Well, there is good news and there is bad news.
The good news is that the WOZA women were finally granted bail and left out of a horrible jail after they dared to hold a peaceful demonstration a couple weeks ago.
The rest of the news is bad news, alas, and what makes it worse is that the destruction of that lovely country can be blamed on a single man: Robert Mugabe.
The local currency is worthless: The latest news says that the exchange rate is Z$28,4 quadrillion to the U.S. dollar… the good news is that some shops may accept foreign currency, and the Zimbabwean diaspora is sending home money that is keeping their families alive.
But despite this help, the UN estimates that over five million will need food aid this year. The crops are planted, but the rains are bad, many of the healthy have fled, leaving the sick, the elderly, women with small children, and others who are less healthy to plow the fields (usually in traditional farming, the men use dangerous oxen to plow the main crop in fields…women use hoes to plant a smaller garden with maize, grain, and vegetables. With many men absent, or dying of HIV, the main crops may not be planted unless tractors or handplows are available). To make things worse, the financial crisis means that good seed and fertilizer are not available, and some people may not have saved seeds from the previous harvest to plant.
During famine times, the elderly know which plants, roots, and fruits can be eaten, but searching for famine food takes time (and energy). In the meanwhile, school children aren’t getting taught in many schools, and as for medical care, many hospitals and clinics lack basic medicines.
HIV remains a major problem, and many do receive medicine from NGO’s, but there has been problems: the Global Fund (which funds such medicine) had their money (over $7million American dollars) borrowed from bank accounts by the government. It has recently “been returned”, but it makes many NGO’s leery that their money also might disappear, and the next time it might not be returned.
When Morgan Tsvangirai won the election (yes, I know, “officially” he won 49%…after three weeks of finagling the counts to make sure he didn’t get a majority), and after violence against his supporters led to his boycott the follow up run off election, local governments, worried about a civil war, started to mediate a power sharing agreement, which was actually signed, but never implemented.
The reason? The power sharing agreement is a farce. When it was signed, the understanding was that Mugabe could continue ruling the military, but Tsvangirai could run the police, allowing him to direct them to protect the violence against the opposition.
But the really bad news is that Mugabe, who has been supported by some in South Africa, has managed another slight of hand.
In the “power sharing” agreement between Mugabe and Tsvangirai (who won the original election), Mugabe was supposed to be allowed to control the military, but the local police were to be supervised by Tsvangirai’s half of the government.
Ah, but Mugabe refused, and wants to control the cops too. This allows him to use the police to break up peaceful demonstrations, freeing his army and “Green bombers” to terrorize the countryside far from reporters.
So Mugabe’s “enablers” in the SADC have now decided to pressure Tsvangirai to accept only partial control of the police… and the really bad news is that clueless reporters are calling this a “Mugabe win” or writing headlines implying that Tsvangirai is refusing to cooperate with the farce of letting Mugabe win while making Tsvangirai a leader on paper, without real power to change things.
Effectively SADC was instructing the MDC to accept Mr Mugabe’s definition of power-sharing - that they should take a junior role in his government.
“These regional organs are state to state,” David Monyae, a South African analyst, told the BBC. “The idea of opposition groups coming in and getting heard is not something they are comfortable with.”…
So the “impasse” continues: but it is only an “impasse” because Mugabe has no intention of giving up any real power, and he knows by delaying things he will win with the help of his “friends” in South Africa.
The bad news is that the people of Zimbabwe are the ones who will suffer.
Tsvangirai has no power to stop those who terrorize the country, or to control the plunder of Zimbabwe’s farms by Mugabe’s cronies, or even to change policies so companies can keep their mining industry open: when gold mines shut down because they can’t pay electric bills or pay their workers, something is very wrong.
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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. She blogs at MakaipaBlog.
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6 users commented in " Zimbabwe suffers while Mugabe gloats "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackWith articles like these, is it any wonder that Mr Mugabe continues to enjoy the support of SADC leaders and other Africans?
Do any readers hear a Zimbabwean voice in the story above? Zimbabwe has an extremely educated population, articulate and intelligent commentators such as the one whose website I have provided a link to. Yet the discourse about our country seems to be held entirely by foreigners. Every newspaper item you read (except, occasionally, the BBC), quotes commentators in South Africa, London and Washington. Do Zimbabweans not have a say in their own affairs? Do they not have the power to analyse events in their own country?
Mugabe is strengthened by articles such as this, where dialogue about my country is held by outsiders for outside consumption. Do not pretend you care for me, do not even pretend you feel for the thousands who are dying of cholera in this country or the other hundreds of thousands who are starving even as I write. This battle, if we were to read anything into the way my country is reported upon, is between Mugabe and outsiders and the people are footnote.
We now know outsiders don’t care, they have their fight with Mugabe regarding the white people he brutalised as he stole their farms. We are the grass that is suffering as the elephants fight. Spare us your tears and admit that you are only navel-gazing, writing your stories only for each other out there in the west, to gloat over the suffering of our people, pointing and laughing at the destruction wrought on us by this madman.
The comment from Munya is so right… I DON`T CARE, they destroyed there own country and they don`t deserve my pity or help…. this is a African problem that requires an African solution. The west needs to get out of Africa for good. Stop all Aid to Africa NOW!!!
Evil man, you ought to thank your stars you were privileged to be born white. In Zimbabwe, there is not much the ordinary people can do because there is just no respect for human rights and its so easy to die. Open your mouth and you are killed immediately. People just want peace and to live. But the regime is merciless, believe it or not. But whats the point in trying to explain to a racist, heartless know it all like yourself. I wish one it were possible to change places with just one person from Zimbabwe, then you’ll learn to eat your words you devil.
I tried to read Nancy Reyers’ comments/report in the context of what the three commentators wrote in reponse but I feel I missed some “between the lines” meaning. Either they do not want to understanding Nacy’s point of view or that Nancy has no business writing about Zimbabwe. May be, may be not. But it is always better to learn from such reports and as I understand it, the blogging media.
At this stage of Zimbabwe’s political develoment, it seems to me very important that we all apply our minds to the issues at hand, namely collapse of civil society as a direct result of poor and lack of political management systems, the high level of political deprivation, the desire to make up for lost opportunities to accummilate, greed and lack of respect for other human beings. In short the effects of the psychology of deprivation.
The major problem of Zimbabwe and most countries on the African continent together with those categorized as the “developing democracies” is political under-development which started during the colonial period. The majority of the respective local populations were excluded from participating in national, regional and local politics as it shaped the “modern society” in the 18th to the 20th centuries. After political de-colonization process, liberation parties seem to have continued to underdevelop the population in the political context too in that participatory democracy was not fully understood and applied. The view was that liberation leaders have a monopoly on political knowledge and wisdom. They cannot be wrong. But the fact is, by monopolising power and refusing political diversity, they under-developed the political psyche of their nationals. Mass or Povo mentalities were promoted through through the new idea that governments provide everything for free. They placed upon themselves the very burden that the colonialist seems to have taken pride in sholdering, i.e. to be the civilizer of the nationals by treating all like children and inmature masses.
Hence the poor level of understanding of the dynamics of civil society and government as predicated and shaped by the European model through the colonial offices.
Now a chance to expand the population’s political senses is again retarded by self centered political mentalities. Opposition is an enemy not a checks- and- balance set-up.
Lets look at ourselves critically and accept where we are wrong and it will be the correction of our errors.
Nancy is partly stating the output of these deprivations if I understood her article 50%.
Munye says that we should “hear” the voice of Zimbabweans.
Ah, but how do you do that, when reporters are banned, and even NGO’s are walking a fine line under Mugabe’s supervision?
My friends in Zimbabwe are afraid to write, knowing that their mail and emails are monitored by the government.
My friend, a teacher, had to hide her brother years ago from the government because he was a democracy advocate. He is now safe in South Africa. Another friend, a nun, had her HIV clinic destroyed in “operation take out the trash”. A third friend, also a nun, had her convent also destroyed by that act of destruction.
As for Mupuri, he forgot that Zimbabwe was only second to South Africa in a well educated population, good natural resources, and a decent infrastructure that allowed them to use these resources to get jobs…even now, China and South Africa are cooperating, hoping to pick up the pieces when Mugabe leaves.
Mugabe is a thug. Remove him, and Zimbabwe will be another South Africa or Kenya or Botswana.
I believe that Mugabe should have left the office at the end of his second term either for good or as a strategy to measure his popularity and also his performance. He could then have come back for one term after a political sabatical. Why do I hold such a view? Well I held it then and I will always hold the principle of a limited period of service for prime ministers and or presidents of countr ies and political parties including voluntary associations.
This principle I believe allows the development of democratic institutions in that it facilitates the process of change and growth at the same time it removes the tendency of the population to believe in the idea of a “great leader”. The end result is the political growth and maturity of the general population.
May be let us now point out some aspects of the developmental process that the three countries of Southern Africa could be said to have gone through.
For sometime to come most people will hold the view that Botswana and South Africa are model state democracies for Africa. Remeber some held the same belief about Zimbabwe. While I have reservations of such a view, I would accept that there is something to admire and use as comparison both as a way of learning how political parties development and how past political cultures can influence the general development of a country.
My hope is that Zimbabwe will pick up again as it is a historical fact that all nations have had catastrophic political events in their histories.
I will start at looking at national political stability as a position or situation where there is a controlled and moderate conflict of political ideas. Politicians in such states recognize and accept to differ and that political parties argue and debate on social and economic issues without reverting to violence and the physical attack of opponents.
Botswana has had political stability based on the fact that the ruling party has a massive following compared to the opposition and as such there has not yet developed a potential alternative government in waiting. This may develop as time goes on. In South Africa after 1994, the same phenomenon seems to have occurred in that the ANC held an extensive majority and it may also be sometime before there is a balance of political power.
When we look at Zimbabwe up to 1999, Zanu had the same massive membership support. It would appear that when the first post-colonial party governments took over, they had political monopoly. Could it be the reason why sometime ago, liberation parties of Southern Africa took the view that there was need to hold a conference to discuss and consolidate their grip on state governments. It is almost a given truth, so the leaders seem to believe, that these parties must retain the control of government for a very very long time.
This is what I mean by political under-development.
While some may hold the view that Zimbabwe was second to South Africa in terms of education, I would say that South Africa had raw “bantu education” and Rhodesia then had a higher breed of “bantu education. The effects of their respective education systems is evidenced by the diferrence in the work ethics of their respective populations. It would appear to me that book education was not enough when it came to the culture of running the modern state, for it lacked the input of the culture of participatory democracy. No matter the level of education, if one is not cultured into a given social system, they are likely to fail where they are to operate such a new system. Its really a systemic failure.
Are we in Zimbabwe developing the relevant culture that bonds well with the education so as to operate the modern state.
The termination or removal of Mugabe’s rule is not the end of the Zimbabwe problem though it will create political space to allow the development of political stability through a balance of power. I would like to see MDC rule for a term or two, fail at the polls and Zanu or another party come in. again fail at the polls and alternate four or five times with no violence when there is change of government.
The politician will know that he or she can be removed from power for not performing and the population will know that they can remove a politician by means of the vote whenever they fail to deliver. That to me is part of political maturity and participatory democracy.
What Munya and others are calling for is a discussion and debate on the Zimbabwean Issue. Unfortunately we all tend to have angry responses likely our political party leaders.
I still say angry or not, lets develop the culture of debate for it is an essential part of democracy and its institutions.
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