Some media reports state that the unity government has been successful so far. Morgan Tsvangirai thinks so too.

We all have a different view of what successful looks like, but lets look at a couple of things:

1) The unity government has gotten teachers, nurses and doctors back to work on the unlivable, and therefore unsustainable, allowance of US$100/per month.

2) Because civil servants are back at work doesn’t mean that the actual institutions are functioning. Hospitals don’t have light bulbs let alone medicines.

3) Tsvangirai states that the resuscitation of the agricultural sector is at the heart of Zimbabwe’s recovery, and that ongoing land invasions are responsible for donors withholding funding. Tsvangirai promises to arrest land invaders; he fails to act.

4) The bonding and what to do for the next 100 days retreat resolves that prisoners must be fed following the shocking expose of appalling conditions in Zimbabwe’s prisons. I’m looking forward to seeing the plan and the actual implementation, not just the Victoria Falls Declaration.

5) In just about any other country, the head of a prison service that presides over a system of starvation would be fired. Why has Tsvangirai not called for Zimondi’s dismissal?

6) Recent reports have exposed the fact that there are thousands of “ghosts” on various payrolls. For example Zanu PF youth militia. They are being subsidised by the unity government. This means that legitimate civil servants who actually turn up for work, like teachers, are paid less. What will Tsvangirai do about this?

Does Tsvangirai have any real influence or power in this political arrangement? Because it looks like he’s all about rhetoric rather than the ability to act.

I spoke with someone today who has an inside track into the MDC. She said that one of the reasons why it was good that the politicians went retreating to Victoria Falls is that they would have been interrupted, or not bothered enough to turn up to sessions in Harare. Makes you shudder doesn’t it? That our politicians need to be flown and put up at great expense because they aren’t professional or serious enough to do their jobs properly in Harare.

Meanwhile there is gathering outrage over the speedy profligacy of the new Government.

Robert, a Kubatana subscriber had this to say:

I am equally angered about the issue of Mercs. How many teachers can we pay from just saving on 1 Merc. Those beasts cost at least US$40 000 and that would be 40 000 teachers on US$100 allowance, can you imagine at least 50 of those machines….shame! I am really not impressed with the insensitivity especially of MDC Ministers. I am also not impressed by what I seem to see as the mindset of MDC as shown by the rhetoric coming from Minister Biti. I know the government is broke but I also don’t understand this issue of flying all over the world trying to borrow money we know we are not going to be able to pay back. Since independence our government did not borrow anything close a billion USS$ at once and we are going for at least $5B, who is going to pay for it? Why are we running to borrow from others when we have not tried to make sure that the money we have is allocated and used effectively. Why can’t we for example reduce the size of the cabinet and executive as a starting sacrifice for the people of Zimbabwe. Until and unless the cabinet is trimmed to suit our pocket, I will not take MDC, Biti and the unity governement seriously.

And an interesting article by Tanonoka Joseph Whande with the amusing title of Victoria Falls, here comes your Prime Minister with extra baggage! is worth reading in full but here’s an excerpt:

The Government of National Unity (GNU) has been in existence for less than two months now. Since February the main actors in this government have been contradicting each other at almost every turn. We have three unnecessary presidents, along with three Prime Ministers who are superfluous to our requirements; all complemented by more than 71 cabinet ministers and countless permanent secretaries. It appears that they are tired already and needed to seek renewal. They all descended on Victoria Falls over the weekend. As a Catholic I am familiar with retreats. When priests are under pressure and need invigoration and renewal they go on a retreat. Listening to and carrying the transgressions of all the sinners can leave any priest drained and powerless. The Oxford dictionary says a retreat is “withdrawing from confrontation with enemy forces”. It is also “a withdrawal to a quiet or secluded place” or just “a period or place of seclusion for prayer and meditation”. Which one of these descriptions best fits Zanu-PF and the MDC in Victoria Falls? Was it prayer and meditation; withdrawing from confrontation with enemy forces or simply the first stop of the GNU gravy train? Less than sixty days into office, the work horses of Zimbabwe’s government of national unity are so tired that they need to go on a retreat. And they are did it at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe’s most expensive tourist destination.

The planet tipped north
celebrating equinox in a pink flush at dawn and dusk

Already the sun sends shafts of rainbows through the crystal on the A-frame
and cold fingers reach out and touch
my cheek in the early morning the manikins have returned to the seed holder
the bush babies to the fruit tray
the tall summer  grasses begin to fall

It has been some time now, to find words to speak of the present

We watch our own chaos with a strange compassion
who else could understand all is the same all is different

The dictator still waves his fist
takes the last farms with brutal violence
arrests the opposition
controls the media
the army
the police

and the new ministers drive their Mercedes
in a show of wealth
in the face of the people who voted them in

there is no currency below 1 US$ (R10)
change is bartered and bargained
given in eggs or sweets

SADC tells the west to pay for our salvation
despite the evidence of continued abuse and corruption

Noel and his small family have been evicted from their one room
Wadzi and her children have been evicted from their cottage

rents are exorbitant as landlords try to make a living out of small rooms
hundreds of dollars beyond what is possible
dignified and hard working people back on the street – without jobs

the intensity and immediacy in which life unravels
shakes the system

so we wait in a stunned silence
still with dignity
where there should be devastation
still with humour
where there should be despair

counting the rainbows

A battalion of government ministers, deputy ministers, permanent secretaries and other various hangers-on start a retreat in Victoria Falls today to get to know each other and set some benchmarks for progress in the next 100 days of the unity government.

Apparently the World Bank is supporting this weekend away. I’m wondering what on earth the World Bank is thinking when it invites and supports such lavishness in the face of Zimbabwe’s extreme humanitarian crisis. Just look at the photograph below and consider that while the Zimbabwe government can’t afford to feed the prisoners they incarcerate, they are happy to wine and dine on retreat.

In the World Bank’s rush to wank the boys in suits they fail to acknowledge the extreme injustice they perpetuate with their donor dollars.

Stop feasting mr ministers and start feeding

Go to the Village Walk shopping centre in Harare’s Borrowdale suburb and the first thing you’ll see is Dexter Nyamainashe’s mobile wire sculpture.

The wire sculpture is large and intricate, and people can’t help but stop to have a closer look.

Which is part of the point. As much public installation as a work in progress, the machinery, as Nyamainashe calls it, is a mixture of heart-felt expression and deliberate attention seeking.

A composite of small, unique wire sculptures, Nyamainashe’s art is several stories high with sections covered in carpeting and bunting. Each sculpture within the piece depicts different scenes. Many are of rural African village life – pounding maize, collecting firewood, minding cattle. But others include experience from Western cultures including the US and Europe.

The mobile wire sculpture that Nyamainashe has been developing since 1994, sits on six wheels and can be dismantled into five sections. It features moving parts and flowing water. When asked where his ideas came from, or how he learnt to make the water flow and the sculptures move, Nyamainashe says, “It’s just like art of imagination. It’s always on plan. When you’re working on this it’s like you’re spirited by the Holy Spirit and you get possessed somewhere during the course of doing it.”

“The main theme is saying it’s all about uniting all people,” explained Nyamainashe in a recent interview. “I cannot see any reason why we should fight one another. We should get together and learn to share, equally and unify the world.”

He sees the purpose of his art primarily to convey a message of peace and harmony, and to get people talking. “We are seeing so many wars in other countries, worldwide. We don’t like situations whereby an innocent human being gets killed.”

But the wire sculpture is also helping Nyamainashe, 43, reach another one of his goals, to become an artist.

Life, as he describes it, is a ladder. And “in life,” says Nyamainashe, “you don’t climb five steps at one time. You start from the first, then the second. Can I say maybe I’m just on the third step. I’m still close to the ground.” Times have been hard for the artist. When he finished his O Levels in Bulawayo, he took up tree cutting. But after seven years, his business collapsed and he had financial problems. Visiting Harare, he saw artists selling their work to tourists on First Street. He had been good at art at school, and calls art his “inborn concept, from younghood up to this age.”

Nyamainashe rediscovered the talent he had with wire in school and started making wire sculptures to sell to tourists. And so, he says, “I injected myself into art.”

He gets his materials from people who see the wire sculpture and bring him materials for it. He also uses objects he collects from the ground and off cuts from places like carpet shops.

Nyamainashe has dreams for how he’d like to expand his wire sculpture. “Because so far, I have Africans, Whites and Jews. So that means there are many races left which are supposed to be put on so that the whole world is there together with all races. And then I can add onto it Hell and Heaven. And some other planets. Maybe I can work on a big moon, and put the astronauts doing something after coming from earth. Then it’s going to be a united universe at last.”

The mobile wire sculpture attracts attention – and, occasionally donations, or orders from tourists and locals. The café owner that his taken him in, and given him a permanent place to host his wire sculpture, was “anointed by God,” he says. On a good day, Nyamainashe might take home USD 30, on a bad day, next to nothing. With Zimbabwe’s economy in decline, and tourism in a slump, the bad days far outnumber the good.

But Nyamainashe holds out hope that his fortunes will change, that he’ll travel the world with his wire sculpture, and that he’ll earn enough money to marry and start a family.

I recall how President Mugabe and ZANU-PF invoked national sovereignty at every rally and in every campaign message and managed to retrieve the phrase from relative obscurity to national prominence. Virtually the entire nation had heard about sovereignty, albeit, without necessarily knowing what it meant. Sovereignty was indeed ZANU-PF’s mantra.  It was the magic word that would instantly send supporters into frenzy. ZANU-PF repeatedly warned the electorate to use their votes to defend Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and make sure that ‘Zimbabwe will never be a colony again.’

By sovereignty President Mugabe and ZANU-PF probably meant the right to be left to do as they please with Zimbabwe without the international community being able to say or do anything. On a number of occasions President Mugabe publicly declared something along these lines, “Blair, keep your England and l will keep my Zimbabwe.” And recently, President Mugabe (at some function during the worst cholera crisis in Zimbabwe’s history) simply and matter-of-factly declared, “Zimbabwe is mine…”

Now it appears all this talk about national sovereignty was disingenuous; meant only to hoodwink the (quite often) gullible electorate. At present all talk about sovereignty has suddenly become irrelevant and has been replaced by pleas for international assistance to fund Zimbabwe’s economic recovery program. A country that elevates and celebrates sovereignty now has to rely on international aid to pay its security forces and diplomatic missions (along with everything else). Government coffers are empty and l am reliably informed that Zimbabwe’s diplomats and diplomatic staff have not been paid a cent in ages!  Money to pay the diplomats, soldiers, police, prison officers and CIO is expected to come from international aid! The so-called defenders of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty will get their salaries from international donors. At least ZANU-PF has finally realized that people do not eat sovereignty. Or maybe this is a new form of national sovereignty?

The security forces must now realize that in a globalised world, there is no such thing as absolute sovereignty where a country can do as it pleases without some action from the international community. They must also realize that, since the international community is paying their salaries, they have a legitimate reason to expect the forces to conduct themselves in a professional manner. Zimbabwe has a responsibility to act responsibly and the international community expects each State to do its duty. Without a serious commitment to a respect for human rights by Zimbabwe, the international community runs the risk of being accomplices in human rights abuses in Zimbabwe when they pay those who perpetrate a reign of terror.

And finally, to the Honourable Prime Minister, Morgan Richard Tsvangirai, please do not prematurely declare that Zimbabwe has reformed before there is evidence in hand. I hope your attitude to ZANU-PF is not in any way being influenced by the saying: “if you can’t beat them, join them.” The struggle for democracy, freedom and human rights did not end with the consummation of the inclusive government, it is just beginning. And so the struggle continues unabated.