Wednesday 11 February 2009

A New Hope?

My apologies for a long absence... I have been trundling around Africa for a bit getting a first hand view of things... and they are dismal... .

Well today, finally, the man legally voted in by the people of Zimbabwe as their leader has finally been sworn in by the man illegally occupying the post of President.

I suppose that I, like about 99% of Zimbabweans am sceptical... And would anyone blame us? Lets be honest here - it seems Mugabe still hasn't released the activists that are being held illegally... nor, indeed, has he even tried to comply with anything that he doesn't agree with.

The Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, is busy making a lot of promises... I just wonder what he knows that we don't. If he were Prime Minister or President in his own right with full control of government, I wouldn't hesitate to believe him. Unfortunately, at this point, what I predicted some time ago has come to pass. He has, probably for the right reasons, decided to take up the challenge of trying to lead Zimbabwe and deal with the excesses of Mugabe and his party of thugs from within. And this means he has to handle ministries that are still ham-strung by Mugabe's grip on security. Any failure will bring Mugabe out shouting and pointing fingers!

And whilst most of us may question this approach, I am given hope by the open statements he himself has made - there is no trust between the two and he knows Mugabe's probable hope is to absorb him and the MDC in the same manner as he did with ZAPU. Also, the eyes of the world are a bit wiser to his plans, the news media firmly understands how Mugabe has acted in the past.. and so he will not quickly be able to just slide past his usual plan of firstly trying to absorb the opposition and secondly.. blaming them for everything.

It is still very fraught and, I understand, there are still many things to be negotiated.. in fact most of the fundamentally important pre-requisites of allowing this "marriage of inconvenience" to have much chance of working, remain outstanding.

But I truly think that Tsvangirai will have a chance at really frustrating Mugabe as much as Mugabe will frustrate him - hopefully, in the end, Tsvangirai will prevail - as tenacious as Mugabe is at hanging on, Tsavngirai has shown he is at standing strong and fighting for what he believes in. Hopefully it will be enough to bring the transitional period through to an end where a proper election can be held and Mugabe can be soundly defeated.

One of the biggest things Tsvangirai has to fight with is his parliamentary majority - and hopefully this will be one of the prime movers. As much as ZANU-pf and Mugabe must be wringing their hands in anticipation of a new inflow of foreign aid and investment on which they hope to feast, we can only hope the foreign donors will not be falling over themselves to hand over the cash. Sadly, I think, this is possibly the weak link in everything. I think that the initial position of the world that they want to see the government working MUST be rigidly maintained.

This, however, puts Tsvangirai and the MDC in a difficult position - they will have to deliver progress for the people in Zimbabwe.. without the rest of the worlds' money.. which is interesting. Zimbabwe is a beautiful country with a HUGE wealth of resources. Now the problem is, Mugabe and ZANU-pf's policies are all contrary to allowing the resources to be utilised and managed in the manner necessary to allow economic activity to help the economy recover. And that is going to be a big challenge to overcome. And it will be interesting to see how this can be done. In my opinion proper law and order is the main priority (of course, I am a cop - so it would be!).. but, the chaotic land grab which has taken place and continues to take place is illegal. Even if Mugabe changed the law to suit, the fact is, he initially allowed the law to be broken willy nilly. Farmers were targeted on the basis of their race (to my understanding, this is against the law).. Farmer were murdered, assaulted and harassed. Farmers had their property vandalised and stolen.. So all of that was illegal - and the law needs to recognise that. I personally DO understand the need for land reform, however, we need to remember that a large percentage of the farms which were grabbed, had changed ownership since Zimbabwe gained Independence.. and had certificates of no interest from the government. So yes, we would have to delve into the whole history of the land problem.. and approach it in a sensible manner. The farms need to be taken away from Mugabe loyalists. Their original owners need to be restored to their properties.. and that means reversing the whole land grab, before a proper reform can be undertaken... something which Tsvangirai has said will not happen.... So what now?

Before the economy can possibly recover, the farms need to be working again.. after all, the country had an agriculturally based economy... and it needs food.. now it is a fact that the Mugabe loyalists (illegally) occupying these farms have absolutely NO idea about farming.. and those farms where people have been resettled, have regressed to subsistence farming levels.

Quite a dilemma - since the police, army, air force and CIO are still firmly under Mugabe's control... and they are not likely to start upholding the law or trying to chuck the so-called generals and commissioner generals etc off farms that they have stolen and occupy without producing any food.. I guess it is going to be a hard, if not impossible road.. so we will have to watch carefully - but I should think that Mugabe's hopes of the world rushing in with money need to be dashed and remain that way.

I note that Mbeki and the SADC are already shouting for the world to drop sanctions and re-invest... I truly hope the world can respond by saying, very simply... Don't be silly! After all - aren't Zimbabwe's problems going to be resolved by Zimbabweans?

It is time for the world to stop being conned by Mugabe and Africa.

Sadly though, I am sure that the bleeding hearts will ensure Mugabe has a reason to to stay as his money will still be coming in.. and going out - to his bank accounts!

I watched, in disbelief, the amounts of money that the world is chucking at Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak.. especially when it is plain that the money is being sent via the Reverse (Reserve) Bank of Zimbabwe.. and into Mugabe's pockets! For the amounts of money that have been deployed to deal with this crisis, the water reticulation system could have been completely overhauled and medical supplies could have been shipped in and the problem brought firmly under control! I sat and listened to some high up lady in the UN doing an interview with UK TV about the crisis... and all I heard was stupidity - the answer - more and more money being channelled into Zimbabwe... and none of it being used for the dying people!

I would be very Happy though, to be heading home myself, shortly and going back into the force and seeing what effect I could have... but at this point, it would seem that the force is still too truly compromised and is, still, just a ZANU-pf militia.

Let see what happens over the next few days and weeks - and lets hope.

Later.

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