The Zimbabwe Situation

Dear Family and Friends,

I have often wondered if, as a white and an ex farmer, my writing about the situation in Zimbabwe has done more harm than good for this country that I love so much. In the last three and a half years I have written two books, almost 200 weekly letters and about 150 newspaper and magazine articles on events here as they have happened. Looking back on some of my writings over the last 46 months and having written so many millions of words on Zimbabwe's chaos I think today's letter and its topic is probably long overdue. Hopefully it will help people understand a little better just exactly why I do what I do and why I stay in Zimbabwe.

I am white and was born here long before Zimbabwe's independence. I did not approve of the repressive rule of Ian Smith and his Rhodesian Front and I do not approve of the repressive rule of Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF. I was appalled at the human rights abuses, torture and detentions of Rhodesia's government when they struggled to hold on to power in the late 1970's and am equally appalIed at the violence, brutality and human rights abuses of Zimbabwe's government as it tries to hang on to power 30 years later.

In 1990 when we legally bought a farm with government approval in Marondera it was because we wanted to live in the countryside and try and make a living from farming. People who have read African Tears will know that those 10 years on the farm were incredibly hard in every sense - financially, physically and mentally. Having the farm seized by drunken government supporters in 2000 and living side by side for 7 months with what became a war veterans headquarters and later a torture camp, was any mother's worst nightmare. Seeing our employees being abused, intimidated and forced to attend political rallies; witnessing politicians paying the war veterans to stay on our farm and watching a so carefully tended and much loved piece of land being turned into nothing more than a political beerhall finally gave me the courage to speak out. In those 7 months I saw at first hand what was going on. There was not a shadow of doubt in my mind then that our land had been squatted not because we were white but because a political party were desperate to stay in power and that we were merely scapegoats. I also knew that if I did nothing and told no one about what was happening on our farm and in the country then I did not deserve to live here and be called a Zimbabwean.

I wrote African Tears not because I was a disgruntled white farmer who wanted her land back but because I wanted the world to know what was happening. A year later I wrote Beyond Tears because I wanted people to read for themselves what the Zimbabwean government were doing to their own people - black, white and brown. There were only a handful of people who were prepared to let me tell their stories for that book because, regardless of skin colour, we are a nation afraid of our leaders. I continue to write about the Zimbabwean situation for only one reason and that is to expose the truth. I have tried to speak out for all victims regardless of their colour, professions or financial standing but it is not an easy path that I have chosen, it is lonely, exhausting, frightening and often dangerous - perhaps doing the right thing is always like this?

In the last 46 months many other white Zimbabweans have chosen to walk this path and each one of us has lost everything in the process but we do it because we love not "the" country but our country. We do it, not because we want to go back to "the good old days" but because Zimbabwe is our home too and we want to be a part of the future. We are tired of being labelled and stereo typed as white racists. We are tired of repressive rule and we are tired of racists and bigots be they black or white and we just want to stand together and build a democracy that our children, and Africa, will be proud of. Our mission lies in the future and not the past. It is a vision which cannot be achieved by brushing things under the carpet yet again but by demanding accountability from the people who lead us.

My reason for writing on this topic today is because all Zimbabweans, regardless of their sex or colour, are again preparing to try and make our government hear our desperate calls. A weekend of national prayer and fasting is in progress as I write and on Tuesday the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, supported by civic society, have called for a national protest against horrific levels of taxation, inflation and violations of human and trade union rights.

Black skin or white, brown or beige, we are proud and determined Zimbabweans looking to the future and ask particularly for your prayers and support in the days and weeks ahead. Until next week, with love, cathy. Copyright cathy buckle 15th November 2003. http://africantears.netfirms.com
My books on the Zimbabwean crisis, "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from: UK contact handzup_02@hotmail.com ; Australia and New Zealand: johnmreed@johnreedbooks.com ; Africa: www.kalahari.net www.exclusivebooks.com

      Copyright © 2003, Dow Jones Newswires

      HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)--Eleven people were arrested for circulating an
e-mail police claim incited violence against President Robert Mugabe's
23-year rule, a newspaper reported Saturday.

      A lower court judge Friday released the seven men and four women on
bail of 50,000 Zimbabwean dollars - about $10 - and ordered them to appear
in court Nov. 26, the state controlled daily newspaper the Herald, reported.

      If convicted under draconian new security laws, they face up to 20
years imprisonment. They weren't asked to enter pleas to the charges which
arise from an e-mail circulated Nov. 6-11.

      The e-mail was entitled "Ma-Demonstrations Ndizvo" in Zimbabwe's
majority Shona language (Yes to demonstrations), judge Memory Chigwaza was
told.

      According to the Herald report which didn't name its source, the
e-mail said "starting November 24 there should be nationwide violent
demonstrations and strikes to push President Mugabe out of office."

      Under a controversial Telecommunications Act passed by Parliament last
year the authorities have the power to intercept and monitor all electronic
traffic but no prosecution has previously taken place over e-mail messages.

      In July a Zimbabwean man was arrested for trying to send a fax to a
friend in the U.K. which included a newspaper cutting alleging that local
elections were rigged. The case hasn't been finalized.

      The Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Unions, which is allied with the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change, has called on workers to join a
Nov. 18 protest march to Parliament to demand economic reform to end the
country's 455% hyperinflation, mass unemployment and poverty.

      Women's organizations have called for all-night prayer vigils for
human rights and political freedom. However, no group has proposed protests
for Nov. 24.

      Police can ban any gatherings under security legislation, but haven't
yet announced their attitude to the workers' protest, intended to pressure
the government ahead of the Nov. 20 tabling of the annual budget.

      The trade union group claims affiliation of 500,000 formal sector
employees who belong to trade unions, and tacit support from millions eking
out a living through the "informal" or underground economy.

      Copyright © 2003, Dow Jones Newswires

      HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)--An opposition Zimbabwean lawmaker said Saturday
he feared for his life after six workers on his coffee farm were shot at and
beaten with rifle butts.

      Roy Bennett, a member of parliament for the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change said the workers on his farm, Charleswood Estate, were
attacked at dawn by a group of armed men.

      He was in the capital Harare, 700 kilometers west of his farm in the
Chimanimani district when the incident occurred.

      An eyewitness, who can't be named for his own safety, told Bennett he
saw workers in a coffee-berry washing plant being shot at and beaten with
rifle butts after they fell to the ground. The witness was forced to flee
before determining the workers' injuries, said Bennett.

      Spokesmen at police headquarters in Harare were Saturday unavailable
for comment.

      "What they are doing is trying to get me to go back there so they can
kill me," said Bennett, who has been repeatedly detained and beaten up by
ruling Zanu-PF party militants and security forces since he was elected to
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's party in June 2000.

      Attempts to seize Bennett's 7,000 acre mountainous estate under
President Robert Mugabe's "fast track" land redistribution have been
overturned by the High Court. However ruling party supporters remain on 300
acres of the 600 acres on which arable crops such as coffee can be grown.

      Despite court rulings, police and ruling party activists again invaded
the farm buildings Friday, among them four armed men claiming to be security
guards for the government's Agricultural and Rural Development Authority,
which wants possession.

      "I think they were army guys in civilian clothes," said Bennett.

      "They said they have been told from Harare to come and take over the
farm," he said. "They said 'you guys have got the farm now but it won't be
for long and then see what we are going to do to you'."

      Shortly after 5 a.m. Saturday a group was seen moving around on the
farm.

      "The eye witness saw from a distance shots being fired, people
falling, and rifle butts being used," said Bennett.

      Human rights groups say 500,000 farm employees and their families have
suffered more than the 5,000 evicted white owners during Mugabe's crash
programme to distribute land to 400,000 black Zimbabweans.

      A government survey concedes less than half the intended beneficiaries
have taken up and used the land given them, while production has crashed.

      Bennett's wife Heather had a miscarriage after being assaulted in 2000
and the couple were forced to flee with their two children. Bennett,
however, returns regularly to maintain cropping and help neighboring peasant
farmers whom he has introduced to coffee production.

      One of 57 MDC lawmakers elected in 2000, he was originally chosen as a
candidate for the ruling Zanu-PF party because of his work for local
development. When his candidacy was vetoed from party headquarters, Bennett
swept to victory on an opposition ticket.

The chief executive of Zimbabwe's Daily News has told how he and fellow
directors of the newspaper were kept in a cell infested with lice and bed
bugs following their arrest. Sam Nkomo said he and other directors of
Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe were held by police after The Daily News
reappeared for one day last month, but was again forced to close. Nkomo,
whose niece was held hostage by police searching for him, voluntarily gave
himself up along with three ANZ directors. They were then charged with
operating a newspaper without a licence. Speaking at a press conference in
London, Nkomo said: "we were taken to the cells and I heard a policewoman
say, 'These are special people, give them a special cell'. I felt we were
being treated so nicely. Little did I know was that that 'special cell' was
one infested with lice and bed bugs, there were millions of them in there."
The next day fellow prisoners came to their rescue and swapped cells with
them "They sacrificed themselves for us. That's Zimbabwe. That's our country
we love so much."

Nkomo, who supported the struggle for liberation and was jailed for 15 years
under the Ian Smith regime, said: " I did not believe in my life time that I
would see a government I helped to install and the freedom I helped to fight
for utterly turn against me." He accused Robert Mugabe's regime of trying to
"wear The Daily News down" through the courts and bankrupt it by costly
legal actions. Police seized the newspaper's computers as "evidence" when it
was first closed down in an armed police raid on 12 September. "We are
trying to get our journalists laptops to work from home or places other than
our offices, " Nkomo said. "We employ 340 staff, including journalists, and
we have 1000 vendors dependent on The Daily News. The strategy of the regime
is to scatter staff so that when we come back we will have lost the staff."
The Daily News is trying to get newspapers outside Zimbabwe to give some of
its journalists jobs until they are safe to return. Nkomo said The Daily
News was determined to keep up its legal battle to win the right to publish
and was also trying to mobilise international pressure to get Mugabe to stop
persecuting the newspaper. He called on the British Government to be more
outspoken in its condemnation of the Mugabe regime, claiming "Quiet
diplomacy is doing no good. I think the British Government should be more
vocal in support of the masses in Zimbabwe".

Bill Saidi, editor of The Daily News on Sunday, said a reign of terror had
been unleashed against independent journalists in the country. "If you live
in Zimbabwe as a journalist you can feel like a terrorist," he said. "They
call you names, say you are disloyal and a 'puppet of the imperialists'."
Saidi spoke of his desperation at seeing his newsroom stripped of it's
computers. "There's a vast emptiness in the newsroom. There's no conference
because there's no paper. You are looking at nothing. Tomorrow there's
nothing. After the Saturday we published, we all came into the office and we
were filled with spirit. We were going to produce 16 pages. We were all
ready. Half the newspaper was done." Instead, the paper was raided by police
and has not published since. Gugu Moyo, company secretary and legal adviser
to The Daily News told the press conference that 60 journalists had been
arrested under the notorious Access to Information and Protection of Privacy
Act. "This law is to silence the independent media," she said. "Every two
weeks a journalist is arrested and charged with something. The impact of
this law is very traumatic and has a chilling effect on journalists."

Anyone able to donate a laptop to The Daily News can contact Press Gazette
on 44 (0) 208 565 4448

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Nov 15 (IPS) - It is the middle of the month and the
buses headed for Francistown, the border town in neighbouring Botswana, 160
kilometres away, are leaving half full.

But vehicles driving in the opposite direction, back to Zimbabwe, are
overcrowded. That is because traders, mostly women, are returning home.

They cross the border at the end of each month to sell an assortment of
items including cigarettes, spirits and wood carvings.

What drives them is the desire to earn the Pula, the stable Botswana
currency that fetches a good rate on Zimbabwe's thriving parallel market for
foreign currency.

For those enterprising enough to get hold of it, the Pula - like other hard
currencies - is making the difference between sustaining a family and
sinking into poverty.

As Zimbabwe's political impasse worsens the humanitarian and economic
crises, runaway inflation of 500 percent has rendered the local currency
literally worthless.

However, not everyone going to Botswana has items to sell. Some go in search
of part-time employment as domestic helpers, construction hands and even
cattle herders.

Up to 20 percent of Zimbabwe's population is estimated to have sought
sanctuary and a living wage in neighbouring countries. Even struggling
Mozambique now has an estimated 400,000 Zimbabweans.

Botswana is one of the popular destinations for the very desperate who use
any of the various footpaths mainly along the 100 kilometre-stretch between
the smaller border posts at Mphoengs and Maitengwe.

One such border jumper is Morris, who lives about 200 kilometres from the
main border post, Plumtree.

Since August last year the 23-year-old has sneaked into Botswana three
times. Save for his last trip last month when he secured a job on a
construction site, he had been nabbed and deported before securing
employment.

Botswana's immigration authorities have said they cannot cope with illegal
immigrants from Zimbabwe who are arriving in ever bigger numbers.

Estimated at over 60,000, the flood of illegal immigrants threatens to
overwhelm the country's population of 1.7 million.

Recently, the state built a new detention centre for illegal immigrants near
the border with Zimbabwe. However, the government is also thinking
long-term.

In October last year, the authorities began erecting an electric fence meant
to protect Botswana's key livestock industry recently hit by an outbreak of
foot-and-mouth disease traced to Zimbabwe. The 500-kilometre-long fence is
also aimed at keeping out border jumpers.

Although Zimbabwe voiced its disquiet over the fence, accusing Botswana of
seeking to create a Gaza Strip like in Palestine, authorities in Botswana
hope it will keep out border jumpers.

For now, however, Morris says slipping into Botswana is still possible.

”They haven't switched on the power so people are still crossing illegally,”
he says.

Police in Plumtree say on each week day Botswana prison trucks spew a
minimum of 80 Zimbabwean deportees at the border post. The figure is now
expected to swell three-fold because during the festive season the Botswana
government steps up patrols. In the past, deportees were fined or detained
on both sides of the border. But now they are seldom charged in Zimbabwe.
Officers say this is because the Plumtree courts and police lack the
necessary stationery.

But this is unlikely to elicit sympathy from Botswana and has undoubtedly
further strained relations between the two neighbours.

”Do you need stationery to charge someone?” comments Moshe Setimela of the
Botswana Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs. ”They won't charge them
because it's their own people and they understand the situation that they
are running away from.”

Among those classified as border jumpers are traders who would have
involuntarily over-stayed in Botswana while awaiting payment for items sold.

Tafadzwa, a bus conductor who travels Francistown daily, says many
passengers successfully jump the border back into Zimbabwe to avoid paying a
fine of 10 Pula (two U.S. dollar) for each day overstayed.

Although Botswana is a close enough destination for daring Zimbabweans
intent on escaping growing poverty, 22-year-old Eriphas says he had rather
go to South Africa where, he says, there are better prospects and less
xenophobia.

In Botswana, the deluge of Zimbabweans has caused tension, with the Tswanas
blaming the ”Makwerekwere” - as Zimbabweans are derogatively known - for the
upsurge in crime.

In Zimbabwe the press regularly highlights the misfortunes of fellow
nationals in Botswana. A local man was recently reported to have died in a
prison fight. Another was shot by the police while three others were said to
have been poisoned.

A month before, authorities in Botswana buried 12 unclaimed Zimbabwean
bodies who had died in unexplained circumstances.

To Eriphas, Botswana is an unwelcoming place with relatively few
opportunities.

As a member of the Johane Masowe Apostolic Church whose female flock is
identifiable by flowing white robs, Eriphas says fellow sect members will
help him pass through the South African border post.

”We have been trading for a long time,” he says. ”We know the techniques of
crossing into South Africa without a passport.”

To curb the influx of Zimbabweans, South Africa - host to about three
million Zimbabweans - has just announced more stringent visa requirements.
Locals are required to pay a surety cash guarantee of 1,000 Rand (146 U.S.
dollars) or the Zimbabwe dollar equivalent.

Previously, Zimbabweans were only required to deposit the equivalent of
about 50 U.S. dollars before travelling to South Africa.

The South African High Commission also says Zimbabweans willing to pay in
foreign currency must show proof that the money was sourced from a local
bank - a tall order in a country where most foreign currency transactions
take place on the parallel market.

For the growing numbers of hungry Zimbabweans, however, the desire to cross
the border is often so compelling that no risk seems too great and few
barriers impenetrable. (END/2003)