Tony Namate
20 June 2005
opinion
WHAT is happening in Zimbabwe right now is clearly a war of attrition against a dejected people by a regime whose popularity is at its lowest.
Zanu PF's callous disregard for human life has become stuff legends are made of. Those war veterans who have been caught up in the ongoing mind boggling police operation should now be the first to admit that our leaders' claims of as much as 100% disability during the War Victims Compensation probe in the late 1990's, were valid.
The law enforcement agents have become a law unto themselves, only answerable to the Great Leader. They get angry on his behalf. Public relations consists of words like: "we strongly warn we repeat people must desist we will not tolerate "
No matter how right you are, you are always wrong. It sounds Machiavellian, but that has become true of our government. Totally totalitarian! In a normal situation, high-handedness would be used as a last, not first, resort. They have become weapons of vindictiveness and revenge, and have thrown all professionalism to the winds. The only thing we have in common with them is our skin colour.
Where are the houses they have built for those they have now rendered homeless?
Their latest action is like a husband who burns all his wife's clothes because they are old, yet has not bought her a single shred of new clothing. They have succeeded in making us prisoners of fear. No one dares criticize them - they are the law. Anyone who dares criticise them must face the wrath of the "law".
Ordinary citizens have been criminalised without even the need to refer to law's golden rule: innocent until proven guilty. Hell, what the BSAP could do, we can do better! Arrest first, investigate later. Gideon Gono threatened to reveal the names of corrupt government officials (which, by assumption, means he knows them), but he never did. Neither did the police ask for their names.
George Orwell succinctly put it in the last paragraph of Animal Farm:
"Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
The law has been misused, occasionally with the compliance of learned men of letters, to settle political scores. As far as Zanu-PF is concerned, collateral damage is part of the game. The more casualties, the merrier.
The minister says people were warned. When? Can he stand up in court and produce the evidence? How? Did the police go round the townships with loud hailers asking people to close their flea markets, remove their shacks or close down their tuck shops? Did they place notices in the media? Did they put up posters?
No. They didn't need to. "The people knew what they were doing was illegal"! And they knew the police were going to raid them!
Before the raids, Harare was colourful, bright and cheerful, now it looks clean but grey, lifeless. Africa Unity Square eerily resembles a cemetery.
Since 1980, this "peoples'" government has done everything that is humanely possible to make sure Zimbabweans never enjoy their so-called independence.
No. It is a fascist government that is there to inflict maximum pain, trauma, uncertainty, fear, as a way of reminding you who is in charge. It is a heartless government that has no compassion for AIDS orphans who cannot afford to live in better accommodation because when their parents died, they had no rural home or house of their own. No. It is a cutthroat government which gives people a few hours notice in the middle of a crippling fuel crisis or the biting cold of winter to "go back where they came from" - a clear abuse of power. It is a shameless government that has no known record of building houses for the people like Ian Smith did. It is a government that is accountable to no one. We have become refugees in our own country.
Thousands have been rendered homeless, jobless, moneyless, nay hopeless - not that they had these in the first place. The bright spark who thought up this monumental shindig deserves to be awarded the Order of The Zimbabwe Ruins. Some of these shacks housed former commercial farm workers, and some those who fled the war in the late seventies and never went back.
Some of the affected families had children writing "O" and "A" Level Examinations. Some of the destroyed shacks had owners who were outside the country, probably buying goods for resale at flea markets. When they come back, their lives can never be the same again.
Some of these shacks probably had people lying sick with AIDS or TB. Some affected people sought accommodation near their workplaces to minimize the transport costs spurred by a chaotic transport situation. Some of the shack dwellers were family members who could no longer fit in the main house. I know people who have lodged in the same shack since the mid-eighties. And then someone crows and says the action was taken after consultation with stakeholders! There's no telling how many will die or fall ill due to stress. Those lucky to have rural areas will have to cut down trees for firewood and building, further straining an already damaged environment.
In one fell swoop, 2005 has become an annus horribilis.
As the regime gets more vicious and desperate, it only manages to become more unpopular. You can never force popularity on your people. Period. To quote one sage: "Too much of anything is not good for you." And the law of physics says that there is a reaction for every action. The people's anger cannot remain motionless forever.
We have now come to the stage where almost everything we do is now classified as unlawful. Perhaps we should be thankful for the small liberties that we still have left, like breathing, walking, flushing the toilet, or getting into new clothes, for they could be taken away. Perhaps we should start living our lives by the hour. Perhaps we should all have a suicide pact. Perhaps
How many achievements against its people have our sovereign, legitimate government notched up since Prince Charles uttered the immortal words: "kuzvitonga"? Just when you think they have quenched their thirst for wanton violence, they come up with new excesses. What did Ian Smith's scientists really do to the minds of these people?
How low do we have to sink before we finally realize that our situation is not normal? They say a people deserves the government they get. I certainly don't deserve this one. Our people's government has lost the plot, just like Ian Smith did when he declared: "Never in a thousand years". The future, for many, is scary.
Who will be next? No one is safe from this government.
Seeking shelter from the elements is a universal right, but in Zimbabwe it has become illegal. Soon, it will even be illegal to exist.
I am one person who genuinely believes that the current operation is not the coup de grace of our suffering: There is worse torment to come. As Tsholotsho MP Jonathan Moyo once said: "You ain't seen nothing yet."
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