The hostels are in shambles with no locks, doors or windows, and we live in fear of an outbreak of cholera because there is no water. The paining thing is we have paid huge amounts for accommodation.
The university is busy buying cars and not attending to critical issues.
We have heard our lecturers complaining about allowances and victimisations by the acting VC.
We fear lectures may not go on for a long time if something is not done to bring a qualified, mature and responsible VC. The acting VC has demonstrated immaturity in student affairs.
We suspect funds are being misused and embezzled by the current management.
Where are the politicians of Mash Central and the university council, as this arrogant man destroys the institution?
We appeal to the minister responsible, Prime Minister and President (Chancellor) to urgently appoint a substantive VC before the institution is brought to its knees.
As students we now live in fear that lecturers may withdraw their services at any time, yet we paid hard-earned fees.
WORRIED STUDENTS, Bindura University
The sly old fox has outfoxed us all
EDITOR Why do I have the feeling we have been totally cuckolded?
A nicely packaged GNU, all seemingly running along nice and smoothly, even if rather erratically, but at least its a better option than what we had six months ago?
Schools have reopened, there are goods on the shelves, tobacco is being planted, mines are opening gradually…it all seems rather too good to be true.
But, but, but…is this a dream or is it for real? Is there another much more sinister scenario emerging.
Mugabe has always been too clever for the rest of us mere mortals; he has sniped us at every turn; he is a master tactician, and I suspect we are stool pigeons yet again. Not even stool pigeons, but just plain sitting ducks.
Keep the people happy, give them food, give them education for their kids, let them make a couple of US dollars here or there and they will start to think they have the found the cherry on the cake.
What they have failed to realise is that with a cherry cake, all the cherries traditionally sink to the bottom.
So lets smooth the populace with false hope, lets encourage the toothless opposition PM to tour the world asking for funding. Lets bury the real problems amidst a plethora of largesse.
Smoke screen after smoke screen. Do not trust that man Mugabe. When he is quiet and smug, you should have learned by now to fear him the most.
What have we been asking for up to now? Lets get rid of that ghastly Gono, lets eject that treacherous Tomana, lets get the free press up and running? Has any of it actually happened?
Oh no, not even one concession has been made with those three most important grievances.
Yes, he allowed the release of some abductees at least the ones whose names we remember. What about the others who have total anonymity because they are the nobodies, the faceless, the voiceless. Who will remember anyone except for Justina Mukoko and Gift whatever his name is?
How many real issues have been glossed over; how about those 29,000 ghost teachers? What exactly are they teaching the folk in the rural areas? Not spelling and maths, you can be quite sure of that! Are they not possibly a support base for a quick, annihilating 2010 election?
Picture this scenario, if you dare.
The support base for Zanu (PF)s election campaign was 1.2 million blissfully ignorant rural voters. Add to that a further 400,000 re-settlement farmers and you have enough votes to win an election,
The opposition is losing 7,000 thinking people every day to the lure of South Africa, now without any visa requirements.
Yes, allow those perfect gentlemen their democratic victory. Te West loves a picture book solution, an Alice In Wonderland answer to an ugly, festering problem.
Mr Tsvangirai, may I respectfully make a suggestion: instead of touring the first world in your Savile Row suit, come home to Zimbabwe, don your khakis and get back to basics.
Your victory will not be won on the elegant playing fields known only to Obama and Clinton; it will be won in the dusty villages of rural Zimbabwe.
The desperate Buheras, the disease-riddled Bingas, the malnourished Mazowes, the arid and unfriendly Masvingos.
Mr Tsvangirai, come home and get to grips with the people who voted for you, who gave their lives for you, who were tortured and maimed with you.
We need you here to counteract the superb job that your old adversary RGM is undertaking right now, whipping the rural people into shape for an election that could easily be held pretty soon after congress in December, yes, or as soon as March 2010.
It is a forbidding thought and not one that we would wish to entertain, but one that has possibly already been put into place. Watch this space!
MOTHER DUCK, by email
Sanctions, sanctions and more sanctions, please
EDITOR So much has been said about sanctions by the West against Zimbabwe and I am also reading that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is on a mission to persuade the US, Britain and Europe to remove the sanctions against Zimbabwe. As a concerned Zimbabwean citizen I wanted to know two things about these sanctions: What these sanctions are, and what the demands are by those who imposed the sanctions.
My research revealed that the sanctions are an arms embargo on Zimbabwe; a travel ban on individuals in Zanu (PF) who are believed to be behind the violence against Zimbabwean citizens, those who act above the laws of the country and those who violate conventional human rights such as freedom from torture, which is an absolute human right, and a freeze on financial accounts (held in the western banks and financial institutions) of all the banned people.
On point two, what I found was that those imposing the sanctions are saying: Stop killing Zimbabweans for voting the way they want. In other words, the demand is: stop beating and killing Zimbabweans for choosing the president of their country. They are also saying: Stop picking up citizens from their homes in the dead of the night, for it is against the laws of your country to do so; stop torturing Zimbabweans that you arrest or kidnap whether in the dead of the night or in broad daylight (people deserve respect); dont starve the people of Zimbabwe, especially when we (the West) give you food to feed the nation and you should stop evicting/killing the farmers who produce the food that feeds the nation.I trust my research is in line with the general perception and given that this is the true scenario, surely Zimbabwe does not need more arms as it is surrounded by friendly nations that are all part of a friendly bloc, SADC. So any embargo on arms is ineffectual. Zimbabwe is now 29 years into self-rule and under the same leader. So we cannot say this or that leader spoiled it for us; it is just the same one.
I fail to fathom the impact that a travel ban on an individual would have on the socio-political economy of a country. I need help on this.
Similarly, what economic impact is created by freezing a Zanu (PF) politburo members US$6m account? Absolutely nothing.
I have heard some ill-considered arguments that the MFI and the World Bank have sanctions on Zimbabwe. Rubbish! These two institutions represent the first order of capitalism in its true sense. They are there to make money. If Zimbabwe can pay its debts, these institutions would continue to lend to Zimbabwe irrespective of who is in power in that country.
As a Zimbabwean, I am wondering why it should take sanctions by foreigners against the powers that be in Zimbabwe to ensure that Zimbabweans realise their sovereignty and are treated with dignity by their own fellow citizens.
If the sanctions are an attempt to ensure that Zimbabweans are given back their dignity, respect, autonomy and freedoms, then I can hear clamours of sanctions, sanctions and more sanctions from all corners of Zimbabwe.
On reflection if indeed Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is touring America and Europe advocating for the dropping of sanctions whose corner is he fighting in? The truth is that Morgan Tsvangirai did not impose the smart sanctions and as such he hasnt got the power to have them lifted.
Only those in Nkayi, Gwanda, Masvingo, Chimanimani, Mudzi, Zvimba, Mtoko, Silobela, Chipinga, Chirundu and the rest of Zimbabwe have the power to say Free at last! Free at last! Only then will the world will listen.
The future of Zimbabwe is not going to be determined by those who are dying off but by those who are living.
My message to those in power is that you should never take people for granted.
Is there someone out there who can tell the people of Zimbabwe the truth about the sanctions? JOHN HURUVA, London
The difference between the basket from the East and West
EDITOR Zimbabweans have completely seen which direction is of help to the country. MDC President Tsvangirai recently took a basket to the West and it was filled with US$73m.
The truth is that the West is and has been the hope of Zimbabwe until our colleagues in the government decided to face the East. From the time when the president of Zanu (PF) took his basket to the East, it was always filled with bullets and AKs.
Last time the President took a plane to the East, the news we received left us in horrific fear. I was in Cape Town when the controversial consignment arrived in Durban.
Firstly, I knew His Excellency was in China. Perhaps our fellow black friends knew that Zimbabwe had a severe food shortage.
To my surprise, the ship was loaded with guns. Its war now in the country.
Apart from the present of guns we received, the first lady was involved in a fight with a journalist and our big sister was left in Hong Kong.
Zimbabweans thought the first lady had gone to the East, perhaps the basket would be filled with ARVs.
Normally, the issues of HIV/AIDS are mostly tackled by the mothers. Im not saying man cannot do that, but we expect motherly love to fight the epidemic.
We will continue to mourn our beloved mother Susan Tsvangirai, whose love is still being felt not only among MDC supporters but the entire country.
The country completely lost a first lady with vision.
Zimbabwe is in a critical social and economic limbo. Therefore, we need to use all directions to source money to rebuild the country. If it is genuine power-sharing, when Prime Minister Tsvangirai went to the West, presumably President Mugabe should have taken the basket to his East and Mutambara should have followed suit.
Whoever is advising President Mugabe, please tell him that Zimbabwe needs money to rebuild the country, not guns to destroy the nation. We want to see which leader is capable of feeding the nation.
Even an unborn baby can now sense that MDC is capable.
I appeal to all Zimbabwean whether at home or in the diaspora to start mobilising for the constitution that will provide a free and a fair platform for elections.
We need to be careful. China is very good at looting the little resources available and extremely good at dumping.
VICKSON MUNDIA, MDC (T) Vice-Secretary, South Africa External Assembly
Filthy attack by people we sheltered
EDITOR Zimbabweans staying in South Africa are joining South Africans in commemorating the historic June 16, 2009 with an engorged heart.
We honour and salute the gallant children of Soweto who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of South Africa, but we received a rude shock recently when Johannesburg council workers drenched young Zimbabweans sleeping outside the Central Methodist Church in Joburg with fetid human excreta.
These are the youths of Zimbabwe who ran away from home for their lives after staging spectacular forms of resistance to Robert Mugabes game of oppression.
They did it in the same spirit as the 1976 Soweto uprising.
The only disparity here is that the tyrant was white in South Africa, but is black in Zimbabwe.
This putrid attack is the worst form of xenophobic molestation ever inflicted on an African by fellow Africans. Soaking sleeping, distressed and shelterless victims of political persecution with human excretion is worse than setting us ablaze. There is no justification whatsoever for such idiotic and primitive acts of self-hatred.
Scores of MK operatives fleeing apartheid venom fled through Zimbabwe, including Tsietsi and Thabo Mbeki. We neither burnt them alive nor drenched them with foul smelling mixtures piped from lavatories. We sheltered and fed them. We never banished them to repatriation centres and church buildings.
It is astonishing that no-one was arrested in connection with the reeking and stinking attack, despite the fact that perpetrators are not difficult to trace.
What message is being sent here? It is also interesting to note that the bizarre attack never received roaring prominence in the media, as some of us expected since the event is indisputably newsworthy. One daily and a weekend paper (The Zimbabwean, ed.) carried the story.
We, however, forgive the perpetrators even though we expect justice to prevail.
SIBANENGI DUBE, MDC SA Publicity and Information Secretary