire object, including its scorched base, would
resolve the debate, but Zimbabwe authorities are reluctant to let that happen.
In a nation striving to eradicate tribalism, a result favoring Parfitt's claims
might stir tribal divisions by implying the waLembas' origins are not truly
African.
"Everyone has placed this object in a context of their own," conceded Giles
Mutsekwa, co-minister of home affairs, the body in charge of archives and
antiquities.
One context that arouses anger in Zimbabwe is race. During the colonial era,
Europeans defended white-supremacist ideas by arguing, erroneously, that
Africans could not have built advanced civilizations such as the massive citadel
of stone houses called Great Zimbabwe.
Harald von Sicard, the Swedish-German missionary who discovered the Ngoma,
theorized in the same vein, that the artifact couldn't have been crafted by
Africans. Burrett describes Von Sicard as "an old-fashioned, Old Testament"
preacher whose views bordered on racism.
Parfitt says he spent weeks living in a waLemba community looking for clues
about the ark and getting nowhere. He says he was about to give up when he met a
retired train driver in a bar in the southern city of Bulawayo. The man said he
recalled hauling a boxcar of artifacts 275 miles from Bulawayo to the capital,
Harare, for safekeeping during the country's war for independence.
Parfitt searched the Harare museum in 2007, and there it was, in a dusty
storeroom littered with mouse droppings. But after he published his findings a
year later, controversy flared.
"Some people thought it was all a sinister plot and I was interfering. There
was open hostility," he said.
Tempers erupted at a February meeting on the topic at the main Zimbabwe
university, with one Zimbabwean academic, historian and former education
minister Aenias Chigwedere, storming out of the discussion, denouncing the
presence of the British scholar.
Ken Mufuka, a professor of history from Zimbabwe who teaches at Lander
University in South Carolina, called Parfitt a "publicity-monger" and "a
charlatan" in a newsletter published in Harare.
Burrett, who is also an associate researcher at the Bulawayo museum, said the
furor is rooted in the nation's more recent political history.
"There is a fear of undermining the post-independence myth that we are one
people, not divided by tribe or origin," he said. "It's as though we are in
denial of having a multicultural society."
THE National Heroes Acre in not a facility for
bleaching darkened political souls.
It is a site and recognition of
honour: honour irrevocably achieved and thus honour which cannot be reversed
or undone through subsequent transgressions.
Zanu-PF, the sole creator of
that Acre, indeed the deserved sole author of rules of entry to that shrine,
relies on death for this irrevocability.
For Zanu-PF, life has to have
been snuffed out, to have gone extinct, for heroism to be recognised,
proclaimed, honoured and then celebrated.
Before then, uh uh!
I
had the privilege of following the whole debate on this very matter as it
unfolded in Zanu-PF. I recall that the debate was quite emotional, albeit
with its own moments of humour and memorable brilliance.
Zvobgo and
his "chema"
One leading figure in this whole debate was the late
lawyer-minister and the then Secretary for Legal Affairs in the party, Cde
Eddison Mudadirwa Zvobgo, who also lies at the Heroes Acre.
I
particularly recall his witty answer on why heroes could only be honoured
posthumously, never in their lifetime, a good many of whose twilight years
often got quite rough and penurious. And examples of national heroes, who
only became great and comfortable in death, having lived a hard, patched
life, were summoned to buttress this emotional and emotive debate. But Cde
Zvobgo would not be ruffled, hiding his well-known stubbornness beneath
sheer brilliance of intellect, for which he will always be renowned, well
beyond his lifetime.
To do so, replied the inimitable lawyer, "for me
recalls a bizarre incident involving my own young brother, Abisai who, upon
getting remarkably reduced both in purse and in personality, accosted me for
his "chema" so he could enjoy it in his lifetime!"
It turned out that
Abisai, also late, badly needed some small change for a small drink with
which to fend off a raging, fanged hangover that "sat" him, to use local
parlance. Unfortunately his pocket was out, which is how he ended up
inventing this modest proposal of strange appeal.
Consistency,
persistency
The sheer brilliance of the argument, so aptly backed by
personal and even confidential family experience, simply staggered the
Politburo which laughed as much as it took in all its threads. Whether this
was a "live" example summoned from beneath the hard-to-fathom mind of the
lawyer, or just fiction favoured and populated with living beings for
pseudo-veracity, only the Zvobgo family can answer. But it did the trick.
Except Cde Zvobgo would not end half-done.
He knew that one visit
would not make a baby. Matters had to be seen through, and he hurried
forward to clinch his point in typical eloquence, characteristically hidden
beneath his seemingly unkempt, Karangarised pronunciation, but one steadied
by complex syntactical construction: "A person, once declared a national
hero, should be incapable of negating that status and verdict, which is what
death comprehensively does for us.
They being dead; doth not sinneth! The
accent on the selection of heroes must fall on those persons to have pursued
and promoted the ideals of the liberation struggle consistently and
persistently, without deviating from the same, right through to the bitter
end . . ." That did it and the debate ended with the lawyer's
recommendations sailing through, un-amended. So were born the rules of
selection and access to the Heroes Acre, themselves subject of much debate
and altercation today.
Sibanda the nationalist
As I write, there
is a sizeable debate regarding the status in death of Gibson Sibanda, the
deputy president of MDC-M. The Sibanda's profile as proffered by those
involved in pushing for his recognition, rested on his career as a veteran
trade unionist and trade union leader who cut his union teeth in the railway
sub-sector of transport industry.
They also highlighted his role as a
welfare officer in Zapu, as a result of which they say he got detained at
Whawha and Marondera. The exact circumstances of that detention were not
disclosed, as also was not the duration of that
detention.
Significantly, the two MDC formations have staked their demand
on Sibanda's nationalist credentials, itself an admission that what he did
beyond Zapu, Whawha and Marondera, may not have been that salutary as to be
heroic, as to go and count towards this sought after status. More of that a
little later.
A brawl over the dead
What begs preliminary debate
is the whole moral of enjoying a brawl above the cold and still body of a
man not yet buried, a brawl so replete with self-interest and
self-positioning. And I find myself in an invidious position where to make
the point, I actually have to participate and extend parameters of this same
blameworthy brawl. In fact I had resolved to let the disgrace pass without
me, until I saw an article reflecting the views of the Sibanda family on the
matter.
The late Sibanda's daughter, given as Thandi, has been reported
as asserting her father's entitlement to a national hero
status.
Thereafter I became convinced that indeed the late Sibanda had
been sacrificed by those closest to him, had been made fair game for public
comment.
By volunteering their opinion over a matter and debate which
is patently political, the Sibanda family, through its family spokesperson,
has traded in the sanctity of his death and body for public scrutiny. They
have invited tongues, and yes tongues do belch anything between praise and
censure.
I hope the family will like what follows as this matter gets
turned over, and with it, their own father's life and career.
The
Matabeleland heresy
But I have another reason for jumping into the fray.
Both formations of the MDC are playing on the symbolism of Sibanda's assumed
regional identity. For far too long, there has been an inexplicable
reluctance to debate issues and concerns coming from the so-called
Matabeleland region.
So-called because "Matabeleland" is neither a
geographical place nor a socio-cultural entity, it is political construct
which is as convenient and self-serving as those peddling it.
The
truth is that "Matabeleland" is a politically fraught fiction; as fictional
as is Manicaland, Masvingo, and all the Mashonalands with all their
pretensions to scientific compass bearings. I challenge anybody on this
earth and beyond to tell me what Matabeleland, Mashonaland, Manicaland or
Masvingo mean, or what it is on the ground that validates such stupid
nomenclature we did not have to perpetuate after colonialism, we did not
need to sanctify as identity markers, patently false though they
are.
Let's debate that. I remove my gloves for a hard-knuckled
debate.
Gukurahundi monologues
But my point goes further. Starting
off from this false consciousness, certain individuals who claim to speak
for this fiction called Matabeleland have been mischievously tendering false
claims of injury and entitlement, all unchallenged. We fear challenging
flawed thinking from this part of Zimbabwe, with the result that potentially
political dangerous misconceptions have congealed and settled by sheer
default. I will illustrate.
The conflict in the early part of our
Independence which pitted Zanu against Zapu, Zanla against Zipra, and for
which everyone including the President regretted and regrets, has spawned a
one-sided, monologue-debate, led by variegated interests, including
Rhodesian and foreign ones, for self-serving ends.
How Zapu and Zipra
became Matabeleland, remains a mystery to me. Was Zapu and its Zipra not
active in Hurungwe and even Zvimba, the President's birth place? Was it not
national? Yet this thinking, driven by people who had nothing to do with
Zapu or Zipra, asserts so in order to achieve their narrow interests. It has
become a real blackmail, an unchallenged vehicle for pursuing ignoble
interests while using guilt and tribal sentiment to claim immunity from
rigorous scrutiny and challenge.
Somehow, those in Zanu-PF have gagged
themselves on this debate, mistakenly thinking that their silence on this
very matter safeguards the Unity Accord.
For that reason the debate has
proceeded without them, and has been used against them and the Party. Who
does not know that the Justice and Peace report - Breaking Silence - became
the MDC's launch manifesto in that southern region of
Zimbabwe?
Second cousins theory
Then comes a related but separate
debate centred on well cultivated mis-perceptions of "Matabeleland" as
deliberately underdeveloped, as "a second cousin", to use Eric Bloch's
phrase. In fact I am wrong to call this an Eric Bloch phrase. Eric merely
recalled it from colonial history.
Go to any issue of the Rhodesian
Herald, from the days of the British South Africa Company administration
right up to Independence. You will notice a raging and often divisive debate
involving white Rhodesians located in the southern part of Rhodesia against
the rest of their kind in the country, asserting their rights and
entitlements as southerners, against the much reviled administration of the
BSAC.
Curiously, the argument did not make any reference to the place,
fate and fortunes of Africans living in that part of Zimbabwe, Africans we
now glibly refer to as Ndebeles. It never did. How certain persons from that
part of the country consider themselves successors to those "white second
cousins" of Rhodesia; remains a mystery to me. And this whole debate on
Matabeleland-Zambezi water project had its origins in that intra-white
colonial debate. It is not the genius of post-independence politics, led by
Dabengwa or lately, Sipepa Nkomo.
Centre-periphery
But the
debate was not and will never be a unique one. It was and will always be a
debate between any national capital anywhere in the world and its satellite
zones again anywhere in the world, for as long as we follow the capitalist
model of hub-and-spoke, as opposed to spatially balanced and spread,
development to urban planning. And it is sheer folly to blame any one tribe,
or any one post-independence political party or arrangement, for the way
Harare and Bulawayo are, for the way both capitals are, in relation to the
rest of smaller cities and towns in the country.
Where others are not
even second cousins
What is worse, national statistics on development
after independence do not bear out this second cousin theory which is so
mistaken and so political fraught, to be left alone. Go to Buhera,
specifically between Murambinda and Birchenough Bridge, and tell me what you
witness there by way of opportunities for livelihood. Compare these to any
place in the southern part of our country and tell me what your conclusions
are.
Outside Ruti Dam built by Rhodesians, you will not find any of the
dams you get in "Matabeleland South".
What then do you call that
stricken stretch of Buhera, if you decide to call the southern part of
Zimbabwe a second cousin? Mubvakure, perhaps? Walk between Birchenough
Bridge and Chakohwa, including northwards to cover the whole of Mafararikwa
right up to the shores of Save, and find for me any one dam, any one
irrigation project as new and as big as any you find in the southern part of
our country.
Test all the human development indices in that sorry habitat
and tell me what you come up with. Or the whole of Rushinga; the whole of
Lower Guruve; the whole of UMP; the whole of Mberengwa; the whole of Kariba.
Or Chiredzi. In all these areas and regions - whatever tribal or regional
names you care to give them - life is simply inert and enervated, the
habitat too brittle and brutal to support life. Yet no great theories of
deliberate underdevelopment have emerged from these areas which do not merit
the tag of cousins of any number at all.
The myth of
Ndebele-ness
Thirdly you have the myth of Ndebele-ness running hard on
the heels of the aforesaid, with the attendant accessories of language,
culture, myths and symbols to buttress it.
Recently we have had a
fire gutting down the kraal of King Lobengula, himself part of our country's
founding myths, alongside Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi. It is a fire that
started in the environs of the revered kraal, clearly through sheer neglect
and indifference which makes all those living close to the kraal
culpable.
The fire was not imported from a heath in Harare or any part of
the so-called Mashonaland, in order to torch this cultural symbol. Those
with the responsibility to put out the fire did not have to come from
Chipinga or Chakohwa. They had to come from communities within the kraal's
circumambient universe, and for whom that facility was meant. They include
the Khumalos who trace their origins to that place and by that reason whose
responsibility towards ensuring its safety doubles.
Then comes
infantile politics
No one did anything to safeguard the recreated
monument in this dry season we know to come every year, until it got gutted
to ashes by uncontrolled fires so common in this dry season.
Witness
what followed! A huge and emotive debate blaming those in Harare "who do not
want to see our culture incorporated and visible"! Aah! What a way of
abnegating oneself from responsibility!
Meanwhile, you have a
huge-equally emotional debate on the statue of Umdala wethu which must not
be touched by anyone else, placed anywhere else except where "Matabeleland"
- the "rightful" owner of that iconic, national figure -
approves.
What is the rhyme, what is the reason? Clearly you can see how
crass arguments, infantile arguments, simply gain decency by default, by the
silence of men and women whose duty it is to eschew such
childishness.
The Swazi saga
And it's not like this grotesquery
will go away through indifference. Far from going away, it is actually
overstretching itself, getting bolder and bolder. The constitutional
outreach progarmme illustrates this. Recently we had an individual -
interestingly the country's former ambassador to many capitals including,
Addis - seeking to bar outreach teams from gathering views in his area,
until questionnaires came in a certain language spoken by locals
there.
Apparently the former national envoy has now become a chief of a
sub-ethnic group. A whole holder of a PhD, happily receding into
antediluvian chauvinism! And he is not alone. We have whole professors who
tell you that to make it politically, you have to wear the tribal
mantle!
The issue of leadership
To that add the shrill demand for
the so-called devolution of powers by way of a federal constitutional
arrangement. This, we are told, is a sure panacea to the so-called
underdevelopment. Not the colonial legacy, not capitalism, not sanctions,
not neo-colonialism.
Much worse, you had Tsvangirai's ill-fated recall of
MDC ministers from Government, and the spurts of anger this triggered from
Matabeleland. Regardless of the fact that those recalled came from all over,
including Masvingo, Chitungwiza and Mhondoro, the argument centred on a
proposition that Tsvangirai, like Mugabe, was pruning the leadership from
"Matabeleland". You had the likes of Conte Mhlanga stretching their long
necks to make a hoarse, tribal point. Everyone is Ndebele! Really? And that
is what must matter only in making appointments. It cures all misdemeanours,
all other foibles, including pilfering cell-phones! Again I am ready for a
rough take on this stupid argument, calculated to blackmail those in
authority.
Munakandafa?
Which takes me back to the subject
broached at the very beginning.
Why didn't the MDC formations predicate
their demand for Sibanda's hero status on his oppositional profile as the
founder and president of the original MDC? Why did they seek to stretch his
uneventful association with Zapu to make a case for his going to Heroes
Acre?
Secondly, how do formations which only yesterday were trading
insults, suddenly gang up on
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4
this one matter? If both knew and regarded Sibanda that highly,
why was he not their leader, indeed the voice they listened to in the run-up
to their split? Why should a hero they derided and toppled only yesterday be
held high in Zanu -PF, the party he organised against, and only in
death?
When he could not be accommodated as a minister of government,
thanks to their bickering, was the burden of justifying his continued stay
in Government not thrust on the President who ended up being Sibanda's only
defender? Where was Mutambara; where was Tsvangirai, both of them
co-principals? Or did they need to be consulted first before defending his
continued stay in Government, without a seat? Thirdly, is there a link
between Mutambara's stridency on this matter and the MDC-M congress which is
around the corner? Is there any connection between Tsvangirai's stridency on
the same matter, and the pressures his party is facing in Matabeleland in
the wake of Zapu and a restructured MDC-M?
Heroes Acre as a cleansing
tool
What is not coming through the current debate how these leaders are
using the late Sibanda as a pretext and excuse for dealing with the issue of
legitimacy facing the two formations. The image of a quisling party serving
foreign interests won't go way. It won't go away not because someone
stubborn keeps pasting it back the two formations' foreheads. It won't go
away because of the conduct of one of the formations which keeps cultivating
and watering this reviled identity through its puzzling
conduct.
Mistakenly, the MDC leadership thinks getting a salute from
Service Chiefs, themselves war veterans, or one or two errand war veterans
to its ranks, will bleach its darkened soul without any material changes to
its politics as a proxy party opposed to the ideals of the liberation
struggle. The role the MDC played from its formation in 1999 was and remains
ignoble and treacherous.
It is a role that saw MDC, led by Sibanda
and Tsvangirai, fighting the return of the land, taking money from sponsors
of Rhodesia which resisted and killed those lying at Heroes Acre. Above all,
it is a role that brought us sanctions responsible for the gnawing misery we
face to this day. These, not Zanu -PF, are the compelling issues standing
between Sibanda and the shrine, indeed between the MDC politics and the
regard its leadership seeks to levy from all of us.
Where he
faltered
If Sibanda worked with Zapu at some point in his remote past,
and got arrested for it, well and good. This, together with his role in
national healing, most probably explains why he was granted a state-assisted
funeral. But the important thing is that he blotted his escutcheon by the
dim role he played subsequently, which made him fail the consistency,
persistency test, indeed which made him deviate from those ideals that saw
him detained at Whawha and Marondera. That is the heart of the
matter.
The debate which will not change anything
Yes, Heroes Acre
was created by the two, sole liberation movements which will continue to
dominate the supply of rules and candidates for that Acre. It is a
prerogative of history which no other party shall enjoy. It is the benefit
of the sacrifices the two liberation movements made, the price the two MDC
formations have to pay for being late-comers shunting hostile foreigners
into the home. It is an Acre steeped in an emotive history which the MDC has
challenged. The values and history embodied in that Acre are too important,
too sensitive, too immutable to be renegotiated or altered, less so on the
promptings of the MDC, given its role. One is touching the very soul of the
two liberation movements and the response just gets irrational.
More
adjustments in offing?
The two leaders know this truth. The question is
why they proceeded to make the request regardless. This is where the whole
matter gets tasteless. Each had his own selfish reasons. Mutambara, who
faces the rebellion of 11 out of 12 of his party's provinces, had to be seen
to be peddling hard for the late Sibanda, in order to recover some modicum
of respectability at his party's congress, in order to ingratiate himself
with the southern part of the country.
Yet this gesture does not
redeem his place within the MDC-M. Nor will it endear him to Zanu-PF whose
goodwill he may badly need a few weeks from now, the same way Sibanda needed
the President after his appointment fell because of changed circumstances.
All indications point to the fact that after that congress, MDC-M will have
a new president who becomes its new principal in the Inclusive Government.
That means someone has to crack their brains on where to place Mutambara who
I must admit has served the equation remarkably well. But he must know that
leadership is not about succumbing to a mere sentiment and pushing an absurd
position.
Riding high, not higher.
Tsvangirai who faces a backlash
in Matabeleland and who is desperate to overwrite the humiliation at
Windhoek, sought a new, distracting political cynosure in the debate on
Sibanda's status. His effort only serves to alienate him further from the
region he seeks to court. His ousting on Sibanda and Ncube from the original
MDC decided his fate, which is why even Chief Ndiweni turned against
him.
Welshman Ncube and Dumiso Dabengwa, who curiously have been quiet on
this whole matter, stand to reap the most from it. Presently they ride high
on the regional sentiment I have raised up for debate. What their role is in
stoking it, I am not so sure. But the narrow horse they enjoy riding for
now, will not take them any higher. Trapped in the integument of narrow
politics, their fate may be sealed in being underdog regional politicians,
fighting for the right to negotiate with the victor. I wait to see how both,
pursuing same politics in the present form, will escape this
verdict.
Weve had an
electricity crisis of major proportions this past week which has bought the
routines of everyday life to a standstill. Businesses without computers,
offices unable to access records, machines that cannot be operated and of
course, no electricity means no water which makes things even harder still.
Repeated calls to electricity supplier ZESA have yielded nothing: no
explanation, apology or excuses just two little words spat contemptuously at
you for daring to ask: load shedding they say. 12, 15, 18 and even
22 hours a day weve been subjected to load shedding at a time when the
country is desperate for business, production and growth. One man home
businesses have come to a complete standstill. Small businesses without the
means to provide their own electricity are complaining that theyve been
losing about five hundred dollars a day. Bigger businesses estimate lost
income of around five thousand dollars a day, not to mention employees
sitting around doing nothing who will all have to be paid at the end of the
month. Employees who came to work in the morning without having had a proper
meal and will go home to much the same: a smoky fire outside and no water to
bath or wash with.
Every outlet that can afford to run them, have
resorted to generators. In all shapes and sizes the machines clutter
pavements and alleyways and pedestrians have become adept at picking a
safe path through the wires and conducting their business over
the clattering, thumping and roaring of the engines. The power cuts
have become so ridiculous this week that even the petrol stations
have resorted to using generators to pump fuel into customers
vehicles. Its a slow process if you happen to be in a car though because
there is a steady line of people on foot jumping the queue as they wait
to fill plastic bottles with a litre or two of petrol for
generators.
Craziest of all about this weeks non existent electricity is
the sure and certain knowledge that come the end of the month
our electricity bills will be as high as they always are. First
world bills for fourth world service, or even no service at all.
The
knock on effects of these extended power cuts is having a devastating impact
on the environment. From early in the morning to last thing in the evening
the sound of wood chopping is all around. Emerging from bush and woodland all
the time is a steady stream of women carrying huge piles of newly cut wood on
their heads. Some is for their own use but more is for sale, a small bundle
of half a dozen pieces of indigenous wood costing five US dollars enough
to cook perhaps two or three meals.
Despite it all, Zimbabweans really
have become masters of ingenuity when faced with adversity so now, if you
know where to go and have a few dollars, you can have a haircut or charge
your cell phone on someones generator. What a shame it is that ZESA arent
blessed with a similar ingenuity. Until next time, thanks for reading, love
cathy. Copyright cathy buckle 28th August 2010. www.cathybuckle.com
The
childish comments last week by Zanu (PF) secretary for administration
Didymus Mutasa (Pictured) that the party has sole authority to decide who
shall be buried at the National Heroes' Acre because it or its government
built the national shrine save to show once more just how arrogant the
predators in charge of our country are. The committee of vultures
captured Zimbabwe a long time ago. They are too busy gorging themselves on
whatever remains of this once great nation to know or care about the cry for
national healing and reconciliation. The yearning of all Zimbabweans - that,
of course, excludes Mutasa and the other hyenas at the feeding trough - is
for a new beginning. The death last week of MDC-M vice president Gibson
Sibanda provided just another opportunity to score one more point for
genuine national reconciliation and unity without which that much desired
fresh start cannot be possible. There is no doubt that Sibanda deserved
national hero status on account of his good works first with the old PF-ZAPU
party of Joshua Nkomo and later with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU) and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party. But more than
that, declaring Sibanda a national hero would have been a crucial symbolic
gesture to all that Zimbabweans have indeed turned a new page, that the old
hostilities are forgotten and bygones will be bygones. That a group of
men and women known in Zanu (PF) as the politburo and who were handpicked
into that exclusive club by President Robert Mugabe would sit and without
consulting anyone decide to deny national hero status to Sibanda is sad but
hardly surprising coming from that pack. Mutasa's claims that the Zanu (PF)
politburo is right to decide on whether to confer hero/heroine status on
people in the absence of any other body to carry out that function shows so
much contempt for the intelligence of Zimbabweans just as his claim that
Zanu (PF) and/or its government built the national shrine. Why should the
Zanu (PF) politburo choose national heroes and heroines for us? Why not ask
the more representative Parliament or Cabinet to confer this important
honour on deserving Zimbabweans? And where did Zanu (PF) get the money to
build the Heroes' Acre shrine as claimed by Mutasa, if not from taxpayers
who do not wear political colours? But to focus on Mutasa's infantile claims
is to really miss the point. Zanu (PF) took it upon itself to decide on
whether Sibanda should be buried at the national shrine because to Mugabe
and his party this whole sad affair was merely yet another golden
opportunity to demonstrate to all and sundry who really wields the power in
Zimbabwe. It was an opportunity to punish Sibanda one more last time for
having dared stand up against corruption, human rights abuses and misrule by
Mugabe and his party. The good to come out of it all is that at least it
shows that all this talk about national reconciliation and healing is one
big lie.
Please
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=================================================
1.
Mr C.J Lightfoot -
2. Julia Cloete - SAWMA Elephants looking for a
home
=================================================
1. Mr C.J
Lightfoot -
Dear JAG
The letter from Ian Brown has some valid and
interesting points; But also some inaccuracies which undermine his
thesis.
He is quite right that figures of land occupation by white
commercial farmers are often misleading, and designed to be
so.
Conversely, it would not be difficult to find a classification where
the 70% figure is applicable, e.g. "70% of Region I & II (prime
arable) land" - probably an understatement?
Ian will know that, while
whites and blacks each had about 40% of total land under `Land Apportionment'
the blacks had most of theirs in Natural Regions IV and V. Obviously, they
did not have irrigation, except for tiny areas, and they were not into
`extensive ranching'. To a subsistence farmer, any area is only of any
value if it produces a grain.
In 1995, white-owned commercial farms
were about 28%, and this declined, without `a shot being fired' to 19% by
2000 (JAG figures).
Moving to the question of fertility. Yes, granite
sands (and hills) cover 40% of the land mass, and are inherently infertile.
And, naturally, commercial farmers placed fertilizer, while peasants did not
(to any degree). But there is no doubt at all that, generally the communal
lands started where the red soil stopped or broken topography (often
granite) started. There was some sense in that - peasant farmers can
make better use of small pockets of arable, sands are easier to plough,
water was found on the surface, wild fruits in the hills, etc. And,
luckily, sandy soils are protected from overgrazing by persistent couch
grass. Modern blacks will not buy these `ecological' arguments. The fact
of the matter was - the black man could not own land in his own country - a
monumental injustice.
So, the percentage held by each race was moot. I
believe the Rukuni and Utete Commissions have figures, and the new Land
Commission, if it comes, may bring more?
Turning to some `facts', I
would propose the following:
Ĝ A handful of whites established, in
100 short years, world-record-breaking agriculture starting from virgin bush
of mediocre quality, purely through having an enabling national environment.
No one can take that fact away from them.
Ĝ The ZANU-PF Government
destroyed this for political reasons. In fact they have actively sought to
bury the evidence of white farming achievement and to start from
scratch.
Ĝ In the 20 years to 2000 most of the land owned by whites
could have been acquired, one way or another, by black farmers, or
by Government. Most of it had not been.
Ĝ Surely this questions
the `hunger' that blacks had for land? They found the funds for houses and
shops, etc, but largely failed to take advantage of the sometimes
ridiculously low prices for farms. The Government could have established
settlement schemes (with free-hold title) along the lines of the Middle-Sabi
and Mkwasine schemes. They did not.
Ĝ The Government has been
unable to replace commercial agriculture in 10 years of often frenetic trying
- clearly some critical ingredients are missing.
Ĝ The Government
(hopefully not representative of the population) has actually demonstrated a
dismal regard for land - its health and well-being, and the people, stock and
wildlife it supports are a very low priority compared to personal acquisition
of power and wealth.
Ĝ Having said that, unless we credit them with
the most comprehensive cover of grass seen across the nation for 60 years,
and ever-full dams to boot!
I do like Ian's proposal of issuing former
communal land to commercial farmers.
But seriously, if we want
production, it is all about title - when will it be possible to forget the
colour of the title-holder's skin?
2.
Julia Cloete - SAWMA Elephants looking for a home
Dear JAG, I have been
asked to forward the following request, Maybe
someone can
help?
Dear Colleagues,
This is a very strange request, but I
promised a friend I would send out a call for help.
There is a herd of
elephants currently located on a game farm in Limpopo who are desperately
looking for a home. Mining rights have been acquired for a portion of the
land they are on and there is an
urgent need to relocate the elephants,
but being such a substantial herd it is not so easy to find them somewhere
safe to go.
The caretakers of the herd do not want them to be broken up.
The herd is constituted as follows:
2 adult females - +/- 20 years
old
3 adult bulls ages 16 to 20 years old
1 male calf 4 to 5
years old
1 female calf 7 to 8 months old
1 sub-adult bull 15
years old
1 sub-adult female 17,5 years old
If anyone has any
recommendations for a safe haven for these elephants please send me
details.
In his first novel, Unfeeling, Ian Holding was cagey about where his
account of a white farming community being slaughtered by black militants was
set, though the imprint of Robert Mugabe was obvious enough. His second novel is
also, we presume, set in modern Zimbabwe, but this time the picture is even
hazier, the edges blurred and details deliberately withheld, so that the story
itself is precarious, despite the vividness of its telling.
Of Beasts and Beings
by Ian Holding
An unnamed character, while scavenging for food amid a post-apocalyptic
wasteland of charred bodies, bombed pit latrines and shelled shacks, is captured
by soldiers and taken on a journey, destination unknown. Sold to an old man and
strung up, he fears he is about to be eaten, until he is stolen by two young men
with other plans. At the back of a deserted shopping centre he meets the rest of
his new captors' party: another man and a pregnant woman. He is attached to a
wheelbarrow, in which the pregnant woman is deposited, her legs splayed around
supplies of maize cobs, water and tins of beans, and the aimless journey
continues, across barren roads, sudden glades, valleys of bush and horrifying
human remains.
Although there is no clear point to their wandering, a sense of urgency and
tension is evoked by the menacing desolation that infuses all around them,
described in impressively exacting detail, and the ongoing question of whether
or not the woman will survive to give birth to her child. These sections of the
novel are written in a heightened present-tense narrative that strains to
contain its subject, yet has the strange effect, when combined with the
anonymity of the characters and the absence of background information on their
plight, of keeping pathos just beyond our reach. There is virtually no dialogue.
Some scenes cry out for dramatisation but remain trapped behind a gauze of
inflated language. The strongest moments are those that probe the relationships
within this grim posse, such as the opposing episodes of violence and sexual
tenderness between the pregnant woman and her man.
Ventilation comes in the form of another narrative running alongside. A white
Zimbabwean school teacher, embittered and disillusioned by the state of his
country, is preparing to emigrate. As he sells his family home to shady
capitalists, resigns from his job and endures an endless power cut, he records
his days in a diary. His tone is angry, choppy, blokey. Holding, himself a white
Zimbabwean teacher based in Harare, takes a bold and interesting shot at
tackling what he refers to as "the placeless redundancy . . . of being a white
boy in Africa". In the teacher's relationship with his lifelong servant, Tobias,
white middle-class guilt clashes with his frustration at never having been able
to feel at home in the country of his birth. He points out rather huffily that
colonialism is merely "the history of the world in one form or another", and
that "dozens of African tribes were doing exactly the same thing for centuries
before the dreaded Cecil J Rhodes showed up".
As the novel draws to a close these themes become expansive and definitive,
as the author takes an unexpected leap in his plot and the two narratives begin
to unite. There is a good reason, it turns out, why the grim posse are not
named, why they seem so strangely distorted and opaque. I'm not sure it's good
enough to justify the experiment, but it does make a weird and atmospheric
impression. Despite its faults, this is a thought-provoking study of the
dehumanising effects of racial violence and oppression.