We’ve just included this poem, by Mgcini Nyoni, in our Kubatana newsletter:

Not Yet Uhuru

A retreat to the falls
by the pot-bellied  ones
As we drown
in sky high
telephone bills
zesa bills utility bills
Government of National Unity
they say
NATIONAL UNITY?
Thanks for your loyalty
My  friend here has a ministry!
Over a glass of imported  vodka
they say how does the new merc go?
Over a cup of black  tea we mutter
How the heck am I gonna  raise a thousand Rands
for  the child’s school fees?
Not Yet Uhuru
we shall sing.

It reminded me of the resolutely unacceptable way that Zimbabweans are being treated by the politicians who suggest that they are “for the people”.

Whilst the formation of the Government of National Unity is spawning expensive retreats and the purchase of new vehicles, ordinary Zimbabwean citizens have to beg and borrow and wheel barrow containers of water from homes that have bore holes, to where they live in daily thirst.

Apartments, houses, offices in the city centre and dwellings in our suburbs do not get water on a daily basis. Our dams are full but the infrastructure to deliver the water and the chemicals to clean the water are lacking.

Mugabe trashes farms and calls on the international community for aid while he lives in the lap of luxury in one of the poshest suburbs in Harare, where he’s got water in his tub and where his lawns are kept quite green.

Sell the fucking cars; stop retreating and get water to the people.

Colletah, a Kubatana subscriber has just written to us with a demand that the Government of National Unity treat the issue of investigating human rights abuses with the respect it deserves . . .

Politicians in Zimbabwe say “Our call is to let bygones be bygones and for everyone and every entity to start anew and open a new page.”

I keep reading statements like the above about the situation in Zimbabwe. Where is logic in the people who are demanding that we forget about the past and get on to a new page. It is not possible to forget the torture in all forms that has gone on in the past political upheavals that have happened in the country. How do you think “OK YOU KILLED MY FATHER” but it does not matter that was yesterday, lets start a new page or “YOU RAPED ME” but let bygones be bygones and we start a new page.  Zimbabwe, please  be serious and be real. In post independent Zimbabwe it was “reconciliation” where the thinking was the same – lets forget and work together for Zimbabwe – now see the mess of letting bygones be bygones.

Zimbabwe  please Call a Spade a Spade and bring those that did wrong to face the music – that is logic.  This new page business is nonsense and we all know that life does not work like that.

As a kid growing up in Salisbury, as it was called then, one of the places I’d go to for entertainment and inspiration was the Rainbow Park Lane cinema. The big screen, popcorn, plastic cups of Coke – bliss for a thirteen year old! Then in my twenties I got to know Sonia, daughter of Jimmy Pereira, the driving force behind cinema in Zimbabwe. Sonia and I would meet up on some nights in the preview room at the Rainbow Park Lane and whilst the main cinema was filled with the movie going public watching the 8:30 film, we’d be checking out new movies being considered for screening in Zimbabwe. We’d share a whiskey and lose ourselves in the stories unfolding before us. Jimmy was often in the preview room with us, sitting in his usual spot, the seat on the aisle, in the back row.

Jimmy passed away recently. I sat in his memorial service looking at the programme. On the front, a dashing young man ready to take on the world; on the back, an older Jimmy, who had indeed taken on the world and forged an amazingly successful cinema industry in Zimbabwe. Here are some of the words from the service that celebrated his life . . .

Born Genaro Helder Pereira on 1st May 1928 in Lourenco Marques, Jimmy (as he has became known) experienced a somewhat challenging childhood. He schooled his prep school in Beira and for his secondary schooling he boarded at Prince Edward High in Salisbury. After leaving school he went to work informally with his father in the import and export business in Beira.

At the behest of his future mother-in-law’s to find a more formal position he moved to a different company in the same line of business. Shortly after this, in 1954 at the age of 26, he married Vanda Maria Lemos Silva. Soon after their marriage they moved to Salisbury where he tried his hand working for a company in the guano business which took him  travelling through Rhodesia, Mozambique and on occasion, Madagascar. After two years the company went bankrupt and Jimmy, now a family of four with Helder born in 1955 and Jad in 1956, returned to work with his father who was now based in Blantyre, Malawi.

In 1959 before his third and final child Sonia later in the year, Jimmy gave birth to the child he has always been most passionate about and opened his first Rainbow cinema. Converting an old plane hanger, he opened “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines” with unprecedented flair and showmanship. It was here that Jimmy finally began living his passion and where Rainbow was born.

After nine years in Blantyre the vision for their family saw them returning to Salisbury arriving with only their furniture, three children and £100 to their name. From these humble beginnings Jimmy secured the investment needed and over the next 44 years gave his heart to his passion which began with Rainbow Park Lane in 1965 and blossomed into the Rainbow Empire we know today. He travelled extensively establishing relationships all over the world making sure he celebrated life long and hard along the way.

He became a well respected businessman in the field and in 2000 he was honoured by United International Pictures with “The Millennium Film Entrepreneur” award for his enormous contribution to the industry.

Always a showman, always a gentleman, Jimmy has become a legend and his passing on 4th April 2009 marks the end of an era.

I’ve been accruing credit notes all round town. Mugabe has dollarised Zimbabwe and we don’t have any change. Yeah right, on both counts: no political change and no American coins. So when you go shopping and your bill is $8.20 the shop offers you a credit note instead of Real, Live Change.

I’ve just come across this very cool campaign which reminded me of all the useless Zimbabwean money I’ve got lying around.

From the web site Marklives! here’s more information:

Conceptualised and created by TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, these billboards and posters for The Zimbabwean newspaper were made entirely of worthless Zimbabwean bank notes. The billboard is made up of trillions and trillions and trillions worth of Zim dollar notes, which worked out to be cheaper than using paper.

Zimbabwe’s draconian media laws remain unaltered, not surprisingly. Of all the unity government’s designated reforms, Mugabe can be expected to resist this one the longest. Why? Because journalism’s job is to confront politicians with their failures. Mugabe, having contemplated nothing but his omnipotence for decades, will hardly be keen to encounter an accurate view of himself now. Read more from Heidi Holland

According to the Global Political Agreement signed by the three political parties in Zimbabwe . . .

“RECOGNISING and accepting that the Land Question has been at the core of the contestation in Zimbabwe and acknowledging the centrality of issues relating to the rule of law, respect for human rights, democracy and governance. The Parties hereby agree to: (a) conduct a comprehensive, transparent and non-partisan land audit, during the tenure of the Seventh Parliament of Zimbabwe, for the purpose of establishing accountability and eliminating multiple farm ownerships; (b) ensure that all Zimbabweans who are eligible to be allocated land and who apply for it shall be considered for allocation of land irrespective of race, gender, religion, ethnicity or political affiliation; (c) ensure security of tenure to all land holders; (d) call upon the United Kingdom government to accept the primary responsibility to pay compensation for land acquired from former land owners for resettlement; and (e) work together to secure international support and finance for the land reform programme in terms of compensation for the former land owners and support for new farmers.”

Quite clear? Clear enough? So as Rejoice Ngwenya asks “on any clear day, it is therefore impossible to comprehend why MDC, realising the incapacity of JOMIC to guarantee the democratic rights of citizens, is not evoking the clause that binds the implementation of this agreement to be guaranteed and underwritten by the Facilitator, SADC and the AU.”

Below is a letter written by Ben Freeth, a Zimbabwean farmer. The letter is addressed to Morgan Tsvangirai and it asks him to follow through on his promise to stop farm invasions.

Dear Prime Minister Tsvangarai,

As you are aware I wrote an open letter to you 2 weeks ago asking where we were going because “soon it will be too late.”

I likened our countries economy to that of an engine that is continuing to be stripped. Unfortunately the stripping process has increased in momentum significantly since my letter; and police unfortunately remain complicit with it.

Since I wrote to you we have had a fresh illegal invasion on Mount Carmel Farm on the 4 April 2009. We copied a letter to your office addressed to the Commissioner General of the Zimbabwe Republic Police dated 5 April but have yet to have any response.

Some of our workers have been badly beaten [one with a cracked skull]; the Mount Carmel house was broken into and entered by invaders while my elderly parents-in-law were inside; Mike and Angela Campbell have since been evicted by the illegal invaders and stopped from accessing their home and work place by a locked gate that the invaders have erected on the drive into the farm; their house has since been entered by invaders again and some looting has taken place; the mango crop still in the orchards of over 100 tons is being stolen before our eyes; the pack- shed has been broken into and the 50 tons of export mangos that was rotting there [because the invaders have stopped all the 150 workers from loading the lorry that came from SA for export] are being sold by the invaders – we saw the rotting mangos and invader sales of stolen property on 10 April; the orange crop of 200 tons is being stolen and the maize and sunflower crops will be stolen shortly if nothing is done to arrest the perpetrators of these crimes.

Many of our workers are sleeping in the bush due to the violence that remains unpunished. Others are victims of trumped up charges in jail. They have been subjected to torture by police in Chegutu using armoured cable to beat them. The one with the cracked skull [Sinos] was dumped on the charge office floor by invaders in the presence of witnesses who were never even asked to explain themselves. A police constable then smashed Sinos’ head against the charge office wall. As a result of police being used to torture and arrest our workers, our workers are naturally very afraid to make reports of crimes that continue to be committed.

Invaders threatened to kill any of our guards that tried to continue to guard the crops. They stole a shotgun from the guards and used it to threaten workers. This they subsequently handed into police. Not a single one of the workers has been allowed to work for us in the last week doing the vital job of packing export quality mangos for the earning of tens of thousands of US dollars of scarce foreign currency.

Chegutu police will not even give us the name of the main invader who is frequently at the station with them. Chegutu Police now refuse to take reports of crimes being committed on Mount Carmel Farm so there is no official record. On their visit yesterday they saw all the evidence of these crimes and did nothing to arrest the “untouchables” who were in their presence. Evidence of some of the crimes is on film.

In my letter before this invasion I asked why the SADC Tribunal Judgement is not being upheld. SADC has directed that “the respondent [the Zimbabwe Government] is directed to take all necessary measures to protect the possession, occupation and ownership of the lands of the applicants [ourselves]…and to take all appropriate measures to ensure that no action is taken, pursuant to Amendment 17, directly or indirectly, whether by its agents or by others, to evict from or interfere with, the peaceful residence on and of those farms, by the Applicants.”

If there was a political will to restore the rule of law I have been assured by police that it would take 5 minutes. Unfortunately, there appears to be no political will to deal with these latest invasions and to restore the rule of law and to allow us to live and farm in peace.

This is not an isolated incident. Other farmers are experiencing similar situations and thousands of jobs and livlihoods are on the line. We invite you down to urgently see with your own eyes the realities of the continued State inspired lawlessness in Chegutu. We implore you to have the invaders arrested and to put a police guard on the property to allow us to continue farming in peace and to stop the continued victimisation that is being experienced.