Zimbabwe -- The Fire This Time

IT is no exaggeration to say that no demonstrations since the 1950s in Zimbabwe will be as popular as the ones planned for this week. People are desperately in need of everything: food, fuel, cash-the whole lot.

The circumstances are cruel enough. Zimbabwe is a country in tragedy's grip. The destruction of the country by Zanu PF has sparked an unprecedented upheaval in the country's politics, culture and mores.

We hold no brief for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). But we do know for sure that the economic and political calamity that the country is facing has nothing to do with the MDC. Zimbabweans are struggling to escape the poverty and suffering that has been caused by Zanu PF's mismanagement of the economy.

Just to keep the record straight: MDC does not want to stage a coup through the anti-Mugabe marches. There is no intention whatsoever on the part of the MDC to unconstitutionally remove the President and the Government of Zimbabwe from power. In saying this, we are not being spokespersons of MDC but merely putting the correct perspective to the forthcoming demonstrations. We owe it to our readers to provide the proper context to what may rank as one of the significant political events in Zimbabwe this year.

The ruling party in its panic over the real possibility of Zimbabwe's streets being filled with demonstrators is using the lie of overthrowing the government as one of its chief propaganda arguments against the planned marches. The MDC has neither the capacity nor the intention of unleashing violence on the public and against government institutions and property. For that will be as unwise as it is ignoble.

MDC or no MDC, Zimbabweans are simply fed up. Everybody knows that for international support and assistance to flow into the country, there has to be the political solution to our problems and that begins with the realisation that President Mugabe has become a liability. And in the heart of their hearts, Zanu PF knows this. The final push must be understood in the context of putting pressure on President Mugabe to enter into a serious and genuine dialogue with the MDC that will culminate in his departure from office to save this country. How this is done legally and timeously, is a matter for the negotiators. Zimbabweans are heartily ratifying the mass action in this context, no matter what consequences. Such action should further the aim of lifting the country out of its hideous economic mess.

Nobody believes the Zanu PF propaganda arguments anymore. For the Shamuyariras and Goches to talk about the motive behind the mass action being to effect a coup against the legitimately elected government of Zimbabwe is laughable. The truth for the ruling party's cadres, as we have continually shown in our pages, remains an alien concept. In all the speeches, advertisements in the press and elsewhere and in all the rallies that the MDC has been holding countrywide in the past few weeks to mobilise support for the final push, not once was the word 'coup' mentioned.

Knowing Zanu PF as we do, it is predictable that they should distort the whole situation in their drive to remain in power at all costs. They know that their defeat is imminent and all they are trying to do is to delay the inevitable. The Zanu PF edifice is collapsing around them. The street marches are the beginning of the end. They know that.

It is obvious that Zimbabweans are poised collectively to enter the last lap. Even if MDC were to do nothing, the end for Zanu PF as it is presently constituted is about to be reached. Hope and confidence is about to be restored in Zimbabwe. The 'final push' fever has caught on.

In fact, there is now no option at all. That is why the government is running scared. They are trying all sorts of tricks to block the marches. After threatening the demonstrators, the police late Saturday obtained a court interdict to stop the popular demonstrations. If this is not confusion and desperation on the part of the powers that be, we do not know what is. Clearly, the ruling party is in for the fight of its life.

This week's demonstrations are not the sort that split society and families. Zimbabweans of all races and creeds fully support these peaceful marches and want to be fully involved in them and if uniformed forces try to mow down the marchers. they will never be forgiven. Be that as it may, Zimbabweans this week will prove equal to the challenge. The demonstrations this time appear to usher a new Zimbabwe.

The farms are, for the most part, lying fallow as the new occupants have neither the expertise nor the capital to prepare the land for planting or to buy seed or fertilizer.

The best lands wound up being held by Zanu PF cadre who visit on the weekend and are referred to as "cell phone farmers".

Most of the rest have been divided into parcels that are too small for commercial veldt farming.

Many of the parcels have not been taken up by the people to whom they have been assigned.

Then there is the wholesale removal and distruction of equipment, burning out of bore-hole pumps by people who don't know how to maintain them, arson of the veldt, theft of fence wire to use as snares by cattle thieves and poacher, thereby allowing domestic herds to mix with wild herds where anthrax is endemic, driving away of trained farm employees and their replacement with thugs. The list is endless,

This is veldt farming. To farm it requires large land parcels, expertise, technology and capital.

The squatters can, at best use the land for subsistence and many have reverted to primitive slash-and-burn scratch, beast-drafted farming. There are examples of people carrying irrigation water over a kilometer in pails while a modern drip irrigation system is ignored or ripped up and sold for scrap.

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