“There is life beyond politics and I hope with a bit of luck to experience that myself,” said British Defence Secretary John Hutton on announcing his resignation from the government of Gordon Brown on June 5, 2009.

And these are the same British chaps lampooned over the years by the Zanu PF cabal, the same Africans who have chosen politics as a career where wild riches are amassed beyond their wildest dreams. Take them out of the political office what do they have? Kind of reminds one of Africa’s career politicians doesn’t it? Once one is elected into office, you are in it for life. And this obsession is exactly what has fed or fanned political violence as unpopular leaders stoke the emotions of poor people and refuse to leave office and therefore politics.

For some reason they can never pursue other interests outside gladiatorial politics, those who left without putting up a fight have for example been appointed to mediate in some of the world’s hot spots, yet those who came after them have seen no reason why they should leave and pursue other interests.

Thank God for those nations who continue resisting attempts by idiotic leaders who seek to rewrite their constitutions in a bid to extend their rule as if that itself is informed by having done a swell job. On the contrary. They still want to amend constitutions even though the people they claim elected them into office are fed up and seek fresh minds to steer them away from perennial poverty.

So what do these career politicians who seek to amend constitutions and those who lose elections do? They unleash their supporters and the security forces on their perceived opponents to “quell unrest” and the blood on the streets thus defines African politics as informed by their unwillingness to make themselves useful elsewhere other than the realm of politics. It is a crying shame. Wacko Jacko sang about blood on the dance floor: these politicians have blood on their hands but they continue dancing! D for dancing ministers, right?

Within Zimbabwe’s context, it is interesting that the people who presided over the country’s ruin are celebrated for their education and insist on being addressed as such – remembering of course that some of the PhDs are honorary. So one would imagine they would easily find use elsewhere where no punches are thrown and no verbal WMDs are hurled.

Yet because they have destroyed all sectors of gainful employment, they find that they too will never find “proper” jobs outside active politics so they stick it out in bloody politics come hell or high water and urge supporters to cudgel anyone who chants a different political slogan! That is the odium African politics carries in its baggage thus we see that drive to personalise whole nations as leaders refuse to leave office and declare themselves life presidents – as if there was ever such a thing. But then African politicians typically live by that old dictum: make hay while the sun shines. And they sure do.

For me, nothing can be more revolting than ‘men of God’ taking the Lord’s name in vain. In Zimbabwe there is a curious breed of ‘men of God’ who are shamelessly peddling ZANU-PF propaganda in the name of God. There is a cadre of ZANU-PF activists who masquerade as Christians and purport to preach virtues of forgiveness, national healing and peace when in fact all they are doing is covertly convey ZANU-PF messages to an unsuspecting clergy. This is unfair; it is only fair that l reveal to the public, for the avoidance of doubt, that these so-called Bishops and pastors are agents of the regime.

For those familiar with Zimbabwean politics l know already you have in mind ZANU-PF activists like: the dubious but prominent churchman, Reverend Obadiah Musindo (a convicted rapist who once described Mugabe as a ‘Black Moses’ and denounced MDC in his prayers) who heads Destiny Africa Network; yet another convicted rapist and ZANU-PF supporter, Madzibaba Pastor Lawrence Katsiru of the apostolic sect who terrorized Marondera in the cause of ZANU-PF; Madzibaba Nzira, also a convicted rapist who at one time “prophesied” that Mugabe was Zimbabwe’s rightful ruler; and die-hard ZANU-PF supporter, Mugabe praise singer and war veteran, disgraced Bishop Nolbert Kunonga who was excommunicated for the Anglican Church. In August 2005 Kunonga appeared before an ecclesiastical court facing numerous charges of bringing the church into disrepute including by bringing militant ZANU-PF politics to the pulpit.

Apart from these, we have more subtle and smooth supporters of ZANU-PFs disguised as churchmen, one of whom is Bishop Trevor Manhanga, who, of late, has been actively supporting embattled Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono. At a funeral of Gono’s brother, Bishop Manhanga reportedly said there can be no national healing if people continued to call for Gono’s departure. In a recent opinion piece titled “Time to end the blame game,” claims that for Zimbabwe the real issue is not for Gono and Attorney General to go because next people will call for Augustine Chihuri, Perence Shiri, Happyton Bonyongwe and Constantine Chiwenga to go as well and finally for Mugabe to go. And according to Bishop Manhanga getting rid of these liabilities would be tragic and disastrous for Zimbabwe.

Interestingly, in a piece calling for the blame game to end, Manhanga immediately assigns blame to ‘those outside our borders,’ for orchestrating calls for Gono and Mugabe to go. And he states with finality that, ‘It will not happen.’ This ZANU-PF activist-cum-man of cloth then, in feigned piousness, lectures that now is the time for national healing and declares that it is time for all of us to be magnanimous.

My direct response to Bishop Manhanga is that for Zimbabwe, the past is the future. There can be no going forward without addressing the sins of the past and without holding to account those in ZANU-PF who have killed and maimed hundreds in Zimbabwe. What national healing is possible without justice? If Manhanga and his handlers think that Zimbabweans will forget how they were butchered and persecuted merely for expressing a different political view then he is in for a rude awakening. If Manhanga thinks that Zimbabweans will not see that under his church robes his is putting on a ZANU-PF t-shirt then he will be shocked to discover that his true identity and relationship to ZANU-PF is not so secret.

It feels me with outrage to read utter rubbish about national healing and moving forward from a so-called Bishop who did not lift a finger when human rights and MDC activists were being abducted and tortured in broad daylight. Talk of hypocrisy. Which Bible is Manhanga reading? Does the Bible not say in Amos 5:24 ‘Let Justice run down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream?’ And did Jesus Christ not condemn his kind when he said, ‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.’(Matthew 7:15).

Bishop Trevor Manhanga, please, do not insult the collective intelligence of Zimbabweans by propagating ZANU-PF propaganda disguised as gospel news and thinking we will be fooled. That will not happen. The tribe of political activists abusing the church pulpit must know that we will unmask them and engage them as they truly are, that is, ZANU-PF puppets and stooges.

Now is the time for patriotic Zimbabweans to come together and demand justice and accountability from those who hold political office. Now is the time to demand that the inclusive government delivers justice and bread to the people. We do not eat the presence of MDC in government, what we want are results on the table. We do not give flaming flamingos if MDC has a minister in charge of home affairs, what we want is change in the conduct of the police and tangible evidence that they now respect people’s rights. Otherwise of what use is it that Giles Mutseyekwa of MDC is co-minister in Home Affairs but MDC and human rights activists are being tortured, persecuted and harassed by police?

In Service to My Conscience and My Country . . .

This shocking 2-minute video shows police officers beating the new recruits at a Zimbabwe police depot.

One by one, recruits come up to a small group of policemen, lie in a push-up type position and are beaten on the buttocks with sticks. They are then dragged off to lie down on their stomachs off to the side, or are kicked out of the way. These are not beatings of rage or annoyance. They don’t even look like they are punishment for a selected “non-performing” police recruit. Rather, they are orderly and methodological. It’s only when a recruit resists, or acts too “soft” that the beating lasts longer. The recruits know the drill and get into position. The officers deliver the blows and move onto the next victim. In the video you can see the recruits who have already been beaten – and the queue of others waiting for their turn.

The video is reminiscent of the images that came out of Abu Ghraib– the policemen laugh, threaten and insult the recruits with cries of “kill him” and “beat him.” In one frame one officer takes a picture of the beatings with his camera phone. But in a way it is all the more disturbing that the police are beating their own co-workers.

What are the implications for policing in Zimbabwe if this is how new recruits are “hazed” by their superiors? Is it any wonder then that the police are quick to respond to civic demonstrations with violence, and that there are frequent reports of detainees being mistreated by the police? What are the long term psychological implications if this is how police routinely deal with their own? If your superior beats you for being new on the job, what more might he (and in the video they are all men) do if he thinks you have disobeyed him?

The Ministry of Home Affairs, which oversees the Zimbabwe Republic Police, is now co-held by Zanu PF’s Khembo Mohadi and the MDC’s Giles Mutsekwa. Email the Ministry on moha@gvt.co.zw and the MDC on mdcnewsbrief@gmail.com and demand that they investigate these beatings and change the way the police force is run.

According to Nelson Chamisa the Unity Government’s Information, Communication, Technology Minister, he needs US$2 million to set up a national web site that will promote Zimbabwe in order to attract investment. He wants to do this within the first 100 days. Doing this would be akin to one of those electronic Nigerian scams. I mean, c’mon Nelson what are you going to say?

Come invest in Zimbabwe where we have the rule of law!
Come and invest in Zimbabwe where we guarantee land and property rights!
Come and invest in Zimbabwe where we will make sure you have uninterrupted electricity supply!
Come and invest in Zimbabwe where our telecommunications network guarantees you getting through after the 55th try!

Nelson Chamisa’s priorities are woefully out of sync with what the people need and want. How about taking the US$2 million and putting it toward the overhaul of our water and sanitation system? Or fixing traffic lights so that people aren’t continually killed and maimed? A rubbish truck or two wouldn’t go amiss either. The list is pretty much endless but at this point and time, a national web site is certainly rock bottom.

It’s about time that the GNU focused on one bread and butter issue and delivered on that one issue so that we can visibly see progress being made on important enhancements to our lives.

Of course a national web site will be necessary but only when Nelson and Co actually have some successes with which to entice international investment.

Not only is the international community looking for signs of progress but Zimbabweans are too.

Who said this when asked about farm invasions and violence on farms?

There are incidents in which it is reported that there are invasions on one or two farms but it’s all blown out of proportion. We have investigated examples of those so-called farm invasions. We have asked the Minister of Lands to give us a detailed report of what has been happening over all these so-called farm invasions and the outcry over that.

That’s Morgan Tsvangirai, although you could easily have thought it was a Zanu PF stalwart.

Meanwhile, here’s a report by Jan Raath writing for the Mail & Guardian (SA), 28 May

President Robert Mugabe’s controversial “land reform programme” took a new twist on Wednesday when a court ordered the eviction of a man who is not a farmer. Ian Campbell-Morrison (46) lives in the Vumba Mountains in eastern Zimbabwe, next to a hotel where he is the green keeper. He and his wife live in a cottage on a plot not much bigger than a suburban garden, where she tends flowers. The Campbell-Morrisons used to farm tobacco and coffee, but the government seized their land and the farmhouse and gave it to a government official, leaving the couple their cottage and the garden around it, said Hendrik Olivier, director of the Commercial Farmers’ Union, made up mostly of Zimbabwe’s remaining 350 white farmers. A magistrate in the nearby city of Mutare nevertheless sentenced Campbell-Morrison to a fine of $800 for “illegally occupying state land” and ordered the couple to be off the property by Saturday. The Campbell-Morrisons are one of 140 white farming families facing eviction from their land in the latest tactic in Mugabe’s violent, lawless campaign to force white landowners – numbering about 5 000 when it started in 2000 – off their farms. The action is in the name of a redistribution of land to black Zimbabweans, but which has instead made a million former farm workers homeless and set off the collapse the once-prosperous country’s economy. Mugabe has declared all white-owned land to be state property and banned farmers from taking the government to court.

The evictions and violence have continued despite the establishment in February of a power-sharing government between Mugabe and former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, with an agreement to restore the rule of law and to “ensure security of tenure to all land holders”. Tsvangirai, now prime minister, began by promising to end the lawlessness, promising that “no crime [by invaders] will go unpunished,” but the police – under the control of staunchly pro-Mugabe security chiefs – continued to refuse to act against the mostly well-heeled Mugabe loyalists grabbing productive farms and selling their crops. Western governments have refused to provide finance for the recovery of the country’s economy from world-record inflation and decimation of production under Mugabe, until there are “clear signs of reform” in the re-establishment of the rule of law. The restoration of peace and security on the farms is cited as a key condition. But there was shock this week when Tsvangirai, referred in an interview to “isolated incidents of so-called farm invasions” that had “been blown out of proportion”. Said a Western diplomat: “He’s talking like Mugabe now.”

Throughout Tuesday night on Mount Carmel farm in the Chegutu district, farmer Ben Freeth and his family were terrorised by a mob of invaders who rolled blazing tyres at their thatch-roofed homestead. At the weekend, an 80-year-old woman was assaulted by police, who were removing her son from his farm. On Friday, another farmer was beaten by a Mugabe supporter. “There has been absolutely no resolution or even recognition that there is even a problem,” said CFU president Trevor Gifford, who is trying to stop a government official cutting down what is left of his timber plantation, and is selling it to the government of neighbouring Zambia for telephone poles. Gifford is due to appear in court on Friday for “illegally occupying state land”. “This is happening in a country that has become the world’s most dependent on donors for food,” he said. “Until this government respects the rights of its own citizens and investment agreements, no one will look at this country.”

I have heard of a number of households in high density suburbs that have received fixed telephone bills of up to USD1,500 and had their phones disconnected. A guy told me the other day he got a bill for USD125 and also had his phone disconnected.

We get pronouncements from ministers in charge of state utilities assuring consumers that they will never be cut off from these essential services and yet these reports continue with consumers being clueless about recourse.

Electricity, water, telecommunications etc appear to be riddled with odious political machinations one has to wonder if these directives issued by the ministers mean anything to the utility administrators.

These directives appear to be simply ignored and if consumers do not have the protection of the ministers, where then do they turn for relief when their phones are cut off because of these ridiculous charges?

Everyone knows there is no Zimbabwean worker who earns a USD1,000 and we know civil servants get a measly USD100, and these are the folks who back then enjoyed the so-called mod-cons (fixed phones included) so how the heck are they expected to pay a USD1,500 phone bills.

It will take them a cool 15 months to settle that bill and this means in the meantime they won’t be eating anyting or paying any other bills! All this for a telephone? Only in Zimbabwe!!

These families will never again have a telephone in their homes, and if it is folks who had stuff like dial-up internet connection, they are then forced to patronise internet cafes where they will pay for a service they rightly should be accessing in the comfort of their homes.

Not only that, the inconvenience is inconceivable in this age where virtually every family has a member living and working outside the country who cannot get through the frustrating mobile phones.

Fixed phones then have been a godsend for these families as calls from abroad get through without any headaches, but who is listening. This is not an appeal for the service provider to ignore defaulting rate payers but rather simply to review these outrageous bills.

As long these rates are not revised, it’s a sure return to the Stone Age.