Mugabe government's failures

A BULAWAYO family has abandoned its home as raw sewage is flowing into the house following sewer pipe bursts.A Chronicle news crew yesterday visited House Number 857 in Emakhandeni suburb and found raw sewage flowing into the three-roomed house.The flowing sewage has caused a stench that is sweeping across the area, a development that has sparked widespread complaints from residents. The house’s yard has also been invaded by green flies and neighbours are now living in fear of a cholera outbreak that has claimed hundreds of lives country-wide.Although the family, could not be traced yesterday, details obtained by Chronicle showed that the main reason for deserting the house was because of the raw sewage. Speaking in separate interviews, neighbours said the family left the house two weeks ago.“The sewage has always been a problem and the last tenants tried to keep up with the problem, but could not take it anymore. It is two weeks now and there has been no one in the house,” said Mr Thando Mlilo, a neighbour. The sewer pipes were reportedly bursting every week.“They were reporting the matter to the council but their efforts were fruitless as the council failed to fix the problem. “Ever since 2006 this house has been having this problem, forcing the owners to leave and put lodgers,” said Miss Nomathemba Khuphe, another neighbour.The burst, which occurred in the toilet, has posed a serious health hazard as it has spilled into the house, overflowing even into the bedroom.“The sewage overflows to the bedroom and there is no room that has been spared. This was making it hard for the occupants, as they had to clean raw sewage everyday,” said another neighbour.Efforts to get a comment from the Bulawayo City Council were fruitless yesterday.

Robert Mugabe asks for confrontation

This is no longer a laughing matter, time will tell by Kirth Dube.
Zimbabwe a failed state run by Robert Mugabe and his criminals on Tuesday ordered the riot police to seal the exits of the country's main referral hospital, Parirenyatwa, to prevent staff including doctors, specialists, nurses and engineers from marching into the city centre to protest about the country’s deteriorating health system. The state-owned Herald newspaper reported on Tuesday that 36 people had died from cholera and more than 430 people had been infected in one single district in Matabeleland South (Mthwakazi), near the border with South Africa.
Last week the Zimbabwe Times said that 12 opposition supporters were on October 30 seized by state security agents in Banket, Mashonaland West province. The State agents raided the homes of the MDC leadership and arrested the MDC members, including a two-year-old girl.During the arrests, police are said to have seized property including a computer and official party documents at the home of MDC’s national executive member, Concilia Chinanzvavana. She and her husband, Emmanuel, an elected councillor in Banket, are alleged to be among the 12 MDC activists who received military training in Botswana. The Zimbabwe Times quoted a source saying the 12 were transferred from Banket to Harare and were initially held at Mabelreign Police Station before they were moved to Avondale Police Station. They were then released into the custody of Makedenge, who has moved them to an unknown location.They are being charged with treason under the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act for allegedly undergoing training in banditry, which carries life imprisonment if convicted. The 12 are being charged under a clause that reads: “Any person who attends or undergoes any course of training, whether inside or outside Zimbabwe, for the purpose of enabling him or her to commit any act of insurgency, banditry, sabotage or terrorism in Zimbabwe shall be guilty of training as an insurgent, bandit, saboteur or terrorist and liable to imprisonment for life or any shorter period.”The officials and activists are accused of being part of a team sent by the MDC to Botswana to receive training in sabotage, terrorism and banditry.
I have never been able to “accept” much about the Zimbabwean government and its security agents. I was raised and perpetuated the notion that accepting any form of limit was a week act of resignation.
I somehow ascertained, then, that self-acceptance was worth building into my character.
I have come to various conclusions in life where I find no purpose in our lives as a nation. We now live constrained to social and political rules that not only diminish us but impedes us from reaching our maximum potential. People like Robert Gabriel Mugabe are egocentric beyond comparison, always thinking of themselves and not caring that their actions are hurting others and not realising that in turn hurt themselves.
How can we be free when political and social boundaries hold us down, when the Zanu PF regime defines our personalities and how our lives are decided without our consent. Today in Zimbabwe we see evil beyond imaginable, we see a desperate regime clinging to power through every evil means possible. Life must never be taken for granted. The Zimbabwean government’s act of arresting and torturing opponents, their act of refusing health workers the right to demand a better health service for the citizens whom cannot access adequate health care in their own country shows what kind Mugabe’s regime is like. It is and has been my belief that if one does not respect my life and takes it for granted I should not do likewise but in this instance, I change my gears completely.
In its own stance the Zimbabwean regime has asked for confrontation from its own people. “War is what happens when language fails.” Like Karl Otto von Schonhausen Bismarck once declared to the Prussian House of Delegates and said “The great questions of the day, are not decided by speeches and majority votes, but by blood and iron.” As for now history tells us that it repeats itself and the waves are heading that direction.

British man skips bail in Zimbabwe

Phillip Warrington Taylor the British journalist arrested in Harare last Thursday sneaked out of Zimbabwe at the weekend to avoid trial and a possible two-year jail term.
Taylor was arrested by Central Intelligence Organisation agents at the Harare International Airport last Thursday while boarding a home-bound flight - for allegedly practising journalism without permission.
He was granted bail by a Harare magistrate the following day and was ordered to surrender his passport. By Wednesday afternoon, when it became apparent that Taylor had skipped bail his lawyer Harrison Nkomo told the court that his client had fled.
"I have gathered that Taylor skipped bail and sneaked out of the country over the weekend and so his trial cannot go ahead," the lawyer said.
The magistrate immediately issued a warrant of arrest on Taylor in the event he was located still within the borders of Zimbabwe or in friendly countries with whom Zimbabwe has an extradition treaty.
On his arrest Taylor denied that he had at any one time practised journalism during his month-long stay in the country, insisting he was a tourist.
Under Zimbabwe's Access to Information and Privacy Act (AIPPA), it is a criminal offence for local and foreign journalists to practise journalism without accreditation from the Media and Information Commission (MIC).
However, the Global Agreement signed on September 15 by Zimbabwe's political protagonists scraps this section of the law and also makes the MIC an "illegal entity" without powers to sanction the operations of media personnel in the country.
Government has however disregarded this part of the September 15 agreement and has proceeded to harrass journalists, local and foreign, on the basis of the nullified sections of AIPPA.
Many journalists including several local practitioners were barred from covering the political negotiations that have been going on in Zimbabwe recently.
Only a handful of foreign journalists still remain in the country after most were expelled a few years ago when BBC and CNN were banned in Zimbabwe
This story appeared on news 24. Nov 11 2008

Change must come to our doorsteps

What a week to remember Barak Obama and his victory for the persecuted, unloved, hopeless, abused, victimised, tormented, negleted, refused, denied, rejected and most of all victory over racial inequality that has prevailed in the civilised world for centuries under the guises one could not find space to write on.

I happen to be one of the many who has been moved by Obama's speeches, and been delivered by his eloquence and that has changed me forever. I have seen and listened to great leaders like Nelson Mandela, Joshua Nkomo to mention a few. These are man who have and continue to inspire me in my works for my organisation and for humanity as a whole but Obama surpasses these great man by miles in the way my heart and thinking has been touched. I am a new man, this feels like I have been reborn similar to the day I accepted Christ as my lord and personal saviour. Change as Obama states it is coming to the world and the world must accept it. Soon after Obama's recent election victory Trevor Philips raised eyebrows by accusing the ruling British labour party for being Institutional Racist, Why? I live that answer to the British equality watchdog chief. It is mind buffling that not so long ago the Metropolitan Police was branded institutional racist by Sir William MacPherson published report on the failed investigation into black teenager Stephen Lawrence's 's murder, in 1999.

On the tenth anniversary of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, the head of the Metropolitan police's anti-racism unit said she believed the Met was still "institutionally racist".
Commander Cressida Dick, in charge of the Met's diversity directorate, said in an interview with the Independent: "I would say there is not an institution out there that could say, 'We are not racist'."

What is Institutional Racism?

"The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin which can be seen or detected in processes; attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantages minority ethnic people." From the Macpherson report.

If Obama's change is coming to the world then I will be the first to cry loud and invite this change to my doorstep where it is needed most. I recently had an encounter with some british authorities who used coercion intimidation and threats so I could submit to their demands even though I and them knew that I have a solicitor whom they denied me to access. This institution employs officials who continue to violate international laws everyday as I speak. When Barack Obama speaks of Change I remeber the words of Clare Xanthos , because she puts this nicely. She says, after citing a few statistics on race disadvantage: … most British policy reports and newspapers simply identify “institutional racism” as the culprit for these discrimination statistics, whilst overlooking the reality that behind the shadowy concept of institutional racism are individual acts of hidden racism.

Those who know me know ecxactly what I mean, I have evidence of abuse by authorities in this country called Britain, a country that is meant to be a model of those that stand to defend human rights. It is diffucult to comprehend the thought of such victimisation especially within these shores having spent almost the whole of my entire life under every sort of abuse. I am one who cannot be lectured on human rights abuse as having been born in Rhodesia under Ian Smith's regime and worse, grew up under the abuse of Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF regime, and also experienced a bit of South Africa's apartheid and later became a man still being victimised by Robert Mugabe and his regime so I know what I am talking about.

In Obama, I see hope and many more victories being one, not only for the Aamerican people but also for this Mthwakazian Zimbabwean man with a young family called me.

Of Mugabe gukurahundi and genocide on Mthwakazi

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There is a website that has been launched that focuses on the Gukurahundi in Matabeleland in the early to mid-1980. Visit that website here.

Mthwakazi Action Group

"What we are launching today is not just the website but also the re-birth of MAGGEMM," says Rorisang Masiane. "Even though we have been around for a number of years now, this is the first time we are making a proper web presence to internationalise our work. We want to be the main voice for those who have to deal with the trauma of Gukurahundi alone and almost forgotten."

The launch of MAGGEMM’s new website also comes with a revision of their mission and sees the group go back to basics. "In the last two years, we have carried out informal research within the affected communities and our findings made us go back to the drawing board and revise our strategy. With the launch of our website, we are also presenting a return to what we were originally formed to do, which is to focus on the Gukurahundi genocide and the fight for truth and justice on behalf of victims," says Rorisang Masiane.
Notes to Editors;
1. Mthwakazi Action Group on Genocide in Matabeleland and Midlands (MAGGEMM) is a not-for-profit group for victims of the Gukurahundi genocide in between 1982 and 1988.
2. MAGGEMM is not a political party/organisation and its actions must not be viewed as such.
3. Gukurahundi is a Shona word which means "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains” and was the codename for the government military operation in Matabeleland and Midlands between 1982 and 1988.
4. At least 20,000 people were massacred during the Gukurahundi campaign."

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Another reason for Mugabe to be a little concerned. He offered a refuge for the Ethiopian when he was ousted and Mengistu readily took up that offer and has stayed in Zimbabwe since the early 1990s.

Mengistu was initially sentenced to life in prison in January 2007 but prosecutors appealed saying the sentence did not match his crimes. Over a 17-year rule Mengistu eliminated his opponents using a combination of famine and the so-called ‘Red Terror’ purges. He was ousted in 1991 and fled to Zimbabwe where he has lived in great comfort under Mugabe’s protection. He was tried in absentia over a 12-year period, which saw the conviction of dozens of other senior officials directly responsible for the murders, torture and starvation of thousands. On Monday the Supreme Court granted the request from prosecutors and sentenced him to death."