Zimbabwe -- Cathy Buckle -- Anyone for cricket

Letters from Cathy Buckle ^ | January 4, 2003 | Cathy Buckle

[Clive]

Dear Family and Friends,

Two men were arrested on Thursday afternoon for attaching a poster to a tree in Bulawayo.

The poster, referring to no food or fuel in the country read: "Hoot ! Enough is Enough".

By the weekend the men were still in prison, had been denied access to lawyers, refused bail and were not allowed to receive food bought for them by family members.

Whilst this was happening I, along with 11 million others living in Zimbabwe, was desperately searching either for food or petrol.

There was none of the latter so I spent my Friday morning trudging from shop to shop and after three hours gratefully clutched 2 loaves of bread I had finally tracked down for 4 times the official price.

I know I should not buy food on the black market but principles pale into insignificance when you have a hungry child to feed.

This is the face of life in Zimbabwe today and yet the ECB (English Cricket Board) are still debating whether or not it is right to come and play cricket here and are worrying about who will pay them compensation if they don't come.

I am disgusted that they can talk about compensation for a cricket match when 300,000 farm workers have been made destitute, 4,000 farmers have been evicted from their homes and had their properties grabbed by the state, 200 people have been murdered in cold blood and not a single one of us has seen justice done or been paid compensation for our losses.

6 million Zimbabweans are facing starvation, 2 million of our citizens have been forced to leave the country, one person dies every 5 minutes from aids related malnutrition, inflation is at 175% and there is no food or fuel in the country and yet the world is in an uproar about 6 cricket matches.

A few months ago a friend of mine went to Harare. On the way out of town he got lost and took a wrong turning at the Harare Cricket grounds. Realising he was going the wrong way, my friend attempted to do a U turn in an unmarked driveway.

His car was surrounded by armed men and he was ordered out of his vehicle. Everything was pulled out of his car, he was interrogated at length and then taken behind a wall where he was pushed around, knocked to the ground and kicked in the side of his head.

Five hours later my friend got home, exhausted and in shock and pain, his ear drum ruptured from being kicked in the head.

My friend's crime was that he had turned into the driveway opposite President Mugabe's State House. State House is next door to the grounds where the World Cup Cricket matches are to be played.

I've been inundated with emails from people who say that sports and politics don't mix and that if the World Cup matches are played here there will be massive protests and civil disobedience.

But let's face the facts, if you can be put into prison for tying a poster on a tree or kicked in the head for doing a U turn near State House than I wonder just how many of us will get dare get involved in protests and demonstrations.

For three years I've been writing this weekly letter about conditions in Zimbabwe. I thank you for reading them and for helping me expose the horrific truths.

I thank you too for helping me spread the word about my two books: African Tears and Beyond Tears, which are still the only eye witness accounts to have been written about Zimbabwe's horrors since 2000.

Thanks to your help I've now managed to get orders from book shops in Malawi, Namibia and Zambia. Stocks are freely available in South Africa and hopefully soon we'll be able to find ways of getting copies into Europe and America.

I wish that confused cricketers worried about compensation could read my books because I know if they did they would never, in their wildest dreams, think it was right to come here and play cricket.

When you know that people have been tortured with burning plastic, locked in steel containers and had electrodes attached to their genitals for wanting democratic governance, then cricket doesn't really seem appropriate does it.

Until next week, with love, cathy.

[Clive]

-

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Police crackdown on honk against Mugabe campaign in Zimbabwe*** Movement for Democratic Change lawmaker Abednico Bhebhe and senior aide Ferdinand Dropper were arrested late Thursday while putting up posters reading: "Hoot, enough is enough." Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said Friday the men will be charged under strict new security laws, alleging their action was aimed at inciting public disorder and violence or would endanger public safety. The charges carry a maximum sentence of five years in jail under the sweeping Public Order and Security Act that critics say was designed to stifle opposition to Mugabe.***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Police disperse food protest in Zimbabwe *** HARARE, Zimbabwe - Police fired tear gas and charged crowds with batons to quell rioting in a food line in western Zimbabwe, witnesses and the state-run media said Saturday - the most serious violence reported since acute food shortages recently hit the troubled country. The unrest Friday in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city, led to the arrests of 34 people, the state-run Bulawayo Chronicle reported. No injuries were reported. Several hundred people had been waiting in the line, witnesses said. A food crisis that threatens some 6.7 million people with possible starvation - more than half the population - has been blamed on a combination of drought and the breakdown of the country's agricultural sector in the wake of the government's controversial land reform program. ***

[twntaipan]

btt

[Redleg Duke]

I don't believe there was ever this type of problem in Rhodesia!

[xJones]

When you know that people have been tortured with burning plastic, locked in steel containers and had electrodes attached to their genitals for wanting democratic governance...

That does make it terribly fearful to protest, Clive.

[Consort]

       Bulawayo
...........

[DallasMike]

Thanks for your Zimbabwe posts, Clive. I always send them to a friend whose church has sponsored a missionary to Zimbabwe and she spreads them around. Would you mind putting me on your ping list?

[JoeSixPack1]

If there was ever a country in need of some Texas sized justice, Zimbabwe is on the top of the list.

Why has the world not busted up Mugabe? Do we wait till they're all dead and then say, oh look, bad stuff...???

[TxGrandMom]

Clive, is it possible to send small packages of food to individuals from the US to Zimbabwe? Would they be stolen? One does have to declare the box's contents on the customs forms.

[Clive]

I have added your name to my Zim list.

What is the feedback from the church people?

[Travis McGee]

Hi Clive, I emailed Cathy before Christmas, and received this reply a while later. (I guess internet access is not simple for her, and not so important when compared to her daily struggle to find food.)

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

Dear Matthew,

Thank you so much for your wonderful letter last week and I apologize for my lengthy delay in responding. I have been battling with my publishers (who are in South Africa) to get my books listed and stocked with Amazon for a month now. They are reluctant to do so and I wonder Matthew if you and some of your friends could assist (or perhaps through the Free Republic web site)? Could some of you simply email Jonathan Ball Publishers and ask that copies of African Tears and Beyond Tears be sent to Amazon.com to make American purchases easier and faster. I would be so grateful for help on this one. The man to mail is Geoff Bonney: gbonney@jonathanball.co.za . Perhaps if there are more people than just me complaining they will begin listening !

I am sad but not surprised to hear you say that we shouldn't be holding our breath for US assistance for Zimbabwe. It is so utterly tragic that things are falling apart and we are slipping back into the dark ages almost un-noticed by the rest of the world. For now all I can do is what I do and so I just keep on writing about it ever hopeful that more and more people will hear of the horrors of living in a dictatorship.

Thank you again for writing Matthew and I hope you and your family have a wonderful and peaceful Christmas.

With love and best wishes, Cathy

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

I emailed her publisher at the above address but received no reply to my question about why Cathy's books "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are not available in the USA on Amazon.com and B&N.com. This makes no sense to me, isn't he in business to sell books?

[Travis McGee]

Ping to #13 for an easy way to help....

At least it's something.

[Clive]

Thank you.

[DallasMike]

What is the feedback from the church people?

They're scared. The missionary is back in town now on furlough and is prayerfully determining whether he should go back. On one hand he's white and Zimbabwe is just not a safe place for white people or for black people who associate with white people -- in other words, he's putting those that he's ministering to in danger. On the other hand, there is so much need in the country for missionaries who can provide food and medical care to the needy.

[Clive]

It is a real Hobson's Choice, isn't it?

My thinking is that going in alone is taking inordinate risk for very little potential gain.

If he goes back, he should take care to do so as a member of a well established NGO.

But then even the relief administered by NGOs is being compromised.

[Rate_Determining_Step]

Maybe a bit of good news:

Amazon.com
African Tears

[Clive]

Excellent. Thank you.

I just written an email Chapters/Indigo in Canada to ask if they would list both books

I pointed out that Amazon is listing African Tears but that I would prefer to get it from a Canadian bookseller.

Hopefully peoplw will buy African Tears then ask Amazon for Beyond Tears.