Grace Mutandwa

Give me an armoured car and open the borders

My daughter says every home should have been built with a bunker.Someone I used to consider a friend thinks the brutal deaths taking
place in the country are "absolutely normal" because according to him we got our independence through the barrel of the gun so in his view
any change has to be sealed by blood.

My daughter is not mad. My former friend might actually be on the verge of madness. At 18 my daughter does not feel safe in her home anymore. We have
seen evidence of petrol bombed houses. At times I think the whole country has gone mad. Inflation must now be above two or three million. We carry around billions of worthless paper called money and it does not buy much. You need more than a trillion Zimbabwean dollars to buy just one Greenback.

And on top of that we now have a one-man presidential run-off. We do make history in everything we do. Zimbabwe is a country of such beauty but right now it is brutal in equal measure. On the 27th of June we are all supposed to go and vote for our sovereignty. We have no choice in what we want or whom we want. We are voting for our own survival.

I used to watch the goings on in Burma on television but now what the people of Burma have been going through is on our doorstep. The whole world is condemning the violence and brutality going on as President Robert Mugabe campaigns in the one man election. Our government of course is not bothered that we have become a pariah. They do not care that no-one in the international community will recognise the results of this run-off.

Even Africa is baulking at the level of brutality going on in Zimbabwe, right under the noses of African observors.My daughter is right. Every home should be built with a bunker. But this would work only if the country was at war with another country or some rebel group but it is not. In such a situation we would all be reasonably expecting to be bombed. What we need are open borders and armoured vehicles to escape the current war against the people.

Zimbabwe has become a country where you can be snatched on your way to work and your body will be found some days later at times. A person walking to the neighbourhood shops to buy bread can be diverted to a ruling party political rally or to put up campaign posters. This is a country that used to be largely described as Christian. Even some of the leaders profess to being God-fearing, but over the past few Sundays we have had people asked to
leave church and join rallies nearby. Opposition leaders are in hiding. More people are staying home in the evenings because it is not safe to venture out. Even during the day you leave home only because you have to go to work.

State radio, television and newspapers are full of hate speech. It takes a very brave person to listen to the radio, watch television or read the papers. The blatant propaganda is hard for any sensible person to stomach let alone believe. Bombarding people with advertisements that are hard to believe and electronic programmes that assume that people are halfwits can only ensure that people continue to look for alternative news and information sources.

Anyone who believes that everyone wearing regalia of a single party is a supporter has to have their head examined. Cars are plastered with posters of a single party - the ruling party. Zimbabweans are a clever people. They catch on fast and they know how to survive in tricky situations. Singing and chanting at a rally that you have been forced to attend at times is a small price to pay for your safety.

This might be the time to ask for divine intervention because all the world can do is look on and wring their hands.

Posted at 14:25 27 June 2008 by Grace Mutandwa  |  Comments[1]

Judges and Fudges

There's a right way and a wrong way to approach a cordon of Zimbabwean riot police. It's not clever for example to don an MDC t-shirt and ask the plod for the results of the Presidential election.

I usually try and carry it off with a self-confident swagger, as if a line of big cops in crash helmets and heavy boots carrying nasty sticks is an everyday hurdle. I try to look like a man who has proper business in Zimbabwe's High Court, rather than what the state media portrays me as: a colonialist who is sabotaging Zimbabwe's economy because he wants to restore white supremacism. As I reach the thick blue line I manage a cheerful:

"Good morning! How are you sirs?",

in the Zimbabwean style. This usually elicits some tentatively cheery responses and a gap in the cordon big enough to walk through. And the technique works today.

I note that there are no officers in the line, which is good as it means there's nobody to order the cops to start hitting me. But then again if they do start hitting me there's no one to tell them to stop.

Enough bravado. The risks we pampered British diplomats run are pretty modest. The worst we see are occasional flashes of temper from the regime's tame media. Last year a columnist said a female colleague of mine might go home in a body bag. The brave man who issued those threats hides behind the pen name Nathaniel Manheru. But beyond bluster of that sort we simply do not share the risks that ordinary Zimbabweans face.

Since 29 March, the regime has launched its youth militias - drunken mobs of indoctrinated thugs - on the poor rural people who dared to vote for the opposition on 29 March. We can't corroborate many of the rumours of violence we hear. We are certain that 150 people have been attacked and at least one killed. And we fear that the real toll of abuse could be much worse. Yes, we diplomats get it easy.

Anyway, back to the High Court. Inside the police cordon is a scrum of journalists, observers and lawyers all struggling to get into a tiny room to hear a judge rule whether Zimbabwe's election results should be released, more than two weeks after the people voted.

A long wait. Boiling hot. The judge appears, flings a copy of a written judgement at the lawyers and runs for it. The judgement is 15 pages long - enough reading time for the judge to escape the building. It says that the election authorities must act legally, but that the courts cannot question the authorities' decisions. So if the authorities want to delay announcing the election indefinitely, that's fine. It's a fudge by a judge who's been bought; and then threatened.

Outside the court, the scrum re-engages. I hare across the road to avoid the cameras and trip over a man sitting on the roadside selling apples (20 Million dollars each). He doesn't have any doughnuts, unfortunately:

"What is going to happen to us, sir? I am waiting and waiting and I cannot sleep. I am sure I will die if we carry on like this."

Sadly he's probably right.

Posted at 11:13 18 April 2008 by Philip Barclay  |  Comments[5]

Donkeys and Democratic Space

Easter Friday in Zimbabwe. It’s hot enough for flabby Englishmen like me to break sweat. Elvis the driver (seriously, that’s his name) is hammering around the uranium mountains and malarial valleys of Masvingo. We’re monitoring how ready Zimbabwe is for elections on 29 March.

We scream past a donkey plodding along the road, stoic under its sack of soya beans. Zim’s a country of worshippers and many today will be thinking of a particular Palestinian donkey carrying a man to his death. For the early Christians it was a knife-edge moment between palm-waving hope one day and injustice and despair the next. It’s a neat metaphor for Zimbabwe this week. People are visualising a better future, but don’t know if they’ll ever see it. And all that hope will make the despair all the deeper if Zimbabwe carries on down the road to Golgotha after 29 March.

For now it’s wonderful to see a country where people are engaged and alive. We pass an election rally in a field four miles from nowhere. Once Elvis has found the brake pedal, I get out to have a good look. 200 people seated in a neat circle. No police. No coercion. No youth militias. Just people voluntarily meeting to talk politics. The programme is varied – first some humorous chants about the state of the nation. Then some singing: "the fist which liberated us is now a hammer destroying the nation". The words sound grim in English translation, but there must be some extra spice in the Shona, because everyone’s in stitches. Members of the audience spontaneously spring up into the space inside the ring to offer a few words, an amusing variant on a chant, or some nifty dance steps. Their contributions are greeted with a deep ululation that sets the heart racing.

It occurs to me that the space inside the circle is the embodiment of one of those banal pieces of jargon diplomats like. It is a democratic space. And people are enjoying using it for the first time in a long time.

Then the candidate, a small serious man in his forties, gets up to speak. His delivery is reminiscent of the ‘I have a dream speech’: slow sentences, long pauses populated with moans of appreciation from the crowd, building to a cresceno: the country is hungry and dependent on food from Malawi (the crowd laughs, Zimbabwean farmers used to feed Malawians with their surpluses). People are dieing and people are leaving. But the Government says it’s stronger than ever. Seems like the Government is at its best when the country is at its worst. This point brings everyone to their feet – the candidate looks like he had a bit more to say, but a sustained bout of singing persuades him to call it a day.

As I leave, a group of women wandering down the road point at me and say: "That party has a fat white man. We should go to their rally". In the interests of balance I decide that I’d better go and stand outside the other parties’ rallies too, so everybody gets the benefit or disadvantage of the fat white man effect.

Zimbabwe feels like a country on the brink of change, but during the long sticky afternoon – no cafes, or cokes, or doughnuts for 100kms! - I hear from plenty of people, who’ll believe it when they see it:

Eli is a wily old trade unionist: "They know every trick in the book. They’ve rigged three elections in a row – there’s no way they’re going to give up power now. They’ll win this election by cheating in a way we haven’t even thought of."

Peter is a parliamentary candidate: "I am well ahead in my constituency, but all the traditional leaders have been bought. They all have cars and electricity. They are telling their people that if they vote for me, their houses will be burned and they’ll be exiled."

Raymond is a headmaster. He’s been taking part in the Government’s official voter education programme: "I think it’s good that they’re trying to educate the voters, but they have excluded me from the programme now, because I keep telling people that they are free to vote how they want and that nobody can monitor a secret ballot. That’s not a message I’m allowed to deliver in the rural areas".

Last stop of the day is dinner with a (ZANU-PF) MP standing for re-election. While I’m catching up on my calorie deficit, he’s in philosophical mood. "Our time may be up. I don’t think I can hold onto my seat. We have to admit that people are tired and hungry and some of them are angry. Of course, our problems date back to what the IMF did to us in the 1980s and that nasty letter your Clare Short wrote to our President in 1997. It might be time to move to the UK and join my family..…." We carry on into the evening. We don’t agree about the causes of Zimbabwe’s problems, but he’s an honest man and he knows that his party is facing the lash of a furious electorate on 29 March.

So what do I think? I think it’s fantastic that the Foreign Office is letting us out of the office for two weeks to assess and understand this election. There were security worries and the usual money shortages, but we’ve got past them and are busily getting waist-deep into this wonderful country and its weird election. Some other Embassies haven’t made it out of Harare’s coffee shops yet.

I also think Zimbabwe is truly hungry for a change of direction. The leaders who took it to independence are revered for that, but people want them – or anybody! – to start running a country which creates jobs and well-being and stops the punishments of abuse, hunger and premature death. But I have to agree with Eli, Peter and Raymond that there are powerful people who have no intention of leaving power, other than in a box. (This a perfect balanced Foreign Office answer – looking clever, but not committing myself to a prediction of the result!)

So that’s Zimbabwe, at Easter, less than a week away from the polls. The man on the Palestinian donkey came back from the dead. Sadly the recovery Zimbabwe needs is similarly biblical in scale. And given the barriers put in their way, it will be an Easter miracle if the people of Zimbabwe are allowed the Government that they would choose in a free vote.

Posted at 12:45 25 March 2008 by Philip Barclay  |  Comments[2]