Hi all, I haven't posted any of Cathy Buckle from Zimbabwe of late, surprised this one from December 19th is still in my mailbox.  This could be any of the more western countries before long, what happened in Zimbabwe with the seizure of the white farms which are not producing well in peasant hands. Cathy Buckles was forced off, as near as I can tell, I haven't finished reading her book African Tears that I recommended. Circa 2000

Marvellous

December 19, 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

I went walking a little after dawn and was struck by the contrasts of
Zimbabwe this Christmas. The natural picture is of paradise
flycatchers, pintailed whydahs and olive bush shrikes flitting
through the deep green Msasa's and on the roadsides the poinsettias
showing the first few red flowers for Christmas. The grass is lush,
green and wet with thick dew glistening in the early sunlight. It's
cool and quiet as I walk, the only sound the flicking and slapping of
my flip flops against the soles of my feet.

I was going to visit the grave of my baby nephew and spend a quiet
time thinking about all that has happened in the 11 years since he
died. I look down and see a brown ear tick crawling on my leg, and
then another - ever the opportunists looking for a meal! I notice for
the first time that in the grass there are swathes of flowering
sedges: rusty brown spikes, clear, white balls and big creamy
clusters.

A young eagle is disturbed from its perch and stares down at me with
startled, unblinking eyes. A scarlet flame lily, the first I've seen
this Christmas, stands tall against a headstone and many more, heads
bowed with unopened flowers are plentiful amongst the graves.

Walking quietly in the cemetery, the reality sinks in. So many graves
are of young people, died long before their time.

'Rest in peace, brother,' says a sign on a piece of rusty tin,
marking the grave of a man named Marvellous, born in 1983, died in
2009 - just 26 years old. This young man lived his entire life
knowing the rule of only one President, the greedy, oppressive
policies of only one political party. Over a dozen newly dug graves
in a line wait for the inevitable weekend ceremonies. Three times
this cemetery has been extended in the nine years I've lived here and
now all the boundary fences have been stolen. For a moment I am
shocked at how people have planted maize less than two metres from
the nearest lines of graves. The irony of a country covered in seized
but unplanted farms and maize alongside urban graves really says it
all.

Later I pay a brief visit to town where the picture is different but
the message the same. Lines of buses are heading to the rural areas.
Despite all the hardships people are determined to go 'home',
kumusha. Roof racks of buses are crammed with bags and the odd
bicycle and bed is balanced atop the pile. The grocery shops are
bustling but when you look in the trolleys its not crackers,
chocolates and wine that you see but salt, sugar, laundry soap and
rice. These are the essentials so needed at home in the rural areas.

This Christmas we take time to remember the generation lost to Aids,
and the hundreds who have died in the struggle for democracy. We also
think of the millions of Zimbabweans who are in the Diaspora, away
from home, apart from their families - not by choice but by
necessity. May 2010 be the year we see meaningful change in our
country.

I am taking a break for a few weeks but thank you all for reading and
for caring for so many years. I'm delighted to say that I've at last
got a small stock of Innocent Victims available in Zim so please do
email me. Until next time, Happy Christmas, love cathy. Copyright
cathy buckle 19 December 2009.

www.cathybuckle.com < www.cathybuckle.com     . For information on my new book: "INNOCENT VICTIMS" or my previous
books, "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears," or to
subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write to:

cbuckle@mango.zw <mailto: cbuckle@mango.zw  

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Just Push In

January 30, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

There are some things in Zimbabwe that are so shameful that it's
almost easier to turn away than to witness the reality of some
people's lives.

Recently I went to pay my telephone account on the same day as
pension cheques were supposed to have arrived at the local Post
Office Savings Bank. The two services operate side by side, in the
same building, on the ground floor and on opposite sides of a common
entrance door. The view in front of me was of mayhem. Literally
hundreds of people were crowded around the entrance to the building
and were clearly trying to get into the savings bank.

A security guard was leaning out of the window of the telephone
accounts hall watching the growing crowd. I held up my telephone bill
to indicate what I wanted and he shouted to me: 'Just push in!'

Reluctantly I stepped into the mass of people, apologising, excusing,
requesting passage and all the time showing the crumpled phone bill so
they knew I wasn't trying to get to the Savings Bank.

It took some time to squeeze, push and squash my way through the
crowd and then I realised that there seemed to be a lot of people
with crutches, walking sticks and even two people in wheelchairs.
When I finally got into the telephone accounts hall, very crushed,
battered and dishevelled I asked the security guard what was going
on. He told me that government pension cheques had not been deposited
into peoples accounts and that all these people were refusing to go
away until they got their money. They weren't waiting for a fortune
but for miniscule amounts that they can barely live on for one week,
let alone a month.

The doors of the savings bank were locked, the employees sat inside
chatting while hundreds of near destitute pensioners waited outside.
Word got around that there was no pension money and they should come
back after the weekend. Men and women in their seventies and
eighties, some as old as Zimbabwe's President, roared and surged
forward; glass doors looked in danger of collapsing, a disaster
seemed very close.

With such shame I looked at the men and women who gave a lifetime to
building our country and who were being rewarded like this. There was
nowhere for them to sit, no cups of tea or glasses of water, no polite
explanation, no apology, no respect for age, not even any empathy -
just a locked door. Grey haired, hunched over and so very thin, our
elders waited in vain. Many carried home made walking sticks,
knobbled, knotted and hand carved. Others wore glasses with one lens
missing or frames stuck together with putty; faces were hollow and
mouths shrunken, most with only a few teeth left, none with the
luxury of dentures.One man sat bent over in a wheelchair whose wheels
had been patched up with strips of bicycle tyre, sewn on with big
brown stitches. Almost all of them wore clothes that were long past
their best: suits with frayed cuffs and hems, threadbare dresses with
collars falling apart.

The state that pensioners find themselves in here, through no fault
of their own, is absolutely tragic. Life savings have been wiped out
with hyper inflation and repeated devaluation; assets have been sold
for miniscule amounts in exchange for food and medicines and
children, who could help, are either struggling somewhere in the
diaspora or unemployed and barely surviving themselves. A woman told
me her pension is 62 US dollars a month but her rent is 74 dollars.
Another told me her NSSA pension (social security) is 38 US dollars a
month but her medical aid is 48 US dollars a month, increased from 8
US dollars in December.

Perhaps hardest of all is the knowledge that if you have a fall,
break a bone or get sick, you're done for. Its a very common sight to
see elderly people being pushed in wheelbarrows or lying on the ground
in the dirt outside hospitals waiting for assistance. At our local
government hospital which is a provincial centre, there is now only
one government doctor serving the whole establishment.

As Zanu PF leaders continue to bleat about targeted sanctions that
only affect 203 individuals and 44 companies and say "no more
concessions" until "sanctions' are lifted, the madness goes on. Farms
continue to be grabbed, ever more people lose their homes, jobs and
life's work and more people are made destitute because of the greed
of a handful.

Zimbabwe's pensioners, like so many others in our population are in a
diabolical state which has nothing whatever to do with sanctions and
everything to do with a decade of mis-governance.

I end this week with a request for memories and anecdotes of Imire
Game Park in Wedza between the years 1950 and 2000. So much history
from the countryside has got lost in this dark decade and so many
people who were eye witnesses and could remember have gone. Please
contact me at the email address below if you have any stories you
would be prepared to share of this very special place. Until next
time, thanks for reading, love cathy.  Copyright cathy buckle 30
January 2010.

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So What's Changed

February 6, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

Laughter, back slapping and prolonged hand shakes were the order of
the day when I met a friend this week. His 13 year old daughter had
passed her junior school exams and got enough points to be accepted
into senior school. Dad's face was creased with smiles as he told me
what subjects had been passed and how delighted he was that his
little girl was on the way now, nearly a young woman. This momentous
occasion, a time of considerable pride and achievement is
particularly commendable after 10 years of economic collapse which
left most schools virtually closed and without teachers, books or
equipment. My congratulations to a proud Dad were short lived as now
he, and hundreds of thousands of others like him, face the nightmare
of getting their children through senior school and up to their O
Levels.

Barely a fortnight into the new term at senior school, my friend's
daughter was sent home. The shame and embarrassment were evident by
the dusty tear stains on her face. Her father had only managed to pay
half of the school fees and so the girl was told to go away until she
could pay the full amount due - US$60. She knew her Dad didn't have
any more money for school fees, he'd already spent another US$ 40
buying the required 18 exercise books, a new school dress, socks and
satchel; luckily her old shoes were the right colour and still
fitted. And so, for want of US$ 30, a 13 year old girl was turned
away from school this week.

Even if my friend manages to get his daughter back into school, her
education is far from secure as Zimbabwe's long suffering teachers
have finally said enough is enough and are threatening to strike.
Earning just US$ 160 a month, our teachers can't even afford to
educate their own children, let alone teach others. Their monthly
salary doesn't even cover the utilities bills charged by the same
government they work for. With domestic household electricity
averaging US 80 a month and water and municipal bills being another
US 80 a month, there is nothing left from a teacher's pay to buy
food, pay for transport, medical needs or even buy a teenage girl a
pair of socks for school. The teachers say they want salaries
increased to at least US $ 630 a month - which is what they could
earn if they were teaching in countries in the region. Our government
say they don't have the money and so a crisis is imminent.

Teachers, like everyone else, are saying the government should be
using the Chiadzwa diamond money to fund the country's expenses and
rebuild Zimbabwe. Diamonds which are estimated to be worth 125
million (US 205 million) every month. Human Rights groups say that
when hundreds of soldiers were sent in to the Chiadzwa diamond fields
to evict small scale miners in November 2008, between 200 and 400
people were shot by the soldiers.

Think of this: More people were killed by the army than are affected
by sanctions. You have to say it again to understand the enormity of
it: 200 - 400 diamond diggers were killed by soldiers in Chiadzwa in
November; compared to only 203 powerful and already privileged Zanu
PF individuals on a targeted sanctions list. 203 people holding a
country of 10 million to ransom. So what's changed?

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy  Copyright cathy
buckle 6 February 2010.

*************************************

Park the Bus

February 13, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,
We all wondered what would happen when there were no more farms left
to grab and this week we got the answer. It's not diamonds as we
thought, those are undoubtedly destined only for the very deep,
velvet lined pockets of the really big wigs. It's the companies and
businesses that are next.

After a year of appeals, conferences and seminars to try and attract
investors back to Zimbabwe, everything was wasted in a single stroke
this week. A new regulation has just been gazetted requiring that all
local and foreign owned companies must hand over at least 51 per cent
ownership to "indigenous" Zimbabweans. Multiple thousands of
companies are going to be affected and economists predict that many
local industries will be forced into bankruptcy.

An article in the UK Daily Telegraph quotes an expert who explains
the implications in simple language that anyone can understand:
"Daniel Ndlela, Zimbabwe's most eminent regional economist said:
"There will be no foreign investment into Zimbabwe. Why would anyone
come into Zimbabwe with $100 and be left with $49? ... those who
might have invested in Zimbabwe will now never come."

This new regulation does not just affect foreign companies but also
those belonging to Zimbabweans whose skin happens to not be black. It
affects men and women who were born here, went to school and
university here, built homes and businesses here and have lived in
Zimbabwe all their lives - people who know no other country but
Zimbabwe.

Standing chatting to a young "indigenous" Zimbabwean one evening this
week he said to me:
"It shames me to say that nowadays if you are white you are always in
the wrong. Even if you are in the right, if you are white, you are
wrong."
"Like it was for blacks before 1980?" I suggested.
He laughed and said :"I don't know, I wasn't even born then!"
We slapped hands in that Zimbabwean way of sharing a good laugh and
changed the topic.

We've just heard that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is talking
about elections in April next year. "Park and proceed" is what the PM
is saying. Everyone knows that the endless stalling and so called
negotiations between Zanu PF and the MDC are never going to be
resolved. As MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said this week: " We don't
want to keep Zimbabweans in suspense and anxiety. We are holding
everyone to ransom."

They are indeed because all we want to do is get on with our lives,
change, improve, prosper and stop going backwards. So lets park that
rusty old bus and proceed. What a good idea. Until next time, thanks
for reading, love cathy
Copyright cathy buckle 13 February 2010.
www.cathybuckle.com

*************************

No Go Areas,  10th Anniversary of the Farm Invasions

February 27, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the commencement of farm
invasions in Zimbabwe. For me it started with a mob of men who came
to the farm gate. Wearing blue overalls and carrying bricks and
sticks they whistled and shouted that this was HONDO (war) and that
they were taking the farm. The events that followed are history and
the seizure of that farm and theft of home, business and assets have
been repeated thousands of times across the country in this last
decade.

There are thought to have been a million people directly affected by
Zimbabwe's land seizures, including farm owners and their employees
and extended families. None of these one million people have yet been
compensated for what was taken from them or for injuries and abuses
inflicted upon them in the process of the seizures. It wasn't only
those million that paid the price. It is widely believed that a
further four million Zimbabweans had to leave home in the last 10
years. There is not a family in the country who does not have
relations living in political or financial exile in this massive
place called 'diaspora' which encompasses most corners of the world
where abused, dispossessed, and disenfranchised Zimbabweans now live.


Tragically, 10 years later farm invasions are still going on and the
inclusive government does nothing to stop them - unable or unwilling
to stop the lawless monster unleashed a decade ago. Zimbabwe now
imports almost it's food including the most basic of staple goods
such as wheat, maize, cooking oil and sugar.

Farms, once the show-piece of Zimbabwe and the life blood of the
economy are now no-go areas. Why? What is it that the beneficiaries
of the seized farms have got to hide? What are they ashamed of? What
have they being doing these 10 years that leaves our shelves barren
of Zimbabwean food?

Perhaps one person who knows is Gertrude Hambira, Secretary General
of the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe
(Gapwuz). Mrs Hambira was in hiding again this week days after she'd
been called to a meeting and interrogated about a documentary and
report published by GAPWUZ recently. The report called 'House of
Justice," exposes evidence of human rights violations against farm
workers in the decade of land seizures and details the involvement of
senior government officials.

This week I had the privilege of going for a walk in the bush - a
rare treat these days after everything that has gone on here. Tall,
thick vegetation, lush grass heavy with raindrops and drooping with
seeds. Everywhere you look there is another delight to see and for me
it was like meeting old friends: exquisite mushrooms of every
description from thin stalks with delicate ivory heads to bright
orange spikes erupting from a bare sandy patch; red toadstools, brown
balls, little white beads glimmering in the grass and huge brown and
orange bracket fungus clinging to trees.

There is so much to do out there in the Zimbabwean bush, so much to
preserve, conserve, protect and so much for our children to learn -
if only the politics and greed of a few could be stopped. Until next
time, thanks for reading, love cathy Copyright cathy buckle 27
February 2010.

www.cathybuckle.com  

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All are Welcome

March 6, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

They say that a picture speaks a thousand words and the one I picked
up on the roadside this morning certainly did. I'm not generally in
the habit of picking up litter on public roads but this was
different. It was the remains of a poster that had been torn off a
street light pole. From the scraps of bright coloured paper left
clinging to a number of other poles, it was obvious that a line of
the same posters had all been torn down recently. I had travelled
along this road just the day before and the posters hadn't been there
then so this had only just happened. Picking up the remains of the
crumpled poster lying in the grass and turning it over, I knew
immediately that the political turmoil in Zimbabwe is still a long
way from being over.

The top third of the poster was gone but that didn't matter to me. I
knew who the woman on the poster was and that the missing words must
have been her name: Amai Susan Tsvangiari.

In the characteristic black, red and white colours synonymous with
the MDC, the poster was advertising a commemorative gathering to be
held at Glamis Stadium in Harare on Saturday 6th March to remember
the life of Mrs Susan Tsvangirai, who died tragically in a car crash
outside Banket exactly one year ago.

At the bottom of the poster in clear white lettering were the words:
'All Are Welcome,' a message that obviously didn't need to be
advertised as a few minutes later I witnessed a number of trucks,
crammed with people, streaming past on the nearby highway to Harare.
The message 'All are Welcome' told a story in itself in a country
where we aren't used to being invited but are more familiar with
being threatened if we don't attend.

The wide smile on the face of the late Mrs Tsvangirai told another
story - no anger, hatred or arrogance here. How refreshingly
different and what a loss to our Prime Minister and to the nation.

I wondered why anyone would feel threatened enough by the posters to
need to tear them down. The simple act of tearing down posters of
people from different political parties, even commemorative posters,
shows just how far away from democracy Zimbabwe still is. Tolerance
of different beliefs, practices and people is as elusive as ever.
That's a frightening reality at a time when all the talk is of
elections - again.

It is looking increasingly likely that we are not going to get a new
constitution before a another election after all as both the MDC and
Zanu PF have started talking about a new poll. At first we heard 2013
being mentioned, then 2012 but this week Mr Mugabe said there would be
elections in 2011, with or without a new constitution.

If tearing down posters to remember the life of Mrs Tsvangirai is any
indication, it's impossible to see how Zimbabwe will be ready to have
a free and fair election without intolerance, intimidation and
violence. An election where losers are forced to step down and
winners are allowed to accept the people's choice and get on with
rebuilding our country.

Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy. Copyright cathy
buckle 6th March 2010. www.cathybuckle.com