Messages From Zimbabwe

Globalisation has made military intervention in rogue regimes overseas more necessary than ever, Tony Blair argues in his memoirs. Not toppling Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, is one regret voiced by the former prime minister.

His belief that Iran needs to be confronted in its nuclear ambitions and as a last resort prevented by force shines through. The experience of Iraq and Afghanistan has not diminished his commitment to taking on opponents.

His appetite for international affairs, he admits, has been sharpened by his role as a mediator in the Middle East. “Personally I have never felt a greater sense of frustration or indeed a greater urge to leadership,” he writes in his postscript.

But it was the Balkans that formed the crucible for his new policy of liberal interventionism. “My awakening over foreign policy was… abrupt,” he explains. “It happened over Kosovo.”

Distinctions between foreign and domestic policy are breaking down as consequence of globalisation, he maintains. Television news beams foreign crises into every living room. “The world [is] interconnected not just economically or in self-interest but emotionally, the heart as well as the head.”

Looking back he admits he was surprised: “The 1997 campaign was fought almost exclusively on a domestic policy basis. If you had told me on that bright May morning as I first went blinking into Downing Street that during my time in office I would commit Britain to fight four wars, I would have been bewildered and horrified.”

Foreign policy based on “narrow self-interest” is outdated, he asserts. “Global alliances [have to] be … based on shared global values.” That realisation has resulted in the undermining of the old political divisions of left and right.

“We ended up in the bizarre position where being in favour of the enforcement of liberal democracy was a ‘neoconservative’ view and non-interference in another nation’s affairs was ‘progressive’.”

Kosovo was his first test. The “ethnic cleansing” and killings “completely changed my own attitude to foreign policy”, he admits. While Europe stalled, in favour of pacification rather than resolution, Blair was “extraordinarily forward in advocating a military solution”.

He persuaded Bill Clinton, the US president, he suggests, to take part in aerial bombardments even though there was no direct US interest in the region. “I saw it essentially as a moral issue. And that, in a sense, came to define my view on foreign and military intervention.”

Clinton, he says, was “the most formidable politician I had ever encountered”. He exults in their close political empathy, describing them on one occasion working US crowds “like two old music hall queens”.

Many opposed Blair. He compresses their counter-arguments. “Beginning wars is relatively easy; it’s ending them that’s hard. Innocent people die; unintended consequences develop; bad situations can be made worse.”

On the range of his military targets, he comments: “People often used to say to me: If you got rid of the gangsters in Sierra Leone, [Slobodan] Milošević, the Taliban and Saddam, why can’t you get rid of Mugabe? The answer is I would have loved to, but it wasn’t practical (since, in his case, and for reasons I never quite understood, the surrounding African nations maintained a lingering support for him and would have opposed any action strenuously).”

Over Kosovo, Blair recounts how he tried to “stoke up concern” with other European leaders. Kosovo became the template for his subsequent military interventions. His close relationship with and affection for his generals is a recurring theme.

“The leader has to decide whether the objective is worth the cost,” he states. “What’s more, he or she must do so unsure of what the exact cost might be or the exact price of failing to meet the objective… In this context, by the way, indecision is also decision… Omission and commission both have consequences.”

The expedition to restore democracy to Sierra Leone in 2000, Blair says, “is one of the least discussed episodes of my 10 years as prime minister, but it’s one of the things of which I am most proud.” His father used to teach at Freetown University in the African nation’s capital.

The former prime minister’s discussion of his early foreign adventures contain remarkably few references to United Nations resolutions or international law, considering he is a lawyer by training.

In one passage he comes curiously close to expressing a sneaking admiration for the bold action of the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 rather than Kerensky’s social democrat government.

Seeking to systematise his theory of foreign interventions in regimes that are “oppressive or dictatorial”, he writes: “They may pose no outside or external threat; or it may be easily contained diplomatically. It may – as with Mugabe – be impractical to intervene.”

A judgment has to be made. “If change will not come by evolution, should it be done by revolution? Should those who have the military power contemplate doing so?”

On Iraq, he insists that he never regarded those who opposed war in Iraq as “stupid or weak-minded”.

About 9/11, he concedes that: “I misunderstood the depth of the challenge… If I had known then that a decade later we would still be fighting in Afghanistan, I would have been profoundly disturbed. I hope I would have still taken the same decision, both there and in respect of Iraq.”

Blair is uncompromising in the face of the dangers he perceives in Tehran, discussing them in the context of the growing danger that terrorists will obtain nuclear weapons. “It is America that leads the challenge to Iran and its nuclear ambitions,” he says. “But let us be frank: Iran is a far more immediate threat to its Arab neighbours than it is to America… That’s why Iran matters. Iran with a nuclear bomb would mean others in the region acquiring the same capability; it would dramatically alter the balance of power in the region, but also within Islam.”

In his interview with the Guardian, he declared: “I wouldn’t take the risk of Iran with a nuclear weapon.”

Speaking to Andrew Marr in a BBC interview to be broadcast in full tonight, Blair says: “I think it is wholly unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapons capability and I think we have got to be prepared to confront them, if necessary militarily. I think there is no alternative to that if they continue to develop nuclear weapons. They need to get that message loud and clear.”

(Source)

Zimbabweans have welcomed the call by the MDC president and Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Dr Morgan Tsvangirai and the other two Principals to the GPA to shun violence ahead of the constitution outreach programme. The call was made yesterday during the launch of the constitution outreach programme in Harare.

In Mashonaland Central, well-wishers have assisted in unveiling tombstones on the graves of seven slain MDC activists who were murdered in Muzarabani North and South during the post-29 March 2008 violence instigated by Zanu PF. The bereaved families unveiled tombstones and also held memorial services for the deceased. An MDC activist, Kudzanai Matambazika of Mutoko East in Mashonaland East province was on Monday sentenced to three months in prison by a Mutoko magistrate after he attempted to recover his livestock that was looted by Zanu PF thugs in 2008.

The MDC MP for Makoni South, Hon Pishayi Muchauraya encouraged parents to bring their children during the constitution consultations to be held in various areas so that they also contribute. Speaking during the commemorations of the Day of the African Child held at Meikles park in Mutare on Wednesday, Hon Muchauraya said that children’s rights needed to be enshrined in the constitution and the children should participate so that their views and opinion are taken on board.

Meanwhile, several students were arrested on Wednesday as they commemorated the day of the African Child at the University of Zimbabwe. In Midlands North, an MDC councillor in Gokwe ward 3,Onias Tangwara, was assaulted by elders of the Johane Marange sect on Sunday in front of the congregation and had to be hospitalised. A prophet, Isaac Chohokari allegedly said the spirit had instructed him to tell all MDC supporters that they are not welcome to the Johane Marange sect and had to beat the MDC councillor so that he stops attending their church.

–

MDC Information & Publicity Department

Harvest House

44 Nelson Mandela Ave

Harare
Zimbabwe
Tel: 00263 4 793 250

–
Together to the end, marching to a new Zimbabwe

The Changing Times is the official mouthpiece of the Movement for Democratic Change.

(Source: via email)

A novel by Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah has been nominated for the prestigious annual Orwell Prize awarded to the best writers of political books, APA learnt here Monday.

Gappah’s book, titled An Elegy for Easterly, is among six novels short-listed for the British award for political writing.

The book chronicles the resilience and inventiveness of Zimbabweans who struggle to survive under the weight of economic hardships and persecution under Robert Mugabe’s regime.

Also nominated is Scottish author Andrea Gilles for her book, The Keeper, and British journalist Christopher de Bellaigue who wrote the novel, Rebel Land : Among Turkey’s Forgotten Peoples.

Others on the shortlist are British writers John Kampfner, Kenan Malik and Michela Wrong for their books Freedom For Sale : How We Made Money and Lost Our Liberty, From Fatwa to Jihad : The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy, and It’s Our Turn To Eat : The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower, respectively.

The winners of the £3,000 prize in each of three categories ; books, blogging and journalism, will be announced on 19 May.

The Orwell Prize is awarded to journalists and authors who take political writing beyond just mundane analyses and opinions and into the realm of an art form.

(Source)

Dear Family and Friends,

I am delighted to be able to tell you that my new book: “Innocent Victims,” has just been published by Merlin Unwin Books in the UK.  

Innocent Victims is the story of  how Meryl Harrison rescued thousands of animals stranded on farms during Zimbabwe’s land invasions. In her sixties and with a heart condition, Meryl travelled with one or two young SPCA Inspectors and together they faced mobs of men who were often drugged or drunk and almost always armed with weapons ranging from sticks and stones to guns, knives and whips. Meryl drove thousands of kilometres to remote and abandoned farms; she and her colleagues went into “no –go areas” and faced war veterans, secret police, army and youth militia; they dismantled road barricades and went to places which even the Police said were dangerous and unsafe. There wasn’t an animal too big, small, slippery or furry for Meryl and she rescued cats, dogs and goldfish. She and her team caught pigs, sheep, cows, goats and chickens. They saved horses and ponies, duikers and sable antelope and intervened on behalf of lions, hippos and ostriches.

For some the heart of Innocent Victims will be in Marmalade, the cat rescued from under the bath; for others it may be in Bokkie, the dog on Roy and Heather Bennett’s farm who won an award for “his exceptional bravery and loyalty to his owner and his family and his courageous action that saved their lives.” Or maybe it will be the little un-named piglet which Meryl  popped onto the floor of her truck while mobs of men raged, shouted and threatened all around her.

All of the stories in Innocent Victims are the original first hand accounts taken from Meryl’s personal diaries. Some of the rescues are gruesome and heartbreaking but others tell of great courage, ingenuity and joyous reunions. All tell of the extraordinary dedication and deep passion shown by one woman for the lives of many thousands of animals. Innocent Victims is the story of an unsung and reluctant hero in Zimbabwe’s darkest of times.

Innocent Victims can be ordered from my website: www.cathybuckle.com or from the publishers at: www.merlinunwin.co.uk .

Thank you for your support of my writing and for reading this letter.

Love

Cathy.

(Website)

Howzit

I see that Sky News had an article on the photographs being circulated by email that claim to be from within Mugabe’s mansion.

They have picked up on the fact that I say that photos are NOT Mugabe’s mansion as Google Earth plainly shows there is no outside swimming pool, but the photographs show an outside pool.

You, of course, are free to make up your own mind…

Take care.

‘debvhu

Robert Mugabe’s formative years were spent as the fatherless, friendless favourite of a cold, religious mother, writes Heidi Holland in her new book.

Robert Mugabe’s only surviving brother, Donato, (now deceased) is sitting on an upturned plastic milk crate on the veranda of his house at Kutama, about 100km southwest of Harare, the village where he and his siblings were born and where Donato has remained all his life.

He is a large, white-haired man with a lot of laughter lines on his face, but he looks decidedly wary on this occasion.

He and his wife, Evelyn, invite me indoors reluctantly. Huddled together on the sofa, they are silent and unblinking.

I am acutely aware that few, if any, journalists have been to talk to Donato before me, possibly because we were collectively not interested enough to uncover Mugabe’s ancestry in earlier years when the going was good, but later on because it’s dangerous to ask leading questions in Zimbabwe, let alone to walk into the middle of the terrorised country’s first family.

Donato begins by telling me that for some years during his schooling at Kutama, Robert Mugabe lived with his maternal grandparents “so that he could be watched carefully by them”, he says.

“He was a good boy and he loved to play tennis at school. That was what he did besides reading. He passed teacher training in 1942 but he did not show off.

“He was quiet and never harsh to anyone. He was always determined. Whatever he wants to do, he can do.

“He never recognised the word ‘no’; it was not in his language. He went to Ghana for teacher training and sent letters to our mother.”

His wife says something to him in Shona and he suddenly bellows: “Sally came from Ghana.”

Looking delighted at the thought of his late sister-in-law, his eyes stare into space again for a while.

“She was a lovely person. It was a happy marriage,” he remembers. “It was a happy time in Zimbabwe.”

When I mention Grace, Mugabe’s second wife, Donato nods sagely, offering no comment at first.

“She gave him children,” he says on reflection, nodding slowly.

Behind the sofa is the large official portrait of Mugabe that hangs in government offices and most public spaces in Zimbabwe.

Alongside the couple on a table is a framed, unsmiling photograph of Bona, the president’s late mother, her unusually elongated head wrapped in a scarf that typifies the attire of local rural women.

Robert Mugabe adored his mother. He attended Mass with her every day and twice on Sundays in the years following the deaths of two of his older siblings.

Both of the dead children were boys. One of them, Michael, was the acknowledged family favourite, loved by everyone in the village, not only the Mugabes.

Donato’s description of Michael’s cause of death as “something he ate” is typical of the bare details on offer, not only because the man sitting in front of me does not entirely trust me with his story but because, in the ’20s, life at Kutama was austere. People endured, they fell ill, and they died.

Donato, who was christened Dhonandho and called Donald at school, does not remember how or why Raphael, the second son of the family, died.

Their father, Gabriel, left home after Michael’s death, says Donato. “He went to live in Bulawayo, where he could get work, and he remarried there. He was a very good carpenter. Robert remained cross with him because he would never help us with our schooling. He came back later with three children, and died at Kutama.”

That was a lot of loss for Bona to bear. After her husband left, she became depressed by all accounts. She could not cope alone.

Robert, although only 10 at the time, stepped into the breach.

Suddenly the oldest child, he became his mother’s favourite.

It was he who set about trying to restore the light in her eyes, to be what she wanted him to be.

He could not forgive his father the hurt he had inflicted because Robert’s life was so difficult in Gabriel’s absence.

“The other children used to tease him and he became lonely. He didn’t seem to care, but maybe he did,” muses Donato.

“Our mother protected Robert from everyone, especially me, but he himself did not fight. Our (half) sister Bridget was the one who fought with me. She was the strongest one - never Robert. She had the courage of a man, not like him.”

The Catholic head at Kutama was an Irish priest, Father Jerome O’Hea, a gifted teacher and an exceptional man.

He soon noticed the solemn, talented Robert Mugabe and began to nurture him as a scholar and a credit to St Francis Xavier.

Donato remembers Robert “hanging around” outside the priest’s classroom, ever eager to help the man (who had probably become a substitute father) by carrying his books or cleaning the blackboard.

Unlike the happy-go-lucky Donato, Robert’s childhood had effectively ended when his brothers died and his father left home.

He found solace from the pressures of Bona’s disappointment and expectations in books, not in other children.

An introspective child who may have been neglected in babyhood by a burdened mother and therefore failed to develop confidence in himself, Robert began to adopt a lofty attitude towards his siblings and fellow students.

As Bona’s special one in the family and an increasing favourite among teachers in the classroom, he focused all his energy on being “a good boy”.

“Robert was always a loner,” recalls Donato. “He was a person who was not interested in having many friends. His books were his only friends. I was the opposite, talking to everybody and even fighting with some of them. I could run fast but Robert could not, he was lazy, just reading all the time.

“When he went to herd cattle because our grandfather told him to go out into the fields, he would take his book. He held the book in one hand and the whip in the other. It was a strange thing for all of us to see. When the cattle were settled, he would sometimes sit in the shade under the trees.

“Sometimes, if our grandfather asked him to get something for supper, he would catch many birds, especially doves. He would cut sticks, tie them with grass and put some soft leaves inside with some seeds. This nest he would put near the river and wait quietly, reading his book.

“When the birds came to drink water, he could catch them. He was the only one who could get the birds because he could sit very quietly and that’s why grandfather said it was his job.”

Robert was different from his siblings in other ways, too.

He loved to be at school even when his brothers and sisters were home playing.

Their house was so close to St Francis Xavier College that he could come and go as he pleased.

“He used to be very serious and not always happy,” recalls Donato. “He seemed to have matters to think about.”

Then came the prestigious endorsement of Robert’s scholarly efforts that was to have profound implications not only for his life but for the future of the country he would lead to disaster six decades later.

“Our mother explained to us that Father O’Hea had told her that Robert was going to be an important somebody, a leader.

“Our mother believed Father O’Hea had brought this message from God; she took it very seriously. When the food was short she would say, ‘Give it to Robert.’ But he would refuse and say he didn’t want to eat.

“A doctor (academic) from Salisbury (Harare) came to talk to Robert about his lessons. We laughed at him because he was so serious, until he became cross. Then our mother told us to leave him alone. She believed he was a holy child and she wanted him to become a priest.”

Father O’Hea went out of his way to help the shy child he described as having “unusual gravitas”.

With “an exceptional mind and an exceptional heart”, the boy merited extraordinary attention, he believed.

Promoted to the next class as soon as he could hold his own, Robert was always younger and physically smaller than his contemporaries.

His greatest desire was to please his mother and to earn praise from Father O’Hea.

However, the favouritism of two such important adults in a tight community made him increasingly the butt of jokes among his peers, including his brothers and sisters.

As the children teased him mercilessly, Robert became defiant and presumably angry.

With his reputation for cowardice well established, he was constantly mocked for having his nose in a book by the village children who had not scored highly enough for ongoing study.

As he grew up, Robert got his sense of who he was from Bona, a cold, stern nun of a mother.

She left him in no doubt that he was to be the achiever who rose above everyone else; the leader chosen by God himself.

She may also have viewed him as a substitute for her own failure to serve the church as she and her parents had intended.

Aloneness and the inability to co-operate are the dominant features in all the descriptions of Mugabe’s childhood.

Considering all the available evidence, Mugabe seems to have been driven from very early on by a determination to show those who scorned him and his books, who called him a mummy’s boy and a coward, that he was, nevertheless, the king of the castle - and that they would all have to acknowledge it sooner or later.

Instead of seeing their taunts accurately as sibling rivalry and jealousy from less-accomplished classmates, Robert seems to have felt persecuted, bitterly resenting the failure of everyone around him to appreciate his difficult role in a fatherless family.

“He said he did not have time to play and we always laughed when he said big stuff about himself,” admits Donato.

What the young Robert achieved by single-mindedly pursuing his studies at school, and for years after he left Kutama, was truly remarkable.

To become one of the most erudite Africans in the country from the humblest of beginnings - with no electric light to switch on at home and read by, seldom enough food to eat, and little support except from those whose ambitions robbed him of childish things - was a triumph of discipline over adversity in the classic Jesuit style.

Against the odds, the angry little boy with no friends did become the king of the castle.

But Robert’s diligence was also his way of coping with a universe he believed to be against him.

Despite periods of contentment, he was to be consumed by distrust for the rest of his life.

· Holland’s book, “Dinner with Mugabe”, is due to be released by Penguin Books this month.

(Source)

Howzit

I have tried for two days to do this posting, and try as I might, I cannot get the html code for these articles to behave! Very frustrating.

So rather than post the articles, I will post the links instead.

Very interesting reading - and proof, at least, to me, that there are people living in various places around the world that the story of the Zimbabweans crisis is slowly, ever so slowly, getting through.

Andre Carrel - The Zimbabwe Experience - Part One

Andre Carrel - The Zimbabwe Experience - Part Two

Andre Carrel - The Zimbabwe Experience - Part Three

Andre Carrel - The Zimbabwe Experience - Part Four

Andre Carrel - The Zimbabwe Experience - Conclusion

Take care.

‘debvhu

Police at OR Tambo International Airport have seized a consignment of handguns which might have belonged to the Zimbabwean police force. The weapons - 50 CZ 75 9mm parabellum handguns - were found yesterday in the cargo hold of a passenger plane, packed in a simple wooden padlocked box which had “Zimbabwe contingent” scrawled across it. The plane had stopped over in Zimbabwe. Most of the weapons, which appeared secondhand, had ZRP stamped on them with an additional serial number. According to a security expert, ZRP stands for Zimbabwe Republic Police. The firearms were made in the Czech Republic, and still had their original serial numbers. No ammunition was found in the consignment, which is estimated to be worth about R175000.

(Source)

From my book “Without Honour“:

“The CZ ‘75 is a semi automatic handgun made in the Czech Republic and originally introduced in 1975 by Ceska Zbrojovka Brod (CZUB) in 9mm calibre parabellum. It is one of the original ‘wonder nines’ featuring high-capacity double column magazine, sturdy all-steel construction, great accuracy, and superb reliability.

Weighing in at exactly 2 kilograms with a full magazine and one up the spout, the CZ is a remarkable weapon and had slowly become the issue pistol of the ZRP, taking the place of the aged and somewhat antiquated P1. I know how good the CZ ’75 is because not only had I qualified as a marksman with it every year I was in the Police, but I had also used it in the Police Pistol Shooting Championships in Harare for two years and found it to be the perfect pistol for myself - I have rather large hands.”

Howzit

If there is anybody in the UK who would like a copy of my book “Without Honour“, please be advised that I now have a very limited stock of printed books.

If you would like to purchase the book, they are £10 plus £2 postage each.

You can contact me direct at mandebvhu(at)ntlworld.com and I will work it all out with you.

This is a limited stock and I intend to use the money from sales to replenish the stock.

Take care.

‘debvhu

Howzit

A couple of weeks ago I emailed the local newspaper, The Derby Evening Telegraph, to see if they did a book review service.

Better ‘n that, they put a reporter onto it, and despatched a photographer to see me.

The result was published yesterday:

“A former policeman who spent more than 30 years living and working in Zimbabwe has written a book about his experiences.

Robb Ellis has lived in Derby for the past seven years but grew up in the African country after his family emigrated from Britain when he was a baby.

But he and his family left for England in 1998 when they decided the political situation had become too dangerous under the rule of President Robert Mugabe.

Now he has documented his time spent working under the Mugabe regime - during which thousands of people have been killed - in his book, Without Honour.

Mr Ellis, 44, said he had always wanted to become a policeman and joined the Zimbabwe Republic Police in 1981 when he was 18.

He was posted to a station in Essexvale, now known as Esigodini, and took up the position of public prosecutor.

Mr Ellis, of Devon Close, Chaddesden, said he had to deal with ambushes, murders, rapes, robberies and political violence as part of his work during this time.

He said he saw a marked increase in the number of crimes in the area as people rebelled against Robert Mugabe’s rule.

“Being a prosecutor, I only became involved in the investigation of cases which would be heard in a higher court and so had my pick of volatile, vicious cases to investigate,” he said.

“One of the first instances of political malcontent I attended was the killing in an ambush of two friends of mine who were driving to Bulawayo one evening early in 1982.”

Later that year, Mr Ellis was transferred to Plumtree, on the Zimbabwe’s western border with Botswana.

He said: “By the time I arrived there, Mugabe’s Korean-trained Fifth Brigade had been ordered into the province, where they robbed, murdered, pillaged and raped the local tribe.”

It is estimated that 20,000 to 30,000 people were killed during this period.

In 1985, Mr Ellis left the police force after becoming disillusioned with the justice system in the country and worked for several large companies until leaving Zimbabwe in 1998.

He came to Britain with wife Bernie but, in August 2000, fell 13 feet while working in a warehouse in Swindon and shattered his left arm.

The couple then moved to Derby so that Mr Ellis could receive treatment at the Pulvertaft Hand Unit at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary.

He was encouraged to write about his experiences by a friend from South Africa and began penning the book last year with the support of his wife and his mother, who also lives in Derby.

He said: “It was an amazing emotional release to write of the events of almost a quarter of a century ago but events, nonetheless, which are still relevant today as Mugabe is still in power, albeit undemocratically, and the people of Zimbabwe still suffer for his leadership.”

Without Honour is available as a print-on-demand book at www.lulu.com/content/779062 and costs £12.99 plus postage.”

Take care.

‘debvhu