July 15, 2008

In any crisis there comes a moment when all the parties to a situation must face reality and make decisions. The crisis in Zimbabwe is at just such a juncture. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of the country will be decided in the next few days.
We have just seen the failure [...]

July 13, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,
In the main supermarket in my home town this weekend there were too many empty shelves to count. In the fortnight since Mr Mugabe was sworn in as President for his sixth term, everyday life has gone from struggle to complete crisis. No one is coping now and in the last two [...]

July 5, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,
It is now clear that the will of the Zimbabwean people as expressed in the March 29th elections has been ignored and, as a result we find ourselves in the deepest crisis. Hundreds of people: men, women and children have started arriving at foreign embassies in Harare, begging for temporary refuge and [...]

June 29, 2008

If it were not so serious, it would make a fine story for a farce. Following the March 29th elections (which were heavily rigged to try and give Zanu PF a victory) they delayed giving the results for a month and then simply falsified the Presidential ballot. Following the June 27th vote – Zanu PF [...]

June 23, 2008

I was stunned today when I watched Morgan Tsvangirai pull out of the June 27th election. I had not expected this but since then have had a couple of calls from Zimbabwe that made the situation a bit clearer.
You must first understand how big a decision this was for the MDC. We are a Party [...]

June 21, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,
A blanket of fear has descended over Zimbabwe as we count down the last few days before the second Presidential election. Our streets and towns are seething with police, army and youth brigade members. Our shops are empty of all basic foodstuffs; filling stations still have no diesel or petrol; [...]

June 16, 2008

Its do or die time
At Church this morning in Midrand, two men who had just arrived in South Africa looking for work approached me. They were both experienced teachers and both were MDC people. They simply told me that they had no choice but to try and find work in South Africa any sort of [...]

June 14, 2008

Saturday 14th June 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
Every time the man insulted and complained in his ugly, raised voice, I could feel droplets of his spit on my neck. He was standing so close behind me that I felt distinctly uncomfortable. There must have been about twenty of us waiting in the queue at the supermarket [...]

May 30, 2008

30th May 2008
Dear Friends.
People here in the UK often ask me why Mugabe and Zanu PF continue to hold elections when they have absolutely no intention of abiding by the results. It’s a question Zimbabweans ask themselves too. The answer seems to be that Mugabe feels a compulsion to convince the world that he is [...]

May 19, 2008

While we often discuss the human costs of the Mugabe regime, we neglect the costs in material terms. For this country the price of his tyranny has been huge. Our GDP is now hovering about US4 billion, exports around US$1,5 billion and our national debt has soared to over US$8 billion. Despite our pariah state [...]

May 17, 2008

Over the past two years my main concern has been that Zanu PF would abandon any pretext that they were a democratic party, simply declare that they were going to govern indefinitely by dictate and continue as a civilian/military junta. Such a junta has effectively governed us since the security chiefs declared in 2002 that [...]

Dear Family and Friends,
Early one afternoon this week a small town residential suburb grew suddenly quiet as the sound of ‘the youths’ filled the neighbourhood. The voices of perhaps thirty young men could be heard as they ran along local streets singing, chanting and repeating the threatening political slogans so familiar to us all.
The neighbourhood [...]

May 7, 2008

Mugabe is famous for many sayings - including the above where he was openly acknowledging that Zanu PF not only used violence as a weapon but actually boasted that they were violent people. He also once said he admired Hitler for his ruthless establishment of a dictatorship in Europe that nearly dominated half the world.
There [...]

May 6, 2008

The BBC got it right the other day; in news broadcasts they described the Zimbabwe elections and the aftermath as “bizarre”. The elections took place - after a vigorous campaign by all parties and voting was peaceful - as it always is on polling day. Funny how violence is switched on and off in this [...]

April 20, 2008

In the late 70’s I was appointed Chief Executive of a major corporation and about six months into the job I noticed that although we had about 3500 employees and an internal audit department, I never saw anyone being disciplined or prosecuted for theft. I have been in business for about 40 years and in [...]

April 19, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,
Behind every tree, under every bush and around every corner, it seems there is a British enemy waiting to invade Zimbabwe.
“We must maintain the utmost vigilance in the face of vicious British machinations,” Mr Mugabe warned as he spoke at his celebration of Zimbabwe’s 28th anniversary of Independence.
No one that I’ve spoken [...]

April 14, 2008

Can you believe these guys! Mr. Mbeki flies into Harare where inflation is raging at 500 000 percent. The wife of the President has fled with enough foreign exchange to feed the whole country for 6 months, an election has been held under totally unacceptable conditions. The results legally due in 6 days, are 14 [...]

April 13, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,
I received a call early one morning this week from a friend in a small country town. Speaking quickly and quietly for fear of being overheard, he told me of the frightening events that were going on all around him. Eight double cab vehicles had arrived in the town. Armed men in [...]

Who said change was easy? Here we are, 14 days after the election and a complete stalemate exists. Tonight Mugabe has announced that he will not attend the SADC summit on Saturday and this completes his admission that the election has gone against him and he is now acting completely outside the law and violating [...]

March 31, 2008

A few weeks ago I stood in a small house in a local high-density suburb addressing a meeting of about 150 people crammed into every corner. I said to them that what we needed to end the crisis in Zimbabwe was a political Tsunami. I said a Tsunami could not be detected on the open [...]