, more so the leadership.
Most of the country’s higher institutions of learning are in dire need of repair and renovation .The infrastructure is not being maintained, especially the halls of residence while the grounds have been neglected. Most of the institutions are experiencing shortages of lecture rooms, textbooks and staff-the list of shortages is endless. This appalling state mirrors the minister responsible plus the man who appointed him.
The country’s health delivery system has deteriorated beyond imagination. The hospitals are understaffed, and there is shortage of essential drugs throughout the country. Provincial hospitals have run out of blankets and sheets, thus patients have to bring their own. Hospitals have deteriorated such that they have become a health hazard to the patients. Our leadership’s shortcomings are reflected quite well in the health sector, they have lost it all.
The state’s correction facilities have also not been spared the neglect and are in a state of decay. Inmates are surviving on bare essentials; food shortages are the order of the day. The dressing is pathetic with most of them dressed in tatters and patched clothes. Some of the clothes require an expert to distinguish between the original material of the garment and the patches. The people in charge of the prisons, just like the people in leadership have failed to deliver. What’s the logic of imposing an army officer to run the prisons when they are other experienced and capable prison officers?
As Zimbabweans lets unite and save our destiny before the decay consumes us.
SAVIOUS HARI, Gweru
shoes
song poem by chenjerai hove
baba,
there will be broken glass
on our street.
baba, buy me shoes,
so i can walk safely
on the broken glass
of our street.
baba,
there are too many
broken hearts on our streets.
baba, buy me shoes
so i can step
on the broken glass
of their hearts
without hurting my feet.
baba,
there are broken hearts
on our streets:
buy me soft shoes
so i can walk
on their broken dreams
without hurting them.
baba,
buy me shoes
to walk to my hard destiny,
a destiny full of thorns.
buy me shoes
baba,
so i can run
through a tomorrow
full of guns.
A challenge to Matibenga
EDITOR – The MDC’s Lucia Matibenga’s recent attack on exiles labelling them desk-top activists and cyber-revolutionaries, saying they were “quick to criticise those who are in the trenches while they themselves were doing nothing and remained tucked away safely, thousands of miles from tyranny”, cannot go unchallenged.
This was an ill judged and arrogant outburst of a leader who has lost vision and is just frustrated by lack of progress in Zimbabwean politics.
Where were you Matibenga when we were being arrested in the early 90s when we were taking Zanu (PF) head on in Chitungwiza, Harare, many parts of Zimbabwe? Where were you, when we were being battered by the regime? You should appreciate that we were the ones who prepared the way for future Zimbabwe politics by being first in campaigning for the defeat of Zanu in Harare South, campaigning in areas that used to be no go areas for the opposition in Chitungwiza when Mhashu was running for mayoral post. Isn’t it us who opened the way for opposition to challenge Zanu (PF) in Mbare when Vena Chitumba won the first opposition council city in Mbare. That time you were still serving your master.
You used to laugh at us that when you used to say “vana ava vanopenga” when we were fighting against the regime. The MDC leadership should take this serious because this is the direct insult of activists in exile who are assisting the party financially in the struggle.
The leadership should not be scared of constructive criticism but should look at the value of the criticism. Some leaders have lost sight and need replacement with young blood, who have new ideas as they have proved through Matibenga that they have failed.
Your statement is an insult for democratic and dedicated Zimbabwe cadres who have been victims of political violence. We came here to regroup and strategize and we are about to complete that mission. We are now preparing to come back for the struggle because we started it and we are the ones who will finish it. Nkala has called you cowards and he is correct.
DURAN RAPOZO (Founding member of MDC in UK), Manchester
Murder of a nation
EDITOR – In 1980 veteran Zimbabwean Aaron Mutiti warned, unheeded: “Unless the people of this country are vigilant they are in for a rude shock. Family life, religious life and economic life as we know it will progressively disappear if Mugabe gets to power.”
Last month union leaders were viciously beaten and seriously hurt. South Africa’s Foreign Affairs spokesman Vincent Hlongwane reacted: “We are monitoring developments with interest, but we always maintain that Zimbabwe needs to address its own problems …”
On 19 October during a House of Lords debate on Zimbabwe the distinguished former intelligence operative Baroness Park of Monmouth detailed how even agriculture in communal areas is being destroyed by Mugabe’s army. “In Matabeleland the brutality of the soldiers and their absolute power has brought back memories of the murderous destruction wrought by the Fifth Brigade in the 1980s. Once more the people are entirely at the mercy of the troops, they are starving …… 364 000 school children and 190 000 of the chronically ill are expected to die. We are looking not at the death of a nation but at its murder by its own rulers.”
There is only one entity, the Government of South Africa, in concert with anyone it chooses – SADC, the African Union, the United Nations, whoever – which can stop this calculated and escalating genocide. The previous South African regime halted Ian Smith in his tracks. The present South African government certainly has the brains and the power to swiftly bring Mugabe to heel just as the ANC and colleagues successfully plotted the overthrow of apartheid.
How can South Africa any longer tolerate the anguished deaths by starvation, brutality and disease of hundreds of thousands of their tormented neighbours? Can dying schoolchildren really be expected to address their own problems?
JUDITH TODD, Cape Town
Makwavarara snubs Parliament
EDITOR – the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) has consistently lambasted the Chairperson of the Commission running the City of Harare, Sekesai Makwavarara, for mismanagement, corruption and misuse of power.
In a move that has confirmed the above Ms Makwavarara is probably going to be charged for contempt of parliament after she snubbed calls for her to give oral evidence to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communication on three consecutive meetings.
She was supposed to provide the committee with highlights of the state of the rehabilitation of roads and traffic lights in Harare. Evidence abound that social service delivery has collapsed and continue to decline to unprecedented levels in Harare since she took over in December 2004.
Makwavarara led the onslaught against residents with her “Operation Murambatsvina” that has caused untold suffering to residents. Waste management in the City has collapsed with sewerage running everywhere in most suburbs.
Roads are heavily decorated with potholes and as the rain season is approaching the levels of deterioration cannot be over emphasized.
All these challenges facing the City of Harare emanate from the incapacity of the commission Chairperson to run the city.
The committee has threatened to charge her with contempt of parliament if she fails to avail herself in the next meeting. It remains to be seen whether Leo Mugabe the chairperson of the Parliamentary committee has the political will and clout to convict Makwavarara after many have failed to oust the Chombo-backed city misfit.
The honorable Roy Bennett, MDC`s Treasurer General and a distinguished leader of the movement was locked behind bars after frivolous and vexatious charges of contempt of parliament and if charges of contempt are raised, residents demand that a sentence be delivered on her.
Makwavarara has committed a serious offence that calls for a stiffer jail sentence. CHRA insists that the lady at Town House must be booted out together with her fellow puppets.
MFUNDO MLILO, CHRA Advocacy and Training Intern, Harare