The rally was preceded by meetings of the National Executive and Council and in those meetings it was decided that the MDC would have to toughen its stance in the transitional government.

The President, Morgan Tsvangirai, will now meet Mr. Mugabe on Monday and tell him that the National Leadership has resolved to give their Zanu PF counterparts one week to begin to implement the full demands of the Global Political Agreement. In addition, the structures of the Party have been instructed to go back to the rank and file and ask them if it was not time to reconsider our participation in the Transitional Government.

This tougher stance was triggered by several events in the past week or so. First, at the SADC Heads of State summit in the Congo, Mr. Mugabe made a five hour speech in which he stated that the parties to the GPA were working well together and there were no serious problems. Secondly, we felt that our willingness to compromise to try and make this deal work was being misconstrued as compliance and that this impression had to be corrected.

But perhaps the most important challenge came from the ordinary members of the Party who felt that the failure to get Zanu PF to play its part in the Transitional Government was stalling recovery and normalisation. It was felt that after the early progress brought about largely by MDC reforms and their presence in the government, that the economy was still in deep trouble and that social service recovery was a long way off.

Zanu PF procrastination was impeding progress on all fronts; in the constitutional reform process the attitude of Zanu PF leadership was holding up progress and their demands that we short circuit the process and accept the Kariba Draft, was totally unacceptable. The failure to consult on all major decisions and to unilaterally appoint people to posts in violation of the GPA had now gone too far and was not tolerable.

Then there are the issues of the failure to effect agreed reforms to repressive legislation and to open up the media. The failure to halt the issuance of hate speech and the public denigration of the MDC and its leadership and the one sided application of the law to MDC legislators where 29 MP’s and Senators are now either in court or already convicted on fabricated grounds.

The statement on Saturday when Mr. Mugabe met the high level delegation from the EU in Harare that “we have implemented the GPA and therefore that sanctions should be withdrawn” met with little acceptance. His case was not helped by an irresponsible and unlawful statement the previous day at the Zanu PF Youth Congress to the effect that the “bloody whites” had no place in Zimbabwean affairs and that remaining white farmers had to leave their farms or face eviction by force by the Police.

Such rhetoric has no place in a modern society. Zanu PF racism has gone too far this time. In the past Mr. Mugabe has always been careful to maintain some dignity in his public utterances and then done just what he wants behind closed doors. The continuing attacks on white farmers are now blatantly racist and illegal, even in terms of the present law in Zimbabwe.

MDC responded by abandoning its previous stance that the so called land reform exercise was “irreversible”. The National Executive now states that the Zanu PF “fast track land reform programme” has been unacceptable and will require a comprehensive review and change. The reality is that if the rule of law is restored in Zimbabwe, the new Courts will rule in favour of the farmers and holders of private property rights. Then what do we do? Anyway the present attacks on remaining farms are irresponsible in the face of a situation where we are being forced to import 80 per cent of our food.

Zanu PF has to ask itself now, “what happens if the Transitional Government” collapses?”. Make no mistake; it will not be back to normal business and looting for the Zanu PF thugs. SADC would have no alternative but to become engaged and this time there would be no Mbeki to protect Zanu PF interests. MDC’s position would be quite simple – let’s go back to the people and settle this once and for all.

For Zanu PF that is the very last thing they want – they and Mutambara want the present Transitional arrangements to last for five years in the hope that MDC will screw up and they can benefit from the gradual recovery that is under way. They also hope that by the end of the five year term new leadership might be in place in Zanu PF and they might be able to reenergise the Party. There is no hope for Mutambara unless the present arrangement persists.

So on Monday the other two partners in the Transitional Government face a “High Noon, Main Street” moment. Morgan Tsvangirai will confront clever Dick and the Botox man with the demand that they live up to the deal they signed a year ago in Harare. They know what that entails and although they might shrink back from such a demand, the alternative is worse; it’s a stay of execution for at least a year.

Sitting in the crowd and watching the rally run its course, I felt so proud of the thousands of ordinary people who have fought for the past decade for freedom, democracy, security and safety and a better standard of life and have done so without violence. What an example they are to the world in which we live where so often such disputes and conflicts are resolved by violence and murder.

Morgan summed it all up when he said “before God I pledge that I will not rest or retire until we have brought our promise of a future we can all believe in to fruition in Zimbabwe”. When he asked the crowd if they would join him in that struggle, there was a roar of assent. I could feel the apprehension in Shake Shake building in Harare.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 14th September 2009

As Churchill said once, democracy may not be perfect, but in a fragile, decadent world, it is the best option available to us. One might say the same about markets – never perfect, but always better than the alternatives. The Bible got it right – money is usually the root of all evil!

These factors together make for a very lethal mix, so lethal that it can kill almost any country if we do not manage them and get the various controls and counter measures in place. Zimbabwe is a prime example of a country whose economy has been destroyed by bad government and money and power.

How do we stop this ever happening again? I guess it starts with the Constitution. The American founding fathers got it right when they sat down and worked out a constitution for the United States. I think they managed to create a sound constitution because they had set themselves clear guiding principles.

They recognised the depravity and fallen character of man, while accepting mankind has great potential. They determined to spread political and administrative power equally among the three branches of the Federal Government. They accepted the supremacy of the law over the players in the Federal Government and ensured the executive would be accountable to an elected House of Representatives and Senate. They provided for a powerful, directly elected President who would be head of Government but accountable to the Elected Assembly.

We are about to go through the same process as a country with the raw wounds of bad government still smarting. It is important we get it right this time even if we have to adjust matters later on in the light of on going experience.

I have been giving this matter some considerable thought in recent weeks, spurred perhaps by the fact that we, the people, are about to be consulted on this vital issue. I am going to take a risk and lay out here what I think are the key issues for us as a nation going into this debate.

Firstly I think that the principle of a clear separation of power is a vital ingredient in this mix. At present we have no such separation – the Judiciary is too reliant and subservient to the Executive and there is no separation between the Executive and Parliament. We need to secure both principles in our new Constitutional dispensation. What I would go for is the American system where we would have a strong directly elected President. But I would get him or her to appoint a small (maximum 20) Cabinet, drawn from our whole society.

I would then provide for a single chamber House of Assembly (I think the Senate is a waste of money and time and adds little to the process of government), with perhaps 200 elected Members of Parliament. These I would select on a Party list, proportional representation basis so that we can ensure 50/50 gender balance at all times. If any MP is selected to go into the Cabinet, then the Party holding that post would replace them maintaining the electoral and gender balance. Each Province would contribute 20 per cent of its national lists to ensure national coverage.

I would divide the country up into 5 Provinces with new boundaries and designed to hold 20 per cent of the population each. Each Province would have its own House of Elected representatives comprising all elected officials in both local and central government drawn from the Province. This Provincial House of Assembly would elect an executive Committee reflecting the composition of the Cabinet and designed to allow the Provincial Executive Committees to monitor and guide national policy and priorities.

In respect to the need to entrench the rule of law, I would strengthen the independence of the Judiciary, allow judicial salaries and conditions of employment to be determined independently and paid direct from the Exchequer. I would give the Judiciary the responsibility of enforcing the Constitution in all respects and for ensuring that the fundamentals of the law are applied to all who live and work in Zimbabwe without preference. I would ensure that contract law and basic rights over property are fully enforced and respected.

In my view, local government is very important in terms of the delivery of basic services and ensuring quality of life for all. I would therefore entrench local government in the constitution and thereby protect its elected representatives from interference from Central Government. I happen to believe that people should be responsible for managing the social institutions that deliver services to the people who pay for them. Local Authorities should be made responsible for this with Central Government proving a policy framework, guidance and funding.

Eventually we are going to have to establish our own currency and when we do, we will need a strong, independent Reserve Bank to manage the currency and our Banking system. Because the temptation will always exist for Government to interfere with this essential function, perhaps this should also be made a constitutional issue.

Many friends are asking me about the issue of faith and the making of a new Constitution. In my own view there is no such thing as a “Christian Nation” or even a “Nation under God”. Faith is a personal issue and I think it should be left to each individual to seek their own way in this area of life. But that said, I would like to see the supremacy of God reflected in the preamble as all politicians need to know that one day, no matter who they are, they will face God and be judged for what they did while they were in positions of responsibility.

Jacob Zuma is in town, judging from the body language I have seen so far, Mugabe has had quite a tough time – I hope that is true as we have been let down by regional leaders so often in the past and there is little belief that this time round will be any different.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 26th August 2009

I am quite encouraged by the news from South Africa where the Prime Minister saw the President on Monday. It seems clear to us that the South African leadership understands the situation we are in right now, both the President and the Minister responsible for Foreign Affairs are savvy, street wise and certainly more committed to a democratic outcome than was Thabo Mbeki. But the ghosts of the Mbeki administration remain and those in the region who want to try and protect Zanu PF from its fate are still embedded in the system and active.

The visit to South Africa and the discussions held with the President are in the same league as the September 1976 visit to Pretoria by Henry Kissinger when the Americans delivered the final blow that led to the demise of the Rhodesian Front and the eventual transfer of power to Mugabe in 1980. Because of the nature of diplomacy it will be some time before we see the final outcome of all this diplomatic manoeuvring.

If we look back over the past six months since MDC entered the transitional government, we can point to a number of key achievements – we have stabilised the economy, secured a resumption of all basic services – health, education, water, sanitation and communications. We have been able to restore markets and get the retail and wholesale sector back into business.

The finances of central government are recovering steadily – total revenues to the State have grown from $4 million in January to $70 million in July. My guess is that the theft and plunder of public assets has been reduced from perhaps $1,5 billion last year to $250 million. That is partly because we have closed down the Reserve Bank and partly because there is not much left to steal.

We have been able to partly restore our relations with the international community – the World Bank and the IMF are both back in Zimbabwe with limited programmes of technical assistance and the Bank is making its first forays into local finance since 1997. We have made formal contact with virtually all the OECD States as well as the Non Aligned countries; international grant aid has reached $100 million a month and lines of credit negotiated, although we have yet to see the colour of this money.

On the downside we have seen little progress in media reform. No changes in the attitude or the activities of the security agencies and no changes to repressive legislation or improvements in the management system for elections. The constitutional reform process has started, but faces a difficult and tortuous path over the mountains in its way. The judicial system as a whole is being used as an instrument of oppression and a political weapon. No progress has been made in agriculture where output and activity continues to decline.

Yesterday the South African Minister responsible for Foreign Affairs said that she wanted to see “the acceleration of the implementation of the Global Political Agreement”. In fact I think she said the “full implementation” and that would be even better. More we could not ask for, as the GPA, even though it has numerous weaknesses and faults, is the only way forward.

I attended the annual Congress of the Commercial Farmers Union this week in Harare. It was a courageous and well organised affair and Deon Theron was elected President. I was glad to see both – it is vital that while we work on the solution to our problems and negotiate the difficult terrain ahead of us that we keep what is left of our economic institutions alive and operational. Deon will make a good President and is an important player in this situation.

The keynote address was given by a farmer from Zambia who is the current President of the International Association of Agricultural Unions. It was an excellent summary of the global state of agriculture and it was good to see a farmer from Africa in such an influential position. Zimbabwe’s displaced farmers are making a huge impact on agriculture throughout the continent and are a real testimony to what we have lost in the way of human capital.

C G Tracey died the other day and his book “All for nothing?” was on sale at the CFU Congress. It is an excellent read for anyone who is interested in this country and wants to see what has gone on over the past century – no man played a bigger role in building the country and served its best interests more than “CG”, as he was known. The title was suggested by his wife before she died and all he did was to add the question mark to emphasise that it is not yet all over.

I hear rumbles that JZ may visit Zimbabwe for talks with Mugabe shortly. The Vice President of SA is here for the funeral of our Vice President who died last week and he will be buried on Monday and no doubt talks will take place on the sidelines – funerals are great events for this sort of activity. Certainly we will have to wait for a couple of weeks to ascertain what is going to happen on this front.

If (as usual) we are let down by the region, we will have to fight our way through some very tough terrain. There is no doubt in my mind where the people are and if we can mobilise the resources required, we could stun Zanu PF yet again with a significant electoral victory in the bi elections. I was listening yesterday to some music especially written for the MDC and one song in particular asked “if you vote for Zanu, where are you going?” That just about sums things up.

This is not the time to relax or to abandon the prayer mat – we need to work and pray. At its heart this is a spiritual battle and both activities are vital to our eventual victory.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 8th August 2009

They took over a battered, but functional economy in 1980, had the backing and admiration of the whole world and access to massive resources. They were the cream of our emergent indigenous community – many with good degrees from great universities, many with the scars of conflict. To get there they had suffered great sacrifices – family, freedom, and a normal life in suburbia or academia.

They held fine beliefs – they were the defenders of the poor and the marginalised, they sought freedom and equal rights for their people. They were fighters for democracy and human rights; they were the custodians of African pride on a continent that was still unsure of itself and fearful of failure.

Many were fine people – George Nyandoro, Nathan Shamuyarira and many others. They wanted the best for their country but somewhere along the path of history they got lost. Perhaps the temptations were just too great, perhaps the simple lust for power and privilege overcame their finer senses, but after a brief honeymoon they led Zanu into a dark jungle of dark secrets. In vain they pulled a curtain across the secret rooms they were in but were unable to keep the light from the world outside.

First came Gukurahundi – a savage campaign to crush Ndebele opposition to Zanu led government. Tens of thousands died and hundreds of thousands were beaten and imprisoned and driven from their homes. The campaign marked the first tide of human economic and political refugees from post conflict Zimbabwe.

This was followed by less dramatic but equally savage attacks on any fledgling opposition, the Centre Party, ZUM, the Forum Party and others. Victims of national programmes of intimidation and subversion conducted in secret by State agencies. During this phase there were many extra legal killings – now long forgotten by all but their families.

While Zanu fought these political battles to maintain its dominance of the political playing field, they lost their way in other areas. Corruption and the abuse of State resources began slowly at first – a bit of a margin on State purchases and contracts then gradually the systematic looting of the country. Great wealth was acquired, not by business people with energy and acumen, but people with powerful connections who used their power and influence to secure assets and in many cases secreted them abroad.

Men and women who became independently wealthy and powerful by the simple application of their skills and acumen were recognised as dangerous and many were vilified and driven out of the country. It became the norm that if you were to enjoy success or even financial security, you needed to pay tribute to Zanu in some form.

When this happened many who had started out on this road with Zanu, quietly packed their bags and left. Stopped paying their dues to Zanu and grieved for hopes lost and visions dimmed. They did not immediately join the opposition, but hibernated and grieved.

Then came the Movement for Democratic Change, led by working men and women, the poor and disadvantaged, who had held so much hope for Zanu in the early days. They had nothing so had nothing that could be taken from them except their lives and families. Initially Zanu treated the new movement with distain – the President was a train driver and its Secretary General a man with two years of formal education. “How can these people hope to lead the nation” Mugabe scoffed, Tsvangirai retorted “at least Sibanda keeps his trains on the track.”

When this motley collection of workers defeated Zanu in February 2000, the gloves came off and all the niceties of Zanu’s ideological and political beliefs were brushed aside and a “total onslaught” on the MDC and its supporters launched. Commercial farmers and their 350 000 workers were identified as having supported the MDC. Zanu simply destroyed the industry, handing over to those responsible for the violence and mayhem, the fruits of their plunder.

When it became apparent that the population of the towns and cities was growing fast and that the demographic balance between the urban (MDC) and rural (Zanu) areas was being reversed, they launched Murambatsvina – an astonishingly efficient programme to destroy the homes and livelihood of the urban poor. In a period of three months, watched by an aghast world, they destroyed 300 000 homes and the informal businesses of over a million people. Then they simply carried the visible evidence of this atrocity and dumped then in remote villages along the side of the road with the threat that should not go back to town.

The collapse of the economy and the battles being fought in all contested areas of the country led to the next wave of human migration – eventually swelling to 5 million people in the diaspora. With the majority of skilled and experienced people joining in the migration, social services collapsed and death rates rose steadily eventually leading to 3 million deaths from TB, Malaria, Aids and a myriad of other diseases. Our population slumped by nearly half to 9 million people, our GDP, in 1997 standing at three times the GDP of Botswana fell to US$2 billion while that for Botswana rose to US$14 billion – seven times the GDP of Zimbabwe with 15 per cent of our population.

While these horrific human statistics were being generated, the government slipped into the role of a straight kleptocracy, its members concentrating of the accumulation of vast fortunes in looted wealth to the exclusion of all other considerations. Zanu had abandoned it last remaining shred of respectability and accountability to the people.

For the veterans of Zanu, the remnants of those who started out on that journey all those years ago in Highfield it is the final humiliation and disgrace. How do they face their children and more importantly their grandchildren? What do they say, how do they excurse their behaviour?

The answer is that they cannot and this is the nightmare that now faces Zanu. They are on a train into the future, designed and built by the region, from which there is no exit and when it reaches its destiny, they will be forced to embark and face the nightmares they themselves have created. On the platform, witnessed by the whole world will be their victims and those they distained. But worst of all there will be the people they failed. I actually feel quite sorry for them; it’s not an experience I would want. At least I can look my grandchildren in the face and tell them what I did with pride, because it was the right thing to do, no matter what the cost to us personally has been.

Eddie Cross
Harare, 25th July 2009

A few months ago a friend was approached by a vendor who had a large walnut -sized transparent stone. The vendor didn’t want to say where he’d got the stone from but claimed it was a diamond and he was trying to sell it. The stone had a sharp edge which made a deep scratch in a steel drill bit without damagaing the stone.Was it a diamond? Who knows but there are plenty of stories like this doing the rounds. People in Mutare tell of deals going down all the time, men in dark glasses, cars with tinted windows and little bundles changing hands. Some talk of clear stones, others are grey or cloudy but whatever the colour we are all wondering just who died while digging for these stones.

A chilling report has just been released by Human Rights Watch implicating Zimbabwe’s military in horrific abuses at the newly discovered diamond fields in Chiadzwa. Human Rights Watch collected evidence of violence, murder and forced child labour at the diamond deposits in Marange. The report talks of military helicopters gunning people down, of teargas being thrown into shafts and of people buried alive. It says that at least 214 people were killed during a three week military operation in October 2008 and of people buried in mass graves. Press reports quote Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch as saying: “The police and army have turned this peaceful area into a nightmare of lawlessness and horrific violence.”

Human Rights Watch says that: “Zimbabwe’s new government should get the army out of the fields, put a stop to the abuse, and prosecute those responsible.”

It is incomprehensible that this is going on even now as Prime Minister Tsvangirai tries to persuade the west that we have changed and are deserving of their money.

The Human Rights Watch report could not be more damning, or more to the point when it notes:

“The government could generate significant amounts of revenue from the diamonds, perhaps as much as $200million US dollars per month, if Marange and other mining centres were managed in a transparent and accountable manner. This revenue could fund a significant portion of the new government’s economic recovery programme.”

There remains little doubt in anyone’s mind just exactly why Zanu PF refused to concede defeat in the 2008 elections: from farms and wildlife to gold and diamonds.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle 27th June 2009.

http://www.cathybuckle.com

This letter is published with kind permission of the author

The timetable for this process is clearly set out in the GPA. It provides for the establishment of a Select Committee of Parliament within 2 months of the inception of the new Government – this has been done. Then the holding of a “All Stakeholders Conference” by the 13th July – this will now take place between the 9th and the 12th July. This process then leads into a 4-month consultation period that will end in November.

The Select Committee must then complete its draft of the new constitution, which has to be tabled in three months at a second “All Stakeholders Conference” in February 2010. Following this, in one month (by mid March
2010) a draft must be presented to Parliament. Parliament is then given one month to debate the draft and once this is concluded and a draft adopted (by mid April). The resulting draft has to be Gazetted followed by a 3month national debate and the holding of a Referendum in July 2010.

If adopted by the country in the referendum then it has to be Gazetted within a month and must be adopted by Parliament within 30 days of publication. That takes us to September 2010.

At its recent National Conference, the MDC decided that it would then call for an election within the 90 days as prescribed, Parliament will be prorogued and new (and hopefully democratic) elections held. That takes us right into the next wet season and this might present some difficulties.

The Select Committee has been very busy in the past few weeks – Zanu PF is terrified of the process and is trying by all means, to delay the inevitable – with little success so far. This coming week teams from the Select Committee will visit all provinces in order to hold consultative meetings. After this each Province will put together delegations to attend the All Stakeholders Conference to be held in Harare. The purpose of this initial meeting will be to receive reports from the Select Committee and to then agree on the process that will be followed in determining what the collective views of Zimbabweans are on the possible content of a new Constitution.

This is the second time this has been attempted since our independence in 1980. In the first attempt – forced on the Zanu PF government of the day, by a campaign launched by Civil Society and led by Morgan Tsvangirai in the early stages. The State appointed a Commission that was sent out to hear the views of the nation only to have those views distorted in the final draft in a way that would have perpetuated the rule of the Zanu PF elite. In the subsequent campaign, conducted by an arrogant and supremely confident Zanu PF, they completely underestimated the strength of public opinion.

Despite heavy rigging (independent investigations showed that the result was rigged by 15 per cent) the government lost the referendum. Then, in a carefully rehearsed performance, President Mugabe stated that he would accept the decision of the majority and continue to govern under the old constitution. In fact far from accepting the decision, Zanu PF rightfully recognised that they were in a real fight for power and began the desperate struggle to retain power that has dominated the affairs of the country since then.

In the subsequent elections held just a few months after the referendum, Zanu retained its control of Parliament by a tiny minority and resolved that it could never again allow a free and fair contest. The elections in 2000 were rigged and accompanied by widespread violence and yet despite what they thought had been a watertight programme of repression, they nearly lost power.
In the ensuing 8 year struggle with the MDC they have used every trick in the book and a few they invented, to ensure that the MDC was not successful in its democratic efforts to effect real change.

They identified the commercial farmers as holding the balance of power between the urban and the rural areas and systematically drove them off their farms destroying the highly successful enterprises they ran and inflicting poverty and displacement on their workers and two million dependents. The final cost – 70 per cent of all Zimbabweans on food aid and a 60 per cent decline in Gross Domestic Product. In the short space of one decade Zimbabwe was reduced to the status of a desperate “Least Developed Country”.

They identified the voter’s roll as the key to manipulating elections and reducing the vote for the MDC and they took control of this and simply changed it to yield the results they wanted. They identified the growing population of the urban centers and we had Murambatsvina – the forced displacement of over one million people in three months. They recognised that they could not win in urban areas – the MDC was just too well organised and entrenched and urban voters more independent and well informed, so they gerrymandered the constituencies leading to a 60:40 split – rural to urban even though the real population split is the other way round.

They closed down the only truly independent papers and took over the management of the content of all State controlled newspapers, the radio stations and national television. Zimbabwe was left to rely on three small radio stations broadcasting from abroad on shoestring budgets. They banned all independent media from reporting from inside Zimbabwe.

As if that was not enough, they drove millions out of the country in a deliberate attempt to reduce voting numbers with the result that nearly 5 million Zimbabweans now live outside the country. They then unleashed a savage campaign of terror on MDC structures – using, as they are even today, the legal system as a weapon of oppression rather than justice. Hundreds of thousands were beaten and tortured, hundreds murdered. Police cells became centers of collective punishment for those who dared to oppose the regime..

Then they resorted to ever increasing and blatant vote rigging – stuffed ballot boxes, falsified counting schedules and sometimes simply announcing false results and defying anyone to prove them otherwise. The civil service was simply beaten into subjection and any officials who dared challenge the system found themselves being severely dealt with or even killed.

Despite this, the MDC steadily gained on the regime, gradually forcing it back against the ropes and securing key concessions that eventually gave it electoral victory in March 2008. Aided by Mbeki, Zanu PF was able to extract itself from that debacle, but severely weakened in all respects. Now they find themselves facing fundamental reforms being debated and decided by a system they no longer control and in which they cannot dictate the outcome.

This is the first time ordinary Zimbabweans have had the opportunity to decide for themselves, what kind of government they want. It is this process that will finally signal the demise of Zanu tyranny. Just one last word on this issue – its time the Diaspora was included in these consultations – I see no sign of that today. Next elections, the Diaspora must vote, that would be the cherry on the cake.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 20th June 2009

Dear Friends.
‘While the cat’s away the mice will play’ goes the old English proverb. I’m pretty sure there’s a Shona equivalent – something involving the endearing ‘kitsi’ no doubt! But whatever the language, there’s a great deal of truth in the old proverb. As soon as Prime Minister Tsangirai boarded that plane to take him away for three weeks it was clear that the mice – for mice, read rats – would indeed come out to ‘play’. And so they did, though if truth be told, they would probably have done much the same if he had been in the country. These malcontents are out to prove that the only power they respect is the power of the gun, the bullet and the clenched fist. Time and again we have seen that the law means nothing to them; why should it when they know that the police themselves ignore court orders? To hear James Maridadi, the MDC spokesperson, describe Zimbabwe as “a country that respects the rule of law”, you could be forgiven for wondering what country he was talking about.

While the Prime Minister travels the world trying to convince wealthy western democracies that after four months of the GNU, Zimbabwe is already a different country, at home, President Mugabe and his followers continue in their bad old ways. The photograph of Robert Mugabe standing alongside Mwai Kibaki and the Sudanese President al Bashir (see The Zimbabwean 11-17 June) illustrates very clearly the truth that democratic rights mean nothing to Mugabe and his friends. Kibaki rigged the Kenyan election back in 2007 which led to the bloody upheaval that rocked Kenya and resulted in an uneasy power-sharing government with the opposition leader, Raila Odinga. As for Sudan’s al Bashir, he is facing an arrest warrant from the ICC for crimes against humanity involving thousands of victims in the Dafur region. None of this makes any difference to Mugabe; he has never been particular about the ‘friends’ he chooses, as long as they share his anti-western paranoia he will happily disregard their human rights record. It was a North Korean Minister a few weeks back and Mugabe’s mouthpiece The Herald, this week devoted a double page spread in defence of North Korea’s nuclear tests.

It’s hardly surprising then that Morgan Tsvangirai is facing an uphill task trying to convince the west that Zimbabwe has changed for the better. Inside the country there are too many examples that, in the areas of human rights and media freedom, little has changed. Even though they had a High Court order allowing them the right to cover the Comesa Summit on the grounds that they no longer required MIC accreditation, since that body had ceased to exist, four journalists were still refused entry to the Summit. It was a clear slap in the face for the Prime Minister’s authority; he had very clearly stated that MIC accreditation was no longer necessary before he left the country. ‘While the cat’s away…’ Lawyers too, continue to be harassed and charged. The brave Alec Muchadehama, incidentally the lawyer defending Jestina Mukoko and others, himself faces charges of attempting to obstruct or defeat the course of justice; another clear example of Mugabe’s hand-picked Attorney General seeking to silence independent minded lawyers, especially when the are defending MDC and civil rights activists. The continuing land invasions further exemplify Mugabe’s vice-like grip on power. When an army Brigadier and dozens of uniformed soldiers can march onto a farm, with no paper work, no title deeds and no court decision in their favour, it is very obvious that the rule of law has broken down in Zimbabwe. The farmer in question had been acquitted of charges against him of ‘illegal occupation’. He had every legal right to be there on his own property but it made no difference, the Brigadier went ahead and took what did not belong to him anyway while the police looked the other way.

But it is the identity of another farm invader that has obsessed the media in Zimbabwe all week; the pretty woman who was seen walking with Morgan Tsvangirai at President Zuma’s inauguration. Is she Tsvangirai’s niece or is she not? That’s the question! For myself, I could not care less, in fact I rather agree with James Maridadi on this one: Tsvangirai can hardly be held responsible for the behaviour of a 52 year old relative! All I know is that as soon as I heard the usual anti-white rhetoric coming from her lips in an interview with Violet Gonda on SW Radio, I knew the woman was a product of her thirty years in the States. When she was asked whether the alleged racist language from the white farmer in question justified her taking his farm she replied with the standard Zanu PF justification that land invasions are all about ‘righting colonial injustices’ Anyone who still believes that lie must be totally ignorant of the reality on the ground. As for the behaviour of the white farmer and the racist language he is alleged to have uttered, I find that pretty hard to believe too. Ten years ago it may well have been the norm for white farmers to talk like that – but today, I think not. For the most part, the farmers who thought that way that have long since left the country; most of them, now are too terrified to open their mouths, let alone use racially abusive language of the sort the pretty woman describes. Rumour has it that she has now dropped her claim to the farm in question but to my mind the whole incident was yet another example of Zanu PF dirty tricks to discredit the MDC leader – especially while he was out of the country. ‘While the cat’s away…’
Yours in the (continuing) struggle, PH.aka Pauline Henson author of Going Home and Countdown, political detective stories set in Zimbabwe and available on Amazon and Lulu.com

This letter is published with kind permission of the author.

I think Zanu PF now knows that they made some poor choices when they manipulated the final outcome of the GPA and tried to protect their position in the country. MDC ended up with all the Ministries that are concerned with the delivery of the basic needs of ordinary people, health, education, water, sanitation, roads and basic welfare and food requirements. Zanu concentrated on what they saw as controlling the political process – media and information, the security services, the Reserve Bank, the Justice system, foreign affairs and land.

Many of those choices now look like poison chalices. They know now that they will be forced to allow reform of the media – that is just a matter of time and already the media is changing. Their control of the security services without the money to satisfy their need for a liveable wage and decent living and working conditions as well as new toys to play with, is like being tossed a hot coin. This past week the security chiefs gathered to consider what to do with their increasingly restive forces.

The Reserve Bank Governor might still be in his office on the top of that glass and concrete tower, but underneath him are empty vaults and few staff.
What staff he still has wonder how they are going to be paid at the month end. It is rumoured that Gono offered to retire – in return for US$10 million. Cheap at any price in my view but he was given no choice by the State President – “you stay where you are!” MDC attacks on the post were met with a barrage of statements by all sorts of people saying that if necessary, they would “fight” to defend that empty building.

Why they are defending the position of Gono is no mystery, he know all the secrets, who took what and when and where the stuff is held. He has all the bank account numbers and if he was loose on the streets he would be dangerous to all of the beneficiaries.

Even the control of Foreign Affairs is proving an embarrassment. While Mr. Mugabe has no choice as to where he can or cannot go and who will receive him, the Prime Minister takes off on Saturday and his itinerary looks like a trip through the pages of who is who! Starting with Obama and Merkel, going on to Brown and then the leadership the Nordic States, the Netherlands and France. The Foreign Minister – well it was not even clear that he was going to get a visa! If he does, you bet he will get little else except permission to carry the Prime Ministers bag.

Diplomats, almost universally, give little significance to the Foreign Minister, they simply circumvent him and deal direct with the people they regard as being democrats.

Since Zanu PF destroyed the economy, tax receipts have fallen to less than half of what we need to run the country. The rest has to come from the international community – and that group is dominated by the very countries that are demanding change. So when they release resources they make pretty sure they are not being co-opted by the remaining elements of the old regime. They spend their money in those areas where the MDC happens to be in charge – health services, education, services and essential food supplies.

This means that in many instances the MDC is delivering and the people know it. The transformation of the economy is clearly the result of MDC efforts – after all we have now ring-fenced and neutralised Gono who was the sole prop of the previous regime.

It’s not hard to see the continued failures of Zanu PF – they control agriculture and land policy – and both are in a complete shambles. They declared their intention to restore production of basic foods and other agricultural products only to lose what was left of the winter cereals industry. Little wheat and barley has been planted. Now they might lose what is left of the tobacco industry and if that happens then the vast infrastructure that once supported the third largest exporter of tobacco in the world will simple disappear along with tens of thousands of jobs.
Everyone will know who was responsible for that.

As far as land reform is concerned the Courts are about to rule that everything Zanu PF have done since 1998 has been illegal. The thousands of people they have turned off their land in an illegal orgy of theft and pillage are going to be granted full compensation by the Courts and they are then going to have to worry about paying the bills that will ensue. Anyway, the people they allowed to loot the industry have proved to be totally incompetent when it comes to making the assets they stole, productive.

The reality is that the centre of their whole political programme over the past decade is disintegrating. They said they were taking the land to rectify an historical wrong and to restore the rights of the indigenous population, only to compound the injustice and to disable two thirds of the total population. Our surveys told us 10 years ago that land reform was low on the list of the priorities of the ordinary Zimbabwean. That has not changed and the huge investment that Zanu has made in this issue has created a political landmine that now lies in their path to survival.

Zanu tried to keep us out of any transitional administration – they have failed. They have done everything that they can to try to evict us and put us back on the street – they have failed. They are trying to show that we do not have any real power in this new administration only to discover that their own weakness is thereby exposed for all to see. They are being gradually forced to actually live up to the deal they were forced to accept and sign in September last year, as that process unfolds, enforced by the region and South Africa, so they will appreciate, like the hard men in South Africa after 1990, that this tide is not reversible and leads in only one direction.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 4th June 2009

The day before that he will address Parliament for the second time and give the country an overview of what has been/has not been achieved in the first quarter of the two year Transitional Government. I expect the next election will be about June 2011 and we have therefore 10 quarters of this arrangement of which the first has come and gone.

I was a part of the “transition team” established by Morgan Tsvangirai in January 2008 when it was expected that we would win the March election. As everyone knows we did win but were again denied the right to rule because of fraud and the regional community. So when we eventually did get a deal – over the dead body of the South African President, it was a rather nasty compromise that tied us to Zanu PF in a close embrace that is not appreciated by either Party.

Secretly each of the two Parties looks over the shoulder of the other towards the 2011 election and thinks only of what they have to do to win.
For Zanu PF it is quite simple – hold onto what they have left and no compromise on anything that might ease their grip on the electoral process.
So they have spent the past three months simply stonewalling the MDC in all the critical areas linked to the electoral process. They have no wish to demonstrate who plays the best cricket, they feel they just have to filibuster the MDC until they get to the point where they can go into an election where the same mix they have used to win and hold onto power for 30 years can be brought into play. First prize for them is the collapse of the GNU, second prize is a flawed election that they can win in 2011.

These areas of conflict have become labelled by Tendai Biti as the “toxic issues”, described as such because of their potential to destroy the GNU and undermine the success of the transitional government.

On the part of the MDC we have sought to make the deal work and to try and get the situation in the country back to normal – whatever that is! So you have seen the Prime Minister leaning over backwards to accept his Zanu PF colleagues as such and to work with and not against the President. While we have stuck with the demand that the GNU be fulfilled in full and in spirit, Zanu PF has simple refused to back down on any issue that might threaten their hold on what remains of their State power.

This has made for an uneasy relationship and an uneven record of achievement and failure. We had worked hard on the issue of macro economic stabilisation and on our future relationship with the multilateral institutions before the new government was formed. Because of this we were able to agree and adopt Sterp within two weeks. This stopped world record inflation in its tracks..
We amended the exchange control regime and lifted certain regulations and adjusted import conditions. The results were startling; food came into free supply, market conditions recovered and after a couple of weeks, prices began to fall.

We went out on a limb and decided to halt all quasi fiscal activity and take the fiscal crunch with cold turkey. We paid the civil service in hard currency and told all Ministries they could only spend what they had in the under the mattress. In four weeks we produced a new budget, tore up the old one and slashed government expenditure by two thirds.

The patient survived – but only just. People found they could buy things, workers could get on a bus to work, had real money in their hands, not piles of useless paper. Business found that the huge sums of money they had in their accounts were actually just paper and when the cyclone of change had swept through, they had virtually nothing left. Banks had no customers, building societies no bonds.

Everybody found themselves on the floor, bruised and battered but alive and we all watched the sun rise slowly over the dawn horizon of a new day.
Cyclone Gono was gone, but the evidence of its passage was everywhere.

So now we pick over the rubble and try to rebuild our lives. Food is in free supply, but expensive, the emergency services are feeding the really needy and health services are meeting basic needs. Clean water is scarce and shelter is still a problem even though our population was sharply reduced by the cyclone.

We still face major threats and problems. Pirates and gangs of criminals roam the countryside looting what remains and exploiting the chaos and lack of legal norms and institutions. The authorities are slow to respond and have little capacity to protect the rights of the population. The previous government was destroyed by the cyclone because they failed to prepare for its arrival and passage. It will be two years before we get a chance to elect a new government; in the meantime we have a weak and inadequate administration that is only partly functional.

At the Victoria Falls retreat four weeks ago we took what comprises our temporary government and asked them to map out the future and develop a 100 day programme to start our long road back from disaster. On Wednesday the results of that process will be published, warts and all and government Ministers will then be judged on how they perform against their own benchmarks.

We survived! But at what a cost and many are now asking “would we be better off dead or living elsewhere”? Things are tough, very tough. Prisoners and long term patients in State hospitals are dying of hunger. Child mortality remains high and human flight to other countries remains at unacceptable levels. Our population and our economy are still in sharp decline.

Given the world crisis and the political problems surrounding aid flows, we are going to have to rebuild the country using our own resources and efforts. This may be healthier in the long term but it will take longer. In the meantime the most important priority of the people is to determine how to keep the pirates and thieves out of the next government to be elected in 2011. If we can and do, then we can pick up the pace of recovery and look forward to better days and a real future.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 4th May 2009

They justified this programme to the rest of the world by arguing that they were redressing historical injustices and racial imbalances in the ownership of the land. The reform programme ignored the legal situation prevailing in respect to farm ownership and it also ignored the issue of fair and reasonable compensation for assets taken over by the State.

The legal position was quite straight forward – commercial farmers held full freehold title and in over 80 per cent of cases, also held a “certificate of no interest” issued by the Zimbabwe government allowing them to buy the farms on the open market after 1980. Such a requirement was mandatory – in order to enable the State to acquire the farms if they so wished, on a willing seller, willing buyer basis. Some 3,8 million hectares of farmland was in fact acquired in this way since 1980.

Farmers holding both the title and the certificates held an unassailable legal right to the land and all improvements. By so doing they held the right to receive in full, the market value of such assets when they were sold, less any bond obligations to banks.

In the following 8 years, thousands of farms were “acquired” with the regime changing the law every time a farmer or group of farmers secured legal judgements in their favour. Eventually a group of farmers took their case to the SADC Legal Tribunal in Windhoek, Namibia where they initially obtained a decision saying that they had the right to go to the Tribunal on the issue (the State had apposed the action) and subsequently secured a ruling in favour of the farmers – instructing the Government of Zimbabwe to protect the farmers legal rights.

One small group of affected farmers also enjoyed the protection of a “Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement” signed between the Government of Zimbabwe and the farmers home Government. A group of farmers of Dutch origin who had invested after Independence and were protected by the BIPA took their case to the international Courts in the Hague. Last week the highest legal tribunal in the world ruled in favour of the Dutch investors and granted them nearly 22 million dollars in compensation, payable in 90 days.

The attitude of the regime towards the farm acquisitions was quite straight forward. They were “taking the farms” from their owners. They simply went to a nominated agency or individual and obtained an “offer letter” which then allowed the “beneficiary” the right to take occupation. No protection was afforded to the owner or his staff and no interference was permitted, as the operation was considered “political”. In the majority of cases force was used – mainly in the form of groups of young, politically motivated thugs who acted on behalf of the “beneficiary”. Once the owners and their senior staff had been evicted, the new farmers took occupation and took advantage of the assets and even standing crops and livestock on the farms.

Many elderly and outstanding farmers were evicted in this way – leaving some of them so traumatised that they never recovered. One such farmer, Keith Harvey, was evicted from his cattle ranch in the midlands and subsequently went into a cationic coma for two years before he eventually died. He was a former chairman of the Natural Resources Board and a life long conservationist. A fine cattleman and a person of great integrity and commitment to the country of his birth.

But no estimate has yet been made of just what the disruption of commercial farms has cost us and I asked economists in the farming industry to let me have the numbers. Even I was shocked by the statistics. In 2000 the total output of the agricultural industry in Zimbabwe was 4,3 million tonnes of agricultural products worth at today’s prices US$3,347 billion. This has declined to just over 1,348 million tonnes of products in 2009 worth US$1 billion – a decline of 69 per cent in volume and a decline of 70 per cent in value.

What is often not appreciated is that smallholder farmers have been just as badly affected by the collapse of the industry as the large scale commercial farmers. Their production in the past season is estimated to have decline by
73 per cent over that achieved in the year 2000. This is on top of the forced displacement and loss of employment for 250 000 people and their 1,3 million dependents on commercial farms.

Despite these stunning figures the farm invasions have continued with 480 incidents on remaining farms recorded since the GPA was signed in September last year. Even those farms that were granted legal protection by the SADC Tribunal have been specifically targeted on a punitive basis by the elements that are carrying on with this illegal activity and in fact are openly defying the SADC decisions. The international decision is enforceable and creates very significant challenges for the new Transitional Government.
Estimates put the total value of potential legal claims at US$5 billion dollars, some 30 per cent more than current GDP.

It is quite clear that the reform programme pursued by the Zanu PF led regime since 1998 has been a costly failure. This is demonstrated when it is appreciated that over 90 per cent of all production from commercial farms in the past season has emanated from the remaining large scale farmers who are now being disrupted. There are reports that over half of all the farms taken over are in fact now derelict and abandoned. Many of the individuals now “taking” farms are doing so for the third or fourth time. The fact that sugar production in the lowveld, on highly developed irrigation estates, has declined by 35 per cent – almost all of the decline outside of the control of the core Estates of Triangle and Hippo is due to illegal land occupations.

It is time to accept that the past policies on land have been a failure and that it is time to rethink and to put policies in place that will give all farmers security and enable then to finance their operations properly. Such policies cannot be implemented until the issue of the rights of farm owners is resolved and the issue of compensation addressed. The combined costs of the folly of the land invasions are staggering – they include US$2,8 billion in international food aid on an emergency basis, nearly US$12 billion in lost agricultural production over 10 years and now a potential bill for US$5 billion in compensation – a total of US$20 billion dollars.

And now we are asking for billions of dollars to fix this self-inflicted damage – it’s bizarre.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 28th April 2009

However on Wednesday this week some colleagues said that I had to read an Op Ed that appeared in your newspaper that morning. I borrowed a copy and with disbelief at first and finally anger, I read what you had written on the front page of the paper about the American and the British Ambassadors. An article under a pseudonym on the centre page of the paper further compounded this.

Firstly I am disgusted by this blatant example of how your paper, under your leadership, continues to flagrantly violate the fundamental tenants of your profession and the terms of the Global Political Agreement signed in September last year in an attempt to restore some pride and dignity to this broken nation.

Secondly I think this was a cowardly act in that there is no way that either of these two men, at the pinnacle of long and distinguished careers can respond or defend themselves in any way. You are secure in this knowledge and the fact that the corrupt and distorted legal system in this country would not allow them to take legal action against you for slander as I am sure would be possible in more balanced and just societies.

But my criticism goes way beyond this in our present situation. Both men are due for reassignment and in the case of the US Ambassador, retirement after his term in office. They are therefore our guests, honoured guests, representing at the highest level, their countries and their own people in Zimbabwe. As guests, our own culture demands that we respect them and make them welcome, even if their views differ from our own. In fact, when you insult Mr. McGee, you insult the President of the United States of America, Mr. Obama and that is a stupid thing to do.

On purely political grounds, these Ambassadors speak, not for themselves, but for their Governments, when they demand that we adhere to the principles and values that guided the liberation movements and the world community in the struggle for justice and freedom in Zimbabwe. I defy you to defend, in public, the continued denial of these freedoms and rights to the people of Zimbabwe by the Zimbabwe government.

On Wednesday I sat next to the new Director of the World Food Programme in Zimbabwe. He told me that from January to March 2009, Zimbabwe had the largest food aid programme in the world. In fact, over those three months – the hunger months in our country, the international community, without fanfare or publicity, fed an astonishing 7.1 million people. Nobody was more responsible for this amazing feat than the two men you now slander at the end of their tenure.

Both Ambassadors have overseen a doubling of official development assistance and humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe during their terms of office. Only this week I was informed that Britain will double its aid again this year and I am informed that the US has agreed to a massive increase in assistance to help get our small scale farmers producing food for themselves next summer.
Last year Zimbabwe received the equivalent of 15 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product in aid; this is among the highest ratios of official development assistance and humanitarian aid in the world.

Nobody, nobody was more responsible for this than the two Ambassadors who worked tirelessly to persuade a sceptical watching world that we were worth the effort. I would like to take you (the Editor) to any part of Zimbabwe and introduce you to hundreds of people who would tell you that they owe their lives to the aid agencies. Then I would take you to the offices of the agencies doing this amazing work and we would ask them who was funding them.
In half these cases you would be told it is American Aid. Between Britain and the USA they provide over two thirds of all aid reaching this country..

I would like to take you to a clinic in my constituency where I would show you a clinic, which 6 months ago was derelict and overgrown, with few staff on duty and no drugs. Now you would find it spotless – cleaned by staff who are suddenly able to come to work. You would see lines of people receiving health services, much of it free. Ask them what has made the difference and they will tell you it is the allowances they are receiving from an organisation funded by DIFID – the aid arm of the British Government. The Ambassador is personally responsible for this initiative where they are trying to help us retain staff in the medical field. I spoke to the CEO of the Bank that handles these payments and they did not even know that the millions of dollars they were handling came mainly from the UK.

By slandering and abusing these men you are failing in your duty as Editor of the largest daily in Zimbabwe to tell the truth and to work for the people who pay your salary. But more than that, you fail to recognise their unsung efforts for our country and our people. You make it more difficult for the dedicated men and women who work for these diplomatic missions and who are trying to do their best to support us as a nation.

You must know that key decision makers in many capitals will have read this piece of writing in your newspaper. It will have been read by Susan Rice at the United Nations, by the new Under Secretary of State for Africa – himself a former Ambassador to Harare and a black American like James McGee. It makes Tendai Biti’s job in Washington this week that much more difficult. It makes Elton Mangoma’s task in Holland less achievable this weekend.

Donors from foreign lands are today spending US$3 million a DAY in Zimbabwe.
In January, the total tax receipts of the Zimbabwe government were US$4 million. In 2009 foreign donors, led by dedicated Ambassadors like Jim McGee and Andrew Pocock, will match every dollar we pay in tax with a dollar raised from taxpayers in their own counties. Your actions in writing what you did last Wednesday put all of that in jeopardy. If I had been the Prime Minister on Wednesday morning, I would have called your Chairman and asked for your head. You owe your liberty to the fact that the Prime Minister is trying to make this thing work but believe me you are on borrowed time.

Eddie Cross
24th April 2009
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

In the largest supermarket in my home district 20 till points stand empty – only one was working. You do not have to book for a meal as most establishments are half empty. People do not have the money to entertain.
Most factories are slowly starting to resume production but exporters are feeling the pinch as costs rise and export customers feel the global recession.

Several days a week we face power cuts, the water situation is hardly better and the roads are in a terrible state. Prices are coming down but cash is in short supply and low incomes inhibit personal spending on everything except the basics. Food is freely available but at a price and only in hard currency. Two thirds of the population are on food aid from a variety of organisations funded by the international community.

Hotels are running at about 30 per cent occupancy – mostly foreign, as local tourism has dried up. Investors are wary of the changes, fearing a collapse of the new government and a reversal to the old ways and Gono delinquency..
He still struts the stage pretending to be a key player and this unnerves all business people except the corrupt cabal that is trying to hang onto what is left of their power and influence. Not even our neighbours trust us to handle their money – the US$30 million sent to Zimbabwe by South Africa in December just vanished – we could have told them that would happen but they were not listening.

While the international community have responded rapidly to the needs of the new government – raising their input by 100 per cent in the first quarter of this year to over US$100 million per month, the region has responded in a pathetic and halfhearted way. We asked them for US$1,5 billion in lines of credit and for US$500 million in essential budget support. After two months we have had pledged US$30 million in aid from South Africa and US$70 million in a line of credit from Botswana. Since we are in this top heavy, cumbersome marriage of convenience largely at the instigation of the region, we really thought they would feel some responsibility for making it work.

Instead they have sat on the sidelines for 7 months while Mugabe procrastinated and when he finally agreed to share power with the MDC, we were forced to accept a lopsided deal which bore little regard to our respective political strengths. Even then they have stood back and watched as Mugabe has simply refused to keep his side of the bargain. Two months into the transitional government and not a single significant problem has been resolved.

No wonder the world watches Africa and despairs. Who can blame them when we cannot manage a simple exercise such as this one and do not put our own money where our mouth is. SADC compounds the problem when they stridently call for “sanctions to be lifted” and for the international community to dig deeply into their overburdened fiscal reserves to find huge sums for our economic recovery. In doing so they give the international community no recognition for their ongoing grant aid to Zimbabwe – now standing at nearly
5 billion dollars since 2000 in the face of insults and widespread flaunting of all the rules of good governance and respect for human rights and the rule of law.

The GPA promised media freedom – what has Mugabe delivered – a slight shift in the character of State propaganda? They are still jamming international radio broadcasts, still banning the BBC and CNN still harassing and imprisoning local journalists.

The GPA promised a halt to the farm invasions and respect for the rule law.
Instead we have a rush of fresh invasions, more violence and intimidation.
The theft of private assets and crops and a total disregard for the highest legal opinion in the SADC.

The GPA promised a halt to political violence, respect for our freedoms of assembly and association. Instead we have the continued detention of MDC activists, banned meetings and harassment of MP’s and local leadership.

The GPA promised that all major decisions and appointments would be carried out on a consensual basis and all that we have seen are repeated attempts by Mugabe to make decisions and appointments without consultation and agreement.

The GPA promised equity in government with a slight majority to the MDC in respect for its victory in the polls in March 2008. Instead Mugabe insists on maintaining control of almost all key government functions and not a single State institution has seen its leadership reformed to reflect the new reality.

Under these circumstances can anyone blame everyone for being sceptical about this transitional arrangement? What hope on earth has this got to yield a decent election in 2011, an election that will be respected by the international community? Who can blame the major bilateral and multilateral financial agencies for their caution and reluctance to come to the party when it is clear that once there they will simply be abused and used?

Who can blame the business community – here and abroad, for being cautious about coming in and helping our recovery with their own money? We have no right to expect to be trusted and until that changes there can be no progress. If Zanu PF cannot see that and accept that so long as they behave like a rogue elephant, they will be treated as such and with every justification. The main problem for everyone is that the innocent and the guilty suffer in this situation and the innocent in this deal can do very little about protecting their essential interests.

Today is Independence Day, Zimbabweans have very little to celebrate after
29 years of poor and corrupt government and now on top of all that, inept regional leadership.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 18th April 2009

They know what is required to run a modern economy; we have lots of examples of economic reform programmes adopted with great fanfare and then fudged and abandoned. They did a lot of good things in the early 80’s and yet they have these blind spots. How could they ever have imagined they would get away with Gukurahundi? Murambatsvina? How could they expect to be able to destroy the commercial agricultural system and still feed the country and keep the economy on its feet? But they did, clearly, because that is just what they have done and have expected to be absolved of all wrongdoing, if not by the deluded West then by their colleagues on the African Continent.

Now, in front of the whole world they sign up to an African brokered deal after 18 months of tortuous negotiations and then, even before the ink is dry, they are violating the agreement in fundamental ways and expecting to get away with these violations. The list of violations grows every day. Farm invasions, theft of private property, illegal detentions, false allegations against neighboring States and agreement partners, abductions, murder, torture, illegal appointments, failure to implement agreed reforms and now manipulation of ministerial mandates.

Last winter, 95 per cent of the wheat crop was grown by the traditional large-scale commercial farmers, 5 per cent by the so-called “new” farmers.
Last summer 97 per cent of the tobacco crop was grown by a handful of remaining large-scale growers, the same can be said of milk, pigs, poultry and fruit. Yet the secretive cabal that runs the security and legal apparatus of the transitional government under Zanu PF tutelage is, as I write, destroying every last vestige of what was a decade ago, the most productive agricultural community in Africa. In doing so they are using violence, theft and extra legal methods that defy logic and any sense of justice.

We are now just 30 days from the date by which winter crops of wheat and barley should be planted. I can predict now, with absolute certainty, that the winter crops will be half or less of those planted last winter. April is the start of the new crop cycle for tobacco and if things remain as they are, this country, which at one time ranked with Brazil and the United States as a producer and exporter of quality flue cured tobacco, will cease to be a significant player. The industry is about to collapse totally.
Tobacco firms will close their processing plants and the largest auctions floors in the world will become warehouses for food aid.

Our economy which just ten years ago sustained a population of 15 million and supported an education system that was the pride of Africa together with a health system that was able to deal with all but the most complex cases, is down to being unable to support even the most basic of services. In January total tax collections were equal to US$4 million, less than 2 per cent of what we needed to run the country. Yet the men and women who did this to us give no sign that they acknowledge their failures or even that they were in any way responsible for our total collapse.
The irony of the fact that they have participated in the past in forums that have yielded principled statements on human and political rights, signed up to agreements guaranteeing those rights and giving verbal accent to them on many occasions, then violated those same principles with impunity in the pursuit of power, seems to be lost on them. They spent most of their lives demanding democracy and equal rights only to brush both principles aside when challenged at the ballot box. When faced with limited and targeted sanctions by the very people who supported their struggle for justice in the 60’s and 70’s with mandatory UN sanctions against Smith, they cry foul.

They had become one of the most corrupt and greedy administrations in the world and yet they demand to be trusted with others funds and allowed to do as they please with aid. They flaunt their wealth before an impoverished nation where just a month ago, 75 per cent of the entire population had to be fed by foreign donors because the government could not do so or be trusted to do so if empowered. Yet these people, show no shame, no understanding or even awareness of what damage they have done, not just to the people and nation of Zimbabwe, but to the entire continent as we all bear the consequences of the failures of leadership in Africa. Especially when that leadership should know better, because of their own history, their education and experience and the relative sophistication of the society they managed.

I am afraid this propensity to self-destruct is a mystery to me. Many would assign a racial connotation to the failure – certainly Ian Smith would crow that he had been right about “them” not being “ready” to run their own affairs. Who could argue with him? That is the real tragedy of this situation; do they understand that? I see no sign that they do at present yet it is so painfully obvious to any informed observer.

I know that countries only learn from mistakes and that if you read European history about 500 years ago you will see the same failures, the same shortcomings and destruction. Nevertheless we live in hope that education, culture and communications together with centuries of experience and reform would enable us to avoid these pitfalls. To stand on others shoulders instead of falling into the same holes in the road they left behind. But somehow Zanu PF seems incapable of this and seems incapable of reform itself.

Hundreds of people are writing and calling me every day to say that MDC is being sucked into the Zanu PF morass and will suffer the same fate if it does “nothing”. I will admit that if we do not make progress on rectifying the many transgressions of the GPA and very soon, that the whole caboodle could come tumbling down. Right now this failure is holding back progress on all fronts and even though international donors have doubled their aid to the country in the first quarter of this year, both patience and time is running out.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 12th April 2009

That is not an easy question to answer but let me have a go at it here. Our objectives, as set out in 1999 when we launched the MDC in Harare were quite simple. We set ourselves the goal of bringing in a new democratic dispensation, which would transform the country into a caring, productive and prosperous nation. We agreed that this goal would be secured by democratic, peaceful and lawful means.

In 2006 when it became clear that normal democratic action would not secure these goals, we decided to change the road map slightly. We agreed that we would strive to achieve change through a five-stage process: democratic resistance; negotiations; transitional regime; new constitution and then democratic elections. In our view we have completed phases one and two and are now engaged in phase three with the pathway to the completion of phase four about to start.

We had no illusions about setting up a transitional regime with Zanu PF and the Mutambara group. We knew the former were devious and totally opposed to the new arrangements – they had been forced to go this route by the March 2008 defeat at the polls and subsequent international and regional pressure.
We also know that Zanu PF was unregenerate, had no ideas other than how to loot and steal and to use their positions in government to perpetuate their hold on power. We knew it would be a struggle.

So when we thought we had got the best deal we were going to get, we stopped arguing and negotiating and simply went into the new partnership. The Zanu hardliners were stunned and had to fall back onto their reserve position, which was to form a secret Cabal to replace the JOC and to continue the fight even while they participated in the new government. So they sought to control key centers of power – the security ministries, the Reserve Bank, the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney Generals Office and the Public Service Commission. Outside of these immediate structures they set up control and communication systems in the Police, the Judiciary, the Army and in many other key areas of civic life.

They carefully manipulated the whole system to ensure that all the Parastatals and State Controlled enterprises were controlled by Zanu PF elements – this was to ensure flows of resources and the use of patronage to maintain political controls. Once the new administration was in place they set about trying to limit its effectiveness and control and its degree of influence. The spat between Webster Shamu and Nelson Chamisa over the control of Tel One and Net One – both substantial cash cows, was and is about this. The continuing battle to maintain their total control over the governors, permanent secretaries and key posts is all about this secret war.

The abductions, arbitrary arrests and the unsubstantiated allegations of treason, guerilla activities including recruitment and training in Botswana, are all about this. The farm invasions and the theft of private property and the flaunting of the rule of law as a political weapon of control, is all about this. Zanu PF has no interest whatsoever in “fixing” the problems of Zimbabwe. They know that, come what may, the international community (mainly the USA and Europe) will feed the people and thus prevent the humanitarian crisis from spilling over into instability and violence.

They feel confident they can subsist on what is left of the economy and maintain their lavish lifestyles. They also feel confident that they can control the process leading up to any future elections and in the process regain control of government. In all of this, President, Mugabe, is an essential stage prop – and will be disposed of as soon as the power base of Zanu PF is secured and alternative leadership established.

The past five weeks say it all. Where the MDC has control – health, education and finance, substantial, even dramatic progress has been made.
Where Zanu PF has control there has either been little progress or we have regressed – the media, the Judiciary and the rule of law, agriculture and land reform. Only the Reserve Bank has been neutralized as a center of power – the Ministry of Finance has cut off its funding and restricted its activities and influence. This is hurting the flow of resources to the clandestine Cabal of criminals in Zanu PF but they are developing alternative sources of funds and using their accumulated resources to support their activities.

Whoever imagined that this was going to be anything but a struggle, was deceiving themselves. We knew that from day one. But this process is the only one in town if you reject, as we have, any thought of an armed struggle to eliminate and defeat this tyranny. Tyrants do not give up power without a fight and we are no different except that we chose not to use armed conflict to change the situation in Zimbabwe. This is the toughest route. It is the best for the country and is the only principled way to achieve change by peaceful, democratic and legal means.

So we see ourselves doing the best that we can in the circumstances. We are pursuing three goals for this phase: stabilise the situation and try to restore some semblance of decency to the way people live; write a new national constitution which reflects the popular will and will lay the foundations for a new society; and prepare for the next elections by rebuilding the MDC as a political party; and keeping the people informed of what is happening and why there is little progress in some sectors.

I think we can do all of these three things while we fight to make the transitional government work. If we can hold onto the beachhead where we landed in this invasion, we will be halfway there. If we can actually make progress during the drive inland, then we can do what we have to do to ensure V Day in 2011. Perhaps then and only then will we be able to create the Zimbabwe we all want. Abandoning the beachhead is just what the criminal Cabal wants, we are not going to give it to them. We are their worst nightmare, we will not quit, and we will not give up the fight until we have secured our goal of a free, democratic and just State.

I am reminded of what Habakkuk wrote 2600 years ago in the Middle East. He said:
“Woe to him who piles up stolen goods, Woe to him who makes himself wealthy by extortion. Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain, who have plotted to ruin many lives. Woe to him who builds a city by bloodshed.”
To these Habakkuk promises, “Your debtors will suddenly arise and make you tremble, then you will become their victim.”
As for us Habakkuk states, “Though it linger, wait for it, it will certainly come and will not delay. I heard and my heart pounded, decay crept into my bones, yet I will wait for the day of calamity to come upon the nation invading us. The Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer and enables me to go on the heights.”

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 29th March 2009

If we go back to the start of the real collapse in 2000, South African leadership knew full well what the government was doing in Zimbabwe and its implications. This was clearly revealed in the Mbeki memorandum of 2002 which argued that Zanu should stop the farm invasions and human rights abuse, not because it was the right thing to do, but because these actions might lead to the collapse of the economy, international isolation and the loss of power by the “Party of the Revolution”, Zanu PF. For eight years, South Africa used its regional and international influence, not to protect the rights of the Zimbabwe people or to foster the interests of the country and the region as a whole, but to prevent the MDC coming to power. What Mbeki called “negating the Chiluba factor”.

This policy was perpetuated right through to the end of 2008 and was instrumental in not only denying the MDC its legitimate claim to power after the March elections, but to 15 months of tortuous negotiations, facilitated by South Africa on a totally partisan basis and resulting finally in forcing MDC into a shotgun marriage with Zanu PF and the Mutambara group. These negotiations were characterised throughout by a stance that pitted MDC against all three groups at the talks – South Africa, Zanu and the Mutambara Group. Having forced the consummation of the marriage, the South Africans proposed that both the AU and the SADC, even though neither organ has any leverage inside Zimbabwe, would “guarantee” the deal.

South Africa is also unique in its knowledge of the Zimbabweans situation..
After early failures in intelligence, the South Africans have built an intelligence network in Zimbabwe that is second to none. They have infiltrated the CIO and now monitor every move and every initiative by the various parties involved. They know what the real results of successive elections have been, they know the relative strengths of the MDC and Zanu PF, and they know what Zanu is doing to thwart the efforts of the transitional government. Ignorance is no excuse.

So here we are, almost exactly one month into the SADC/SA brokered deal.
Still no movement on any of the issues accepted at the last SADC summit as being matters to be sorted out in order for the new government to make progress. Still no movement on the Governors, no movement on the question of Permanent Secretaries, no movement on the recall of Ambassadors and new appointments. Still no movement on the positions of Attorney General or the Reserve Bank Governor.

The farm invasions have actually intensified and spread to urban areas where smallholdings are being taken over by force. The use of the legal system to intimidate and cripple the MDC and Civil Society has continued – we still have eleven abductees missing and several still in Prison on trumped up charges. No progress on the absurd allegations by the former regime that Botswana was engaged in training military insurgents even though these allegations are directly linked to the treason charges against MDC leadership in the new government.

Now to crown it all, the region is withholding critically needed economic assistance to the new government. In recognition of the reality that only the region can assist us with our essential financial needs at short notice, the new government lost no time in defining and presenting its needs to the South African government. All they got in return was sympathy and the organisation of a larger group under the SADC to consider the requested package. Still no visible progress.

Just how critical the situation is, was clearly revealed last week when Tendai Biti, the new Finance Minister introduced a revised budget. He stated that in the first two months of the year, total revenue to the State had amounted to US$36 million. Simply to meet essential basic needs and pay much reduced salaries to State employees will cost about US$100 million a month, so we were able to meet a mere 20 per cent of this from our own resources..
Revenues are unlikely to recover for at least six months and we desperately needed the US$500 million we requested for budget support until our own revenues were able to take up the slack. South Africa not only denied us any sort of support, but also was instrumental in blocking any aid from any other SADC States. A feeble plea to the so-called “rich” nations for assistance to the new government was the best they could muster.

Even in respect to the appeal for a US$1,5 billion line of credit on commercial terms for private sector funding has not materialized though this would be petty cash to South Africa let alone the SADC States as a whole.
What value is the so called “guarantee” given by the SADC States if they cannot enforce compliance with the deal negotiated and signed and cannot provide even the minimum financial support requested?

For our part, I think the Zimbabwean people have been superb and disciplined in the way they have handled themselves over the past decade. In spite of all the provocation they have never turned to violence, even when it would have been totally justified. In February the Civil Service (236 000 people) went back to work after the payment of a paltry US$100 a month allowance to each employee. In March the State was unable to improve on this because the resources were simply not available. I think the reaction of teachers, doctors and nurses and all the others, has been just incredible. Their reward from their brother States in the region has been to send them away empty handed, to return to their shattered homes where there is no food or other essentials.

Not only to send them away empty handed, but also to turn a blind eye to the continuing human rights abuse, violations of the State controlled media and the flagrant violation of private assets. Even this past weekend South Africa was unable to get their Zimbabwean counterparts to sign up to an investment protection agreement that has been pending for years.

It is a mystery to me as to why regional leaders behave in this way. We can excuse ignorance but there is none, we can even excuse poverty, but the resources to help would only make a small impact on their collective resources. We might even excuse them if they themselves were living under tyrannies and were denied the basic freedoms that we have been denied, but they actually claim to be democratic States with a reputation for freedom and security. So what is their excuse? I am afraid they have none. For this I think they fully deserve the opprobrium that their inaction and failure is bringing upon them from a watching world.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 22 March 2009

The shrill protests and hysterical claims of the regime in Harare take on a similar character. I include in that the statement by Mugabe at the Bindura conference of Zanu PF that he would “never, never, never give up – Zimbabwe is mine”. I found it curious that my last letter headed “Let it Crash and Burn” has evoked a storm of debate in the State controlled media here. I have also been attacked by the War Veterans and called all sorts of names..
They seemed frightened of the prospect of being left to their own devices in the chaotic situation we are living in here at present. A bit like the horror of a killer who finds himself locked into the room containing the body of his victim and forced to sit there while it stinks and rots and the killer himself faces the prospect of dying from thirst and hunger.

The reality is that Zanu PF finds itself hooked on a line that leads back to a transitional government that will in fact be controlled and managed by MDC with the obligation only to consult and gain consensus with the Zanu PF minority in its ranks. This fish is fighting the line, but losing the battle. This coming week they must decide whether to tear the hook out of its mouth and dive into deep water, or to allow it to be landed on the beach.

The situation is quite clear, Zanu and MDC have signed an agreement, that agreement is backed and guaranteed by regional and continental bodies and leaders. It provides for the formation of a transitional government that will last about 27 months before a free and fair election under a new constitution and observed by the international community. In that transitional authority, Zanu is in the minority – in every organ of the State. All it has is consultation rights and the need to agree with the MDC on what has to be done to fix the economy and our shattered society.

“Zimbabwe is mine” Mugabe is stripped of much of his power, has to deal with Tsvangirai on all policy issues and before any senior appointments are made.
The JOC is replaced with a new National Security Council that is dominated by the MDC and is democratic in character. The Zanu PF Politburo saw the implications immediately after the SADC signing ceremony and has been furiously fighting a rear guard action ever since. But the pressure from the region on the regime has been relentless.

This coming week is the Rubicon for the regime. They must decide to either go with the deal, conclude the steps necessary to complete its implementation or to refute the deal and go ahead with the formation of an illegitimate government without the MDC or the approval of the region. This decision must be made before Parliament is convened on the 20th of January.

If they decide to go into the transitional government then they must accept what the MDC is proposing – a draft of new legislation to set up the National Security Council, the equitable allocation of ministerial portfolio ’s and they must accept that all the senior appointments made since June 2008, in violation of the MOU and the GPA be rescinded and new appointees agreed with the MDC and substituted.

Once this happens then everyone can expect that events will move quite rapidly; Parliament will debate and adopt the new legislation – followed by the appointment of both Mugabe and Tsvangirai to their respective posts, followed by the nomination and swearing in of all Ministers. This could all be over by the 31st January and a new government could start work on the 2nd of February.

If however they decide not to go this route, they will walk away from the deal and in the process walk into the wilderness. Their problems will multiply exponentially; they have no idea how they are going to finance salaries this month, whatever they pay civil servants and the army and police, and it will be worthless. They will plunge the region as a whole into a real crisis – they could jeopardize the prospects for the World Cup next year, (over 400 000 people crossed the Beitbridge border post in December), South Africa would be swamped with economic refugees.

The Zimbabwe regime would be even more isolated and regional leaders would have no choice but to repudiate the new government. Internationally, sanctions would be tightened and broadened to include financial restrictions on all deals with Zimbabwe. China and Russia would not be able to maintain their neutrality and political pressure would grow for fresh, internationally supervised elections. Elections that Zanu PF would lose totally.

What the criminals in the Mugabe regime have also got to understand is that this is their last chance to avoid their very worst fears becoming a reality. Inside the new transitional government, working with and not against the MDC, the leadership of Zanu PF would be able to avoid prosecution and probable imprisonment for various crimes for at least the period during which they would be in the transitional government. It is unlikely that the government, operating on a consensual basis, would agree to going over all the violations of the past 30 years and bringing the perpetrators to book.

In fact, for the Ministers and other senior officials in the present regime, it would take the form of a type of enforced community service. They would have to accept the failure of their policies in the past and their shortcomings in many areas. They would be confronted by the very people they beat and tortured yesterday and be required to work with them in repairing the damage and helping to build a new Zimbabwe.

Zimbabweans are a unique people in many respects, if these erstwhile masters accepted their fate and willingly gave themselves to the task of reconstruction, many would find forgiveness and reconciliation. I think the decision facing Zanu PF this week is quite simple and straight forward, but then we have been there before.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 11th January 2009

National television showed pictures of two MDC activists in shackles and handcuffs showing the site of the grave to the Police. Several people were arrested in the aftermath and eventually charged with the murder and complicity with the murder. In front of a High Court Judge appointed by the regime and known to be sympathetic to the regime, the State case collapsed when the defence demonstrated that the whole case was a fabrication.

The Court dismissed the charges and all the accused were released – but only after they had been subjected to six weeks of incarceration and mistreatment. Below is the account of one of the co-accused in that case. It is his personal recollection of what he was subjected to during the 35 days he spent in Police custody and in Remand Prison.

This story is apt because this is exactly what Jestina Mukoko and others are being subjected to right now in Zimbabwe. In late 2008, the regime decided to concoct a story about the MDC training military insurgents in neighboring Botswana. The objective was to discredit the Botswana Government and strengthen a case for the declaration of a State of Emergency as a result of which the State would ban the MDC, call off the talks and the formation of a transitional government. In tandem with this elaborate hoax, they staged bombings in Police Stations and at various strategic points and, although there was no evidence, blamed elements linked to the MDC.

To support their story – distributed to SADC Heads of State by a team of Zanu PF Ministers and security officials in the form of a 27 page dossier with color photographs of young trainees in a camp in Botswana, State agents (we now know they were police with CIO and others assisting and authorized from the top) abducted at least 42 individuals and in three cases produced film of confessions that they had participated in this training after being recruited in Zimbabwe by MDC related individuals.

If you are going to construct such an elaborate plan why not hit more than one target and that is how Jestina and her colleagues came it. Their crime was to run a human rights organisation that was recording violations of basic rights in Zimbabwe. They were picked up and were to be charged for recruiting the people sent to Botswana for training. The main difficulty since the plan was hatched has been the reaction of the region to all of this. Botswana simply said to the SADC – please send a team to investigate the allegations. They did and came up with nothing. Then, the President of South Africa simply poured scorn on the story.

In order to carry out the scheme the regime had to violate its own laws – and get the Courts to collude. This they have done without compunction. In addition, to get those abducted to confess they had to torture them – Jestina has confirmed this and in addition we know that the two year old abducted with its mother was beaten in front of the mother to get her to confess.

Now Morgan Tsvangirai has further compounded their problems by demanding that those abducted be produced in Court and charged or released. South African pressure led to them being eventually produced in Court and now the State faces to unpleasant reality of going through Court proceedings in public and being further embarrassed by the disclosures that are bound to emerge.

But what is also essential is for everyone to understand just what Jestina and the others are going through and this true account of the 2001 incident and its aftermath involving another elaborate scheme to implicate the MDC in crimes against the State sets out that in graphic detail. I found it difficult to read. In fact the conditions in our Prisons and Police holding cells are much worse today than they were in 2001. Food conditions are worse and many prisoners are dieing in Prison from hunger, disease and general mistreatment.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 3rd January 2009

35 DAYS OF HELL
I am an MDC activist and a Zimbabwean Patriot who is committed to bringing about true democracy in our country.
In early November 2001, I had just returned by car from a trip to Masvingo to meet with other activists in the area in preparation for the upcoming Presidential Elections.
At 0830 hours, Monday 12th November 2001, 3 plain – clothes gentlemen arrived at the Office and asked if I could accompany them to Central Police Station to answer some questions. I asked them to produce identity and they came from the notorious Law and Order Section of the ZRP, whose specific responsibility was to use muscle in all its forms to enforce both the archaic laws of the past and those more recently introduced, in the course of the subversion of Justice. I knew at this time that, what I had psychologically prepared for, and hoped would not come to pass, had happened. I managed to quickly pass word to my assistant to urgently inform the shadow Justice Minister for whom I work, of my predicament. I knew that I would soon be focusing on mustering all the strength and discipline that I would need to face what was in wait for me. My time had finally arrived.
On walking to the Central Station, I was informed that the questioning would be in regard to the murder of two members of Zanu PF.
I was taken to the top of the building and told to sit and wait and I took the opportunity to use my cell phone and managed to warn a work colleague of my predicament, knowing precisely my fate. I focused my mind on all the positives of my situation and immediately re-examined my likely timetable in terms of the legal process – can’t be held more than 48 hours without appearing in Court, High Court application etc. The cell phone was snatched from me and in about an hour’s time, a young lawyer appeared on the scene only to be physically forced from the room and told that he could see me at 1600 hours. The ‘time factor’ was already being brought into play, during which time I was treated to the sight of scrofulous disheveled plain-clothes Officers slopping over their food from the canteen. I was refused a glass of water.
Within minutes of their lunch, I was shackled by the wrist and had leg-irons fitted and was promptly moved by armed escort to a waiting Land Rover. I realised then that they would make every effort to deny me access to my lawyer and various thoughts went through my mind. I suspected that I was being taken out of Bulawayo to be hidden in an outlying Police cell, a favourite strategy of the state thugs in control of the “law”. An amateurish attempt was made to confuse me by driving in zigzag fashion to Esigodini, 45 kilometers on the Johannesburg road.
I knew then what I faced. This station and its cells where notorious in the genocide days of Gukurahundi when over 20 000 people were murdered by the same regime that was attempting to put me out of action. I recall the stories of screams from the cells where torture regularly took place.
Earlier, all my questions were refused and it was only when I was “logged in” did I see the charge of “KIDNAPPING AND MURDER. Stripped to my trouser and shirt, I was then moved to the cells which I could smell some 20 metres away.
Once my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I counted 12 forms prostrate in the cell which was indescribably filthy. The toilet in the corner (a hole in the concrete floor) was overflowing with a mound of excrement over a foot high with rivulets of fluid spreading across the floor as urine dissolved the solids.
There was only enough room for me to sit with my knees under my chin. Three heavily fouled floor mats were available for the 13 inmates and 10 filthy blankets stiffened with excrement and dirty bodies. There was neither toilet paper nor water and due to the inevitable runny stomach, prisoners had to use their hands when using the toilet and wipe them on the walls.
Opposition party graffiti scribbled with stone and cigarette stubs were in evidence everywhere. The ceilings were polka-dotted with the blood of engorged mosquitoes, millions of which swarmed the cell continuously. It was like some unique wallpaper and the drone reminded me of old film footage of bomber squadrons in a blitz.
Lunch was served ……. a dirty bowl of sadza (maize meal), The prisoners were forced to use their hands, finger nails of which were filthy for the reasons referred to earlier. I refused the food, as I knew I probably had a long stay in prison and that any food poisoning would deem me defenseless in terms of contending with my situation and my captors. My fellow inmates, who were petty criminals from the local tribal areas, greeted me warmly and treated me with great respect and compassion, despite their lowly status.
Once they knew that I was MDC, the spirits of the group rose, as they were all supporters of the opposition. The cell – wall graffiti testified to this. Supper consisted of the same meal and again I declined, taking only water from a sink, in an area adjoining the cells. It was eventually time to bed down for the evening and an elderly tribesman offered to share his blanket with me. The only floor space available was that alongside the seepage of the “toilet”. I had no choice but to eventually lie down on this filthy floor and accepted the shared blanket gratefully. The mosquitoes were so bad that the prisoners tried to cover their bodies as best as they could. When I tried this, the stench of the blanket was simply too much, but this was a choice between that kind of smell and that which emanated from the oozing mass in the corner. I eventually covered my face with my shirt and somehow slept through to the morning. When the first officer visited, I appealed to him for more blankets and floor mats and indicated that I had money, which I understood that I could use to buy in additional food and cigarettes for my colleagues and me. A decision could not be made and was referred to the Officer – In – Charge. Needless to say, he did not consent or give any decision. Eventually, all the others were sent to Court and I was left on my own. Lunchtime passed and no food was forthcoming, despite my shouts in the direction of Officers coming and going from the offices some 20 metres away. They would pause, listen, turn and move on.
It was my intention to insist that I be able to phone my lawyer as was my legal right and endeavor to buy some food. At this stage, I would have been happy to be fed sadza if other dirty hands were not in evidence at mealtime.
I was completely ignored throughout the day and in the early evening
(suppertime) I began to realise that I was to be abandoned, at least for the time being. At all times, I remained positive albeit in a disciplined sense and knew that somehow, Justice would be done and that someone would find me, before my captors realised that they would be able to deal with me in the usual manner. It is a matter of fact that torture and brutality had become the order of the day. Eventually I managed to attract the attention of a cleaner as I was tall enough to peer out of a top window into a Courtyard, where he was working.
He was obviously nervous but realised my predicament. At this stage, I was now thirsty and although empty, was not hungry, as the stench was enough to put one off one’s food. I thought at the time that there is a reason for everything and a good reason at that – filthy stench, no hunger pains. It was now some 48 hours since the last time I had a proper meal other than a
very light breakfast at 0630 hours on Monday morning. I continued to try
and attract the attention of passing Officers, and they all ignored me.
Eventually, the cleaner “worked his way” towards me so that he was not noticed and whispered “your friends are here. Two white men and a black man”. I had heard a car draw up to the station earlier. My spirits rose.
Earlier that morning, a young man who had been detained for 5 days without trial had picked a piece of cement plaster with his finger nail from the wall and used it to scratch my office telephone number on his shin bone under his trousers. Had he been remanded out of custody he would have phoned for help. Little did I know it, but the area was staked out by local MDC activists monitoring and recording all activity and vehicles that came and left the station. An hour and half passed. I heard nothing. For the first time my spirits dropped. A car drove away and I did not know who the occupants might have been.
After half an hour, and various further appeals to Police Officers, I heard a jingle of keys and an Officer handcuffed me and took me through to the Charge Office, where I found my lawyer seated. My wife had prepared a meat and salad roll and a fruit juice and only after my lawyer pleaded, was I allowed to eat. At this stage, there was still no Warrant for my Arrest and I was illegally detained. My wife sat in the next office but was refused access to me. The lawyer switched on his Dictaphone and asked whether I was ill treated or physically harmed in any way. He was able to reassure me that a High Court sitting had been sought to force the Police to confirm my whereabouts and that they would be reminded that I was already becoming overdue for court appearance in terms of the regulations.
It was obvious that the Senior Officer was hostile and had a political motive. I was then moved back to my cell and later on joined by three other petty criminals. This time we were able to share the blankets available and position ourselves in the furthest point away from the cesspit in the corner. Again, sleep was difficult due to mosquitoes, but we endured. Next morning, no breakfast appeared and soon I was led to the Charge Office dressed and greeted by Officer Ngwenya from Law and Order Bulawayo, who said we were on our way. Again, auxiliary police armed with AK47’s squeezed in the Land Rover with me and I was taken to Central Police Station, Bulawayo.
Again, no food or drink was made available and I was delighted when a Senior Advocate managed to speak to me although Officers refused to move out of earshot though were continually asked to do so by the Legal Counsel. He did his best to prepare me for Court and it was made abundantly clear that he had overstayed his welcome.
When I arrived at the Magistrates Court, it was my first introduction to two of the co-accused and we then proceeded to the dock, remanded in custody and sent to cells below the Tredgold Building. These had not been swept or cleaned, seemingly for years – broken toilets, no light bulbs and a bare concrete floor.
We were offered no lunch, or anything to drink and eventually placed in leg-irons and handcuffs, herded into a vehicle and driven to Khami Maximum Security Prison.
On arrival there, we were documented and issued soiled prison clothing consisting of khaki shorts and shirt. Finally, shackled, we were moved to our respective cells, which were essentially concrete boxes, 4 metres x 1 ½ metres x 3 metres high. We were then stripped naked, as was the practice for solitary confinement. The cell was furnished with a plastic dog bowl as a toilet and 3, now familiar filthy blankets on a concrete floor.
The “bush telegraph” as we call it, had obviously been operating and somehow the prisoners knew that MDC activists were arriving and the whole block of 3 floors of cells erupted into MDC Political Slogans and Chants. Eventually, other prisoners on their way to exercise, passed scraps of toilet paper, small pieces of soap and even a tooth brush and ballpoint pen through the brass peep hole. The daily routine consisted of a wake-up bell at approximately 0600 hours (we had no idea of time nor date as all contact with the outside world was virtually denied) and then we were issued with a cup of sweet tea and a piece of bread covered with margarine.
We were allowed to empty our dog bowls into one of six broken non-flushable toilets for 120 inmates and return to cells. Some time before midday, we were allowed out into a courtyard for one hour’s exercise and approximately ½ hour in mid-afternoon. At the discretion of the Guard, MDC inmates were usually separated and sent to cells considerably earlier than the convicted criminals. At any time between 1120 and 1330 we were issued “lunch” which consisted of a portion of rice, a third of an inch deep and four inches across, which was soiled with brown filth from plates stacked above. There were no cleaning materials and the risk of dysentery was high. A handful of bitter cabbage was dished out as well and a cup of sweet tea. Anywhere between 1430 and 1530 we had our supper, which was made up of the same size portions but with red beans, substituting cabbage. From that time through to approximately 0700 hours the next morning, there was no access to food and drink.
It was evident from the facilities and information from long-serving prisoners that excellent facilities once existed even for the Maximum Security section. The Medical Officer’s, Office and Store Room was virtually empty of all drugs, which had to account for 1400 prisoners. One draw of drugs was all that remained and empty shelves extended the length, breadth and height of a room 6 metres x 6 metres. The libraries were all completely empty and prisoners had no access to reading material. In the adjoining A Block, 1200 prisoners shared the same space as the 120 in our solitary confinement block.
Records show of the total number of approximately 470 at any one time being on remand. Some of these have been in this situation since 1995. There were reports of beatings and recriminations and the death rate from AIDS Related TB and Pneumonia and Dysentery and general ailments was very high..
In A Block, there was so little room, that at night time, prisoners were forced to sleep in shifts and those lucky enough for floor space had to sleep on their sides, stacked like sardines all facing in one direction. On the hour, when sore shoulders and hips could no longer withstand the discomfort of the concrete floor, everyone stood and turned to lie on the other side.
At nighttime, we often heard prisoners screaming from nightmares. It was chilling experience. Somehow, despite being locked in a concrete block for
22 ½ hours per day, with no reading or writing material, we still considered ourselves lucky. As remand prisoners, we were virtually denied every privilege due to us, such as weekly visits from wives, additional food, and reading and writing material. After much protestation, I personally managed to eventually receive letters and some books but this was towards the end of my internment.
We were allowed two letters to be posted in a month. None of mine reached their destinations. This was commonly understood by the prisoners who, through this total lack of contact with friends and relatives, were effectively denied legal representation. The tragedy of remand prisoners appearing in Court with no one present to pay their bail was almost sometimes too hard to bear. On each remand hearing we were shipped like cattle, handcuffed with leg-irons to Bulawayo. Due to lack of transport any form of vehicle was used and at one time, in a fully enclosed metal truck, panic broke out, as we had been left in the hot sun for nearly an hour waiting for the gun-toting auxiliaries who had to be present because MDC prisoners were on board.
Fortunately, we were able to calm ourselves down and it was not long before the escort arrived and we began to breathe freely again. In my own situation, I witnessed the appalling treatment of my fellow prisoners, both at the magistrates Court, where the cells were totally insufficient to cater for the masses of wretched prisoners who were fed from a bag of poorly cooked sadza with no eating instruments available. The filth and flies simply meant that there were more victims of a variety of ailments, related to these conditions.
At the High Court, where I was imprisoned for approximately one week during my bail application, the cells were appalling. No lighting, no blankets or floor mats and a broken toilet, choked and foul. The graffiti on the walls was written in the medium of prisons ….. excrement. A mere few feet above us, judges reclined in wooden paneled Court Rooms, completely unaware of the plight of those that stood in the stands before them. My own experience was that Prison Officers refused offers of fruit juice from my own lawyer and counsel and at times we would go for as long as 8 hours with anything to eat and drink.
If we were lucky, before leaving prison to travel to Court, we were able to shovel dried sadza and beans into a dirty bag and carry that with us, to be shared in the middle of the day. On arriving back in the evening at prison after the day in Court, it was always too late for our “supper”, which was scheduled at no later than 1530 hours. On the one occasion, we were lucky, as plastic plates of food had been left in the sun in the Courtyard for us by some caring fellow prisoner. However, the food was blackened by blow flies, the species which is renowned for its attraction to rotting fish and faeces.
My wife attempted day after day to visit me and spent hours at the external boom gate waiting for permission to enter, which was her and my right (once per week for 10 minutes). Of the 35 days in detention, she was able to visit me twice at Khami Maximum as it was the habit of Senior Officers, who were often politically appointed to deliberately delay the process of visitors accessing their relatives. On the one occasion she spoke with me for 3 minutes and the second for 7 minutes.
When finally, my lawyer succeeded in a High Court application, ordering the prison authorities to grant me my remand prisoner rights, I was present when he served the order on the Officer Commanding and he gesticulated violently several times and said “……….. will get nothing. Nothing !! No toothbrush, no food, no writing paper, no books, Nothing !!”
My lawyer had numerously, on occasions brought letters from my doctor explaining the digestive problems from which I suffered and still special food was denied. I suffer from a displaced spine and only after a good number of attempts, was I finally allowed to wear a back brace. This is just an indication of the deliberate political motive in dealing with what were effectively political prisoners. Through my lawyer, and the help of friends, I was able to arrange for a football to be delivered to the prison by my lawyer, but in all four attempts, the prison authorities refused the offer. Football is the only activity permitted and their ball had long exceeded its usable life.
Finally, after winning my release and after being re-detained after 17 hours of freedom, due to a technicality, I won my appeal in the country’s Supreme Court and joined my family, 8 kgs the lighter. Subsequently, after other vague chargers were laid against me, I finally was absolved of my crime although there is still no acquittal as such. This allows the authorities to find new evidence to re-detain me. It is on this basis that some of my colleagues are still incarcerated and others due to stand trial in November.
This whole episode has been counter productive for the authorities as my resolve has strengthened, my appreciation for my compatriot and colleagues has grown tremendously, and my faith in the future of my country is stronger than ever.
(In the subsequent Court hearing all charges were dropped against all the accused. The Judge found that the Police “diary” of events had been fabricated and it was found that a policeman had actually been protecting the site of the dead body for 24 hours before “discovery”.)

Today we are rapidly moving towards that target figure of national population. Some people say that our population is no more than 8 million.. I personally am comfortable with 9 million. In 1980 when we gained our independence as a State, the population growth was about 3,4 per cent per annum and expected to double in 17 to 18 years. It should therefore have been 17 million in 1997 when the madness that has gripped the country since then was initiated by the government.

So when we talk of the population now being only 8 or 9 million we have to ask what has happened to 8 or 9 million people. At least 4 million now reside in South Africa, a further 1 million live in other parts of the world – probably most in the UK, followed by the USA and Canada and Australia. This leaves an unexplained gap of 3 to 4 million people. Remember that is half the population of London or Paris or Gauteng.

We need to understand this number in terms of individuals – people with families, children and parents. Real people with real relationships that have been smashed by a system that has been deliberately created to sustain the grip on power of a small elite of perhaps 2 000 individuals at best (or worst).

In the 10 years that have followed 1997, the population should have grown naturally by another 8 million had historical birth and death rates been maintained. So we are talking about unnatural deaths in the order of 12 million people. One feature of this abnormal death rate is that life expectancies have fallen by half since 1990, from 60 years to about 30 years today.

It is not difficult to establish how these millions of people have been dying – HIV/Aids kills over 100 000 a year. Malaria another 30 000, tuberculosis perhaps 60 000, malnutrition and hunger perhaps another 60 000, mainly the elderly and the young. What we do know is that whereas in the Smith era, live births exceeded deaths by a 4:1 margin. The ratio today is perhaps 4:5 – a rise of 5 times in the natural death rates pre 1980.

Some aspects of these huge changes are particularly poignant – the men who were displaced by Murambatsvina and died of heartbreak when they could not protect or sustain their families, they just quit and died. The numbers of people displaced or traumatised by this regime since 1980 are astonishing..
All data are estimates as official statistics are either not available or just plainly dishonest.

It started with Gukurahundi – a 6-year campaign to destroy Zapu and entrench Zanu PF hegemony over the whole country. This campaign was kept secret until the Legal Resources Foundation and the Catholic Bishops Conference published a partial report on the atrocities. Their conclusion was that over 20 000 people hade been murdered and hundreds of thousands displaced. What is not appreciated from this first attempt at securing control is that many of those affected elected to move to South Africa. The breadwinner going first followed a short while later by the rest of the family.

Between 1987 when Zapu succumbed and 2000 there was no campaign of dislocation and intimidation as such, but the war against any form of opposition continued unabated. The Centre Party, ZUM and the Forum Party all became victims. Their leadership hectored and brutalised – leaders such as that gentle intellectual, Enoch Dumbutshena, former Chief Justice and leader of the Forum, hounded into liquidation and disgrace.

Many leaders even in Zanu PF who attempted reform found themselves vilified and even killed. How many died in this secret war will never be known.

Then came the defeat in the 2000 referendum and the near defeat in the election that year. In a fury, Zanu PF turned on their perceived enemies – farmers had played a key role and when the votes were counted it was discovered that the 2 million people on commercial farms had in fact swung the vote. The State turned on this community – savagely beating and even killing any who opposed their will. Thousands of farms were illegally confiscated and at least 1,5 million people were displaced.

When it became clear that a majority of the population now lived in the urban areas – the hard core of MDC support, the State launched “Murambatsvina” – “clean out the rubbish”. In the view of the UN special investigator 300 000 homes were affected, 700 000 people displaced and 1,4 million people lost their livelihood and shelter in a period of three months.

Again an understated effect of these state managed interventions was the flight of millions to the nearby states of Botswana and South Africa.
Completely understated is the number of people who have died in these campaigns. A common feature of each new campaign has been the ruthless application of State power.

Despite these massive manipulations of the population and the complete disregard for the welfare of the people, the population of the urban areas still expanded – a process actually impelled by the dislocation of the rural economy. In addition the flight to South Africa and other destinations accelerated.

In political terms this meant that the objective of the ruling elite still eluded them – MDC became stronger, not weaker and they were faced with a steady escalation of pressure from the global and regional community. In desperation the State turned on the MDC and its structures in a manner that resembled the Zapu campaign 20 years before. Hundreds of thousands were beaten and tortured, their homes and businesses destroyed and families harassed. Hundreds were killed or disappeared.

But they were up against a very different antagonist in the form of the MDC.
Its leadership understood what Zanu PF strategies were, they used every means open to them to publicise what was going on. They refused to give the regime the excuse to use its military power. They maintained a strong political base in the urban areas and even managed to penetrate the rural areas. In consequence, when minor reforms of the electoral system were adopted in 2008, Zanu PF went into the elections in March and lost the election.

We know, without any doubt, that there was widespread rigging on top of intimidation and violence let alone the total distortion of the national media and the control of food and traditional leaders. We also know that despite desperate effort to over turn the result, Zanu eventually had to admit it had lost control of Parliament and that Morgan Tsvangirai had won the Presidential contest. What they did not do was to publish the actual results of the poll – with the deliberate connivance of the South African President; they simply published a fictional result that gave Mr. Tsvangirai less than the required 50 per cent.

Even so, they then launched a campaign they called Mavhoterapapi or “where did you vote”. 2000 militia camps were established with military leadership – thousands were beaten and tortured. Hundreds died. Now we understand they are about to launch another campaign called “Ngatipedzenavo”
or “lets finish them (MDC) off”.

Today, besides the direct victims of Zanu PF’s genocidal activities over the past 28 years, we have perhaps 6 million people without food and 98 per cent without medical attention or services. Schools are closed and Universities dysfunctional. Can anyone describe what I have set out above as anything other than a form of Genocide? A lot of publicity is being given right now to the situation in the Eastern Congo – but the death toll there is tiny by comparison to the death toll here. There can be few situations in the world, even in recent history, where a small country like Zimbabwe can go through a period of its history seeing a full third of its population die in state sponsored violence and dislocation.

Where else in the world has a State overseen a crisis during which half of its total population has died by natural and unnatural causes in a short space of three decades – under conditions where there was no national civil war or conflict. In the past century we have seen two genocides – Cambodia and Rwanda. In both the mortality was less than that through which Zimbabwe has gone in the past 28 years. But because the universal eye (the camera) was not present and because we were not killing each other – it was the State killing its people, our genocide has not been understood or lamented.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 25th November 2008

The Ministry of Education was a shock – there was no one at work. Floor after floor was almost deserted. “Where is the clerk who deals with Bulawayo?” I asked. “She is at the bank” was the reply. Today I went back to find the office deserted except for a solitary employee who told me they had not seen the clerk for several days – did not know when she would be back at work, “try the pensions department” she said.

I had 30 minutes before my next meeting so I went over to the building where the pensions department was and again walked in on a department where out of 30 employees there were two in attendance – one the supervisor and the other a data clerk. They told me they had 300 000 pensioners in their data base and the supervisor told me without any reluctance that she earned Z$2 million a month – US$4.00 at today’s exchange rate.

If this is representative of what is going on in government departments then the situation is pretty dire. In a recent survey, people were asked if they had tried to leave the country. 53 per cent responded that they had tried to leave Zimbabwe in the past year. Do you blame them? Today I was told that all State hospitals in the capital had closed down and were not accepting patients.

When I attended a Parliamentary caucus this week I told a fellow legislator what I had seen in the government offices – he laughed and said, “we are a dressed up Somalia”. I thought that was very apt. 4 hours later the Parliament was closed for a month – there was no money for expenses and no water in the building. The last time I looked, I was getting Z$50 000 a month – enough to buy half a loaf of bread.

In my pigeon hole at Parliament was a glossy document – the annual report of a State controlled institution. The lay out and contents were very professional – it could easily be taken as an annual report for a big company. However, when I studied the balance sheet and did some number crunching, I found that the main customer of the organisation – another State controlled institution, had not paid its bills for two years and technically, the organisation was broke – even with money in the bank.

On Friday we finally gathered to hear what had transpired last Sunday at the SADC summit in Johannesburg. It was both intriguing and disappointing – the
14 States had spent 12 hours debating two regional problems – the conflict in the eastern Congo and the political crisis in Zimbabwe. In the end they fudged both. Angola and Zimbabwe both offered troops – the Angolan offer is unlikely to be taken up, as the Congo does not trust Angola (with good reason). Our offer was an empty gesture unless Kabila or Angola was going to pick up the tab of about US$1 million a day.

On Zimbabwe they fudged the whole issue, clearly supporting Zanu PF and more particularly, Mugabe. The final communiqué could not have been more one sided.

The MDC leadership spent the rest of the week talking to those SADC leaders who are sympathetic to the MDC and have some democratic credentials. After those consultations, our leadership met in Harare and finally today, we called in our National Executive and Council.

After an all day meeting we finally resolved – unanimously, to reject the SADC decision, reaffirm our commitment to the Global Agreement and clearly stated what our conditions are for participation in any new inclusive Government. Our demands are well known to all SADC States and to the Secretariat in Gaborone. They are: -

We reject the agreement signed on the 15th of September in front of 23 Heads of State and with great fanfare supervised by Mr. Mbeki as not representing the actual agreement negotiated and signed on the 11th September in Harare.
We insist that the new inclusive government be based on the original agreement and that the way it is implemented also be in accord with the earlier version.

We demand the allocation of ministerial portfolios on the basis of equity between Zanu PF and MDC. By no stretch of the imagination can the Mugabe/Mbeki allocation be considered as anything but biased and partial.

We demand the recall of all 10 Provincial Governors, unilaterally appointed by Mugabe in defiance of the MOU and the Global Agreement and the allocation of these posts on the basis of the Parliamentary majorities in each Province
(5 MDC, 4 Zanu PF and 1 Mutambara).

We demand the appointment of all Permanent Secretaries and Ambassadors on the basis agreed in the original version of the Global Agreement.

We demand full prior agreement between the Parties to the constitution and membership of the National Security Council to which the armed forces and security service are to be accountable to ensure they are not controlled and directed on a partisan basis.

We demand full agreement by all Parties to a draft version of Constitutional Amendment number 19 referred to in the Global Agreement and intended to give full expression to the Agreement in legal terms and on the basis of which it will be implemented. The Draft Bill to be jointly proposed and supported by all Parties to the Agreement when it comes to Parliament and is passed into law.

Finally, we resolved that since it was obvious that neither Zanu PF nor Mugabe can be trusted to act in the interests of either the country or the Agreement, that all these conditions must be met in full and implemented in clearly defined legal terms before we would participate in any inclusive government. We further stated that we would not recognise any government appointed by Zanu PF in the interim and would continue to hold that no Ministers currently in office have any legitimacy or legal standing and that Mr. Mugabe can only become State President by agreement.

That is a big spanner in this particular works – we wait to see what the region and the regime do in reaction. For the rest of us, it’s ‘vasbyt’. (hold fast)

The Zanu PF propaganda machine is working overtime. “MDC agrees to join inclusive government” was the headline this morning in State newspapers..
Nothing could be further from the truth. Zanu PF thought that the SADC decision would put us in an impossible situation with no real options. They now know better. If they want to see Zimbabwe put back on the road to recovery, if they want to get out of the hole they are in, then they have to have our approval and participation. If not, they are going nowhere.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo 15th November 2008

On Tuesday a local banker told me that the cost of money transactions in Zimbabwe dollars now exceeded the value of their transactions. Simply put that means if you are trading or shifting money in the form of the Zimbabwe domestic currency, you will be losing money even if you are charging interest and other charges related to the transactions that are involved.

So business here is now only possible if you work in a hard currency – the Rand or the US Dollar. This creates two other problems – how to obtain the hard currency in the first place and then, once you have the money, to use it without breaking the law which still prohibits such transactions.

For a small fortune you can secure a licence to operate in hard currency but even then the operating conditions are nearly impossible. So the reality is that most businesses have closed their doors or are now operating on a care and maintenance basis until better days – whenever that will be.

In the rural areas the position is even worse and people are now operating a barter economy or relying on the small remittances that come in from relatives in the Diaspora. If you cannot use either system, you are facing starvation.

On the food front the situation has deteriorated sharply in the past month.
Humanitarian agencies have full warehouses but cannot get the food to the people who need it. The reasons are that the agencies cannot access cash for their operations – hard currency transactions are still illegal and the cash withdrawal limits and other restrictions imposed by the Reserve Bank are making local payments impossible – they cannot pay for hotels or staff salaries and cannot pay transporters to take the food to where it is needed.

But it goes beyond this, at the start of the year it was estimated that we needed 1,8 million tonnes of maize. Of this total the humanitarian agencies said they would try to supply 400 000 tonnes. The Zimbabwe government estimated maize production at 600 000 tonnes and that left a shortfall of 800 000 tonnes for importation.

So far all we can find evidence of are contracts for a total of 175 000 tonnes and even this meagre import programme seems to have spluttered to a halt. That leaves a total shortfall of 625 000 tonnes – possibly 800 000 tonnes because it is most unlikely that local production was 600 000 tonnes – most commentators say 425 000 tonnes.

This means that the shortfall is still probably 50 per cent of consumption and we still have 5 months to go to the end of the forecast supply period (April 2008 to March 2009). In October the donors fed 2 million people at the level of 15 kilograms of cereals a month per capita. In November they expect to go to 3,5 million people at a reduced rate of 10 kilos of cereals per capita. They plan to go to 5,5 million in January 2009 but at present they do not have the money or the supplies for that programme.

Remember that this is just the donor community completing what they committed themselves to at the start of the year and does not in any way alleviate the shortage in commercial supplies from the GMB. Therefore we can deduct from this in the absence of any information from official sources that food supplies are now down to critical levels.

If this is not addressed and soon, widespread starvation and deaths are now inevitable.

Perhaps the worst aspect of this is that the State has not admitted there is a problem and that they need help. No appeal has been made for help and no response is forthcoming from the authorities who have been approached to help rectify the problems with payments and the need to appeal for resources to help meet the needs in early 2009.

But the crisis goes beyond these basic problems – there is growing evidence that the Reserve Bank has used its power to loot the hard currency accounts in the banking system for its own purposes. This includes the accounts of the UN system and has led to a suspension of future transfers that will affect the tens of thousands of people with HIV/Aids who are on UN funded ARV’s.

If that was not bad enough, the Junta is running a programme called “Champion Farmers”. These are all those individuals in Zanu PF who have access to farming property, to draw on State funded inputs (fuel, seed, fertilizer and chemicals as well as farm equipment) to grow crops this summer. In a rush to take advantage of these offers (partially funded by a grant of R300 million from the South African government) Zanu PF thugs are harassing remaining commercial farmers and driving them off the land.

This whole programme is illegal and has been the subject of a lengthy appeal to the SADC Tribunal in Windhoek. The Tribunal has already ruled in favour of the farmers and is expected to knock the whole land reform exercise down at the end of November. That does not make any impression on these thugs and criminals.

This exercise includes a deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank and the Commissioner of Police. They are taking over farms where the commercial farmers have prepared land and secured some inputs and the new occupiers are then simply picking up where they left off and planting crops on land that does not belong to them using equipment looted from their owners.

All stocks of seed and fertilizer and all agricultural fuel is going to this programme leaving small scale farmers and 700 000 peasant farmers without these essential supplies. The result, tobacco plantings are down 50 per cent and cereal production is likely to fall below the level achieved last year.

So the suffering of the majority continues – ordinary men and women, children and the elderly without food and opportunity (95 per cent of teachers are not at work) and more particularly, without hope. The region has not even announced the date of the SADC/AU summit due in less than 10 days.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 1st November 2008