Writing in Business Day last week, Allister Sparks argues that Zimbabwe’s inclusive government is not working – and that it needs to be scrapped. Whilst there’s a lot about the inclusive government not working that I’d agree with, the solution Sparks outlines is optimistic – if Mugabe isn’t willing to see the inclusive government work, why would he consider internationally supervised elections in which all citizens can vote – without the ability to gate keep through the voters’ roll. And in the mean time, what about Zimbabwe’s dream of a new Constitution – and a new political framework that guarantees democratic elections which can usher in a government elected freely by the people?

It’s time for South Africa, as the leading power in SADC, to say, “Enough!” If President Zuma has any political balls at all, he should tell Mugabe so during his visit to Harare this week.

He should tell him the GPA is obviously not working, that it is clear Mugabe is determined not to allow it to work, and that the South African Government is therefore going to call on SADC, as guarantor of the deal, to declare it to have been irretrievably violated and so nullified — and to demand the holding of an early election so that a new government with a genuine public mandate can take over.

This election should be supervised — not just observed — by a large team of electoral specialists from the SADC countries, especially South Africa. Moreover it should not be run on the basis of Zimbabwe’s hopelessly defective voters’ roll but by letting all adult citizens vote as has been done with the first elections of all newly independent countries in Africa.

Zuma should tell Mugabe, too, that if he and his ZANU-PF cohorts refuse to accept such a process, South Africa will press for Zimbabwe’s membership of SADC to be suspended, and for any regime that might be unilaterally installed not to be recognised by SADC and the African Union. The country would then be isolated.

Only South Africa has the influence and power to do this. If necessary we could do it unilaterally. It’s time we acted on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe and the whole region, to say nothing of our own image as a nation whose internationally assisted rebirth surely imposes a moral obligation on us.

But don’t hold your breath. Decisiveness is not Zuma’s strong suit on any issue.

Read this open letter from Dale Doré

Dear Prime Minister,

After a brave, harrowing and tearful account of a victim’s experience of being raped you asked: “How do you confront a dictator using democratic means?” With due respect, Prime Minister, it is not by dining with the dictator every Monday while crimes are committed against your supporters. Nor do you confront a dictator by proclaiming that he is part of the solution when he is, and always has been, part of the problem. Nor do you confront a dictator by undemocratically handing power to him. After nearly a decade of struggle, the Zimbabwean people elected you as their President, not as a powerless Prime Minister. Yet, it was you and your party that negotiated and handed back power to the dictator and the loser of the March 2008 presidential elections. This was not only a betrayal of the democratic principles that you espouse, but you had no mandate from the people to do so.

Nor, Prime Minister, do you confront a dictator by following his lead on pernicious and racist policies. Instead of supporting an international court’s ruling to which Zimbabwe is bound by treaty and international law, you have supported the dictator’s unlawful and ‘irreversible’ land policies.  Nor can you pretend that you did not mean that sanctions on ZANU(PF) individuals should be lifted just because you used the words ‘restrictive measures’.  It now seems that you are no longer confronting the dictator’s imposition of an indigenisation policy that will end any chance of investment to create desperately needed jobs.  If the truth be told, Prime Minister, you have not confronted the dictator using democratic or any other means. You have trusted him, colluded with him, and appeased him. In doing so you have – as one commentator put it – gambled your political credibility to the hilt.

You have also sent him the very signals by which he manipulates you. Whenever you tell the dictator that you will never abandon the GPA, you strengthen his resolve to repudiate it. Whenever you tell the dictator that past crimes should be forgiven and forgotten, it emboldens him to act with greater impunity. Even as you preach healing and tolerance to the dictator over dinner, he prepares for arrests, violence and intimidation against your supporters in the run-up to elections.

We therefore call upon you to focus all your strength and energy on ensuring that Zimbabweans can vote in peace, and in the knowledge that every vote counts.  Democracy and justice will only prevail when we start concentrating our minds on what really matters: providing security to remove any and every threat of election violence; tightening the electoral process to prevent rigging; and ensuring the peaceful handover of power. As the coercive power of the state remains firmly in the grip of the dictator, the imperative is to build a powerful coalition of political and diplomatic forces that will deny him victory through violence.

The tears of anguish of a single woman – or indeed those of thousands of your compatriots who have been tortured, raped and murdered – cries out, not for rhetorical answers, but for a leadership that demands democracy and justice. The hope of millions of Zimbabweans to live in dignity and freedom, Prime Minister, lies in your courage and leadership to confront the dictator. You must not fail them.

A flyer I got under my door the other day. I’ll report back once I’ve been to see him . . .

To celebrate his 50th birthday this year, Rejoice Ngwenya has launched the 2010% campaign. Read and listen to some of Rejoice’s ideas here. Below, he explains more about the campaign:

In my native siNdebele language, when a woman delivers a baby it is said: ‘Sekhululekile!’ literary translated into English – she is free!  I have proof that chiKaranga version is ‘kubatsigwa’, meaning ‘to be helped’.  In retrospect, I do appreciate and thank my mother, who exactly fifty years ago this September  will have heaved a sigh of relief after being ‘freed’ with a set of twin boys, one of which is me. This gift had an even deeper meaning coming many years after this wise rural woman married to a sophisticated primary school teacher had had a human avalanche of five baby girls before then. The man was so elated – because those days it was considered  ‘taboo’ not to have baby boys – he showed his ‘rejoicing’ by sticking that label on my birth certificate! What cheek, now everyone who sees my name thinks I am one of those … girls. You are forgiven, Old John. May the God of Abraham remember to keep a place for you in the New Jerusalem!

And so it is for this reason that one Robert Mugabe says that he single-handedly ‘freed’, or ‘helped’ us Zimbabweans from the miserable pregnancy  of nauseating colonialism. We now supposedly collectively owe him a favour, having had tolerated his thirty-year grip on abusive  political power without so much as raising an eyebrow of resistance. “Zimbabwe is 100% free,” he bellows, “and this you ungrateful citizens owe it to me and, and, and my party ZANU-PF.” I’m like No! Old man, all you did was to change the colour of the skin of the tenant at Zimbabwe House from white to black, and that don’t make me free. If you, in 1980, gave me this defective form of ‘100% freedom’, I want the real thing. 2010% will do just fine, and so good bye. Take a break, a long break and nobody will even remember you were once part of my rugged political landscape. The more you hang around, the more I will remember Gukurahundi, DRC, land invasions, Murambatsvina, one billion percent inflation, empty supermarket shelves, poverty, hunger, oppression, petrol queues, AIPPA, POSA… and that’s not very healthy.

If you claim to have ‘delivered’ me from Ian Smith, how come three million of my friends are still hiding in exile? You claim you are free, but travel in a mile long convoy surrounded by Uzis, AK-47ns and ugly m*****f*****s?  Quiet some freedom, Old Man. I want to make it official now, there is no democracy around here, and I might sound so dam crazy! Elections every five years are not the best litmus for democracy. Sadam Hussein had elections too! They have them in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the DRC, but that don’t make their democracy cool.

For now, democracy seems to be at the bottom rung of my ladder of priorities. Freedom first. No, your retirement first, then perhaps my freedom. Even great football players did retire – Edison Pele, George Best, Maradona, Roger Mila, Doctor Khumalo, Kalusha Bwalya, Zinadine Zidane and Peter Nyama. So what’s up with you Mdala?   You say Zimbabweans, or more accurately, ZANU-PuFfed Zimbabweans will decide when you should retire. Nice try. Fortunately, they are such a small proportion of the voting population, because at the last count in March 2008, you comprehensively lost. Here’s the deal: next time you look out of your tinted Mercedes Limousine escort car, you will see the ‘real’ Zimbabweans in T-shirts, caps and car stickers giving you five cool reasons why you should retire. Peer through the tint and marvel at the number of citizens waving the 2010% free flags. Ask your receptionist, she might even have 2010% free as her screen saver, then you know it’s time to hang your …. Manifesto.  Ses’ khululekile!

The retrogressive Anti-Homosexuality Bill is still being debated by Uganda’s parliament.  Uganda’s Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law is coordinating opposition to the  Bill within Uganda. Regionally, The AIDS Law Project and the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project in South Africa are circulating the following statement against the Bill:

Statement by African Civil Society

We, the individuals and organisations from African countries listed hereunder, recognise the universality of the human rights of all persons.

We affirm that the right of men and women to have same sex relationships is a fundamental human right.

We are further guided in the knowledge that all forms of discrimination, in particular against vulnerable groups, undermine the human dignity of all in Africa.

We are therefore profoundly disturbed by the nature, content and potential impact of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (“the Bill”) that was recently tabled in and is currently being considered by the Parliament of Uganda.

We believe that the Bill, if enacted, will cut deeply into the fabric of Ugandan society by–

• Violating the rights of an already vulnerable and severely stigmatised group of persons by attacking their dignity, privacy and other constitutionally protected rights;
• Disrupting family and community life by compelling everyone, by the threat of criminal sanction, to report those suspected of engaging in same-sex sexual activity;
• Seeking to withdraw Uganda from the family of nations by reneging on the country’s international law obligations;
• Undermining public health interventions such as HIV prevention, treatment, care and support;
• Promoting prejudice and hate and encouraging harmful and violent action to be taken against those engaging in same sex relations.

We respectfully call on the Parliament of Uganda to reject the Bill in its entirety.

We also call on African governments and the African Union to call on the President and Government of Uganda to withdraw the Bill and to respect the human rights of all in Uganda, without exception.

They are seeking civil society endorsements of the statement.  Submit your endorsement before 12 noon on Monday 29 March (SA Time – GMT +2). Please supply the full name of your organisation together with your full name, office address, telephone contact details and organizational website. Please also indicate in your email that you have been authorised by your organisation to endorse the statement. Encourage others to also endorse the statement.

Please send your endorsement to Ms Adila Hassim of the AIDS Law Project at hassima@alp.org.za. Please copy your email to Ms Phumi Mtetwa of the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project  at phumi@equality.org.za

The International Women’s Day commemorations at the National Gallery in Harare on March 6 featured a panel discussion: Moral and/or pleasure? Women, media and the creation of discourse on sexuality. One of the discussants on the panel was Catherine Makoni. Last year, her article Women as vectors of disease: The problem with ill-thought campaigns generated a lot of controversy on the Kubatana blog. One comment challenged her criticism of the PSI “small house” campaign on HIV and AIDS, accusing her of responding based on her feelings, not her analysis. This person claimed her position was based on assumption, not research. But Catherine firmly believes that this campaign violates the principle of “do no harm,” and she used her presentation to explain why she believes this so firmly.

For example:

I go to University, and I do Law. By the third year of University (Law is four years) there is enormous pressure on me to have a boyfriend. Sure, I’m doing Law, but there is immense pressure on me to get married. In third and fourth year you get a lot of girls falling pregnant, in the hopes of securing someone to marry them. So third year, fourth year you have a lot of pregnancies. Why? Because you need to be sure that before you leave university you have someone to marry you, otherwise you’ll be a failure, never mind that you have honours and a first class degree. I’m talking about stereotypes, and gender roles, and expectations, and how these are drummed into us from birth.

Fast forward a few years and I start dealing with gender based violence. My friend, who is a lawyer, has not been able to leave her abusive marriage. It’s like the prophecy is coming true. We were told not to study law, because you’re giving yourself all these airs and what man is going to tolerate you? So she’s done everything. She’s cut her hair, she’s worn long clothes, she’s worn oversized dresses, so that she doesn’t look too attractive, and make her husband insecure. So 14 years later she’s in an abusive relationship, and her husband says “You think you are a lawyer. I’m going to beat you, and I want to see what you do with your law degree.” Her mother says “Why don’t you give him his proper place. He wants to be head of the family. Give him his proper place. You should know you are a woman. Don’t talk about work at home.”

I remember about 11 years ago, I’d just come out of the salon. It was around 6pm. Some man approaches me and tries to chat me up. I ignored him, and he lays into me. He starts beating me up, opposite the UN building on Union Avenue. I got attacked, and people stood by. There were people looking out of their windows in the UN building while I was being attacked. Eventually this guy got tired and walked off, and someone said to me “What did you do to him?” I said I didn’t do anything. The guy was shouting uri hure, and I suppose pretending that I was his girlfriend. The people who heard what he was saying thought, well, she’s his girlfriend. She’s done something, so this is okay. I asked them why didn’t you come to my aid. And they said, well, we thought you were his girlfriend. We have a culture which says it’s okay to beat up a woman. If she’s your girlfriend, then it’s alright to do it – especially if you think ihure, or she’s done something.

There are infinitely harmful ways in which these things play out. The imagery of this PSI campaign sticks in our heads. It sticks in the heads of the police, the magistrate, the teachers who teach our daughters, that man who’s walking out there, the editors, everyone. What it’s saying is yes, you are right to hold these beliefs. You are right to think that women who do not conform to societal expectations of what is right are a problem.

Read more of Catherine’s presentation, and listen to excerpts of her talk, here