Currently the debate on the Zimbabwwe crisis is centred around SADC, AU and Mbeki being inefficient, unhelpful or pliant to Mugabe and people calling at some point for the AU, UN and a new mediator to take the quest for the resolution of the Zimbabwe crisis forward.

On various fora, oral or written and through various news outlet channels there are several statements calling on SADC, AU, Montlanthe or someone to put more muscle, to have more teeth and to be more robust in trying to unlock the political logjam.

In frustration we have called SADC and AU toothless, hopeless and a huge let down yet in the same vein we then ask SADC or the AU to come up with a better strategy in the next attempt. Every time this does not happen we curse, rant, swear and wait for another summit.

For me I think there is nothing that the SADC, AU, UN, Montlanthe or anyone for that matter, can do to force Mugabe and Tsvangirai to work together if these two are not committed to working together. Even if SADC has a summit on Zimbabwe each week it will not help our cause unless these two leaders agree to work together in some way. At the moment they have not as yet found each other and they are busy drifting far apart as each day passes yet they have been negotiating amongst themselves for over two years now.

So let us not hope that the forthcoming SADC meeting will spring a miracle wand which will be a panacea to all our problems.

These two men should do some soul searching on their own before the next summit and decide whether they want to work together in some way or just forget about it and fight their own battles elsewhere on another platform.

We are tired of hearing the “we are committed to the GNU” mantra because if there was enough commitment  there should be some convergence of some sort. There is no point in going to these summits when you know you have not moved an inch from your old position and expect only one person to move while you continue digging in. If there was enough political will and commitment from both sides by now we would have a government in place.

Let us not be fooled by what these leaders say in public, it is meant to be in tune with what they know we want to hear but the truth is currently we are at a point where there is so much political grand standing and point scoring with none of the two wanting to shift their position. Why then call on SADC, AU, UN or someone to come up with a solution when we know deep down we do not want this GNU to work and leave the room only to come up with statements that lay the blame on others and not ourselves as a people?

The essence of negotiating is so we establish friendship where there was enmity, yet day in day out in Zimbabwe we are exuding high levels of intolerance and we expect an agreement to come out of these SADC summits.

Until these two men, their party structures and followers find it within themselves to work together for the common good then we might as well forget about this agreement and stop blaming everyone else but ourselves.

The Global Political Agreement (GPA) is in a coma on a life saving machine and I am sure Zimbabweans are tired of the sound from the life support machines. We are requesting that someone between Mugabe and Tsvangirai pull the plug so we can cry, grieve and bury the GPA (read Zimbabwe) but at least move on with our lives towards our graves in one way or another. I am putting this request because I am tired of hoping. My mother in Buhera has told me at 84 she is tired and hopeless. My church mates have told me they no longer want to discuss politics anymore because they are tired. My husband has said he is alright with me doing anything to keep the Zimbabwe crisis on the radar but I should just not talk to him about it because he is tired of hoping. All my friends have said to me they too are tired of hoping. So can someone please pull the plug and stop this political rigmarole and sentence the entire Zimbabwean population to death because after this there is no hope of achieving any resolution at all to the Zimbabwean crisis.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai do you want to tell the whole world, especially Zimbabweans, that you have failed between the two of you to find a formula on how to work together for the greater good of the nation, the region and the whole world?

My second request is for both Mugabe and Tsvangirai to tell us of their Plan B if they have any. Mugabe has said he will go it alone which is the same as sending all Zimbabweans dead and alive to the grave at one go. As for Tsvangirai, the options are also limited according to the way I see it. If Mugabe surrenders in some way either Munangagwa, Mujuru or Chiwenga will spring from ZANU PF and the fight continues. There will be such a fight in ZANU PF around the succession issue that there will be so much bloodshed like we have never seen before. Chiwenga might try and pull off a coup but who wants a coup? Maybe new elections as some have proffered. How do you call for the elections? Where will ZANU PF have gone for us to be able to call for UN supervised elections? How will the UN intervene? Military intervention? Iraq and Afghanistan? Transitional Authority? How do you arrive at one when ZANU PF is in office?

Can someone tell me how you are going to be able to get rid of ZANU PF as an obstacle when we have failed to remove it for the past decade or so through elections, sanctions and any such struggle? I want to rally my friends, my church mates and everyone around me as long as there is a clear well defined and sustainable Plan B because otherwise I fear that in the forthcoming struggles for democracy the opposition will be all alone as people have just lost hope.

Motivate us around Plan B so that when you give a clarion call we can act accordingly.

Having last attended school some time in 2008, many school-going children have turned into vendors, seen by the roadside, shop verandahs, and in car parks selling their wares ranging from airtime, roasted maize, tomatoes, cabbages, stationery, fish.  They are even seen working in the fields in exchange for either food or these precious US dollar notes. With no government in place in Zimbabwe, more and more children and teachers are struggling to survive.

2008 was unofficially declared a non-academic year, affecting pupils progression to the next grade or to tertiary institutions. This year 2009 surprised us again by a further postponement of the opening of the first term of school. This is really a challenge to the nation as it is grooming thugs, robbers and criminals by not addressing these issues to get children back to school and have their right to education.

In short, 2008 is not over yet, as we are still where we were at last year.

When are the great majority of Zimbabwean people going to take some responsibility for what they are allowing to happen to them and get off their backsides and do something about it for themselves? I am fed up of the whinging and lack of action coming out of Zimbabwe. Other countries in the same position have fought their oppressors. Yes, it has cost lives and caused hardship but they have eventually overthrown the oppressive regime controlling them. Zimbabweans are not even prepared to organise “a day on the streets” or any other civil unrest in case they get hurt or arrested. This is not the way to change things. For goodness sake get out there and fight for your basic freedoms whatever it may cost you in the short-term. Mugabe relies on your inaction to retain his power and day after day, week after week, month after month you let him get away with it. Why? Only a few brave souls raise their heads above the parapet and so are easily picked off. Get behind Jestina and here ilk, follow them, and give them support. Protest as never before when people are abducted, when a two year old is incarcerated, when people are tortured. Do something about it; Let Mugabe know it is not acceptable. For God’s sake, and your own, do something to get Mugabe’s attention and indeed that of the whole world. Stand up and fight like people who want their freedom. Don’t rely on others. – Ken, UK

The above is a comment on an article by David Coltart.

I thought the author was right and he was also wrong – if it is at all possible to be right and wrong at the same time. What I do know deep in my heart is that some things are easier said than done. And if you’ve never had to survive under a dictatorship, you just don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Because you just can’t fathom that the non existence of democracy entails a lot of things including that you cant just up and make a noise faced with bullets and a real disregard for human life. You also have no idea that dictators are practically untouchable, at least by the ordinary citizen. Here in Zimbabwe they move in kilometer long motorcades and their functionaries are armed to the teeth and ready to kill anything that moves within a short distance from the dictator.

Zimbabweans got off their backsides and actually did something, which was to vote. Mugabe disrespected the will of the people and is intent on staying in power until “only God removes him”. Activists have peacefully taken to the streets and the police have descended like tons of bricks. Understandably, people now fear for their lives.

Do something to get his attention? You bet the guy knows he’s the most unwanted person right now. He is also aware of the fact that hunger and cholera are wiping out whole communities of this nation. If someone can be aware of all that and still remain indifferent, what more do you think ordinary citizens can do? This indifference is our biggest challenge.

I also wish to relay the fact that Zimbabwe is going through what OCHA describes as a “complex emergency.” According to OCHA, a complex emergency is a “humanitarian crisis in a country, region or society where there is total or considerable breakdown of authority resulting from internal or external conflict and which requires an international response”. I think this means in essence that when a state has collapsed and its citizens’ livelihoods are gravely threatened it becomes the obligation of the regional and international community to intervene. Hopefully the world has learned a few lessons from Rwanda, Darfur and Uganda’s Idi Amin.

We are an unarmed people under siege.

Esther (not her real name) writes a regular diary for the BBC about her life in Harare. Her latest blog discusses Grace Mugabe, the fear of speaking out, dollarisation, Obama and that her “hope in politicians has gone”.

Yesterday I spoke to a woman who lives in Harare and earns a living as a domestic worker. She told me that if there is another election she won’t bother going to vote because when you vote you should get a result. Even though she and a lot of her friends have been staunch MDC supporters, she says that Morgan Tsvangirai is being criticised on the ground for “running away”. She views life through a relatively simple lens; in Botswana Tsvangirai can eat, here in Zimbabwe, millions of ordinary Zimbabweans can’t. She talked about too many people dying from either cholera, or hunger. And that people are responding to cholera like they once did, or still do, to AIDS, with fear and alarm, believing that someone who has died from cholera will make them sick too. So a body will remain where it falls until someone brave enough comes along to remove the corpse.