A letter from the diaspora

Dear Friends.

I was teaching teachers at a remote training college a few years ago when I first came across Zvido Zvevanhu, a small primary school right out in the rural areas. The school was built shortly after Independence and its name perfectly summed up all the hopes and dreams Zimbabweans had at the time: zvido zvevanhu, the will of the people. I think of that little rural school often and its name which had such profound resonance in the eighties and has even more now in 2008 as we approach elections which are after all supposed to reflect the true will of the people.

Zimbabweans are no different from people anywhere; wherever they live, whatever their race or culture, what they all want from a government is a better life with stability and economic security for themselves and hope for their children’s futures. People want to live in an ordered society which respects their rights as individuals; they want to know that they have equality before the law, that the police and the courts will treat them fairly and accord them their rights and freedoms as enshrined in the constitution. In return, the citizen will fulfil his/her obligations to the state and obey the law. This is the deal citizens make with their government in a democratic state. Robert Mugabe and his ministers frequently tell us that Zimbabwe is a democracy so we are entitled to ask: is this what the people want, is this the will of the people? Inflation at 100.000%, unemployment at 85%, widespread poverty and hunger, raw sewage running through the streets and into people’s homes; endless power cuts, hospitals without medication or anaesthetics, schools dilapidated and deserted as teachers leave and pupils are too poor or too hungry to attend class. Is this what the people want? It is certainly what they’ve got under Robert Mugabe’s leadership. The evidence is there for all to see - but not for all to acknowledge apparently.

Simba Makoni, like his former master, wants us to draw a veil over the disastrous failures of Zimbabwe 2008 and look back instead to the glories of the past and Mugabe’s role in the Liberation Struggle. Makoni is quoted in the Mail and Guardian this week as saying that if he wins the presidential election he will not seek retribution over Mugabe’s deplorable human rights record. ‘President Mugabe is someone who has a very special place in our history…. We will accord them (Mugabe and the late Joshua Nkomo) the due respect of our African culture. We want President Mugabe to know that under our New Dawn government they have the same rights as other citizens.’

It is the dreadful irony of the last eight words that immediately strike the reader, ‘they have the same rights as other citizens’ One has to wonder where Simba Makoni has been for the past ten years while those rights have been steadily eroded by the government of which he was an integral part. What citizens’ rights is Mr Makoni referring to? The right to be beaten to a pulp by Green Bombers or CIO operatives and thrown into a stinking gaol cell by a corrupt and partial police force, the right to have one’s home and livelihood destroyed in a government sponsored operation designed to ‘clear away filth’ or the right to be arrested for nothing more dangerous than daring to hand out election literature in legitimate door-to-door campaigning? Are those the ‘rights’ that will be accorded to President Mugabe, his ministers and other assorted thugs when Makoni’s bright ‘New Dawn’ government comes to power?

The question of what will happen to President Mugabe when he finally leaves office - by whatever means - is hardly an election issue. It is hardly a question that is dominating people’s minds as they stand in endless queues at the bank or trudge home in the dark after a day spent in a fruitless search for food or cash or petrol. It is surprising then that Simba Makoni should find it necessary to reassure the President he hopes to topple that his safety will be guaranteed should Makoni take his place in State House.

I believe it is for the Zimbabwean people themselves to decide what should happen to the man who destroyed the country’s economy and drove millions into exile, the man who unleashed his violent war veterans onto the farms and destroyed the lives of thousands of his own people, black and white; the man who gave the orders for Gukurahundi which massacred twenty thousand innocent Ndebele people and in an act of politically motivated destruction set in motion Murambatsvina which left 700.000 people homeless, their rights as citizens totally set aside by a President and government determined to hang onto power at all cost. Ultimately, it will be for them, the victims of Mugabe’s brutality to decide on his fate - and the first step in that process is to vote him out of power on March 29th.
Yours in the struggle. PH.

This letter written by a Zimbabwean in exile and is published with kind permission of the writer.

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