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Our bungling govt does it again
Pius Wakatama
June 13, 2005

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/read.php?st_id=2581

FOR a whole two weeks, I was a prisoner at my own home. I could not go anywhere because of transportation problems. My spouse, Winnie, who now proudly answers to the title Gogo (grandmother), takes our old jalopy to work.

I cannot go with her into town and spend the day visiting relatives, friends and the few business contacts I still have left because there is no petrol for that kind of thing anymore. We have to be careful how we use the little petrol we can afford on the expensive parallel market. Also, as a retiree, I see no reason to wake up that early in the morning and miss listening to real factual news on international broadcasts instead of the amateurish and nauseating propaganda churned out by our inept government media.

In the past I would listen to the news, work in the garden and, after lunch, catch a kombi into town. After doing some chores and visiting friends, I would come back, after 5PM with Gogo.

With the lack of petrol and the police blitz on public transport, I cannot do that anymore. After waiting for a lift into town, in the blistering sun, for more than an hour, I decided that staying at home was best.

I now spend time pottering in the garden and coaxing my spinach, lettuce and covo to grow so that I can sell and make some money to supplement my unstretching meagre earnings. With our mega-inflation and useless bearer cheques, I wonder how those who are not poor millionaires are making it.

Two Mondays ago, Gogo brought me the day's newspapers which I, as usual immediately sit down and read. Upon first reading of "Operation Murambatsvina" and "Operation Restore Order" in Mbare, (formerly called Harare township when the capital was called Salisbury), I congratulated the government for this rather belated action. "It's better late than never," I said to myself.

For a long time those of us who grew up in Mbare, Harare then, and know of its glorious past during colonial days, oppressive as they were, were embarrassed and chagrined at what our old home had now become. It was now a congested and filthy ghetto without social cohesion, law or order.

We have a nostalgic close affinity to it because of good childhood memories and the fact that our brothers, sisters, friends and relatives still live there.

Just the other day, fellow Mbarean, Leonard Tsumba, former governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said to me: "Pius, what can we do to save our old home, Mbare?"

I frankly told him that as long as the present indifferent government was in power, there was absolutely nothing that we could do. I am of the opinion that since most of those in our government are from a rural background, they despise township residents. As I grew up, those from the rural areas used to regard us as stupid and derisively called us "Vana vemapiritsi (Children born through the use of medical tablets)". Even President Robert Mugabe once scornfully referred to Mbare residents as "totemless people".

In the nineties, some successful former residents of Mbare, including myself, formed the Mbare Development Association in order to seek ways and means of rehabilitating the now decrepit township. They did not go far because Zanu PF leaders made it clear to us that unless our association was part and parcel of the ruling party, we would go nowhere.

We tried to explain to them that we were of different political persuasions and that the association was a civic organisation. It was all in vain. We therefore decided to disband than court the wrath of the ruling party, which brooks no opposition or criticism.

Now that at last something positive was being done for Mbare, I was grateful. However, as events unfolded I became rather anxious about the so-called "clean up" of Mbare since it was being conducted by anti-riot police.

One morning I received a call from an energetic daughter of Mbare, Joyce Jenje Makwenda. She has written an enthralling book on township music and wanted to give me a complimentary copy. The book was edited by an illustrious son of Mbare, Dr Gibson Mandishona, and the foreword was written by another Mbarean, Dr Herbert Murerwa, then Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education.

As we discussed her book, I mentioned about the clean up going on in Mbare. She said she was glad that something was being done at last but had reservations about how it was being done. "You must go and see for yourself, Mukoma Pius," she said.

So it was that I woke up early and went into town with Gogo. I was astounded when we entered town. The place had changed so much for the better. The multitudes of vendors and their unsightly stalls were gone.

I left Gogo at her workplace and headed for Mbare. I was so astounded I found it difficult to believe my eyes. Police were destroying people's homes, tuck shops and vegetable stalls with sledge hammers while armed para-military police stood by.

Desperate families were frantically salvaging what they could of their precious goods and carrying them on their heads and on carts. It looked like those pictures, we see on television, of refugees fleeing war-torn African countries. What they could not take, the police set on fire. Firm brick buildings were being torn down by a bulldozer. Flames, smoke and dust billowed all over the place.

A woman with a baby on her back, a blanket load on her head and a small boy in tow passed by my car. She was crying. "Where do I go now?" she asked nobody in particular. I could not help but shed tears myself.

An anti-riot police officer looked at me and said: "Old man, go away. You have no business here. We are only carrying out orders."

I almost told him that this is one order he and his colleagues should have disobeyed but I thought the better of it and left. As I headed for my beloved childhood home on Pazarangu Avenue, someone running after the car was calling my name. I stopped. It was one of the local political chefs of Zanu PF who had often berated me for daring to criticise the government and the ruling party in my articles.

"Muzukuru, I must apologise for all I said to you in the past. These people are heartless," he said. "This is madness. I will have nothing to do with this merciless party anymore."

I wanted to really rub it in as revenge but restrained myself. Instead, I said: "I am glad you have now seen the light."

As I drove away from the devastated Mbare, I thought about our government. They are well-educated and intelligent, but they bungle and destroy everything they touch. They constantly talk about how they intend to make our lives better but what they have achieved is to turn us into the most wretched of the earth.

At first it was the land reform programme, if anyone can call the whole fiasco a programme. All Zimbabweans supported land reform including village idiots.

Since our government is full of people with doctorates in almost every discipline we thought a thorough study of the situation would be made, needs assessed, strategies formulated, a plan put into place and humanely implemented. This would have left productive farmers, irregardless of race, with enough land to continue producing for the nation and new farmers equipped with the knowledge and wherewithal to go into productive farming.

But, No. The whole exercise was politicised. It became punishment for white commercial farmers because they supported the opposition party. It became a violent and ruthless racial vendetta.

Where did that land us? From being the prosperous breadbasket of the region we are now abject beggars.

At first we put up a brave face and told donors to go away with their food because we had enough. As if to spite our false bravado God decided to send us a crippling drought and we are now facing virtual starvation.

Thank God our President has come to his senses and accepted help from the World Food Programme - albeit with "no political strings attached".

Since when did a United Nations sponsored body such as the WFP impose political conditions on any member nation requesting humanitarian help? Anyway, can a beggar lay any conditions before accepting help?

All sane Zimbabweans support urban renewal and the establishment of law and order. However, the way it is being done is questionable. Today our economy is in tatters. Corruption, lack of good governance and bankrupt economic policies based on political expediency, rather than good economic sense made sure of that. When government enunciated the indigenous empowerment policy of supporting the non-formal sector, we applauded. After all formal commerce and industry is no more and unemployment is hovering around 80 percent. Our economy is now dependent on the non-formal sector. Now that we are destroying it in favour of the Chinese and their Zhing Zhongs, where are we going to end up?

It is also clear that the present destruction of the townships and the inhuman displacement of over a million people have nothing to do with urban renewal or law and order. It is punishment being meted out to those "without totems" for voting for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) during the last general election.

At first council gave people of the townships three months to regularise their illegal dwellings or to destroy them. Before three weeks were over, their dwellings and livelihoods were destroyed. Where are justice, mercy and respect for basic human rights?

He, who has dears to hear, let him hear.

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