The point of this paper is not to talk about Darfur or Rwanda, but to talk about learning from the lessons that history holds for us in Zimbabwe. The report of the Legal Resources Foundation and the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace should be mandatory reading for every Zimbabwean. It details what has been euphemistically described as the “Matabeleland Disturbances”. But “disturbances” doesn’t begin to cover the deaths of over 20 000 people. A disturbance is when a dog barks in the night, waking you up form your sleep. It’s annoying, but hardly fatal. It could even be when two neighbours exchange words over the cutting down of a tree on a common border. At worst, in these days of accommodation shortages, it might your landlord telling you he now wants his rentals paid in hard currency resulting in an argument. It’s nasty, it’s uncomfortable, it’s inconvenient (when you get evicted) but it is rarely life threatening. It is not a “disturbance” when 62 people are lined up and shot-execution style as happened at Cwele River in Lupane. It is not a disturbance when a government to flush out less than 200 so-called dissidents, brings nearly 400 000 people to the brink of starvation by banning all food relief activities and imposing a strict curfew on the movement of food supplies. All this in the third successive year of a severe drought where people had no food apart from drought relief from donors and what they could buy in stores.

Read more here

I’m not sure whether to be elated or irritated that there are now some sort of negotiations going on behind closed doors in Pretoria between the MDC and Zanu PF. The MDC has said no formal negotiations have actually begun, but that their representatives are there simply to present the conditions under which genuine negotiations can take place.

Right now it has evolved that Tsvangirai has refused to sign the Memorandum of Understanding setting the agenda for dialogue between the MDC and Zanu PF. Since the ordinary individual whose welfare is at stake is being literally blacked out of information, one is not sure whether or not it’s a good thing. Nevertheless, they are talking about something, and we can only hope it’s about how to bring an end to the crises in this country. In any case one cannot help being haunted by the knowledge that Mugabe cannot be trusted to abide by any decisions reached at the negotiating table. Mugabe is into these talks only to seek legitimacy and probably because he thinks the MDC has the capacity and enough international backing to salvage the mess he has made of the economy through irrational policies.

It turns out the Security Council’s endeavor to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, more specifically, Mugabe and crew, was thwarted by Russia and China who wielded their veto to kill the resolution in a defining vote by the 15-nation council. Most people were disappointed. I wasn’t sure whether to be or not because I hadn’t been in the full picture of what effect any form of sanctions would have on the larger, ordinary population. I say that because I had just read a 2007 paper written by the Reserve Band of Zimbabwe (RBZ) criticizing and explaining the effects of sanctions on ordinary folk. The authors, whom I assume, are Gono et al highlight the fact that sanctions are not and cannot be ring-fenced on a few targeted individuals. The paper further explains that imposition of sanctions generally precipitates negative perception…by the world at large. Those perceptions make it difficult for private/public enterprise to secure funding from donors.

I thought that maybe they had a point there. Negative perceptions about a country that’s already constantly under bad spotlight may also affect the already fragile and ailing economy. Gono et al also mentions what they call undeclared sanctions and define these as being not explicitly announced but are implied from the actions of the perpetrating nations. They may include NGOs and certain business interests pulling out of the country. In this case we need not worry about that. The world’s third largest supermarket, Tesco have pulled out (more likely out of concern for their own image, not for Zimbabwe), with or without sanctions. Barclays is also under pressure to follow suit.

However, further clarification was given that the sanctions were specific and tailor made to cripple Mugabe and 13 of his henchmen. These included extending travel bans, freezing offshore assets and imposing an arms embargo, among other things. But then again, weren’t the initial smart sanctions intended to do that too, and apparently failed to work?

I’m more inclined to agree with Gono et al that it is only the ordinary folk that get the raw end of the flak whatever form of sanctions are imposed. Look at it this way. You ban Mugabe from this and that but it only means he and his henchmen descend further on the economy and the little that’s left, grabbing all they can when they can.  Life goes on for them and if he gets sick, Bob can just be airlifted to Malaysia or any such ‘friendly’ country like South Africa while the rest of us can hardly find Paracetamol. He will always have milk and bacon on his breakfast table while the rest of us queue for extinct bread and rolls. In short, the evil become richer and more secure while the poor get poorer.

This is what Paul Reynolds had to say in a BBC news article titled “Sanctions: How successful are they?” . . . “Sanctions sometimes have the appearance of being more about making those who impose them feel better than making those at whom they are aimed change their minds.” The bit about an arms embargo does smack more of a selfish endeavor rather than pure concern for Zimbabweans.

Proposals from abroad are claiming that economic sanctions must be imposed to ensure that foreign-owned companies do not support the Mugabe regime. Though well intentioned, they may easily fail to have the effect intended and would more likely become threats to any susceptible company’s financial survival. In fact, Mugabe may even respond by imposing on them even more controls, or possibly by nationalizing those companies of more strategic importance.

Today’s Zimbabwe Independent carries an article that talks about the raft of new European Union (EU) and United States (US) sanctions. It mentions that among a cocktail of other sanctions, the US and the EU are contemplating barring Air Zimbabwe from landing or flying over their territories. I bet that has Mugabe quivering with fear.

Much more effort had rather be put into formulating more workable alternatives. Maybe sanctions are still an option but let them target Zimbabwe’s ruling party rather than Zimbabwe’s general population.

And even if it means that the Security Council takes some extreme measures to oust Mugabe, I’d rather the world be debating that instead of waiting, seeing and pushing for an ‘African solution’ whilst the regime continues to run down the economy. Mugabe is doing exactly what Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir did, so why won’t the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court also formally request an arrest warrant of him too? Mugabe has needed no bullets but has rather master minded a silent genocide through rape, hunger and fear.

As long as the international community continues to pay homage to Mugabe without condemning his illegitimate government for what it is no headway will be made in improving the socio-economic crises in Zimbabwe.

The world watched as Rwanda, the DRC and Sudan degenerated into decrepit war zones. Will they watch Zimbabwe accelerate in that direction simply because diplomatic protocol and a couple of veto powers serving egotistical interests won’t allow any practical action?

A leaflet fell out of a magazine I was reading the other day. The picture on the front showed a woman standing in a sandy patch of nothing with a container of water on her head. The setting? Darfur. The stark message that accompanied the pictured said: when this woman goes to collect water she will be raped; if she doesn’t go, her children will die.

Rape is a constant threat in many women’s lives, even more so in situations of conflict. Zimbabwe is no exception. Poet John Eppel recently shared this poem with Kubatana:

SONG OF THE MILITIA
“Let sell-outs expire”

You are a traitor
burn, burn, burn
sovereignty hater
burn, burn, burn.

We strip you naked
we beat you with sticks
melt plastic on you
and feed you our pricks…

CHENESA!

You are a puppet
burn, burn, burn
a piece of dog shit
burn, burn, burn.

We use our gun butts
to make your brains spill
we use our barrels
to give you a thrill…

CHENESA!

You MDC witch
burn, burn, burn
you Tsvangirai’s bitch
burn, burn, burn.

We drag you crying
to your cooking fire
gocha your body
let sell-outs expire…

CHENESA!

Let sell-outs expire
sell-outs expire

expire…

CHENESA!

It’s been a long time since Zimbabwe had anything resembling a legitimate government. In January, Parliament held its last session before the March 29 Harmonised Election. That election came, and went, and we waited, and eventually the results were announced. Then we waiting a while longer, and 9 weeks over deadline, the presidential run-off one-man election was held. For once, things picked up the pace – the results of that one-person election were announced, and Mugabe’s coronation – oops, I mean inauguration – was held within 48 hours.

But now the President’s been sworn in, and at some point all of those basics like the swearing in of MPs and Senators, the election of the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate, and the opening of Parliament are meant to happen. But there’s no sign yet of any of those events on the horizon.

According to Zimbabwe’s Constitution, Parliament is meant to meet at least once every 180 days. Today marks the 180th day since Parliament last met. Over the past years, Zimbabwe’s government has mastered the art of stretching the Constitution to suit it, but this is taking things to a whole new level. But as Zimbabwe’s legislation trackers Veritas pointed out, “the consequences of non-compliance with the deadline are not spelled out in the Constitution.”

Of course they’re not. In most democratic countries the Constitution is the “supreme law of the land.” Non-compliance with the Constitution is anathema. You don’t need to spell out its consequences; it’s simply unheard of.

But, of course, Zimbabwe’s not a democracy any more. And why would any autocrat worry about a petty detail like a Constitutional deadline to reconvene Parliament when he’d already taken power by a quiet coup?

I listened with disgust the other day to a woman and two men justifying why one of the men had fondled a woman’s breasts in public. The woman in question was a total stranger. While the young man claimed he was drunk when his hands strayed and groped a strange woman’s bosom – an offence that subsequently saw him do community service as his just desserts – the young scoundrel still insisted he believed what he had done was not wrong. His female interlocutor agreed.

They all agreed the woman had invited it, and I could only guess if she had with her a sandwich board with an appeal to that effect! The female in this conversation incredulously asked why the offended woman was the only female “who is always” molested. It turned out one of the men who had groped her for free thrills was an off duty cop at the local drinking hole where the second incident had also occurred. So she invited it! I suppose the violated woman must have had that voluptuous, nubile, adrenalin-rushing, eye-popping, pant-bulging, curvy body that screamed for men to fondle her, so who could blame these men if they only responded in the manner nature ordered?

There was outrage in South Africa recently when touts and taxi drivers thought they could define women’s dress code and punished “skimpily dressed” women by stripping them, then pointing laughing at the naked woman. It is such behaviour that was being extolled by these people.

I sat and listened silently and my mind went on overdrive as I made parallels with our present political circumstances where men, women and children have “invited” the wrath of Zanu PF militias by simply voting for a party of their choice. As the discourse on Zimbabwe’s post-2000 political narrative that has been defined by coercion rather than persuasion and has rendered all democratic precepts – fundamentally that of the ability to exercise one’s franchise without paying for it with brutal violence – the woman’s body as an object of men’s sexual pleasure presented for me a fascinating analogy.

While attitudes have changed among progressive African societies that wife battering belongs to the annals of those Neanderthal men (perhaps a la that cute Flintstone dude dragging the wife) the very fact that there still exists folks who justify these acts surely strengthens the case for those radical courts that would demand the amputation of that part of the anatomy that would compel one to rape.

Same with politics: how do we justify the battering of opponents on the sole “charge” that they decided to take destiny by its horns and vote for a better future. If these acts can be justified, then surely we can justify the violation of women in the manner of that imbecilic young lout.

And these louts abound these days and are giving fashion a bad name donning party regalia emblazoned with that mustachioed and bespectacled darling of the international talk shops. They have also been spotted running their hands all over stupefied teenagers also wearing those loud t-shirts, and a friend quipped the other day that the pregnancies in the making will produce nothing but more fist-waving!

But back to the lager lout. How would he feel if his own sister came home shedding tears and telling a story about having been groped by some drunk? Would he not take an axe and spear and confront the pervert? Stories abound about the circumstances under which recent elections were held, and these are stories that bring tears to one’s eyes even though the testimonies are from total strangers.

The violation of human rights exists on many levels, and wherever such violations occur, it can only be described as tragic if not moronic if justifications of any sort are brought forward. If a woman can be fondled by a stranger in public for whatever reason (as if any is needed), if a voter can be clubbed to death on allegations they did not vote wisely, does that not scream for the total revisiting of what makes a superior being in the whole created order.

The intolerance of alternative views in Zimbabwe’s political discourse as defined by the so-called veterans of the struggle has obviously cascaded down to the lowest echelons of our society. It is just as that great wise soul Confucius noted many ages ago that the model of good behaviour begins at the top.

When we were lying trussed up outside our garage one of them came and piddled all over my head. After that they pulled me down onto the ground they pulled me by my hair. I just saw a huge bunch of hair in his hands.

. . . these are the words of Angela Campbell, aged 66. Listen to audio interviews with Ben Freeth and Angela Campbell, survivors of recent Zanu PF violence, on the Kubatana web site. Photographs are also available.