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Many
say independence now 'meaningless'
Caiphas
Chimete,The Standard (Zimbabwe)
April 15, 2007
http://www.thezimbabwestandard.com/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=11&id=6317&siteid=1
OPPOSITION activists
and ordinary people said yesterday celebrating Independence had
become virtually meaningless as poverty and political repression
now matched that of the colonialists.
A snap survey
by The Standard last week included the view that President Robert
Mugabe's government had become as intolerant as the last days of
Ian Smith's regime.
They said Mugabe, who
has been in power for 27 uninterrupted years, had destroyed everything
the country achieved before and after Independence in his quest
to remain in power.
Mugabe had banned political
rallies, marches and demonstrations, virtually rendering Zimbabweans
a nation of political captives.
MDC pro-Senate president
Arthur Mutambara said the principles and values of the liberation
struggle - democracy, freedom, liberty, equality, universal suffrage,
social justice - were no longer part of the nation-state, making
celebrations "an immoral act".
Instead, said Mutambara,
Zimbabweans were experiencing "grotesque" human rights
violations, starvation, unemployment, deplorable working conditions
and unprecedented hopelessness.
"We live in an undeclared
state of emergency where our basic freedoms and liberties of assembly,
speech, movement and association are heavily curtailed by repressive
legislation," Mutambara said.
Tafadzwa Mugabe
of the Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said in the wake of the events
of 11 March when State security agents brutalized MDC members and
human rights activists, celebrating Independence had become devoid
of meaning.
"I did not imagine
that one day a black government would turn against its own people,"
said 79-year-old Mbuya Sekai Khuzwayo of Highfield.
She was an activist
of ZANU in the 1960s when nationalists, including Robert Mugabe,
spoke out against and resisted colonial oppression.
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