Our lives depend on Mugabe going
I’ve just been preparing information on cholera – causes, symptoms and prevention – for our next Kubatana email newsletter. In countless publications its stated that good sanitation and waste management is vital to preventing the spread of cholera.
Take a drive or a walk around Harare these days and you’ll find over flowing rubbish bins in every shopping centre. In the Avenues, home to thousands of flat dwellers, rubbish is strewn on the street. At Kamfinsa Shopping Centre, the mound of rubbish dumped near where people queue for their daily or weekly allowance from Gono, is growing daily. Street cleaners have stopped cleaning. Public toilets have been closed because there isn’t any water to service them. The toilets in my office block, and no doubt countless others, seldom have water. With this degree of failure of public services, people cannot achieve the high standards of cleanliness required to stop cholera in its tracks.
Foreign governments and international development agencies are engaged in trying to stop the spread of cholera. Whilst these efforts are helping Zimbabweans on the ground I wonder how the aid agencies are reconciling the fact that the Mugabe regime has been the chief architect of the collapse of vital infrastructure in Zimbabwe, and that if we want to actually stop cholera, then Mugabe, the larger problem, has to go. Until then we’ll be running around trying to extinguish countless humanitarian crises.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) chief executive officer Frank Donaghue, believes that the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe is a “symptom of the collapse of the entire health system” and PHR is calling for Zimbabwe’s health care system to be placed under international receivership.
Millions of Zimbabweans couldn’t agree more and our lives depend on it.
Wednesday, January 14th 2009 at 10:43 pm
I suspect the aid agencies know full well who is to blame for the collapse of virtually everything in Zimbabwe. I also would imagine that they would help pack Mugabe’s bags in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, all I see is other African leaders telling the western world to butt out. Having been globally condemned for actions in Iraq and/or Afghanistan (I’m not taking a position on that here), it has certainly been made clear all the west can do – if Mugabe lets them – is try to help with the immediate crisis. I know that many are committed to stopping each and every death possible – we can’t just abandon them as their own “government” has. I know many people and organizations who are ready to jump in to join hands with the people of Zimbabwe when the time comes to rebuild their country and their lives. We can only pray, and pray, and pray for Mugabe’s regime to come to an end – soon (NOW) not later. I’m reading the PHR report now, and I am grateful it was published. Someone’s report has got to get through to those in the way of a new Zimbabwe. I hope this report does that. So much suffering …..