Back to Index , Back to article index, Prev Page, Next Page

The Saga Continueth
Shane Kidd, Chimanimani, Zimbabwe
June 25, 2004

Monday 7th June, 2004
Early morning, started by notifying various people of our intentions and giving them warning orders. We then drove up to the police station where we handed in Birgit's statement and the letter from the lawyer to Assistant Inspector Mupfurinwa. It appears that Inspector Ruzvidzo had once again honoured us with his absence. It appears he only attends the Police Station on Sundays so that he can go to church. When we asked Mupfurinwa what he was going to do he said "nothing, the incident is still under investigation." This is ZANU (PF) / Police Code for we are doing sod all and intend to do it with conviction and determination. I then told him that we were going down to the office peacefully but if we were attacked we would defend ourselves and that we would no longer be intimidated by the Police, CIO, ZANU (PF), and warvets. The CIO, represented by Shinge and co, who where lounging around on the rocks in the sun in the background, (reminiscent of lizards but not as intelligent) decided to add their 2 cents worth. This mostly consisted of "Fuck off you dirty whites, fuck off back to Britain" and other deep intellectual thoughts along this line. You can see why they are called an intelligence organisation.

We then drove down to the village, dropped our car behind CAFT so it wouldn't be stoned and walked into the village and down to the MDC office. On the way we stopped off and bought some paint and a paintbrush. I went to the wall and started painting over the ZANU (PF) signs and the rather unedifying picture of Mugabe. Birgit went around the back and confronted the 3 remaining warvets telling them to get off her property, weren't they ashamed of themselves, look at the destruction they had wrought, they had 2 minutes to leave or else. Or else what, I still have no idea? One of the warvets reached for his machete but Birgit's dreaded finger came out and pointed at him, followed by that magic phrase "don't you dare, just move out and go dig your own land." That seemed to be as much as they could take, so they grabbed their blankets and maize and made a hurried departure. Moral support in the form of Maguta, Freddy and Nelson, MDC employees who man the office, were there but at a safe distance (a safe distance can be defined as any distance sufficient to give them a head start in the sprint for cover in the event of danger). Helping to reclaim their property and stand up for their rights is obviously not in their job description.

We spent the next 3 hours doing a rudimentary repaint with white paint; there was no paint of any colour except white available in any of the village stores. I'm sure that in a country where Mugabe vilifies whites there must be some deep and philosophical message buried in that. We then went in search of shoe polish in the market to redo the MDC signs. Maguta (MDC) eventually appeared with a small can of blue paint borrowed a friend from somewhere. He then retreated to a safe distance. With this we started to repaint the signs MDC OFFICE and NO MORE FEAR on all the available walls. Whilst we were industriously painting, Shinge and co from the CIO kept driving past with a most put-upon look on their faces, their petulant lower lips all a quiver. At about 2pm all was quiet and we departed for Mutare. We had to go and sign the affidavits at the lawyer's office to get an eviction order from the courts. It's really a waste of time because the police will not act anyway. Bit of an irony, Roy was busy departing for elsewhere on Monday when I returned from the mountains so I asked him for some MDC support of a few good men (other than lawyers) to help me get the bottle store back. He said he didn't know of any and I would have to find them for myself. Isn't it funny that the only one good man I could come up with was Birgit?

Spent the evening with George and Jane in Mutare.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP