Read, watch or listen to any of the Zimbabwe government’s mouth pieces and you will feel yourself drowning in a sewer of distortion, bias and brazen untruth.

There must be a lexicon of words and phrases to describe this level of manipulation and blatant fabrication and distortion. I’d appreciate it if readers would share them with me because at the moment I’m struggling to find words adequate to express my disgust.

Anyone familiar with the work of WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise) will know that this group of grassroots activists has practiced and preached the doctrine of non-violent protest for years now. Most recently they gathered in Harare on May 28 to commemorate Africa Day and to protest against the political violence being perpetrated in the weeks leading up to the Presidential run-off election of June 27. In near silence they walked together, holding up placards calling on SADC and others to act on the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Riot police quickly mobilised and arrested 14 of the protesters. It took 17 days and great persistence to gain the release, on bail, of 11 of those arrested. Leaders, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu are still in custody on the spurious claims by the State that these women intend to orchestrate Kenya-style violence ahead of the presidential run-off election on June 27. And pigs too may fly!

It is exactly this kind of fabricated nonsense that exposes the rest of the government’s propaganda for what it is. An abuse of public funds and a mockery of the cruel reality we live here.

This entry was posted on June 17th, 2008 at 3:14 pm by Brenda Burrell and is filed under Activism, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.