A letter from the Diaspora

The next 30 days will surely be a test of Mugabes authority; will he be able to persuade his supporters on the ground, the army, the police and the hated CIO security agents, that the GNU is a political reality which they must accept? Or will he once again introduce all the usual red herrings of sanctions and British involvement to muddy the waters? The MDC have now added the name of George Charamba to the list of unacceptable Zanu (PF) officials. Will Charamba now tone down his hate speech and will ZBC/TV and the government controlled Herald begin to report more fairly- or at all – on the MDC? The next 30 days will be a test not only of Mugabes honesty but also of Tsvangirais strength of purpose.

For me and the thousands of others who signed the AVAAZ online petition to ban Zimbabwe from the Kimberley Process, the shock of the week was the failure to expel Zimbabwe for the blatant human rights abuses committed at the Chiadzwa diamond fields. Despite all the credible documentary evidence of murder and brutality committed against Zimbabwean citizens, despite clear evidence of the massacre of 200 people at Chiadzwa, the Kimberley Process meeting in Namibia failed to expel Zimbabwe or even to impose a six-month ban on diamond sales.

Instead, they will send a monitor to Chiadzwa to check up on the human rights situation and oversee the production and sales procedures!

Liberias Minister of Mines had visited Chiadzwa back in July to see for himself and he spoke movingly about how the diamond trade had funded the bloody wars that have killed thousands in his own country and in the DRC. None of that made any difference to the Kimberley Process decision; in blatant defiance of their own rules, Zimbabwes blood diamonds will continue to be sold, enriching army generals, ministers of state and all the other assorted crooks who support Robert Mugabes continued stay in power.

The business community in South Africa appears to be equally indifferent to human rights considerations as they gobble up more and more businesses in Zimbabwe. Today we read that a Johannesburg based firm called the New Reclamation Group will form a joint venture with Zimbabwe to mine the Chiadzwa diamond deposits. The New Reclamation Group is a scrap metal company partly owned by Old Mutual plc, another South African company whose business interests include a sizeable share holding in Zimpapers, the owners of The Herald and Chronicle, whose hate speech and pernicious propaganda have propped up the evil Zanu (PF) regime for decades and kept the Zimbabwean public misinformed on every issue from crucial election issues to horrific human rights abuses.

Leaving morality aside, as the South Africans so obviously have, perhaps the forthcoming 2010 World Cup with all its potential business opportunities will convince them that their support for the geriatric dictator is a serious error of judgement? Meanwhile, South Africa continues to buy up our impoverished and desperate country where 50 per cent of pupils cannot afford to write their O level exams this year because the fees are just unaffordable and half the population is living on food aid. Id say they are very pertinent issues and not likely to be dealt with in the next 30 days. PAULINE HENSON, by e-mail

Put the agreement into practice

EDITOR – The Global Political Agreement (GPA) was signed to give Zimbabweans peace, economic growth, political freedom and social cohesion. It is a year now since the inception of the GPA and the most pertinent issues in the agreement remain unresolved.

As President Mugabe continues with cheap politicking, the world wonders whether Zanu (PF) genuinely believes in this agreement. While it is commendable that the agreement has brought economic revival, it remains to be seen whether Zanu (PF) is willing to seriously engage and stop perpetrating political violence. Fundamentally, media laws should be revamped, police and army should refrain from harassing civilians and all principals in the GPA should share power proportionately in government.

The MDC should draw a line to stop human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. The MDC leaders should only participate in a government that represents the peoples will. It is now time to remind Zanu (PF) that they can no longer continue monopolising power in Zimbabwe. FRAZER MUZONDO, Milton Keynes

Something is rotten

EDITOR – If discussions on the two-hour-long Sunday morning programme aired on Radio Zimbabwe weekly are a reflection of Zimbabwe as a nation, then, as Hamlet said: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. In this case, something is very rotten in the state of Zimbabwe.

The programme called Ezempilo/Zviri muhupenyu (About Life) discusses and

offers solutions to day to day social problems and is produced and presented

by a well-known broadcaster in Zimbabwean local media circles, Matilda Moyo.

Three weeks ago Moyo introduced a discussion about the reasons that drive

people away from churches. A great number of callers complained of being

sexually harassed by so-called prophets at what are widely known as White

garment churches. At these churches men are said to have dreams and see

visions of women whom they are instructed to take as their wives after they

make this known to the leaders of the sect. It is the rule of the church

they say.

It is bad enough that female members of these churches are being abused and

left at the mercy of these sexual predators disguised as men of God, but

even more shocking is the fact that some of the “women” that are unlucky

enough to be “dreamt” of by the male members their churches are as young as

13 years of age and are being married to men as old as 50 years of age.

Honestly, how in this day and age does a government listen to this programme

on national radio for three weeks in a row and not take action on this

serious injustice to our young people.

On the one hand government and NGOs are pouring millions worth of resources

towards HIV/AIDS prevention and control, on the other government, community

leaders, churches, civic society etc sit back and watch as conditions for

the spread of this disease become even more pronounced. Subsequent weeks on

the programme discussed at length practices at these white garment churches

with many men confessing that they had more than one wife, as many as 15 for

some with the youngest being 13 years of age. The sad reality is that there

is no limit to the number of wives a man can have as long as he continues to

have these “dreams”.

These men claim to have paid dowry (ilobolo/roora) for these girls meaning

they had the full consent of the girls’ parents. What was also clear from

the discussions was that while the men were content with their daughters

being married off at such a tender age, many of the women were fearfully

helpless in the situation. When asked why they were giving their children

away so early, many of them just responded by saying “Mutemo weChurch” (It

is the rule of the church).

This is indeed a rot at the core of the soul of the nation because a country’s youths are its soul. They are the pulse of that nation, the sign of what it has gone through and what it aspires towards. They mirror the kind of leaders a nation has in the spheres of family, community, nationally. If our land is full of 13-year-old pregnant school drop outs, many of them living with or under the threat of contracting HIV/AIDS, what

does this then say about our leaders?

Lets give our young people their fullest right to childhood, the right to education and personal development the right to choose who and when they want to marry, otherwise history will judge us harshly. NYDT, by e-mail

Suffering in a free society

EDITOR – Unless and until we boldly speak out, there will be no one to voice our concerns. Unless we find strength in our unity, we are guaranteed to lose all the battles against the ferocious monster – segregation.

Deep in the marrow of our so-called enlightened society is an epidemic resulting in some parents of children with disabilities thinking that it is not worth sending a physically challenged, visually impaired, mentally handicapped or deaf child to school. Perhaps overwhelmed by the same spirit, our government has over the years not considered the fact that schools providing sound education to the disabled in the country are too few and at times understaffed with properly trained personnel.

From what I know and hear people say, I doubt most people have come to terms with the fact that being denied the fundamental human right of education is what has driven the multitudes into the streets to beg. How or what do you feel when you see little children, during working or school hours, assisting their disabled parents to earn a living?

Among the masses of persons living with disability, there are those who do have the academic merit permitting them to be employed in the various sectors of our economy. These are properly skilled and potentially productive people who, however, remain excluded from the economic mainstream of a socio-economic landscape claiming to be accommodative of all its members. Having been denied employment opportunities that would have otherwise allowed us to fend for ourselves, dependency on impoverished family members has become the most compound form of poverty trap that our social grouping remains ensnared in.

What national legal instrument is in place to ascertain and provide the disabled protection against any form of discrimination?

Fellow citizens with disability, as we go through this transitional phase we need to be extra vigilant.

As we move forward I plead with everyone, more so those holding public offices, to make serious considerations of our much-needed multi-facetted integration. Mindful of the various national and independent institutions addressing a wide range of our diverse needs and concerns, may I use this open letter to reaffirm the proposal put forward by various quotas of having a government ministry to effectively deal with the assorted issues that affect members of our society with disability.

For my part, I live to see people living with disability liberated from the decadent and devastating prejudice, freed from destructive discrimination, and the founding of a society accommodative of, and responsive to the needs of all people. To borrow Nelson Mandelas words, if needs be, this is an ideal for which I am truly prepared to die. MOKHUMI VALELA, by e-mail

Another week, another summit

EDITOR – The SADC has been appallingly slow, despite seeing supra-national economic infrastructures in Europe, to apply the lesson to its own disabled member state.

It has in hand a powerful rationalization tool in the South African rand, already in wide practical use in Zimbabwe.

Intellectual understanding of how modern economies work has clearly been missing among Mugabe and his coterie. They should be clearly instructed that a euro role official for the rand in Zimbabwe would be enormously helpful there and extend a foundation for single currency the sub-continent aims at.

The SADC can thus unite ZimbabweS recovery with greater sophistication of Southern Africas governance.

Keeping in step will be a challenge for Mugabe perhaps even obliging him to admit that rand hegemony takes precedence over the jobs of a president and his central bank governor. In the monetary sphere, the SA Reserve Bank and SADC will hold sway in the proper modern way. RON SCHURINK, Kempton Park