Inside Zimbabwe
Maurice Gerard 1:06pm
Many thanks to Maurice Gerard, who will be blogging for Coffee House from inside Zimbabwe over the next week. Here's his first post - Pete Hoskin
Driving to Harare down acacia-lined highways from Zimbabwe's border post at Victoria Falls and the casual visitor could almost mistake the country for being normal - albeit with occasional touts peddling black market luxuries like Coke and diesel fuel in rural lay-sides.
In the run-up to Friday's poll Zimbabwe has become a hybrid country, oscillating between queasy tranquility and sporadic outbreaks of extreme violence. Some areas, such as Matabeleland, home of the fiercely anti-Mugabe Ndebele people, have almost escaped the political violence altogether. One Bulawayo resident, an Ndebele, reasons as such: "Beating us delivers nothing for the government. We might be bloodied but will not vote Zanu-PF. Bobo [Mugabe] knows that its useless to target areas that have never voted for the government in the first place."
Mashonaland, alas, is different. The epicentre of opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) swing votes that helped it defeat the government for the first time in March, Zimbabwe's undulating north-east is now ground-zero for government supporters hell-bent on burning, raping and killing former Zanu-PF supporters into submission.
The violence is a spectacle. Its implicit message is easily inculcated even by those not directly touched by it: "Vote ZANU-PF or face the consequences". At least 90 MDC supporters have been murdered so far.
A brave - perhaps foolhardy? - few refuse even now to be swayed. Ben, an office worker from Mashonaland who lives in Harare, has friends whose villages have been burnt to the ground. "Still," he reasons in the aftermath of Tsvangirai's exit, "there will be two ballot boxes on Friday. I don't care what cost anymore, I am voting MDC."
Such determination is rare. The surge of hope that followed the MDC's March victory has evaporated. In the wake of Tsvangirai's withdrawal from tomorrow's poll, the atmosphere is tense and no longer expectant. Back to the Sisyphean grindstone of scraping a living amidst 4,000,000% plus inflation and waiting in vain for the Old Man, as Mugabe is derogatorily called, to go.
The signs for an early exit are not good. Tsvangirai remains holed up in the Dutch embassy in Harare in fear of his life, while hundreds of his supporters have sought refuge in the nearby South African embassy. They are the lucky few.
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Comments
John Page
June 26th, 2008 1:27pmThere's another report fro inside Zimbabwe at http://www.minesite.com/nc/uk/minews/singlenews/article/up-at-african-consolidateds-marange-diamond-deposit-the-madness-that-is-zimbabwe-is-laid-bare/1.html
"The Madness That Is Zimbabwe Is Laid Bare Up At African Consolidated’s Marange Diamond Deposit"
margaret in Ca.
June 27th, 2008 2:59pmI think it is a crime beyond description that most of our globe abandons countries in Africa when they cry for help. I am a fift six year old white woman and I believe that if these were white nations the U.S. would help in a heartbeat.
I am also convinced that if oil was in these troubled nations they would get all the help they need. Shame on every people type who turned their back on Rwanda and the countries of Africa.
Sad, but true
June 29th, 2008 4:12amMargaret: Anybody who tried to argue beforehand that black rule would make a mess of Rhodesia and South Africa was shouted down as a racist. All enlightened people favored black rule. Now that black rule has become the nightmare predicted by the "racists," all of the enlightened people are embarrassed and don't want to talk about the situation. Nothing is going to be done.
Augustus
June 29th, 2008 3:28pmBlack people like Mugabe's guerilla warrior mentality have always believed that their bush struggles, and the victory of independence, for a country like Rhodesia from what they saw as the theft by the whites of their lands, empowered them to remain as its rulers indefinitely, and to hold on to such power by whatever means. That is their mentality, and it is a mentality that can never be broken by negotiation or dialogue.
Neighbouring South Africa is the one and only power and voice that might, under the right circumstances of severe sanctions, have any success in breaking the mould of stubborn intransigence, and thereby help force the belligerant autocrats to make way for a more democratically elected regime.