Zimbabwe -- Cathy Buckle -- Not in our name

Cathy Buckle ^ | 2006-04-01 | Cathy Buckle

[Clive]

Dear Family and Friends,

One year ago this week, Zanu PF declared themselves the winners of Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections. They returned to their government offices, strode back into parliament and continued the party's quarter of a century in power under the same leader.

At that time, in March 2005, inflation in Zimbabwe was 123% and we thought life was hard. We didn't realise that we were about to enter the worst of times when you only bought petrol or diesel on the black market, when clean water from the tap would become a luxury and when electricity supplies would be interrupted every single day. It is hard to believe that just a year since those elections inflation has become unstoppable and is now officially quoted at 782%.

It is still incomprehensible that just a year ago there were many thousands of ordinary Zimbabweans surviving by making and selling goods on our road sides, pavements and flea markets. The vast majority of those people, cleared away in the government's Operation Murambatsvina last winter, have not been seen again in our local neighbourhoods. The trauma of that cleansing remains with all of us, whether we were victims or eye witnesses: the sound of the bulldozers, the smell of dust and smoke and the sight of smashed homes and piles of rubble.

After a quarter of a century in power this is the legacy of our ruling party and now every single Zimbabwean asks just one question : how much longer.

Week after week I have delayed writing about or commenting on the opposition MDC. I don't want to have to write about sides and factions; about each insisting they are the official party, each saying they own the name, the slogan and the assets. Sadly though, it is still going on - the squabbles, bickering and accusations, and while it does, Zimbabweans, just ordinary men, women and children, are simply not coping anymore and are falling by the wayside.

This week I met a man I know who begged me to help him with money so that he could buy cough mixture for his two month old baby. Day and night this tiny little baby coughs and coughs. The baby is weak and failing, the parents are exhausted and desperate but neither government clinic nor hospital can help - they have no cough medicine to dispense. 25 year old promises of free health for all are mirages on a receeding horizon. The man dragged a shaking hand over his face to wipe away exhaustion and tears as we talked about how to help his baby and the huge cost of a simple bottle of infant cough syrup.

I do not have a direct line to Zanu PF or either of the two MDC's but if I did I would say that what they are all doing is not in our name. While Zanu PF leaders warn and threaten and MDC leaders argue and accuse, people are barely alive out here, on the point of death for a spoon of cough syrup.

next week, love cathy.

[Clive]

-

[Morgan in Denver]

Thanks for posting, Clive. Over all the time I've been able to catch Kathy Buckle's messages, it never ceases to amaze me that it is in her name since she was among the group who supported this whole thing starting in the first place.

If there were ever a better example of what to do wrong for a country, I cannot think of it. Zim is a prefect example of what happens when capitalism is abandoned while socialism and racism are embraced.

[TravisABQ]

She sided with the Marxists way back when, didn't she?

So here she is watching the predictible results of their victory.

She CAN escape, but she'll stay there right up to the point where they put the last whites in death camps, and her own child in a stewpot.

Of all the Rhodesians I feel sympathy for, she's not one of them.

--Travis--

[headsonpikes]

Another jolly dispatch from sunny Zimbabwe!

There is a solution: One Head, One Pike!