Zimbabwe goes from bad to worse...

[Capetonian]

More police brutality against a population weakened by disease, starvation, and drought.

[sarcasm on] I hear the strident voices of protest from the oleaginous Peter Hain and the others who supported this evil regime after they had brought down Ian Smith's government. [/sarcasm off]

Dear Family and Friends,

I am writing this letter to you from Zimbabwe on Friday 16th August 2019 with a very heavy heart. Despite a year of rhetoric from President Mnangagwa that this was a ‘New Dispensation’ and that we were ‘Open For Business’, events of today showed us, and the world, that absolutely nothing has changed.

Yet again the streets of Harare were filled with unarmed, running, screaming people chased by riot police using their baton sticks (truncheons) again and again. People who fell down were repeatedly beaten on the tarmac, their images filmed for the world to see. People sitting on the streets were beaten. The MDC described it as “extreme brutality against citizens.” There were no cars being stoned, no tyres being burned, no shops being looted and no signs of any violence, making the reaction of the police simply incomprehensible.

In the past week eighteen civic and political activists and MDC officials have been abducted and tortured ahead of the planned march. Yet again we have heard stories we prayed we would never ever have to hear again after the end of Robert Mugabe: accounts of armed men coming at night, people abducted, taken in unmarked vehicles, beaten on the soles of their feet, dumped on roadsides.

My heart was breaking watching the scenes from Harare today because it was on these exact streets that I marched with hundreds of thousands of others in November 2017, wearing my flag with such pride, Zimbabwean to the depths of my soul, caught up in a tidal wave of euphoria and joy at the end days of Robert Mugabe. How can Zimbabwe have gone so far backwards again and so fast?

For a moment, if we had dared to hope that police, who have been suffering the same hell as the rest of us, would not raise their baton sticks against unarmed citizens marching in Harare today, we had not been paying attention. Speaking at Monday’s Heroes Day events, President Mnangagwa said: “Government is finalizing special remuneration packages for the men and women in uniform, the military salary concept, and other incentives to cushion them from hardships that have affected the country’s workers.”

For the past 54 weeks (since the 30th July 2018 elections) we have been living in a state of continual, daily deterioration marked by anxiety, fear, and chronic economic hardship. We have seen all our US dollars in banks, savings accounts and pension funds unashamedly converted by our government into Zimbabwe Bond dollars which have lost 98% of their real US dollar value in the past 20 weeks. We can’t afford medical treatments and medicines anymore; fuel prices have gone up seven times this year and food prices quadrupled. As a nation we have been decimated by our own government: employers, employees, self employed and unemployed citizens, civil servants, pensioners: none have been spared.

This week the World Food Programme said 2.3 million people in rural Zimbabwe need emergency food aid now and this number will increase to 5.5 million in the coming weeks. The government estimates another 2.2 million people in urban areas also require food aid, bringing the total to 7.7 million, over half of our total population. The WFP said "We are talking about people who truly are marching towards starvation if we are not here to help them."

Today in Harare, people already marching towards starvation, also marched towards baton sticks; we feel their pain and our hearts are with them. Until next time, thanks for reading this letter from Zimbabwe, now in its 19th year, and my books about life in our beautiful Zimbabwe, love cathy 16 August 2019. 2019 Copyright © Cathy Buckle. www.lulu.com/spotlight/CathyBuckle2018

For information on all my books about life in Zimbabwe: “FINDING OUR VOICES,” “WHEN WINNERS ARE LOSERS,” “SLEEPING LIKE A HARE,” “MILLIONS, BILLIONS, TRILLIONS,” “CAN YOU HEAR THE DRUMS,” “INNOCENT VICTIMS” “AFRICAN TEARS”, “BEYOND TEARS” ”RUNDI,” and “IMIRE,” please go to www.lulu.com/spotlight/CathyBuckle2018 for international orders or to http://burbleonline.co.za/c/272/biography-memoirs for South African online orders (look for Cathy/ Catherine Buckle) . To subscribe/unsubscribe to this letter, contact cbuckle.zim@gmail.com

[Capetonian]

Letters from Zimbabwe :

After Independence, the new government couldn’t continue a winter holiday named after Cecil Rhodes and his fellow travellers (called the Rhodes and Founders’ holidays), celebrated on the Monday and Tuesday after the second Sunday in the month of July, so they changed it to the corresponding weekend in August and renamed it Heroes’ and Ancestors’ Day, irreverently known to the white community as Gooks’ and Spooks’. The name has been changed yet again, to Heroes’ and Armed Forces’ Day, and this I really object to – why should we be celebrating a day named for the forces of repression which have already killed around 20 peaceful demonstrators protesting (i) the delay in announcing the election results a year ago, and (ii) the near trebling of the fuel price in January this year? Who needs a bloody army anyway?

In the past few days, I’ve had restoration of Zesa power in the daylight hours. Here I have to admit that such restoration is less important to, and less readily perceived by me, thanks to my inverter providing me with power throughout the Zesa outages. But the restoration is haphazard, and thus ephemeral – you have no idea how long it’s going to last, so you can’t embark upon, for example, cooking, for fear that the power is switched off in the middle of the process. In this respect, I have to express my huge gratitude to my daughter for spying the small convection oven which only draws 1,400 watts, and can thus be powered by the inverter (provided I switch off the fridge). This has hugely improved the quality of my life, especially since it is so much better than the oven in my elderly electric cooker – I can set not only the temperature, (which, being much smaller, it achieves much quicker), but also the cooking time. My daughter left me with a few recipes for healthier eating, (eg using blended cauliflower instead of mashed potato for shepherd’s pie), so I can expect to live healthier.

The Zesa situation is just one aspect of a nation in a deep hole and keeping on digging. To be fair to Dr. Ncube, our switched-on Minister of Finance, he is doing all the right things to get us out of the hole, but many of them are very unpopular with the people. I said how the price of electricity needed to be not just trebled, but trebled again, in order to be in line with the rest of our neighbours, and he’s trebled it the once – now he needs to do it again. The downside to this is that nobody can afford Zesa, so they’re cutting down trees and cooking with firewood. Of course the Zesa situation is bad enough without the fuel for generators also being in short supply – it’s just one thing after the other.. The only thing that the new Minister of Energy, Fortune Chasi, has going for him is that he can say that this wasn’t his fault – he inherited the mess from his predecessor. The price of fuel is also going up, but here Dr.Ncube seems to have learned from experience – it is going up incrementally, not 2½ times like he did back in January. Last I saw, it was about Z$9.11 a litre, which is, even by the interbank rate of exchange (which is slowly closing in on the black market rate, at around 9.89, as opposed to 10.9, and falling) 92 US cents a litre, which is still pretty cheap.

The lack of electric power makes it very difficult for the miners and the manufacturers, our two main sources of foreign currency, to function, so the tunnel in which we find ourselves seems to have no end. Dr. Ncube’s actions have meant that the light at the end of it won’t be an express train coming in the opposite direction, but nor have they brought daylight any closer. And I don’t see how Zim gets out of its mess. Dr. Ncube’s actions are designed to appease the IMF, and they should be doing that, but the reason that Zim needs IMF approval is so that we can borrow more money, and it will take a lot of IMF approval before anybody is going to lend us money. For a start, we still owe the World Bank US$1.8 bn, and we’re nowhere near paying off any of that. Of course, the immediate solution would be to give the white farmers back their land, with the title deeds, which would solve the problem of 5 million people facing starvation, but that (i) wouldn’t save the starving millions this year, and (ii) is politically impossible. Zim has painted itself into a corner, and I don’t see a way out. Of course the foundation for all this was laid by The Bobster’s maladministration, but EMng has done nothing concrete to reverse it, other than appointing Dr. Ncube Minister of Finance.

My daughter spent three weeks with me, and when I picked her up at the airport, the trip there, through Mbare was a nightmare, and I remembered the advice of my lawyer son that it was easier to drive through town, so we returned from the airport that way in the middle of the day, and he was right, it was much easier. Taking her back, I drove through Mbare again (my memory must be slipping, or old habits die hard) and Mbare was just like before, with people parking willy nilly, and commuter omnibuses pushing in and pulling out in front of me, so on my return, I went through town. Big mistake! I was driving through rushour, at 5pm, and it was worse than Mbare. The big intersections were controlled by police, even though the traffic lights were working, and the reason for this was because African drivers just drive through intersections after the light has turned to red, resulting in huge jams. However, the police directing traffic were very little better. It reminded me of Samuel Johnson’s description of women preachers – “ like a dog walking on its hinder legs – it is not done well, but one is surprised to see it done at all”. Hitherto, I’ve seen very little evidence of the police traffic section doing anything useful, and their attempts at controlling intersections suggest that they need a lot more practice, but with the worsening Zesa situation, more and more intersections are without traffic lights, so they’re just going to have to learn – at present, nearby vendors are doing a better job.
What a tale of woe! Still, the sun is shining, and the City of Flowering Trees has a lot of trees in bloom, so there are still things that the government can’t stuff up!
On that note, time to take my leave. Richard

Dear Family and Friends,
I am writing this letter to you from Zimbabwe on Friday 16th August 2019 with a very heavy heart. Despite a year of rhetoric from President Mnangagwa that this was a ‘New Dispensation’ and that we were ‘Open For Business’, events of today showed us, and the world, that absolutely nothing has changed.

Yet again the streets of Harare were filled with unarmed, running, screaming people chased by riot police using their baton sticks (truncheons) again and again. People who fell down were repeatedly beaten on the tarmac, their images filmed for the world to see. People sitting on the streets were beaten. The MDC described it as “extreme brutality against citizens.” There were no cars being stoned, no tyres being burned, no shops being looted and no signs of any violence, making the reaction of the police simply incomprehensible.

In the past week eighteen civic and political activists and MDC officials have been abducted and tortured ahead of the planned march. Yet again we have heard stories we prayed we would never ever have to hear again after the end of Robert Mugabe: accounts of armed men coming at night, people abducted, taken in unmarked vehicles, beaten on the soles of their feet, dumped on roadsides.

My heart was breaking watching the scenes from Harare today because it was on these exact streets that I marched with hundreds of thousands of others in November 2017, wearing my flag with such pride, Zimbabwean to the depths of my soul, caught up in a tidal wave of euphoria and joy at the end days of Robert Mugabe. How can Zimbabwe have gone so far backwards again and so fast?

For a moment, if we had dared to hope that police, who have been suffering the same hell as the rest of us, would not raise their baton sticks against unarmed citizens marching in Harare today, we had not been paying attention. Speaking at Monday’s Heroes Day events, President Mnangagwa said: “Government is finalizing special remuneration packages for the men and women in uniform, the military salary concept, and other incentives to cushion them from hardships that have affected the country’s workers.”

For the past 54 weeks (since the 30th July 2018 elections) we have been living in a state of continual, daily deterioration marked by anxiety, fear, and chronic economic hardship. We have seen all our US dollars in banks, savings accounts and pension funds unashamedly converted by our government into Zimbabwe Bond dollars which have lost 98% of their real US dollar value in the past 20 weeks. We can’t afford medical treatments and medicines anymore; fuel prices have gone up seven times this year and food prices quadrupled. As a nation we have been decimated by our own government: employers, employees, self employed and unemployed citizens, civil servants, pensioners: none have been spared.

This week the World Food Programme said 2.3 million people in rural Zimbabwe need emergency food aid now and this number will increase to 5.5 million in the coming weeks. The government estimates another 2.2 million people in urban areas also require food aid, bringing the total to 7.7 million, over half of our total population. The WFP said "We are talking about people who truly are marching towards starvation if we are not here to help them."

Today in Harare, people already marching towards starvation, also marched towards baton sticks; we feel their pain and our hearts are with them. Until next time, thanks for reading this letter from Zimbabwe, now in its 19th year, and my books about life in our beautiful Zimbabwe, love cathy 16 August 2019.

[Pontius Navigator]

A few years ago, about 10 I think, we made contact with a Rotary Club in Harare. They had a project to install a generator at an orphanage for blind children. Although blind there was still need for light when it was dark.

Through international links my club, another not far away, and one in Atlanta, plus addition funds from the three Rotary Districts and a match from Rotary Foundation, agreed to fund the generator. Not just the generator but a secure compound with the local club funding the building and fuel store as fuel security was paramount.

Everything was put in place except sustainable fuel supplies which could only be sourced in South Africa. By chance the Zimbabwean Rotarian managing the project visited our club and explained the problems. Problems he hoped would be better resolve with the imminent overthrow of Mugabe.

The project never proceeded as the security issue was unresolved.

[Capetonian]

Zimbabwe gathering pace on rocky road to perdition
Little change one year on from President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s inauguration

Bill Corcoran in Cape Town


As Zimbabwe marks the anniversary on Monday of Emmerson Mnangagwa’s first year as its elected president, recent developments in the troubled nation suggest it is on the road to disaster rather than recovery.

The southern African country’s first leader since former president Robert Mugabe was forced from office in 2017 had promised his compatriots a “brighter future” following his disputed victory in the 2018 general election.

New economic policies that open the country up to foreign investment would be vigorously pursued and democracy would be deepened under his Zanu-PF-led administration, he said, at his swearing-in ceremony in Harare on August 26th last year.

“The Zimbabwe we want is a shared one that transcends party lines,” he insisted.

However, few people could have imagined his promise to strengthen citizens’ participation in the affairs of the state would involve banning anti-government protests, which his administration did this month in the cities of Harare, Bulawayo and Gweru.

After the Gweru protest was outlawed on August 16th, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) vice president Tendai Biti tweeted the regime’s actions were “effectively banning the MDC and suspending the constitution”.

The MDC also claimed that dozens of activists had been rounded up and beaten by security forces ahead of each of the planned protests.

The crackdown on activism also prompted the EU’s ambassador to Zimbabwe, Timo Olkkonen, to warn Mnangagwa that the union’s continued support to the country hinged on his government upholding the rule of law.

“Zimbabwe must genuinely show it has clearly broken from the past,” he said in reference to the dictatorial rule deployed by Mugabe during his near four-decade reign.

Since Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa was inaugurated last year the military has been deployed twice to quell public protests against his regime. Photograph: EPA Since Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa was inaugurated last year the military has been deployed twice to quell public protests against his regime. Photograph: EPA
Vendors sell fruits at a market in Bulawayo. In June inflation soared to 175%, the highest rate since Zimbabwe abandoned its currency in 2009 over excessive money printing and hyperinflation.

The anti-government protests were being organised to highlight living conditions in the country, which have dramatically worsened over the past 12 months despite Mnangagwa’s efforts to stabilise the moribund economy.

For instance, in June the government scrapped the use of foreign currencies as legal tender to encourage a wider take-up of its recently launched local money, the zollar, the value of which was officially pegged to the US dollar.

“While the multicurrency regime helped stabilise the economy,” Mnangagwa said at the time, “it did not give us control of monetary policy and left us at the mercy of US dollar pricing which has been a root cause of inflation”.

But the move only served to spark panic among Zimbabweans who feared the new currency would not hold its value, and this led to massive price increases.

Unemployment remains sky high, essential items like oil and medicines are scarce as local production remains low

In June inflation soared to 175 per cent, the highest rate the country has seen since it abandon its currency in 2009 over excessive money printing and hyperinflation.

To make matters worse for ordinary citizens, the government introduced widespread austerity measures at the behest of international financial institutions from which it wants to get financial assistance.

In addition, unemployment remains sky high, essential items like oil and medicines are scarce as local production remains low, and there are regular rolling power cuts that can last up to 18-hours.

Indeed, so ineffectual has Mnangagwa’s interventions been, in the short term at least, that the International Monetary Fund expects Zimbabwe’s economy to contract in 2019 for the first time since 2008.

MDC deputy spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka said it was hard to draw any positives from the government’s recent efforts to revive the economy, which he described as “a disaster”.

Dewa Mavhinga, the southern Africa director for rights NGO Human Rights Watch, also said he was hard pressed to think of any positive economic or political interventions in Zimbabwe over the past year that could be attributed to Mnangagwa’s administration.

“Few of the reforms his government has introduced suggest it has turned over a new leaf. The new Bill that was introduced to replace the oppressive Public Order and Security Act is even worse than that legislation,” he said.

The new security Bill that was introduced in April gives the president rather the country’s defence minister sole authority to deploy soldiers for civilian policing.

Since Mnangwaga was inaugurated the military has been deployed twice to quell public protests against his regime, and on both occasions the soldiers have shot and killed civilians.

“My sense is that Zimbabwe is fast descending into anarchy. There has been a massive increase in the abuse of human rights defenders and none of those responsible have been held to account, which suggests there is collusion by the state,” he said.

Soon they will not listen to the courts that ban the protests

Tamborinyoka argues the regime’s current approach of banning anti-government protests to protect it from dissent could in fact lead to its downfall.

“It will become very dangerous for the government if they continue to stop people from expressing their unhappiness. People need to vent their frustrations. Soon they will not listen to the courts that ban the protests; they won’t ask the police [if they can protest]. They will just take to the streets,” he concluded.

[Capetonian]

Zimbabwe 'has never been this bad' as crackdown silences resistance

Kudzai Mashininga, Simon Allison 30 Aug 2019 00:00
Fearful: A protester is beaten by police in Harare on August 16 (Zinyange Auntony/AFP)

Harare — Earlier this month, Zimbabwean opposition leader Nelson Chamisa announced that his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, was taking to the streets. He said they were protesting against the rapidly deteriorating economic situation, and promised to bring the nation to a standstill.

The demonstration, when it happened on August 16, fell far short of that promise. In Harare, only a few hundred people turned out, in defiance of a last-minute government ban.
Chamisa was not among them. Riot police locked down the city centre and dispersed the protesters with extreme force. The protest was over before it really began.

That day, the repressive tactics of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration were on full view and were broadcast to the world. But a cross-section of members of the political opposition and civil society activists — none of whom are strangers to government brutality — said this was merely the public face of a crackdown that has been longer, more systematic and less predictable than any other they can remember.

“You know, under [former president Robert] Mugabe, we knew what we could do and what we couldn’t do. We knew where the line was. But now there is no line. The repression is much worse,” said one journalist, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The crackdown has come in two waves. The first was in January this year, in response to a much more successful protest: a national stayaway sparked by a sudden rise in fuel prices. Protest leaders encouraged citizens to stay at home, and they listened, shutting down the country for several days and prompting a vicious backlash from the government.

This backlash took two forms. In the first, uniformed members of the police and army were accompanied by plainclothes paramilitary units aligned to the ruling Zanu-PF in a largely indiscriminate wave of violence unleashed across the country. This was supposedly in response to the looting that had occurred during the protest.

In addition, opposition party supporters, union leaders and civil society leaders were targeted. Some were abducted and assaulted, while others were thrown into jail and charged with a range of crimes, including treason. Not all the abductions were by men in uniform, but all seemed to be operating on government instructions. Several of those targeted mentioned the existence of a “list” against which their names were being checked.

In the space of a single week, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum had recorded 844 human rights violations that included 12 deaths, 78 gunshot injuries, 242 incidents of assault, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment; 46 incidents of vandalism and looting; and 466 arbitrary detentions.
Nelson Chamisa, the leader of the opposition Movement for a Democratic Change, had promised the action would bring the country to a standstill but given the ongoing repression and violent action by the state, the protest attracted few people. (Jekesai Njikizana/AFP)

The second wave of the crackdown took place this month, with serious abuses taking place before and after the August 16 protest. The latest statistics from the forum show that prior to the protest, at least six people were abducted, assaulted and tortured by “suspected state agents”, including one person who had caustic acid poured on his body. After the protest, at least 128 people were arrested, and 12 needed urgent medical attention following injuries sustained at the hands of the police.

The abductions have continued.

Last week, Samantha Kureya, a popular comedian who goes by the stage name Gonyeti, was at her home in Harare’s Mufakose township when masked gunmen burst in and bundled her into a vehicle. Over the course of several hours, she was severely assaulted and forced to drink sewage water, before being dumped naked on the side of the road.

The attack was explicitly related to Kureya’s work, which makes fun of the government. “According to the guys who took me, it is the type of content we create which they don’t like and it includes the recent skit titled Statutory Instrument of Evil Servants. When they took me they kept referring to that skit,” said Kureya.

She and her family — who were at home when she was abducted and assaulted — are being counselled. “Imagine someone pointing a gun at a seven-year-old … just a sound from outside can make everyone panic.”

Kureya said that she will not be silenced by the attack. “Yes, I am scared but we can’t stop doing our work. Comic relief is a key aspect of our society. Humour keeps the ordinary citizens going in this tough situation. Our content doesn’t just entertain, we also inform and educate, so we feel that we are playing an important role in getting youths and women engaged in key issues of society. So stopping is not an option.”

Earlier this week, six armed men descended on the home of Makomborero Haruzivishe, the outspoken former leader of the Zimbabwe National Students Union. He was lucky; he was not there. This is not the first time that he has received such unwelcome attention.

“Two days before the January demonstrations began, we were raided at midnight at a guest house where we were having a youth conference under the auspices of the Global Network for Youth Action. I managed to escape the raid by 12 armed men with AK-47 rifles but my colleagues from the Democratic Republic of Congo and one from the United States of America were abducted and interrogated for six hours,” said Haruzivishe.

He was arrested two days later and charged with working with foreigners to subvert the government.

Although the alleged perpetrators of these attacks are not always in uniform, there is no doubt in the minds of civil society leaders that they are operating at the government’s behest.

“Artists and creatives are deeply concerned that a rogue and criminal behaviour operating outside the realms of law and human decency is taking over our law enforcement,” said two Zimbabwean arts groups, Nhimbe Trust and Rooftop Promotions, in a joint statement in response to the attack on Kureya. “Someone must be responsible for this lawlessness that seems to be acting on behalf of the government. Unfortunately the buck stops with the law enforcement agencies and our government.”

The government disagrees. Although the information ministry did not respond to a request for comment, in a previous statement — released before the August 16 protest — the ministry blamed the spate of abductions on a “force comprised of discharged and disgruntled former members of the old establishment, of whom some are trained”. This force is apparently loyal to Mugabe, and intent on discrediting the new president.

Whoever is responsible for the violence, there can be no doubt that it is having a chilling effect on all forms of opposition to the government. And although Kureya insists that the show must go on, not everyone agrees.

“The stakes are too high now. These guys can do anything,” said one high-profile activist, speaking on condition of anonymity.

This activist, who is known for his outspokenness, has never before requested to keep his name out of the newspaper, but felt that the risk of retaliation had become too high for him to speak freely.

“It has never been this bad,” he said. Other sources echoed this sentiment.

[Capetonian]

Sign at Victoria Falls Bungee Jumping Bridge :


Locals : ZW$ 1000
Tourists : US$ 100
Zanu-PF officials and war vets : Free - no strings attached.

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

According to the Ngami Times; Zimbabwe is going to introduce a new currency next month. But I bet that everyone will still use US dollars if they can.

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

I hope our Zimmy friends here don't need to renew their passports in the near future; https://news.sky.com/story/starving-zim ... t-11832161

Mind you, not having a passport won't stop many from sneaking across the border and finding work as casual labourers.

[Capetonian]

Today is the 40th anniversary of Zimbabwe's so-called Independence and installation of a 'democratic' government. The only Independence that really counts took place on 11 November 1965, when a courageous and prescient Ian Smith proclaimed :

Whereas in the course of human affairs history has shown that it may become necessary for a people to resolve the political affiliations which have connected them with another people and to assume amongst other nations the separate and equal status to which they are entitled:

And Whereas in such event a respect for the opinions of mankind requires them to declare to other nations the causes which impel them to assume full responsibility for their own affairs:

Now Therefore, We, The Government of Rhodesia, Do Hereby Declare:

That it is an indisputable and accepted historic fact that since 1923 the Government of Rhodesia have exercised the powers of self-government and have been responsible for the progress, development and welfare of their people;

That the people of Rhodesia having demonstrated their loyalty to the Crown and to their kith and kin in the United Kingdom and elsewhere through two world wars, and having been prepared to shed their blood and give of their substance in what they believed to be the mutual interests of freedom-loving people, now see all that they have cherished about to be shattered on the rocks of expediency;

That the people of Rhodesia have witnessed a process which is destructive of those very precepts upon which civilization in a primitive country has been built, they have seen the principles of Western democracy, responsible government and moral standards crumble elsewhere, nevertheless they have remained steadfast;

That the people of Rhodesia fully support the requests of their government for sovereign independence but have witnessed the consistent refusal of the Government of the United Kingdom to accede to their entreaties;

That the Government of the United Kingdom have thus demonstrated that they are not prepared to grant sovereign independence to Rhodesia on terms acceptable to the people of Rhodesia, thereby persisting in maintaining an unwarrantable jurisdiction over Rhodesia, obstructing laws and treaties with other states and the conduct of affairs with other nations and refusing assent to laws necessary for the public good, all this to the detriment of the future peace, prosperity and good government of Rhodesia;

That the Government of Rhodesia have for a long period patiently and in good faith negotiated with the Government of the United Kingdom for the removal of the remaining limitations placed upon them and for the grant of sovereign independence;

That in the belief that procrastination and delay strike at and injure the very life of the nation, the Government of Rhodesia consider it essential that Rhodesia should attain, without delay, sovereign independence, the justice of which is beyond question;

Now Therefore, We The Government of Rhodesia, in humble submission to Almighty God who controls the destinies of nations, conscious that the people of Rhodesia have always shown unswerving loyalty and devotion to Her Majesty the Queen and earnestly praying that we and the people of Rhodesia will not be hindered in our determination to continue exercising our undoubted right to demonstrate the same loyalty and devotion, and seeking to promote the common good so that the dignity and freedom of all men may be assured, Do, By This Proclamation, adopt, enact and give to the people of Rhodesia the Constitution annexed hereto;
God Save The Queen

The way that Rhodesia and her people were treated by Her Majesty's Government was a betrayal and a disgrace, but such is history. The posturing do-gooders of the western world, the filth and scum who succeeded in bringing down the Rhodesian Front regime and in so doing, inflicting misery and death on millions of people as the evil ZANU-PF party and its cabal of thugs took over, led by Robert Mugabe, is a textbook example of the law of (possibly) unintended consequences, or what happens when a well-run and benign dictatorship is handed over to a bunch of murdering savages.

If there is a God, may he bring better times to the people of southern Africa upon whom these howling murdering black savages, only interested in enriching themselves and their henchmen, have been inflicted.

[Pinky the pilot]

It is a pity that former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser is no longer alive, as if he was, he should be made to read this entire thread!

[TheGreenGoblin]

It is a pity that former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser is no longer alive, as if he was, he should be made to read this entire thread!

People like Fraser did pave the way for this man's family to come to your country...

Bloody George Gregan...

I say that with respect to Australia, George and the Springboks who had to work a little harder to beat you blokes, as we always do...

[prospector]

I was in Zimbabwe on a aerial spray contract with Agricair for 6 months late 87 to 88. I was not impressed right from the word go. Every cent of foreign currency had to be declared on entering the country, even had to empty my fob pocked of the last cent. And every cent of foreign currency spent had to be recorded as to who was paid in said currency.
The next thing that was getting NZ licence validated for Zimbabwe, fronted up to the official, newly appointed, ex tea boy in the Dept I was informed, took great delight in advising me could not do it that day come back tomorrow. and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Was not until the big guns of Agricair started making waves that anything happened. Not a good experience. The base I was sent to used to have 4 aeroplanes based there permanently, after Mugabe's mob took over, one contract pilot for 6 months.

[Capetonian]

It was, as Rhodesia, one of the finest countries in the world. The blacks had little or no political power, but look how they abused and misused it when they got it.
Another sad story of Africa and its despotic leaders.

[Capetonian]

Anyone who thought that Mugape's replacement would bring better times to that long-suffering country and its people will have been proved wrong, again and again. Just another savage despot whose actions will not be condemned by the so-called civilised world.

After 'abduction' of activists, life in Zimbabwe under 'The Crocodile' looks as bad as with Mugabe

Emmerson Mnangagwa was supposed to represent a clean break with Zimbabwe’s dark past but in some ways the situation has worsened
By Peta Thornycroft Johannesburg 25 May 2020 • 4:59pm
Despite economic improvements, life under ‘The Crocodile’ is worse than it was under Robert Mugabe
Zimbabwe continues to struggle under the premiership of Emmerson Mnangagwa Credit: SHUTTERSTOCK

The footage makes for uncomfortable viewing. Sobbing almost uncontrollably, her whole body heaving as she spoke, Zimbabwe’s youngest MP relived her ordeal at the hands of men she is convinced were agents of the state. Arrested for having the temerity to take part in an anti-government protest on May 13, Joana Mamombe says she was taken into a forest and thrown into a pit with her fellow detainees, two female members of the opposition’s MDC Alliance. For the best part of 36 hours, the women were allegedly beaten, sodomised with handguns and forced to drink each other’s urine. For many Zimbabweans, the allegations levelled by Ms Mamombe, 27, carry overtones of the presidency of Robert Mugabe, who was ousted in a coup in 2017 and died last September. Mugabe’s overthrow, it was hoped, would end the abductions, beatings and extrajudicial killings that characterised both his early and later years.

Anxious to repair relations with the West, Emmerson Mnangagwa, the ruling party apparatchik who both succeeded Mugabe and precipitated his demise, was supposed to represent a clean break with Zimbabwe’s dark past. Yet even the official response to the ordeal suffered by the the three women of the MDC was heavily redolent of that era. The police first admitted to having detained the three women after they held a small demonstration in the down-at-heel Harare district of Warren Park and then denied any knowledge of ever having arrested them. After they were found dumped, their clothes ripped and barely able to walk, on a roadside 50 miles outside the capital, government media sought to imply that the women had staged their own kidnapping. Even government ministers appeared to make sport of the women’s misery. Energy Mutodi, the deputy information minister, theorised that the women’s injuries were inflicted during a row over payment for sex. They had tried to make their boyfriends, illegal gold miners, pay for services rendered in precious foreign currency, he surmised, while offering no evidence to support his claim.

And although the government promised to investigate the women’s claims, ministers suggested they would be charged for failing to socially distance at the protest they attended. Meanwhile, two Zimbabwean journalists who interviewed the women have been arrested and denied bail. Such nastiness certainly bears the hallmark of bygone years, prompting accusations from opposition figures that Zimbabwe is now more repressive under Mr Mnangagwa than it was under Mugabe.

Mr Mnangagwa, after all, is a Zanu-PF man through and through. Not only does he lead the party that has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain 40 years ago last month, but he has often been associated with its most unreconstructed hardliners. It was he who took charge of crushing dissent in Mugabe’s early years during incessant attacks by former Rhodesians security forces and ‘dissidents’ mostly from the minority Ndebele tribe. As minister of state for national security, Mr Mnangagwa was accused of presiding over the ‘Gukurahundi,’ as the ethnically charged massacres of thousands of Ndebele opposition supporters was known. The president has always denied the allegations.

But while the ruthlessness of “The Crocodile”, as Mr Mnangagwa is known, made him indispensable to Mugabe, he was always more pragmatic than the mentor he betrayed in 2017. Mr Mnangagwa was brutally tortured by the police as a teenager in Rhodesia and escaped the gallows but served eight years in prison.

The differences remain apparent today. Within 24 hours of making his allegation, Mr Mutodi was quietly sacked. That would not have happened in the old days.

President Mnangagwa’s frequent attempts, so far rebuffed, to patch things up with the West would never have happened under Mugabe, his hatred of the “gay United gay Kingdom” and its cohorts smouldering till the day he went to the grave.

“Zimbabwe is open for business,” Mr Mnangagwa declared, hopefully if unrealistically, after his inauguration.

That pragmatism has seen some of the excesses and abuses of the Mugabe era curtailed. Mr Mnangagwa has shown little appetite for extending his predecessor’s disastrous land resettlement programme, which saw the invasion and destruction of most of the country’s white-owned farms. He has even made soothing noises about returning a small number of farms, although this is unlikely to happen.

Some effort has been made to amend or appeal repressive laws, most notably the notorious Public Order and Security Act that became one of the chief instruments of state repression in the Mugabe era. On the other hand, analysts say, there has been little appetite to embrace genuine change. Zimbabwe’s land and agricultural policies remain unreformed. Human rights activists say the law that replaced the Public Order and Security Act still falls short of international human rights standards. The oppressive media laws have also not be reformed. Nor has devolution - handing some governance to the provinces.

There have, undoubtedly, been human rights abuses, too, including the killing of at least 17 protesters during fuel riots last year and a series of alleged abductions, culminating in the saga involving Ms Mamombe and her colleagues. Such incidents suggest that the removal of Mugabe has clearly not swept away the repression he implemented. But there are those, like Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, who argue democratic progress has been made — and that Zimbabwe is not getting enough credit for it. Mr Rampahosa is leading calls for a lifting of “sanctions”, as the US's complex financial restrictions against scores of Zimbabwe’s political and and military leaders are usually called, saying that the case for doing so has now become overwhelming because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This is time for solidarity and not exclusion or for vengeance or revenge,” he said.

Yet if things are better politically, they are worse economically. Zimbabwe, which suffered financial devastation as a result of Mugabe’s land programme and other policies, is again in the economic mire. The economy shrank eight per cent last year, annual inflation is running at nearly 700 per cent and the recently-introduced Zimbabwe dollar has lost 90 per cent of its value in the past year.

Mr Mnangagwa cannot be blamed entirely: he has been dealt a rotten hand. Aside from the disastrous legacy he inherited from his predecessor, Zimbabwe has had to deal with a cyclone and two consecutive droughts that devastated the all-important agricultural sector. The coronavirus pandemic has made matters worse, forcing the government to impose a lockdown. Tourism, vital to the economy, has also collapsed.

But Zimbabwe can rely on little of the relief other African states benefit from because it has yet to pay off debt arrears to international lenders. The chances of a rapid resumption of World Bank lending were dealt a blow after it was revealed that Zimbabwe’s central bank had resumed printing money. Corruption scandals have also not helped the country’s cause.

The potential for a warm relationship between Mr Mnangagwa’s government and the International Monetary Fund in particular has largely evaporated as a result, according to Tony Hawkins, a Zimbabwean economist.

“It has walked away, and it would have loved to help, at the end of Mugabe’s rule the economy was levelling off and now it is downhill again.”

The economic misery has even sparked nostalgia for the Mugabe years.

“Life was much better under Robert Mugabe,” said Hapious Chitura, the father of three children. “Although he was hard-hearted, he at least had a way of running the country better. But right now, people cannot afford a decent meal because prices of basic commodities are increasing daily.”

So dire is the situation that some observers believe there could even be a move from within Zanu-PF to oust the president, and that Zimbabwe, having acquired a taste for coups, could be about to go through another. Eldred Masunungure, a veteran political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe, suggests that the attack on the three MDC women could even have been orchestrated by an anti-Mnangagwa faction within the ruling party with the intention of discrediting the president and further isolating him internationally.

“There are deepening fractures and at present one hears revival of talk about another coup d’etat,” he said.

[Rwy in Sight]

It was, as Rhodesia, one of the finest countries in the world. The blacks had little or no political power, but look how they abused and misused it when they got it.
Another sad story of Africa and its despotic leaders.

Don't say that too loud in Western Europe. You would be branded racist - which we are all are.

[Undried Plum]

Democracy is a bastard. Innit!

The people get to vote:- on a one man/woman; one vote, basis.

Bugger!

That mighta **** up a Murrica, and would almost probably have done so, if they had adopted that system. So they didn't.


Just don't give the nigggers the keys to pick the lock. That's the answer.



Yeah! Effigah!

[Capetonian]

WhatsApp Image 2020-05-31 at 11.48.42.jpeg (20.16 KiB) Viewed 358 times

.

Here's the story of Rhodesia
A land both fair and great
On 11th of November
An independent state

This was much against the wishes
Of certain governments
Whose leaders tried to break us down
To make us all repent

But we're all Rhodesians
And we'll fight through thick and thin
We'll keep our land a free land
Stop the enemy coming in

We'll keep them north of the Zambezi
Till that river's running dry
This mighty land will prosper
For Rhodesians never die

They can send their men to murder
And they can shout their words of hate
But the cost of keeping this land free
Can never be too great

For our men and boys are fighting
For the things that they hold dear
That this land and all its people
Will never disappear

'Cause we're all Rhodesians
And we'll fight through thick and thin
We'll keep our land a free land
Stop the enemy coming in

We'll keep them north of the Zambezi
Till that river's running dry
This mighty land will prosper
For Rhodesians never die

We'll preserve this little nation
For our children's children too
For once you're a Rhodesian
No other land will do

We will stand tall in the sunshine
With the truth upon our side
And if we have to go alone
We'll go alone with pride

But we're all Rhodesians
And we'll fight through thick and thin
We'll keep our land a free land
Stop the enemy coming in

We'll keep them north of the Zambezi
Till that river's running dry
This mighty land will prosper
For Rhodesians never die

Yes we're all Rhodesians
And we'll fight through thick and thin
We'll keep our land a free land
Stop the enemy coming in

We'll keep them north of the Zambezi
Till that river's running dry
This mighty land will prosper
For Rhodesians never die

Because we're all Rhodesians
And we'll fight through thick and thin
We'll keep our land a free land
Stop the enemy coming in

We'll keep them north of the Zambezi
Till that river's running dry
This mighty land will prosper
For Rhodesians never die


.
For my friends, Clem, who wrote and performed this and many other patriotic songs, and his wife Jean.

[Undried Plum]

WhatsApp Image 2020-05-31 at 11.48.42.jpeg
'll keep them north of the Zambezi
Till that river's running dry
This mighty land will prosper
For Rhodesians never die

Right to the end, and beyond, for some, they just didn't understand that the threat was not from outwith the border.

The threat was democracy within.

[Capetonian]

That was only part of the threat. The terrorist groups within Rhodesia were motivated and funded from outside. External threats were the forces determined to destroy Rhodesia by political and economic means, undermining Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front government and replacing it with terrorists, and by sending terrorists across the borders.

Ian Smith claimed, probably rightly, that “There are millions of black people who say things were better when I was in control. I have challenged Mugabe to walk down the street with me and see who has most support. I have much better relations with black people than he does.” Neither his house near the Cuban Embassy in 'Harare', nor his farm in Selukwe had security guards, in contrast to Mugabe's residences. He often claimed that blacks in Rhodesia were the happiest blacks in Africa. From my own observations, that may well have been true, albeit from a fairly low base, whereas now Zimbabwean blacks are probably suffering the worst conditions of any African country.

[ian16th]

I have much better relations with black people than he does.

I heard him say those same words.