Dear Friends.of the Inclusive Government, my daily trawl through Zim news sources leaves me utterly depressed. The economy is improving, we are told, there is food in the shops and life is getting better for Zimbabweans but unemployment remains in excess of 90%. Does anyone in the so-called Government of National Unity care how the unemployed survive or are they all too busy getting their own share of the spoils? The reality is that the country is in the grip of deep moral decline, the selfishness and downright corruption is present everywhere you look. How is it possible that these foreign delegations can leave after their brief visits without noticing the fact that the once shining capital city is now a pot-holed, insanitary and litter-strewn urban sprawl without water and electricity for days on end, a situation repeated in towns and cities up and down the land? The answer, of course, is that the foreign visitors do not see the reality of life for ordinary Zimbabweans. They spend their time in five star hotels or in their embassies in the affluent northern suburbs, once the preserve of whites but now home to Zimbabwes new black and wealthy elite. Watching Phillip Chiangwas wife showing a BBC reporter round her husbands collection of expensive motors, sixteen of them in all I believe, was to witness the greed and selfishness that dominates Zimbabwes political classes. In answer to a question from the BBC reporter as to whether such conspicuous wealth did not make her feel guilty about the contrast with the poor and dispossessed without a roof over their heads or food in their stomachs, Mrs Chiangwa replied that her husbands wealth was a gift from God. Her husband, Phillip Chiangwa, by the way, is the man who once claimed that membership of Zanu PF had enabled him to become a very wealthy man!
Another, even more glaring contrast between the haves and the have-nots will be demonstrated this Sunday, February 21st in Bulawayo when Robert Mugabe holds an all-night Birthday bash to celebrate his 86th birthday. Matabeleland is in the grip of a terrible drought and starvation looms for the masses of rural folk. Matabelelands capital, Bulawayo, is a city facing an imminent water crisis but this means little to the organisers of the birthday party. They must demonstrate their absolute fealty to the Great Leader or risk losing their own wealth and privilege. So while the residents of Bulawayo face water rationing and hunger in the bleak months ahead, Mugabes guests will tuck into a great feast of nyama from beasts donated by the party faithful. The state-owned press and firms who owe their very survival to the Old Man will queue up to place their obsequious message of congratulation in the Herald and wish him Many more years in which to govern the country he has ruled, some say ruined, for thirty years. 86 candles on a giant birthday cake would take some blowing out even for a man half his age. In a country where life-expectancy is 37 years for men and 34 for women, it is hardly appropriate that one man should celebrate his 86th birthday with such an ostentatious display while his countrymen and women are destined to die before their fortieth birthdays.
What gift is suitable for an 86 year old man, I wonder. Would diamonds be appropriate? Certainly Zimbabwe seems to be awash with the precious stones but none of the wealth from these blood diamonds is trickling down to ordinary Zimbabweans to fund the schools or hospitals or to pay the wages of teachers, nurses and other civil servants surviving on paltry salaries that cannot even meet their monthly service charges for non-existent power and water. This week we have a credible report that a new diamond deposit is being mined on Roy Bennetts old farm in Chimanimani. A Week after the Indigenization and Economic Empowerment regulations are introduced limiting ownership to indigenous Zimbabweans, we hear that it is the Russians who are conducting the mining operations on Charleswood. So now, we have decidedly non-indigenous Russians and Chinese exploiting Zimbabwes natural resources, in partnership no doubt with Zanu PF top chefs and some newly affluent MDC types as well. Economic Empowerment for the already rich while the poor get poorer!
In response to the news this week that the EU has renewed some of their sanctions against Zimbabwe, Mugabe repeated his well-known mantra, We know their attitude, he declared, they dont want anyone, any country in the developing world to make any meaningful strides. We have resources which they envy that belong to us. Confusingly, his spokesman, Rugare Gumbo appeared to contradict that when he said, We are not worried. Its a continuation of the struggle just like the liberation struggleWhy should we worry? How the issue of sanctions can be construed as a continuation of the liberation struggle is beyond me but if Zanu PF and Robert Mugabe are not worried about sanctions, one has to wonder why they are making such an issue about lifting them. Nothing to do with alleviating the poverty of the masses, you can be sure of that, more, I suspect, to do with those blood diamonds.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle, PH. aka Pauline Henson author of Case Closed published in Zimbabwe by Mambo Press, Going Home and Countdown, political detective stories set in Zimbabwe and available from lulu.com
Post published in: Opinions