MDC STICKS TO ITS GUNS ON ELECTIONS Sat 23 October
2004
HARARE - Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party says it will stick to its decision to boycott
next year's election despite an independent survey showing half of its
supporters were against the move.
Dismissing a survey by the
Harare-based Mass Public Opinion Institute as "simplistic," MDC spokesman,
Paul Themba Nyathi, said the party would only agree to participate in the
crucial poll only if political violence was put to an end and the rule of
law upheld in the country.
The government also had to sufficiently
democratise Zimbabwe's electoral laws and processes to meet Southern African
Development Community (SADC) norms and standards for elections before the
MDC could agree to contest the March 2005 ballot.
Nyathi said:
"It is difficult for the MDC to rely on simplistic surveys that ask certain
questions without asking other questions.
"If they (the institute)
had asked people if they supported the violence, the propaganda and the
killings associated with our elections, they would have got another
response. But if they asked them (MDC supporters) if they supported the MDC
"boycott of elections" obviously people would say no."
In the
survey, whose results were released last week, more than 64 percent of all
the people interviewed by the institute said they did not support the
decision by the MDC to boycott the election.
Out of those who
identified themselves as supporters of the MDC, 54 percent said they did not
favour the boycott saying they instead preferred the party to contest the
ballot so they could maintain a presence in Parliament and use the House to
push for wider reforms.
Only 17 percent of interviewees
said they were aware of electoral reforms proposed by President Robert
Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party but which the MDC says are insincere and
far below standards agreed by SADC leaders last August.
Commenting on the results, a senior researcher at the institute, Thulani
Sithole, said: "The results of the survey show that notwithstanding the
nature of our elections - the violence, rape and people being displaced from
their homes - people would still want to see the MDC participating in next
year's election."
The MDC wants the government to set up an
independent commission to run elections in accordance with SADC electoral
norms and standards that require only such commissions to oversee
elections.
The opposition party also wants political violence ended
and harsh press and security laws that have severely hampered it from
campaigning repealed before it agrees to take part in the March
poll.
The government has proposed a new Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission it says will have the power and autonomy to run elections in the
country.
But the MDC says the proposed five-member commission will
be beholden to Mugabe because the President will appoint its chairman while
the other four members will be nominated by the ZANU PF dominated
Parliament.
The MDC, which has accused the government of inflating
the number of eligible voters in areas it enjoys more support, also wants
Zimbabwe's voters' roll audited before next year's ballot. -
ZimOnline
Regional civic groups to besiege border posts Sat 23
October 2004
JOHANNESBURG - Southern African civic society
groups will this year commemorate the International Human Rights Day by
holding demonstrations at Zimbabwe's border posts, it was learnt
yesterday.
International rights group Amnesty International, which
is co-ordinating the protests, said they were meant to draw world attention
on rampant human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. The United Nations human rights
day is celebrated on December 10.
An official with Amnesty's
South African office, Joseph Dube told ZimOnline: "We are going to march to
the borders and register our concern about the situation in Zimbabwe and the
plight of Zimbabweans in the diaspora."
The protests, that are
expected to force the temporary closure of entry points into Zimbabwe, were
meant to pressure Southern African Development Community leaders to do more
to help end a grinding economic and political crisis that has driven more
than three million Zimbabweans into foreign countries.
Churches, labour unions, civic and human rights organisations are expected
to take part in the demonstrations.
Demonstrators from South Africa
will march to the Beitbridge border post, while those from Mozambique will
gather at Forbes border post. Groups from Zambia and Botswana will converge
at Chirundu and Plumtree border posts respectively.
They will
march onto the "no-man's land" between the border posts, where speeches will
be read as well as other activities will take place. Dube said protests on
the Zimbabwean side were unlikely because Harare will not allow them. -
ZimOnline
Tour to
Zimbabwe seems set to go ahead By Christopher Martin-Jenkins,
Chief Cricket Correspondent
THE delay in making
public the findings of a delegation to check security arrangements for
England's ten-day tour of Zimbabwe next month is unlikely to change the
ECB's opinion that, like it or not, the visit should go ahead. John Carr,
the ECB's director of cricket, and Richard Bevan, the England players'
representative, returned from Zimbabwe yesterday evening after an inspection
to assess the safety and security of players, officials, supporters and the
media, but their verdict will not be made public until next
week. The one-day team is due to leave for Namibia on November 15
to prepare for five one-day internationals, two in Harare and three in
Bulawayo. During a four-day stay in the country's two main cities, Carr and
Bevan met officials from the British Embassy, the Zimbabwe Cricket Union and
the Zimbabwe Government. They will now report their findings to David
Morgan, the ECB chairman, and to the England team management and the
players.
A statement next week is likely to make
clear once again that the board intends to honour the tour, in line with the
consistent but dubious ICC policy of refusing to make moral judgments on any
regime. Despite their reservations, the indications are that the selected
team will stick together and make the trip unless strongly advised to the
contrary by Bevan, the chief executive of the Professional Cricketers'
Association.
A senior spokesman for Vodafone, England's
sponsors, said yesterday that there would be no objection to Michael
Vaughan's team wearing the company logo in Zimbabwe. Last week, an
independent judgment found that there had been no racism but a tactless
application of policies designed to integrate black players into the
Zimbabwe team, leading to the withdrawal of most of the country's
experienced international cricketers.
People go hungry as Mugabe's
land reforms take hold AM - Saturday, 23 October , 2004
08:08:00 Reporter: Rochelle Mutton HAMISH ROBERTSON: There's
dramatic confirmation this morning of the desperate plight of farm workers
in Zimbabwe. Under the country's controversial land reform program, once
highly productive commercial farms have been seized over the last four
years.
The farms used to give many ordinary Zimbabweans a home, and
a good living, but so-called "war veterans", linked to Robert Mugabe's
ruling ZANU-PF party, who have no agricultural experience, now run the
farms.
Well, one farm worker has just been giving Rochelle Mutton
in Johannesburg, a graphic description of life under the new
landlords.
ROCHELLE MUTTON: John is 36. Two years ago he worked for
a prosperous commercial farm. Now he has lost his wages and begs for jobs,
just to feed his family. John talks about life under his new masters,
knowing if he is caught he will be killed.
JOHN: We are working
for them just for food, we may work for a cup of tea and two slices of bread
per day. They are growing nothing, they're not doing irrigations, it's only
maise that they are growing, but it is not good quality maise, and it's not
enough to feed the whole country.
I've got three children, my own
children are three and I'm looking after three children who were left by my
younger brother who died two weeks ago. So that gives me six children, plus
my wife, myself, that's eight, my father, my mother, that's ten. We have no
food so that means we have no future.
ROCHELLE MUTTON: For
others it's even worse.
JOHN: So far some of the workers whom I
have been working with, 20 of them already died of hunger, that's what we're
crying for. The commercial farmer has to come back to the farm and then we
start a good life, which we have been saying all along, not this
rubbish.
ROCHELLE MUTTON: Farm dogs whimper as invaders kill them.
Most commercial farmers and their families have fled or been brutally
evicted.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe held a referendum in 2000
to consolidate power, bribing the public with promises of land. He lost, but
still confiscated farms without compensation.
Opposition is
silenced, Mr Mugabe's supporters make sure of it.
JOHN: There are
people who are called Green Bombers. They are moving in the area every week,
especially during the weekends, forcing people to produce their party cards.
If you don't have that card, you get beaten.
ROCHELLE MUTTON: John
is desperate for the Opposition to win next year's election.
JOHN: If I had the opportunity and without being scared, I would say
something to them in front of even the President, saying that you are
killing us. But in this situation, I can't do that. If they know that I am
here, talking this, I will get killed as well.
ROCHELLE MUTTON:
John's former boss feels powerless. His industry has collapsed and his 170
employees and their families, are destitute.
JOHN'S FORMER BOSS:
There's no expertise, agricultural expertise, out there now. It is a total,
total failure, maybe their lives weren't all that great, but they were a
thousand times better than what they've got now. There's very little human
traffic now between town and country, I think that appalling things are
taking place there.
ROCHELLE MUTTON: Under land reforms, the
poorest Zimbabweans were promised a better life.
JOHN: By 2005,
I don't think I will still have six children, maybe two of them will die,
maybe I myself will die. One cup of tea, two slices of bread per day and
share that with my family. Do you think I will survive? Nothing like
that.
HAMISH ROBERTSON: The reality of life on the farm in Robert
Mugabe's Zimbabwe. That report by Rochelle Mutton in Johannesburg.
Dear Family and
Friends, My letter this week has been written by my Mum who came to this
country in the mid 50's. I have added nothing to her words as they speak for
themselves and express the pain that 3 million other families have gone
through as they too have been forced to leave Zimbabwe.
My name is
Pauline and I am proud to say that I am Cathy Buckle's mother and the
grandmother of her son about whom she has written so movingly in many of her
letters and in the two books which describe the horrors of the past four and
a half years in our beloved Zimbabwe.
In two weeks time I am very
reluctantly leaving Zimbabwe. There is such a turmoil of feelings going on
inside me but above all there is sadness at all the goodbyes. Goodbye to the
country which has been my home for so long. Goodbye to the people, the
wonderful ordinary people of Zimbabwe that I shall miss more even that the
beauty of the land. Goodbye also to all the hundreds - if not thousands - of
students I have taught over the years and particularly in the past ten years
since I have been living in a small rural centre some one hundred kilometres
from Cathy's home in Marondera.
There are so many memories that I shall
take with me, some happy and some sad and painful. Like everyone else, I
have watched in disbelief as this beautiful country has became entrapped in
a web of violence and hatred as if a huge and all-pervasive evil had spread
over the land. Every morning I would wake early and stare out at the soft
grey gomo behind my house and wonder how it was possible that a landscape so
beautiful could contain such evil. I would watch as the kids trotted happily
to school and wonder what the future held for them in a country which was
rapidly falling into total ruination around them. Friends and students would
come to the house, for tutoring or just to share friendship and laughter and
discussion and ideas. They stopped coming for a while when things were
really bad and we spoke only in lowered voices for one never knew who might
be listening. It's always like that in the run-up to or aftermath of an
election but now we seem to be in permanent election mode in Zimbabwe. In
spite of the problems, there are good memories and I shall always treasure
the absolute acceptance all those friends showed me, a woman of a different
culture from their own.
Now that I am leaving I am overcome by a deep
sadness that Zimbabwe should come to this. I have lived through and fought
in my own way the hideous racism of the Smith regime which swore ' never in
a thousand years' would the people take over power in their own country only
to see now the savage cruelty of a dictator and his party, apparently drunk
with power and determined to hold on at all costs regardless of the
suffering of their people. Politics dominates every sphere of life in this
country. It seems that we have learnt nothing from history.
I want to
thank all those dear and special friends who have made the past ten years so
memorable for me. I shall never forget them or Zimbabwe which remains
forever in my heart. It is the they, the people of Zimbabwe who hold the
power to change their lives for the better. I pray that they find the will
and the courage to do that. Stay well, my Zimbabwean friends until we meet
again. Until next week, love cathy
Tsvangirai to meet with Mbeki 23/10/2004 22:09 -
(SA)
Harare - Morgan Tsvangirai, head of Zimbabwe's opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, flew out of the country for the first time
in over two years on Saturday for talks with southern African leaders, party
officials said.
His trip to Mauritius and South Africa followed the
return of his passport on Wednesday this week, which has been held by
authorities since he was indicted for treason in September 2002.
On
Friday last week, the High Court acquitted him of charges of conspiring to
assassinate President Robert Mugabe and to seize power in a coup d'etat,
saying that the state had provided no evidence of any plot.
His first
stop will be in Port Louis to meet Mauritian prime minister Paul Berenger,
currently the head of the Southern African Development Community, the
14-nation regional bloc, said William Bango, Tsvangirai's press
aide.
Berenger is seen as one of the main forces behind a SADC treaty
signed by the region's heads of state - including Mugabe - in August in Port
Louis and which commits member states to holding democratic
elections.
In South Africa Tsvangirai is due to meet President Thabo
Mbeki, the chairperson of SADC's powerful Organ on Defence and Security.
When Tsvangirai left Harare, attempts were being made to confirm a meeting
with Botswana President Festus Mogae, the deputy chairman of
SADC.
The thrust of his mission is to try to get leaders to pressure
Mugabe to implement the spirit of Mauritius, said Bango, referring to the
SADC guidelines and principles for democratic elections.
He said
Tsvangirai, encountered no obstacles when he, accompanied by MDC deputy
secretary-general Gift Chimanikire, passed through immigration and customs
procedures at Harare airport.
The ready acceptance by Pretoria and Port
Louis to meet Tsvangirai at short notice is seen by diplomats as an
endorsement of his status as an indispensable figure in attempts to resolve
Zimbabwe's crisis.
And according to one diplomat, it will also "get up
Mugabe's nose" that Mbeki and Berenger are hosting Tsvangirai immediately
after his acquittal.
Tsvangirai had to surrender his passport and report
twice weekly to police as part of his bail conditions against the treason
charges. He faces a second charge of treason for allegedly inciting his
followers to rise up violently against Mugabe in 2003. His bail conditions
on this charge do not include surrendering his passport or reporting to
police. - Sapa-dpa
Cricket protesters risk torture again to
condemn Mugabe By Jane Flanagan in
Bulawayo (Filed: 24/10/2004)
A
teenage Zimbabwean protestor who was tortured and sexually assaulted by
Robert Mugabe's secret police after waving a banner at an international
cricket match has vowed to launch fresh protests during England's tour games
next month.
Kindness Moto, 19, and his friends are
determined to use publicity offered by coverage of the games as a new chance
to criticise publicly Mr Mugabe's regime.
Anti-Mugabe protestors arrive at a Bulawayo court "If the
England team come it looks as though they are supporting this government,"
Kindness said. "But it also presents us with a chance to show the outside
world how we feel - that our country is dying under Robert
Mugabe.
Melusi Dube, another protestor, said: "The
violence and intimidation have merely served to strengthen the resolve of
all those who are against Mugabe." British cricket officials visited
Zimbabwe last week to review security arrangements for visiting players,
officials and fans.
John Carr, director of the England
and Wales Cricket Board, and Richard Bevan, the England Players'
Representative, spent four days in Harare and Bulawayo meeting government
and sports officials and will report back to the ECB chairman, the team
management and players this week.
The England team are
due to depart for their winter tour of Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa on
November 15.
It was during Zimbabwe's World Cup match
against the Netherlands in February last year that Kindness and scores of
other protesters shouted anti-Mugabe slogans from the stands and waved
banners supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC).
Kindness was dragged from the crowd, arrested
and held in police cells for four days. He was raped by officers, starved,
electrocuted and beaten on the soles of his feet before being thrown from a
moving car. "They wanted the names and addresses of the protest organisers,
but I didn't tell them anything," he said.
He was
lucky to live, and spent two weeks recovering in hospital. He has been
arrested, detained and beaten on three further occasions. When talking about
his ordeal, he was nervous of every sound.
His eyes
flicked constantly round the room as he described how cricket matches in
Zimbabwe have become a political charade, used both by Mr Mugabe's ruling
Zanu-PF and the MDC.
Spies from Mr Mugabe's feared
Central Intelligence Organisation have already started rounding up
protesters who were arrested during the World Cup games in the MDC
stronghold of Bulawayo.
Albert Sibanda was among those
arrested last year. He was also tortured but after his release, fled to
South Africa. Although his name is on a list of the CIO's "most wanted", he
has secretly returned to Bulawayo.
Last week, for
the first time since their arrests, Mr Sibanda, 25, Kindness and Mr Dube
decided to visit the city's Queens Sports Ground. They will return in a few
weeks when England play three of their five one-day internationals at the
stadium.
Zimbabwe's traditional cricket supporters -
whites and Indians - are unlikely to attend in great numbers for fear of
trouble and out of contempt for the government. Instead, the ruling Zanu-PF
is expected to bus in school children to fill the
seats.
Mr Sibanda, who is masterminding the forthcoming
campaign of protests, said that he and Mr Dube had started to recruit "the
brave" - volunteers prepared to make their mark.
Although there were more than 80 arrests during the World Cup games, and
severe beatings meted out, they have had no difficulty finding activists.
"We have nothing left to fear and are prepared to suffer the consequences,"
said Mr Dube.
Cricket internationals, with their
widespread media coverage, are one of the last opportunities left for Mr
Mugabe's opponents to publicise its views in a country where the free press
has been crushed.
England has named its touring squad,
but a number of leading players, including Andrew Flintoff and Stephen
Harmison, excluded themselves from selection. Other players, including
Darren Gough, are said to have reservations about
travelling.
The England team has reluctantly agreed to
go ahead with the tour because it could face tough penalties from the
International Cricket Council if it withdraws without a "legitimate"
reason.
A spokesman said: "The ECB is not oblivious to
what is happening in Zimbabwe - we have huge sympathy for what is occurring
in that beautiful country, but this is an issue for governments. Our duty is
to cricket in England and Wales, which will suffer potentially disastrous
consequences if we don't go, and to the cricket community around the
world.
"That includes the cricket community of
Zimbabwe, which will also suffer if we do not fulfil our touring commitments
in November."
HARARE - THE
Ombudsman's Office is now in total shambles as the public protector's office
continues to be dogged by lack of adequate personnel, gross under funding
and alleged mismanagement.
The office is operating with only two law
officers, instead of ten, a situation that has led to a huge backlog of
cases at a time when human rights abuses are increasing at an alarming pace.
The Ombudsman's Office was established by an Act of Parliament in 1982 and
is mandated to investigate cases of administrative malpractice and alleged
contravention of the Declaration of Rights by members of the defence forces,
police, government departments and the prison service on civil society. It,
however, does not have powers to enforce its findings but can only make
recommendations to various arms of government, which they can easily ignore,
and have tended to do.
The office currently has a backlog of 1 500
cases which it is battling to clear. The Ombudsman, Bridget Chanetsa this
week admitted that the office was facing serious problems. "We have a
backlog because we have low manpower," Chanetsa said. "We have however
obtained authority from the Public Service Commission to engage eight more
law officers after February next year and we believe this will greatly
improve the performance of the office." The Ombudsman's office is funded
through the ministry of Justice and the department got a paltry $120 million
as an annual expenditure budget this year. Of the amount, $50 million is a
human rights vote. Chanetsa said: "We are not the only government department
that is not adequately funded. We get our budget every year."
The
office has been accused of taking ages to investigate cases. Chanetsa is the
wife of former Mashonaland West provincial governor Peter Chanetsa and her
performance or the performance of her office has been described as
"lackluster." Sources told ZIMDAILY that there is a deliberate effort to
avoid confrontation with any of the government ministries that are reported
to have practiced unfair treatment of their employees or members of the
public. Chanetsa however dismissed the reports saying she was a
professional.
"My private life has nothing to do with my work,"
Chanetsa said. "I am professional person and being married to a politician
does not mean anything. We are non political. We have received cases from
government officials and MDC officials and we have investigated
them."
Recently a stinging African Commission for Human and People's
Rights (ACHPR) report on Zimbabwe criticised the Ombudsman whose mandate it
described as human rights protection and promotion. "It was evident to the
mission that the office was inadequately provided for such a task and that
the prevailing mindset, especially of the ombudsman herself, was not one
which engendered the confidence of the public." The ombudsman claimed she
had not received any reports of human rights violations, the report
noted.
"That did not surprise the mission seeing that in her press
statement following our visit, and without undertaking any investigations
into allegations levelled against them, the ombudsman was defensive of
allegations against the youth militia." The office needed to be independent
and to earn public trust, the report said. The Ombudsman has incessantly
failed to produce annual reports. The office hit the headlines two years ago
after producing an annual report that was five years late.
HARARE -THE
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has demanded fresh council
elections for Harare,where Government has dismissed the elected council and
replaced it with corrupt loyalists.
Gabriel Chaibva, MDC MP for Harare
South and shadow minister of Local Government, will move a motion in
Parliament next week calling on Parliament to urge government to disband the
imposed city administration and make way for fresh elections for the capital
city.
Chaibva will urge Parliament "to express its unhappiness with the
status quo; condemn the executive's interference in the running of the
affairs of the City of Harare, urge the government to implement the
mandatory provisions of the Urban Councils Act (Chapter 29:15) and call for
fresh elections."
Chaibva said his plea is on the back of concerns
raised by Harare residents, who have seen their elected council being overrun
by Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo's meddling. Harare, Chaibva
says, is operating without a properly constituted council.
The
government has fired Elias Mudzuri and 13 MDC councillors on allegations of
"improper conduct" after they resisted Chombo's interference. Chombo has
replaced Mudzuri with his deputy Sekesai Makwavarara, who defected from the
MDC to Zanu PF.
Chombo got Makwavarara in by preventing the holding of
elections to choose the city's deputy mayor and committee chairpersons as
required by law. According to the law, deputy mayors and chairpersons of
council committees are elected yearly.
Chombo appointed a commission
to "help the council run its affairs",in addition to government's
appointment of Witness Mangwende as Harare metropolitan governor to take
charge of the city.The new commission is teeming with Zanu PF loyalists,
some of whom have been held responsible for the city's decline in the
past.One of those in Chombo's commission is former mayor Tony Gara, the man
who once likened Robert Mugabe to Jesus Christ.
MDC spokesperson Paul
Themba Nyathi said his party did not recognise Chombo's administration in
Harare, as none of its members had been elected.
"We have councillors who
have resigned and others have been fired, and what that means is that we no
longer have a council in Harare. We now want fresh elections. The condition
that people must be governed by those they elected is universal," said
Nyathi.
Please
send any material for publication in the Open Letter Forum to justice@telco.co.zw with "For Open Letter
Forum" in the subject
line.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- JAG
OLF
304 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- THOUGHT
FOR THE DAY
To dream anything you want to dream; that is the beauty of
the human mind. To do anything you want to do; that is the strength of the
human will. To trust yourself to test your limits; that is the courage to
succeed.
BERNARD
EDMUNDS ______________________________________________
OPEN LETTER
FORUM
Letter 1. Subject: Open Letter Forum
AAH, BUT I AM NOT THE
ONE
So much happening here in the rural areas that we actually need to
start writing about it all again and make the world aware of what is
happening. So interesting to see the new farmers who threw off the commercial
farmers so violently two years ago now facing the same kind of justice. But
for them life has been hard. To qualify for a loan to farm, they have had
to put up property they own in town. They have no security in the form of
FARM land. And they have no security of tenure either! When a bigger guy
comes along and they cannot defend their rights against him then they
lose everything they have put into the property. The power issue is now
so prevalent that it is obvious that the issue at stake was power, not
right to rectify a racial imbalance in rural land ownership. Its a straight
"I want it and I have political power so I will take it" issue, combined
of course, with a nice big chunk of greed to act as a spice to the
stew!!
And again, the upheaval comes just when the farmer has committed
himself to the new season, with inputs in the ground and in the shed. And
land all beautifully prepared for the first rains. Smash all that to pieces
and what do we get? Another wasted season. Its funny how the season waits
for nobody. If you have not got your inputs ready and your land prepared,
then you have to wait for next year. And next year just never seems to
come.
But so many of the chefs thought that they could take the assets
from the farmers, convert them to cash and then to Mercedes Benzes and then
just wait for next year to do the same again. But there are no more rich
farmers to pick off. So there is no more money for the next top of the
range, latest model, Mercedes Benz. So the car gets older, and is not
replaced. And the capital has been used for consumer goods instead of
productive goods. And soon there will be no more money for a new merc, or a
bag of sugar, or cooking oil, or mielie meal. And the merc will be parked.
And the chef will remember that " Once upon a time, he owned a Mercedes
Benz"
Simply
Simon ______________________________________________
Letter 2.
Subject: Dispossessed Settlers Deserve No
Sympathy
I WRITE regarding the plight of dispossessed farm settlers who
have been camping out for weeks along roadsides - principally and ironically,
the one connecting Harare with the Zanu PF heroes' shrine in
Chinoyi.
I write on behalf of those who, by force of circumstances, are
not themselves placed to speak - and here I refer to the widely
scattered victims of this rabble.
It is with former commercial farmers
- many of them my friends and their employees in mind, that I say these
newly-dispossessed opportunistic predators deserve no sympathy.
Their
situation serves them well. If they by any chance read this so much the
better! I hope that in accordance with their creed they
suffer cruelly.
It is not before time that farm invaders, war veterans
or whatever tag they place on themselves, faced the consequences of their
common criminality. It is not before time either, that they discovered the
reality of their miserable lives under a repressive
dictatorship.
Almost all of these people are victims of their own greed
and lack of principle. No right-mindedperson buys all that do-gooder guff
about them just being simple folk, gullible, easily led and so on. For
instance, when they occupied land to which other people held legal and until
then, government-endorsed titles, they did so willingly, often violently,
openly and without remorse. It was in the culture of, if it moves steal it
and if it doesn't or won't break it.
Through their mindless actions,
this rabble not only dispossessed titleholders of their dwellings, personal
effects and animals, but deliberately struck fear into their hearts and
destroyed their souls.
They included in this mindlessness their own kind
without thought, pity or humanity. This was despite the fact that most of
them had been living perfectly normal lives before greed entered the
picture.
Their stations in life might not have been that elevated but,
like it or not, all men or women are not born equal. The miserable roadside
scenes now being wept over are merely mirror images of earlier ones. A case
of a eye for an eye perhaps.
The casualties which these people were
themselves instrumental in causing are by now dead, dispossessed, licking
their wounds, financially ruined or straitened and scattered to the four
winds.
As predicted, it becomes the turn of the tormentors - with one
material difference. The Chinoyi road flotsam can be returned from whence it
came, which is somewhat easier than the former owners and employees being
told to go back to where their forefathers had their origins.
To the
invaders I say "Your plight is a case of when thieves fall out ..." It is
only the beginning and unfortun ately,theendisalonglongwayoff.
I
have no doubt whatsoever that we are all going to suffer for your sins. The
rabble of unrepentant thieves who willingly participated in starting this are
already among the biggest losers.
As ye shall sow, so shall ye reap. Go
back to where you came from and repent. But above all, exercise a few brain
cells before you act in future.
Post Nubila Phoesbus
Borrowdale ______________________________________________
Letter 3.
Subject: Update
Dear Jag,
Hope Mr Faber is on the home stretch by
now. Re the book you so kindly punted. It would seem that doing business with
the rainbow nation has its own pitfalls - in that the relevant printers with
whom I had met and had considerable subsequent discourse now doubt that they
can have my new book ready for Christmas, as first was their undertaking.
This turnaround, at such a late stage, leaves it way too late to find a slot
in any other printing company's schedule. I apologise for messing you, and
the folk who emailed their interest, around. Will be contacting them
forthwith.
On a slightly more positive note, I had previously agreed with
RowlandWard Books in Jhb that they could re-print, undertheir publishing
label, Sand In The Wind and Fothergill in 2005. They will also now bring out
the new book, Between The Sunlight And The Thunder, sometime in the first
quarter of next year. I appreciate that the end of this year will probably
see the usual increase in migration out of Zim, but for anyone wishing to
stay in touch apropos the new book, my current email contact address will
apply, at least for the short term future. Keep to the high ground,
Keith _____________________________________________
Letter 4.
Subject: JAG Open Letter Forum, 18th October
2004 OLF 303
Dear JAG
Keep up the good work
I too read
Eddie Cross's letter and was moved by it.
I too can walk home in the dark
now, but the oaks dont wave their leaves at me like the msasas
do.
Please could
you put out a message that I am trying to contact Piet van der Reit ---- Last
I heard was that he was still on the Goddard ranch at Shangani, Many thanks
Charlie
Aust --------------------------------------------------------------------------- All
letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinions of the
submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justice for
Agriculture. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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