Posted on 09/07/2002 6:46:47 AM PDT by Clive
Dear Family and Friends,
President Mugabe created a stir at the World Summit on Sustainable Development a few days ago with angry words which he spat at Britain. He said : "So Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe." The President clearly believes that he owns Zimbabwe and will be in power forever. He spoke about towering elephants and roaring lions, about land and satisfying the needs of his land hungry people. I cannot help but wonder just exactly what it is that President Mugabe has to be so proud about. The things that I see and hear are cause for deep shame and disgust and not national pride.
After 29 months of political turmoil and the almost complete cessation of commercial agriculture, small towns are falling apart. Marondera, like dozens of others, is an agro-based town. Its wealth, jobs, industries and companies were all dependent on the land and farmers and as these people are increasingly forced out of their homes, the town has begun to collapse. In Marondera town the commonest sight is of crowds of people who are always waiting for one thing or another. On the pavements and outside the few companies still operating, crowds of young, hungry men stand around waiting on the off chance of a day's employment. Outside every single supermarket and shop, men and women wait on the off chance of a delivery of food. They wait for sugar, cooking oil, maize meal and salt. This week even more people are waiting - for bread and flour, for petrol and diesel. Outside every single government office hoardes of people wait for bits of paper - paper which tells them which piece of land they may or may not occupy; whether their application for government project money has been approved; whether their request for seed, fertilizer or school fees has been accepted or not. Outside the once beautiful Marondera Municipal offices this week, lines of tired and thin women sit with their hungry babies waiting for a piece of paper with a government stamp on it entitling them to queue for maize at the town's grain marketing board. At the main Marondera hospital there are hundreds of people sitting waiting on the ground in the sun - for a doctor or a nurse, a pain killer or bandage. Around our town litter is everywhere, the roads into the suburbs are mapped with deep craters which used to be pot holes, two out of every ten street lights work and nine out of ten street signs have been stolen.
On the 67km journey from Marondera to Harare the neglect is phenomenal. Almost all the farms have been taken over, the fences are gone or falling down and the fields are deserted, burnt or barren. Travelling this road late on a Sunday afternoon the new owners of these farms turn out onto the highway where every single road sign had been stolen for it's tin and most of the cats' eyes have been dug out of the tar for their aluminium bases . If these people driving home into a glowing red sunset are landless peasants then, as my parents used to say, I'll eat my hat. They are driving Z$20 million Pajeros and Mercedes, they are Zimbabwe's new weekend and cellphone farmers who acquired their new properties as rewards for their dirty deeds in almost three years of political campaigning.
Zimbabwe's small towns are dying, her people are starving, dirty and desperate and President Mugabe tells the world to keep out of "his Zimbabwe". I too would be ashamed and not want anyone to see what is becoming of us.
Until next week, with love,
cathy.
Mugabe owns Zibabwe. He said so.
When he has reduced his plantation to starvation he will have to fear the people in whose name he has ruled.
African justice can be brutal, at times.
Only massive support by African Americans returning to mother Africa can change this. The African Americans, whose lives are infinitely better than their black relatives, left behind in Africa, are smarter and more focused and no longer have loyalty that is, strictly speaking, tribal. I'd like to see Al Sharpton elected to replace Mugabe. Sure, the integrity, ethics and sanity would not change, but, at least, Al would spread the spoils amonst a much greedier and more capable set of theives. But, whitey would still have to move.
African-amerikans have deliberately violated their own socialistic rules and have neglected their roots and their homeland.
If the "millions" threatened with starvation by the corruption and mismanagement of their "leaders" -- can not or will not rise up with sticks, rocks and knives and kill their corrupt leaders - then perhaps they don't love life enough to live.
Africa and the U.N. deserve each other....we should back away from both......
Semper Fi
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