The war may have happened thirty years ago, but the scars have yet to heal.

Mass graves containing thousands of bodies suspected to have been killed during Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle in the 1960s and 1970s have been discovered at a mine in Gwanda, capital of the province of Matabeleland South.

Mines and Mining Development Minister Obert Mpofu told journalists here Tuesday the bodies were discovered at Blanket Mine.

“I was in a meeting with an official from Blanket Mine who informed me that areas they are mining have mass graves. They found the graves beneath six to 10 feet when they were blasting in a shaft.”

Mpofu said the bodies were believed to be of people massacred by Rhodesian forces during the liberation struggle.

“These bodies should have been as a result of massacres of the 1960′s,” he said.

He said exhumation of the bodies had begun.

As I watched last night’s extensive coverage about the mass grave on ZBC-TV I recalled an argument I had once with a war vet when in frustration he shouted:

“Where was your ‘human rights’ when they were bombing us at Chimoio?”

Honestly, I don’t know, and, I suspect, neither does the Organ on National Healing and Reconciliation. Maybe we never had them to begin with.

The police raided the office of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition on Tuesday 15 March.

“The police, who were armed with a search warrant signed by Chief Superintendent Peter Magwenzi said they were looking for anything subversive such as T-shirts, documents and fliers or anything incriminating.” (ZLHR press release)

You really have to laugh at them – there’s nothing else left to do. This incident reminded me of something I read recently. Some food for thought for civic organisations in Zimbabwe . . .

Faking it

Slobodan Miloševic, Serbia’s warmongering leader during the 1990s, was a master of manipulation in the former Yugoslavia. But, as the endgame approached, even Miloševic lost his touch.

He and his henchmen had little idea how to cope with the mischievous Otpor (“Resistance”), the student movement that proved more effective in energizing opposition to Miloševic than his political foes had ever been. Even as Otpor’s members were arrested and beaten, they mocked the authorities. As one of Otpor’s leaders pointed out later, the regime found itself in a bind. “I’m full of humour and irony and you are beating me, arresting me,” Srdja Popovic said in an interview for Steve York’s and Peter Ackerman’s documentary Bringing Down a Dictator. “That’s a game you always lose.”

In advance of elections in September 2000, the authorities became increasingly enraged at Otpor’s success. Police raided the group’s offices in the Serb capital, Belgrade, confiscating computers and campaign materials.

Otpor exacted sweet revenge. On phone lines which they knew would be tapped, they discussed how they would receive a large quantity of additional supplies of election stickers and other materials at a certain time and day. They invited news photographers to witness the delivery. Then, at the appointed hour, volunteers began unloading boxes from a truck, staggering toward the Otpor office, apparently weighed down by the weight of all the pamphlets and posters.

The waiting police triumphantly moved in to seize the boxes. As they did so, they realised that the cartons were not heavy at all, but strangely light. They were empty – as empty as the police action itself.

Orders were orders, however. The police could not stop confiscating what they had been ordered to confiscate. Under the mocking eyes of reporters and other onlookers, the police impounded a large quantity of empty cardboard boxes.

Source: Small Acts of Resistance – how courage, tenacity, and ingenuity can change the world
Authors, Steve Crawshaw and John Jackon

Let’s get a Zimbabwean woman to get this!

UN Women’s Project Inspire seeking life-changing idea
Deadline: 30 June 2011

UN Women Singapore and MasterCard have started a joint initiative called “PROJECT INSPIRE: 5 Minutes to Change the World” to help you create a better world of opportunities for women and girls in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.

The initiative is inviting submissions of life-changing ideas on how to make a difference. If you have an inspirational idea that can empower women, improve their livelihoods and change the world, then you can submit it here. If your idea gets selected, you can win US $25,000 to make it a reality.

The idea should be creative and should make a meaningful impact with the limited resources you have. It should be practical enough and must inspire others to do the same. It should be accessible, doable, measurable and sustainable. The idea should lead to the empowerment of disadvantaged women or girls through education, skills training, financial inclusion and social entrepreneurship.

Ideas should be submitted in form of a video running for a length of five minutes. Applicants sending the submissions should be 18-35 years old.

Besides the winner getting the $25,000 grant, there will be a special recognition to the Best Financial Literacy/ Livelihood proposal which will win a start-up grant of US$10,000. Finalists will get an opportunity to come to Singapore to present their inspiring idea to an expert judging panel. You will also attend a workshop on sustainable social entrepreneurship and presentation skills training.

Find out more

you were so small
compared to them, who always stood above
you, on steps, rostrums, platforms,
and yet it is enough for just one instant to stop
being afraid, or let’s say
begin to be a little less afraid,
to become convinced that they are the ones,
that they are the ones who are afraid the most
- Stanislaw Baran’czak

From the Daily Agenda, published by Bulawayo Agenda:

Residents of Bulawayo’s Mpopoma high density suburb were allegedly forced to attend a ZANU PF meeting last week. The residents were on their way to mid-week evening prayers when they met ZANU PF supporters who accused them of boycotting their party meetings but had time to go to church. They were instructed to go back home and leave their bibles and then find their way to the meeting where people were told to vote for President Mugabe whenever elections are announced because they had been given maize seed.

I sometimes think that most of our road users in Zimbabwe bought their driver’s license – it is a free-for-all, survival of the fastest and most daring jungle out there!

Do you recognize anyone?

1. The “Kamikaze Pot-Hole Dodger”
I won’t reduce my speed even though I know the road is pitted with peril – I rather maintain my preferred 80 km/h in the OTHER lane and play chicken with oncoming traffic (the holes always appear more friendly on the other side).  This is particularly entertaining if I can involve a few cyclists (uphill for extra points) and a couple of pedestrians who don’t want to get their feet wet in the grass – preferably walking abreast so as not to interrupt their conversation.

2. The “Secondary Smoker” (two types)
a. I am trying to get as close as I possibly can to your exhaust pipe, nothing gives me a rush like forcing you to indicate 2 km before you want to turn, the panicked arm-out-of-the-window calisthenics cracks me up and I can see the whites of your eyes in your rear-view mirror as you frantically check whether I am going to slow in time as you turn.  What sport!

b. My un-roadworthy vehicle provides a dense cloud of black smog for you all to enjoy.  To prolong your pleasure, I drive 40km/h (let’s be honest, my car doesn’t go any faster – I wonder why they give me a new disc every year, surely a sign of approval) on a single lane road in rush hour traffic.  For extra points I count the number of cyclists blinded by the smoke and halted by lung-wrenching coughs.

3. The “Lesser-spotted Bus Driver” (usually a bus driver but not exclusively)
It is not enough that, when driving at night, you have no overhead lights, no road markings to steer by and monster potholes lurking in the gloom.  For added entertainment, I come crabbing down the road (twisted suspension being a fairly long-standing accessory for the discerning bus driver), with one light on.  I imagine you in your little vehicle wondering “is it a bird? Is it a plane? And which f***ing way is it going??”  But just as you begin to despair, I help you out by switching on my brights, strategically timed – thereby blinding you into the ditch adjacent to the road (which has a 25cm drop-off edge by the way – bonus points for losing a tire!)

I could go on: people who think hazard lights give them right of way, the mobile maniacs (“where did I put that phone?”), trucks overtaking trucks, 4×4 users who have no idea how to drive them … But what I really wanted to say, do yourself and all of us a favour – don’t buy your child a driver’s license.  It isn’t worth it; it’s a death sentence, for your child or someone elses.