Political analyst and commentator Moeletsi Mbeki couldn’t have given a more apt analogy of the circus surrounding the ‘diplomatic’ handling of Mugabe and his illegitimate occupation of the presidium, especially by the AU, in a television interview with Debra Patta on 3rd Degree. He alluded to Mugabe as the naughty boy in the school playground who is rude to fellow boys, rude to the prefects, as well as the teachers and headmaster. The other boys, who probably would have loved to do the same but are too scared, are often so ‘besotted’ by his pranks, they urge him on/encourage him. Most notable of these boys is South Africa, as seen during the existence of the Commonwealth, after Zimbabwe had held elections that were widely declared not free and fair. South Africa was most vocal in defending Zimbabwe from being expelled from the Commonwealth. No doubt South Africa did the same thing at the AU summit in Sham, my mistake, Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.

Moeletsi Mbeki lambasted the very concept of a GNU being recommended as the peaceful and only solution by the AU. He argues that Kenya set a really bad precedent that sought to legitimise governments that had outright been rejected by the majority, but just wouldn’t leave and would make everyone’s life hellishly miserable until they were granted ‘leeway’ to share power. Recently, the Secretary-General of Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme (RADDHO) said, “The election situation in Zimbabwe is unacceptable. What is the point of having elections in Africa, if it always ends up by a power-sharing system? The Kenyan example should not be a model for Africa.”

African governments advocating so-called GNUs ought to be ashamed of themselves as this defeats any semblance of democracy.

Moeletsi Mbeki also pointed out that the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe would likely remain unresolved for a long time because the AU, and indeed the rest of the countries in Southern Africa, remains divided over what to do with Mugabe. There are also those who continue to revere and remember him as the great statesman who did not tolerate colonial rule. Sadly, those who see him in that light are many.

Binyavanga Wainaina in an article titled Throwing fuel on a dying fire says, “Mugabe’s primary source of power becomes the power we give him. The man is bouncing around Zimbabwe with the energy of a five- year- old powered by Duracell… the New York Times will headline him. The BBC and George Bush too. Mugabe is getting the attention no African leader ever gets. He is a big deal. And this is his fuel…”

Indeed, it is the people around him that allow this circus to continue. Michela Wrong in her article How a continent missed its moment asks: “But what did the international community really expect of the AU? Any organisation that includes among its elder statesmen Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak (27 years at the helm), Gabon’s Omar Bongo (41 years) and Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang (a modest 29) will have problems lecturing members on the merits of democracy, as Mugabe himself pointed out. Exactly which recent elections could they have held up as models? Kenya’s? Nigeria’s? Ethiopia’s?”

The AU dubbed the ‘dictators’ club’ is a toothless dog protecting the egotistical interests of a cruel few. We are so tired of the same rhetorical statements. Just how many more people have to die before the AU or the UN Security Council actually do something? Why is it that all the whiteheads at the AU (save for Mwanawasa) seem to concur that a GNU is the only way forward? Many justify GNU as the only route that will avoid yet more bloodshed but it just smacks of the old guard protecting personal and future self interests. Once the concept of a GNU gets adapted as normal in Africa none of those old men will relinquish power easily.

Apart from the fact that a GNU does not address the problems of Zimbabwe or acknowledge the will of the Zimbabwean people, it also further entrenches the Kenyan precedent that will mean in future, holding any election will be a ritualistic waste of time. And what a joke Africa will become.

Amidst all this is the electorate for whom decisions are being made in high places. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has masqueraded as a will-of-the-people party. The challenge for them now is explain to the people what a GNU will entail should they eventually decide to enter negotiations with Zanu PF. Failing this, many Zimbabweans will perceive it the ultimate betrayal if they just jump in head first without engaging and consulting the electorate. Nelson Chamisa, spokesperson for the MDC, says the party already has a position paper on how they want any talks to proceed. Many of us are interested in its contents.

For some of us, a GNU controlled by Mugabe simply communicates that our votes did not count, that we have no say in our own governance and that in the future democracy will never matter again. In fact, right now we do not need a GNU. We need solutions to deal with stubborn old men who won’t let go of what’s not theirs.

Nelson Mandela’s birthday is at least a month away yet there has been so much fuss around it already, since March if memory serves me right. Some big bash where international musicians will perform is being planned, there is a campaign of sending him a text message and the proceeds go to charity or something like that blah blah. I like him a lot too, but I don’t want to talk about his birthday. I want to talk about what Christopher Hitchens unpacks as to why Mandela hasn’t spoken out against Mugabe. Anybody else notice? Such a deafening silence from Madiba, with all due respect. Not that it would make much of a difference, but if all the other elders are busy issuing statements and what not . . . They have even signed a petition that wouldn’t have been too bad even with a halfhearted signature from this great man everybody loves. Bev, Madiba one guy you forgot to mention who is also present at the party. How the hell does anybody have a party when their neighbor’s house is on fire? Well, those are probably just petty nigglings, just a wonder that’s all. We are all different.

Hitchens mentions that:

“I recently had the chance to speak to George Bizos, the heroic South African attorney who was Mandela’s lawyer in the bad old days and who more recently has also represented Morgan Tsvangirai, the much-persecuted leader of the Zimbabwean opposition. Why, I asked him, was his old comrade apparently toeing the scandalous line taken by President Thabo Mbeki and the African National Congress? Bizos gave me one answer that made me wince­that Mandela is now a very old man and another that made me wince again: that his doctors have advised him to avoid anything stressful. One has a bit more respect for the old lion than to imagine that he doesn’t know what’s happening in next-door Zimbabwe or to believe that he doesn’t understand what a huge difference the smallest word from him would make. It will be something of a tragedy if he ends his career on a note of such squalid compromise… It is the silence of Mandela, much more than anything else that bruises the soul. It appears to make a mockery of all the brave talk about international standards for human rights, about the need for internationalist solidarity and the brotherhood of man, and all that. There is perhaps only one person in the world who symbolizes that spirit, and he has chosen to betray it. Or is it possible, before the grisly travesty of the runoff of June 27, that the old lion will summon one last powerful growl?”

How about that? The guy is probably just avoiding stress. One would think he’d share this invaluable advice with his colleague right next door.

My boss and I were discussing the other day, how or what the idea is behind beating someone into (supposed) submission? How and why is it, that somebody can be motivated and paid to kill fellow citizens, yet remain no better off or even close to the chefs whose interests they serve? What makes anybody think that by burning my house, beating a piece of my buttock off or taking me to a reorientation base or even killing me, will make me vote for them? Doesn’t it just make sense that I’d be more bound to actually vote against you for beating me? Then a different school of thought is of the opinion that it actually works. Get beaten so bad and you wont want to risk that happening to you again. I don’t know. But what I do know is, from what she wrote in an email, a friend of mine is simply going to vote ZANU because:

I’m so scared sha, but sekuru for sure wont step down easily you think we gonna have war that’s what I’m afraid of the most. I didn’t come this far to die in war or to have my life turned upside down. I want my children to see what a beautiful country we have. I think for now all we have to do is pray and right now I’d rather Zanu won for the sake of peace and no war…

A lot of people are taking the old man’s threats seriously, and I don’t blame them, knowing what he’s capable of doing. Recently, he promised war if he lost the run-off. He didn’t mince words when he said, “We fought for this country, and a lot of blood was shed. We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X. How can a ballpoint fight with a gun?” The warning came a day after he declared: “We are ready to go to war.”

Matonga is at it again. There he was shooting his mouth in the government mouthpiece, the Herald of June 07 that “All NGOs have been ordered to apply for new registration permits as part of measures to clamp down on the incidences of civil society meddling in the country’s politics ahead of the June 27 presidential run-off.”

This in direct contradiction to what the former minister of Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare, Mr Nicholas Goche issued in a letter calling for the suspension of all ‘field work’ by PVOs. One can almost imagine Matonga confidently making his announcement with that annoyingly wide and pompous Cheshire-cat grin of his.

This is at a time when most Zimbabweans are in desperate need of food aid and ARV treatment, clean water and other services provided by NGOs. But some Minister just wakes up one day and decides all NGOs are banned from conducting humanitarian work, ironically at a time when the outgoing president is attending a summit discussing various food security issues including the fight against hunger. That thousands will probably die from hunger or needless lack of medication seems irrelevant. What is important is to thwart potential underground activities by NGOs to support the MDC under the banner of carrying out humanitarian aid.

NANGO (an association of Zimbabwean NGOs representing over 1000 members countrywide) convened an emergency meeting with PVOs to discuss implications and the way forward on June 09, 2008. A representative from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) gave a preliminary legal position that the letter is not legally valid, as the Private Voluntary Organizations Act does not empower the Minister to suspend an NGO’s operations.  Also, section 10 of the Act, cited in the letter, empowers the PVO Board, not the Minister, to take action to de-register an NGO. Whatever the legality of this instruction, it is a political reality.

There is also the question of whether Goche has any right at all to be issuing such statements. If cabinet was dissolved just before March 29, he and his colleagues must therefore be operating from the perspective that since their outgoing president is still operational; they too can continue to execute duties as before.

It is fast becoming a sad reality that the regime is refusing to go and will employ any means possible to ensure they stay in power. It is another sad reality that this is not the first time such careless, baseless announcements have been made each time the government feels threatened about something. Another sad reality is that we have a government in place that simply has this ‘thing’ against people helping other people, even when humanitarian assistance is non partisan and is inclusive of their Zanu-PF people. Never mind that humanitarian workers’ sole mission is to provide assistance to any people in need.

It appears that most members of civil society have chosen to distance themselves from solidarity with other directly affected PVOs, under the misconception that only humanitarian field workers in food distribution are being targeted. Some do not realize that the regime has a plethora of some uneducated overzealous agents who are prepared to start maiming and killing to enforce the directive, legal or not. Much as we find for instance that Mr Goche’s announcement is legally null and void, we are also confronted by the fact that there is no respect for the rule of law in this country.

I caught the words of one representative from ZLHR that it may be in the best interests of PVOs to just comply with the directives, even though this may imply that they concede that their existence is illegal. He gave the example of the Daily News and the fact that the paper lost its case against the MIC because it failed to comply with the law simply because they disagreed with it. The wise move was to first comply then later challenge whatever they disagreed with. The lawyer suggested the same for PVOs in the current situation.

So if this was a death sentence, first die then appeal?

When you deal with a neighbor, you don’t just deal with them like they don’t exist. Those were ANC Secretary-General, Gwede Mantashe’s words in an interview with 3rd Degree yesterday concerning the current xenophobic attacks in SA. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out whom he was talking about. I was reminded of what President Mwanawasa once said that a good neighbor should not just watch when a fellow neighbor’s house is on fire. Seems we’ve been getting a lot of this diplomatic politics with no action. Even Moeletsi Mbeki, the brother of our favorite mediator highlighted that the SA government hasn’t done much about the xenophobic situation, or about the issue of putting in place proper mechanisms to accommodate immigrants. The political analyst explained that this kind of thing is bound to happen when pressure piles on the poor. The situation apparently degenerated into serious competition for limited resources and opportunities, which later saw resentment grow towards ‘foreigners’ who were supposedly stealing jobs, women and accommodation of the locals. Mbeki further explained that the South African government has for so long ignored the growing shantytowns that make up most of Alexandra that in effect government helped to extend them.

The man has a point there. I shudder to imagine the kind of costs this whole excitement around the 2010 World Cup will amount to. Imagine a whole new stadium and refurbished hotels among other opulent perks to impress visitors alongside unimaginable poverty that makes up the life of a majority of South Africans.

However, I am beginning to slowly but surely understand President Mbeki. It took him a good four days after the xenophobic attacks to even say something, and all he could say was that the police needed to act more swiftly and that a panel had been formed to look into the attacks. No crisis there either hey?

Even if it’s trust that foreigners are “taking over” jobs, accommodation and even the women too, is that reason enough to actually kill them? We’ve seen harrowing footage of people being stoned or necklaced apartheid style. Not even defenseless women and children appealed to the humanity inside the perpetrators. Never mind the fact that South Africa requires Zimbabwean skills and no amount of hate-crime can change this. In fact, South Africa still lacks a lot of crucial skills. People forget that immigrants are often willing to do sometimes menial and not-so-glorious jobs shunned by locals. Should they not be recognized for that effort? Zimbabwe was at some point in history a place to be for Mozambican and Malawian immigrants who were willing to do the tasks disparaged by locals, but the tide turned and now our professionals are ones nursing the old and scrubbing toilets elsewhere. The tide can also just as easily turn for South Africans.

It is clear South Africa is not a safe destination or host for the 2010 World Cup and FIFA or whoever it is in charge ought to withdraw that privilege – even only as a boycott to show that they do not condone human rights abuses. FIFA president Joseph. S. Blatter risks eating his words that “It is a question of confidence and trust in a country like South Africa, a well organized country, able to organize this competition.” There is still two more years to go and that’s enough time to decide a new venue for this international event.

If Africans are foreigners in South Africa, I shudder to think about the whole lot that will, come 2010, flock from all corners to a country some of whose people are so unfeeling as to burn a living, breathing human being alive like a worthless effigy. How about the prospect of sheer embarrassment that when ‘foreigners’ came to Africa, they lived in perpetual and real fear of barbaric savages who have no respect for life.

It’s almost a month since a close friend lost his two beautiful and vicious dogs. They just woke up one morning throwing up all over the place and foaming at the mouth. They had obviously been poisoned. I had never once seen a man so distraught, weeping over loss of life of animals. Of course, life is life and to have it so unfeelingly snuffed out can be a most traumatic ordeal. Somewhere in the middle of much weeping and cursing emerged the opinion that whoever did this must have had a strong motive. Maybe they wanted to come back and steal something. I wondered to myself if dog killers and people who are cruel to animals always have justifiable motive.

The deputy RBZ governor Edward Mashiringwana was reported by the Independent to have seized Friedawill farm near Chinhoyi while the owner was absent. He reportedly refused to allow the SPCA to feed the animals. This led the pigs, demented by thirst and hunger, to consume their young. Did Mashiringwana have any particular motive in refusing to let these animals be helped, or just a senseless heartless thrill that doesn’t necessarily benefit anything?

I can draw parallels to the business of the Chinese An Yue Jiang whose whereabouts some of us are no longer sure of, but are pretty certain is eager to offload its cargo no matter what. That is if it hasn’t already if loudmouth Matonga’s claims are anything to go by. Everyone knows the situation going down here, but it seems to have fallen on deaf Chines ears that those weapons of mass destruction are intended to annihilate innocent civilians whose crime was simply expressing new political interests through the ballot. One wonders what’s the motive in this case or they simply don’t care? Or is it a case of letting the poor country self- destruct, then come in for easy plunder. But of what? Nothing hardly lives here and they have already literally flooded our market with defective Chinese zhing zhong rejects.

China is itself currently in mourning over the thousands of its people who lost their lives to its worst earthquake in three decades. It is sad how the nation mourns, how survivors are living on handouts at the roadside. I extend deep condolences to the people of China. Life is too precious to be so needlessly and violently lost. I hope they feel the same way too for others outside themselves.

Because, while I’m not accusing them of schadenfreude, it is nevertheless a sad irony that the people of China don’t seem to hold the Zimbabwean lives, which stand to be lost needlessly to the selfish interest of a cruel few, as important as their own.

Could the Chinese not lobby their government to stop the supply of arms to Zimbabwe? Or is business to go on as business, ahead of all else? Because the moment those weapons aboard the An Yue Jiang touch down, Zimbabwe, landlocked as it is will have an earthquake of its own, the kind entailing massive blood bath and purely man made.

My most cynical colleagues believe that justice has a strange and most unusual way of prevailing sometimes. According to them the Chinese have paid with the lives of their own for the innocent lives they would indirectly help annihilate through support of an oppressive government that will stop at nothing to get revenge on an electorate that simply fell out of love with it. I think there is nothing just about any undeserved death. If only we all valued life and the right to self-determination.

Currently the Chinese are also embroiled in a long-standing dispute with the Tibetans whom they just won’t allow to be an independent state. Their respect for the lives of others really becomes questionable to some of us. I mean, aside from their fear of losing face, what is stopping China from granting Tibet the genuine autonomy it desires. Alternately, in the case of Zimbabwe, are money and diplomatic politics more important than life?

*Schadenfreude, German word to describe taking pleasure in others’ misfortune

So, in order to make sure the teachers don’t strike and stop coming to work- parents of pupils at a primary school in Marlborough have been literally gypped into agreeing to fork out $100 million per child every Monday to cater for the teachers’ transport, and $400 million every Thursday for stationery.

I can understand the $100 million per child contribution towards the teachers’ transport but $400 million every week for stationery? Maybe its just me but, in class typical class of say, 35 children, multiply that by 400, just for the teacher’s stationery every week? For me, a teacher’s stationery constitutes chalk, markers, pens and probably a few notebooks, and those cost 14 billion every week? Man.

As we head towards the run- off, I sincerely hope the ‘government’ will once more consider teachers among the list of potential recipients of the huge payouts that they traditionally dole out towards elections. Most parents just cannot bear the costs and really, most parents who have no choice don’t know where to lodge their complaints in this regard. Already they are forking out so much as school fees. This is daylight robbery and the NIPC or the Ministry ought to do something about this. What is most nauseating about the whole thing is the business of holding the children’s education to ransom in order to cow the parents into submitting to impossible, unnecessary and egoistic demands.

Speaking of pupils, a colleague in our office was just pointing out how it must be for the maths pupils whose textbooks still carry stories and mathematical problems in cents. Picture them trying to solve a problem where James and John have twenty cents between them and how much each one gets in a country where coins no longer exist and cent has been replaced by billion. One can just imagine a young pupil asking, “What’s a cent?”