Psychology Maziwisa, Interim President of the Union for Sustainable Democracy (USD), shared an article with us on the subject of sanctions. He makes a lot of sense, particularly on the point that sanctions should only be lifted once Mugabe and Zanu PF embrace democratic freedoms in this country.

I was quite surprised though at Psychology’s reference to the “attention seeking” women of WOZA. Getting attention is the first step in highlighting abuse, and WOZA does this admirably. For my part I wish there were more attention seeking activist organisations and NGOs at work in Zimbabwe. The office and hotel workshop room have become far too comfortable for most.

I was also intrigued by his reference to their “frivolous” protest. I wonder what made it frivolous because surely the issue of stable and affordable power supply is at the heart of development and investment? And of course, it’s quite nice not to have to heat up a packet soup on a camping stove when ZESA decides to cut power to your home.

But . . . here you go, Psychology Maziwisa on sanctions:

Far from hurting the generality of the people of Zimbabwe, as Mugabe would conveniently and deceitfully want everyone, everywhere to believe, it is becoming increasingly clear that the targeted sanctions are achieving their desired effect: to hurt the authoritarian Robert Mugabe and his self-interested mob. The European Union’s sanctions must and, are likely to, stay put until our President does more than just heed ‘Julius Mugabe’s’ call to denounce violence.

There is nothing more indicative of the stinging and now unbearable effects of the targeted sanctions than the increasing complaints and calls for those sanctions to be removed and removed as soon as yesterday. Any psychologist would surely tell you that what that means is plain and simple: now is precisely the wrong time to relax the sanctions. If anything, now is the opportune time to go a gear up and intensify their effects by adding even more.

The devils have been hit where it matters the most for them- in their pockets. While the travel bans have curtailed the lavish spending of individuals like Grace Mugabe, preventing them from indulging their shopping addictions in places like Paris, London and Rome, the bulk of the mob have been barred from sending their beloved but often very dull children to study at expensive colleges in Australia, the UK and America as the once highly   esteemed University of Zimbabwe lamentably falls into decay.

There is no reason and no way the European Union would unanimously decide to ease the pressure on those who have hurt us for so long and never bothered to do anything to mitigate our suffering except to mouth empty words denouncing violence at an  Independence  ‘celebration’, after having inflicted 30 years of perennial misery. Even the Bible warns against words without action. Accordingly, Mugabe’s message of tolerance on 18 April 2010 must be ignored for what it is: mere talk.

In case these people need reminding, the sanctions are there for a reason and that is that a handful of people have vandalised the country in a way almost too frightening to comprehend. Many hundreds of innocent and law-abiding citizens have been tortured and killed simply for expressing their democratic desire to elect a government of their choice.

Their best opportunity for reform came when Morgan Tsvangirai, who, by all accounts, won the last presidential election, chose to form a Government of National Unity (GNU) with Robert Mugabe. I think it is fair to say that, while Mugabe has somewhat become a better dictator after September 15, 2008, he has not done enough for the people of Zimbabwe to warrant any mitigation of the targeted sanctions.

Political reform is not coming as quickly as it could. For instance, while the country was ‘celebrating’ independence, political activists were being held in the dark, cold and miserable cells of the notorious Harare Central Police Station. Frivolous though their protest was, the attention-seeking ladies of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) should not have been forced to endure an entire ‘ Independence ’ weekend in primitive, uninhabitable cells.

Thanks to the Mugabe government’s mismanagement and corruption, thousands of precious and innocent children have been left to die from otherwise preventable diseases like measles – even as  South Africa  responsibly manages to administer a second round of injections to boost against attacks from measles and polio.

While Mugabe says he regrets low pay for teachers, he customarily takes sixty or so of otherwise unnecessary thugs with him on international trips, to Copenhagen for instance, for an entire week and gives each of them US$5,000 in daily expenses. Hypocrisy of the highest order!

Progress on human rights and related issues will be key to motivating the relaxation of the targeted sanctions. However, despite the setting up of a Media Commission responsible with the licensing of new media houses, not even one has been licensed. Instead, a comical character has been laughably introduced in the form of Attorney General Johannes Tomana to head that process. Everyone knows that that individual is serious about nothing except to see this country degenerate into further political anarchy. He is the very man who, when addressed years back about the inhumanity of our jails, retorted: ‘A jail is not meant to be nice’.

If Mugabe and his henchmen are serious about meriting the lifting of sanctions, they must, in the first instance, genuinely promote human dignity, freedom of speech and the rule of law, end arbitrary arrests, apply Zimbabwean laws to the fullest extent possible without bias, and forthwith bring to justice all perpetrators of politically motivated violence. They must act in conformity with the letter and spirit of the Global Political Agreement.

The people of  Zimbabwe  have suffered far too long at the hands of a bunch of self-interested individuals who have unconscionably abused their power. Our consolation, however, should be found in the fact that the targeted recipients of the sanctions are clearly being stung and stung hard by them. We applaud this effect and wish it could be intensified until we witness real change- change that has not come in three decades.

Quite evidently, targeted sanctions are an essential lever to ensure progress in our country.

Last week I had the privilege to witness WOZA trying to hand over a petition to the management of the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) at their headquarters at Megawatt House on Samora Machel Avenue in Harare.

I say privilege because there are very few organisations, activists and members of the public in Zimbabwe who are brave enough to put themselves on the street and demand a better Zimbabwe, be that in the delivery of justice or basic services.

The gathering of WOZA men and women was peaceful, good humoured and vibrant. The crowd that came around to witness the proceedings all agreed that Zimbabweans are reeling under the utility charges and poor service that they are receiving. As one of our bloggers, Dydimus Zengenene, rightly points out this week, ZESA’s charges might be in line with regional tariffs but our salaries are woefully inadequate to cope with the demands being placed on us.

In the meantime the chefs of Zimbabwe, ranging from Mugabe, to the ZESA hierarchy itself, to the champions of the indigenisation bill, are all pretty comfortable in their plush homes lit by generators.

The leadership of WOZA were arrested and spent Independence weekend in jail. This is an OUTRAGE.

Zimbabwe must allow for peaceful protest – full stop.

You probably weren’t a part of the WOZA protest at ZESA last week but it’s pretty certain that you’re affected by poor service and high electricity charges.

So, here’s something you Can do . . .

Action: Email the ZESA public relations department and tell them that:

a)    ZESA management must lobby for the immediate release of the WOZA leadership

b)    ZESA management must meet with WOZA to listen to, and discuss the issues being raised by Zimbabweans

c)    ZESA management should issue an apology to WOZA for not welcoming them and hearing their concerns

Email: pr@zesa.co.zw

Mbizo Chirasha sent Kubatana some gut wrenching words to mark Zimbabwe’s independence. Have a read:

State of the Nation

dreams and thoughts floating in stinking
bubbling sewer streams
broken pipes
broken voters
broken ballots
broken roads

banks stink hunger
stomachs of dust laden kindas thunder war
poverty shriveled chests of mothers luggage sorrow baggage
sorrows blooming like flowers every season

mothers cutting the freedom cake
with aluminum tears foiled faces
children munching the FREEDOM
cream with poverty rugged
yellow maize teeth
fathers celebrating with election chopped arms

ministers mecerdes swimming in highway potholes
corruption, the vaseline that polishes the floor of the state
flowers of Justice died with last decade sinking sun
daughters eat political regalia like omelet for breakfast
sons eating torn diplomas and
soot laden certificates for supper

peasants eating the smell of the sun
voters enjoying the perfume of propaganda again
mentally sodomized
the scars of the last season
is the signature of the next election
wounds of last winter bloom another pain in this winter

diggers of the truth bring me jugs filled with lemon juice of justice
bring the ladder to the jewel laden bethel of freedom
i am drunk with barrels of orange bitterness

freedom is the placard on your chest?
democracy is how you shake your fist?

freedom sing me a song
erase these wounds from the charcoal of violence
machetes signatured leadership name tags on mother breasts
pink bras coughing blood beside dead ballot boxes
bullets wrote epitaphs for funerals of children unlimited
black cockerels drinking black eggs in dying winter nights
black nights
acid of politics bleaching the trust of the flag
colors melting in the vaseline of grief

bring me the sneeze of murenga
download the cough of nehanda from her chest
blow the wind into the ears of mutapa stone
silence went with them to sleep, away from today’s wind

wind of change changed its compass
barometers cant stand the pressure
godfathers breakfasted promises of change
bathing with some bath-soap in froth filled tubs of corruption

rise for me the sun, that i see the club mixed color of the east
sink the sun for me that i smell the smelling breath of the west.

paparazzi smiling to the bank after recycled headlines
i am tired of the rhetoric

sing me the song of self discovery
for my identity is beyond the lotion of my skin
my identity is beyond the paint of my eyeballs
and the vaseline on my tongue
it is beyond the state of the nation

the nation that i baptize in my poetic ritual cleansing

the moonrise with chopped breasts
the sun rise with scarred forehead
I am a poet born in grapevines of colonial bitterness
and groomed in apple groves of freedom hatred

liberation. what?

light me better candles for another poem
a poem with freedom rhythm
and liberation rhymes

that politicians will weep in the hovels of their slogan rituals
and voters hear the real jesuses of their stomachs
that fat cats decide to run or to dance
and big fish fried by the oil of metaphors

political ghosts turn in their graves
after a ritual of poetic grapes
the sweetness and bitterness of words
repent dictators into democrats

for the womb that carried this freedom griot
have eaten grains of sand for lunch in the villages of dust
that last smelt the state motorcade last ballot season

There is a wide outcry that the charges of many service providers including the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) are unjustifiably high. Responding to public complaints and the issuance of yellow cards by WOZA in Bulawayo over the unfair charges, Mr. Ernest Machiya, of the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), a subsidiary of ZESA, said the authority’s tariffs were justified as they were the lowest in the SADC region.

This is not a new statement, and it’s the only answer that the ZESA ever has. I am sure that the majority of people in Zimbabwe are civil servants taking home between 100 to 200 dollars a month. That person has school going children, who need fees, transport money and food. Power is not the only service to pay for. There is also water, rentals and other rates that are also charged at their own levels of madness. People’s earnings are far below regional levels. Food is very expensive given that we are living largely on imported products. Is there any justification to charge a regional tariff to people who are struggling well below the poverty datum line? Is there any justification to compare normal economies to an abnormal one such as ours. The little that we can afford to pay them has been turned into hefty salaries for themselves without improving the service delivery side. What should come first between awarding above average salaries and improving service delivery?

Despite poor a poor service characterised by severe power cuts, ZESA has no shame in billing its domestic customers amounts close to and above 1000 dollars a month. In some instances it is billing twice a month, a trend that has never been heard of in the history of this country.

During the past era, tuck-shop owners always raised their prices in response to an anticipated increase in supply of money maybe because salaries have been increased. That was simple supply and demand economics. Can ZESA tell us what it is responding to when charging USD2000 to someone with USD150 in his pocket, worse still without any proper supply of services?

Mr Machiya, can you suggest how you expect a headmaster at Mufakose High to pay you say 500 dollars a month only for your power and nothing more, let alone a widow in Budiriro? We encourage leaders of institutions like ZESA to desist from displaying such absurdity. We end up questioning your credentials as professionals and as leaders of socially responsible institutions. Our advice to you service providers is simple, “The issue is not about the regional level, it is about who your clients are and what they can afford.” For South Africans, power charges are a reasonable fraction of the an average person’s salary, the same can be said of Botswana, Mozambique and whichever regional country one can name. The same cannot be said of our dear Zimbabwe. Can you all join us in the campaign for decent salaries for everyone before charging high tariffs. It should be known to ZESA and other companies that the amounts which people are not paying does not constitute an asset in you balance sheet; it is by default bad debt as no one will ever afford to pay up even in a decade’s time.

Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) and the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum today co-hosted a press conference about the anti-gay statements in The Herald last week. Here is the press statement they released today:

Open letter to the principals in the GNU

We the undersigned individuals and organisations committed to the development of a positive rights discourse in Zimbabwe, are very concerned at recent statements made as part of International Women’s Day celebrations in Chitungwiza, where the theme was “Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities: Progress for All.”

The statements, which make reference to attempts to include gay rights in the Constitution, undermine public tolerance and acceptance of diversity. Issues of sexuality impact on the dignity, privacy, identity and freedom of people. We urge you not to undermine the dignity of these individuals by making such homophobic statements.

We call on the principals to desist from making statements likely to promote hate and prejudice. Zimbabwe is going through a transition from a period characterised by hate, violence and economic suffering and moving towards national healing.

As Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said in his weekly newsletter today:

There can be no place in the new Zimbabwe for hate speech or the persecution of any sector of our population based on race, gender, tribe, culture, sexual orientation or political affiliation. All of us are entitled to our own opinions on certain values and beliefs, but in order to move our nation forward and achieve national reconciliation and healing, we have to uphold and foster the fundamental principle of tolerance, including tolerance of people that have chosen to live, believe and vote differently from ourselves. For too long, many of you, my fellow Zimbabweans, have not had the freedom of choice. Our new constitution shall be the cornerstone of a new society that embraces this particular freedom of choice and tolerance of both majority and minority views.

We support a Constitution that protects Zimbabweans against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, just as it prevents discrimination on grounds such as race, gender, ethnicity, or religion.

The immediate challenge the nation is facing is overcoming social deprivations in areas such as hunger, health, education, unemployment and violence against women and children and above all the functionality of the GNU. These are the areas in which the Principals in the GNU should be providing leadership; rather than fostering antipathy and intolerance.

I have heard rumours of Members of Parliament who visit their constituencies only to campaign during elections. They are never seen, or heard of again. These are the same parliamentarians who last year refused to take vehicles from local company Willowvale Motor Industries – which could have used the boost in sales – and instead opted to import vehicles from various sources; no doubt duty free. This little exercise carried out in the name of ‘allowing our MPs to fulfil their duties’- one of which I presume is regularly visiting the people they represent – cost the taxpayer US6million.

At present 80% of our population is rural earning less than US$100 per month, well below the poverty datum line. It is this 80% of our population that was used to justify buying ‘all terrain’ vehicles for MPs. Meanwhile, the International Red Cross estimates that approximately a third of Zimbabwe’s population is in need of food aid.

With the Constitutional hullabaloo that is engulfing the nation our honourable parliamentarians are carrying out consultations with the people. Both Houses with a combined membership of 276 have adjourned to do their civic duty until mid June. Parliamentarians are being paid US$300 per day in addition to their regular government salaries and privileges.

Lets say that these consultations began after Easter. And let’s be generous and give our parliamentarians the weekends off. That would mean that they should be in consultations with us, ‘the people’, for approximately fifty-four days.

Now multiply 276 honourable members of parliament by 54 days living on 300 dollars a day . . .

Call me crazy, but that seems to be a hefty price to pay for the privilege of having my Member of Parliament give me what I hope will be a ‘non partisan’ explanation of constitutional issues. Even if taxpayers aren’t the ones to foot the bill for the consultations, surely the parliamentarians themselves should question their right to demand so much money. But I suppose that would suggest that our politicians are actually in politics to make a tangible change in Zimbabweans lives. Plainly speaking, they’re in politics because politics in Zimbabwe is a business. It has nothing to do with the electorate. Having an electorate simply legitimises the presence of white-collar criminals in parliament and government.