Zimbabwe’s Grief, Cholera and Strange Things
Published on 18th December 2008
Witches: “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
The witches’ incantations in William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” certainly resonate with the tragedy that Zimbabwe has become. The country has been a cracked house for some Time. The only difference between now and then is that the house is uncontrollably leaking from all corners and there is pandemonium everywhere.
As Zimbabwe shrinks further into horror in form of cholera deaths, political assassinations and abductions, poverty and disease as well as impending mass starvations, it is imperative upon Mugabe to prove to Zimbabweans and the world that his conscience is not dead and that he is indeed still sane. Is he not left with nothing by now? Turning in his grave, Shakespeare must be writing another one entitled: “Now does he (Mugabe) feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant's robe upon a dwarfish thief.”
First of all we need to expose the brazen and ridiculous lies peddled by Mugabe and his men that "the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe is a serious biological, chemical war force, a genocidal onslaught, on the people of Zimbabwe by the British," as stated on the state-controlled national television by Mugabe’s Minister of Information, Sikhanyiso Ndhlovu. Sadly it is the only television network in Zimbabwe.
The shameless remarks above have to be exposed for what they are, with some quick fact-check: On February 20 2006, World Health Organization (WHO Zimbabwe) released a report stating that cholera outbreak started in Chikomba on November 28 2005. Harare outbreak was reported in Glen View on December 28 2005. Many other parts of Zimbabwe began to experience the same problem. The cause was stated as contaminated water as government financially struggled to chlorinate its water supplies.
In January 2007, the state-run water authority, Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) issued a stark warning: “A breakdown at a major sewage treatment plant had left it spewing 72 mega-liters of raw sewage per day into a river that feeds into Lake Chivero, Harare's main source of drinking water.” (Associated Press)
On February 2, 2007, almost two years ago, Associated Press also reported that “Nineteen people have contracted cholera in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, in the first outbreak of the often-deadly disease in the city in a year, Zimbabwe state radio reported Friday. The 19 are from the impoverished eastern townships of Mabvuku and Tafara, where residents have gone without clean running water for days and have been using unprotected wells, the report said.”
The problems related to water supplies, did not start yesterday as the Mugabe regime wants the world to believe. Associated Press (Feb 2, 2007) also reported that “Health officials have been sent to the area to hand out water purification tablets. Zimbabwean Health and Child Welfare Minister David Parirenyatwa said the situation was ‘under control,’ the report added”. A similar reckless and misleading conclusion was made by Mugabe last week (December 11, 2008) stating, “so now that there is no cholera, there is no cause for war anymore.” We have just learnt from UN that the cholera death toll has gone past 1000 and the number of infected has more than doubled to over 18 000.
The Associated Press also stated that “Harare once was known as the Sunshine City because of its cleanliness, but six years of economic decline have taken their toll. In many suburbs, garbage goes uncollected for weeks because the authorities have no fuel to power waste collection, while sewage flows freely from broken pipes authorities say they have no money to fix.”
As usual, Mugabe and his men proved again that they are forever stuck in a state of self-deception and denial. We all know that this is about an illegitimate and failed leadership presiding over a pariah of a state. They chastised “maBritish” with the same old tired rants charging that “Gordon Brown must be taken to the United Nations Security Council for being a threat to world peace and planting cholera and anthrax to invade Zimbabwe – our peaceful Zimbabwe,"
How dare they call Zimbabwe peaceful when hundreds have been butchered mercilessly under the hands of Mugabe and his men just in 2008 alone? What is peaceful about Zimbabwe when political violence and several abductions are on the increase? What is peaceful about Zimbabwe when millions face starvation? Where are the twelve MDC activists whom they abducted? Where is Jestina Mukoko?
In any country other than Zimbabwe, such negligence and dereliction of duty that has caused death toll of over 1000 (and mounting) would have been met with great public outrage, several lawsuits, multiple resignations, imprisonments and impeachments. I have a message for Robert Mugabe: For the sake of the people of Zimbabwe, Cholera is not a neo-imperialistic chicanery; it is an indictment of your disregard for the dignity and sanctity of human life.
Fast forwarding to other issues that also constitute a litany of Zimbabwe’s turmoil, there have been a lot of strange things happening in the land lately. Since the soldiers went on a rampage demanding access to their ‘hyper-inflation –bartered’ money as well as the Manyika debacle, conspiracy theorists have mushroomed. As many have argued that the rampage was indeed staged, I had to quickly resume my mildly interesting ‘job’ of blogging.
The bottom-line of my argument was also encapsulated in my previous article “Mugabe’s Self-inflicted Miserable Quandary (www.nationalvision.wordpress.com) .Simply put, what we are seeing in Zimbabwe is a case of ‘chickens coming home to roost’, it is a spontaneous implosion. I argued that people must not continue to elevate Mugabe to some kind of a political genius.
‘Given Mugabe’s own mounting sense of doom and waning conviction of indomitability, there is no doubt these are the last days of the dictatorship. With a usurped presidency and a crumbling crown to secure, only violence is his last resort as he has done throughout his tenure. That same violence will be used indiscriminately on foes and friends alike. No one is safe anymore, not even his so called closest allies.
When Mugabe declared that he was President after losing the elections, he did not anticipate all these problems that have developed in such a short time. Not even Lady Grace herself. Things will only get worse the longer he hangs on.
The recent death of his top ‘general’ Elliot Manyika, though overwhelmingly welcomed by Zimbabweans, should see his epitaph reading “To Whom It May Concern: Be Very Afraid”. Coincidentally there has been a surge in ‘state accidents and incidents’. In the meantime, there will be blood (within Zanu PF) as the vicious internal power struggles and the plots for customary rituals thicken.
Could it be a ploy to declare a state of emergency? No. If so, then what? The problems facing Zimbabwe are too hasty to contemplate while no one in Mugabe’s government has a clue on how to solve them. While Zimbabwe is already a near-failed state, it is less likely to reach the levels of Somalia or Sudan.
The underlying political dynamics have to be changed if progress is ever going to be made in Zimbabwe. President Morgan Tsvangirai has the people’s mandate to restore Zimbabwe’s pride. As argued earlier, seizing the opportunity to settle for a bona fide government of national unity will afford him a quasi-graceful exit from Zimbabwe’s political arena that is long overdue.
www.nationalvision.wordpress.com
As Zimbabwe shrinks further into horror in form of cholera deaths, political assassinations and abductions, poverty and disease as well as impending mass starvations, it is imperative upon Mugabe to prove to Zimbabweans and the world that his conscience is not dead and that he is indeed still sane. Is he not left with nothing by now? Turning in his grave, Shakespeare must be writing another one entitled: “Now does he (Mugabe) feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant's robe upon a dwarfish thief.”
First of all we need to expose the brazen and ridiculous lies peddled by Mugabe and his men that "the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe is a serious biological, chemical war force, a genocidal onslaught, on the people of Zimbabwe by the British," as stated on the state-controlled national television by Mugabe’s Minister of Information, Sikhanyiso Ndhlovu. Sadly it is the only television network in Zimbabwe.
The shameless remarks above have to be exposed for what they are, with some quick fact-check: On February 20 2006, World Health Organization (WHO Zimbabwe) released a report stating that cholera outbreak started in Chikomba on November 28 2005. Harare outbreak was reported in Glen View on December 28 2005. Many other parts of Zimbabwe began to experience the same problem. The cause was stated as contaminated water as government financially struggled to chlorinate its water supplies.
In January 2007, the state-run water authority, Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) issued a stark warning: “A breakdown at a major sewage treatment plant had left it spewing 72 mega-liters of raw sewage per day into a river that feeds into Lake Chivero, Harare's main source of drinking water.” (Associated Press)
On February 2, 2007, almost two years ago, Associated Press also reported that “Nineteen people have contracted cholera in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, in the first outbreak of the often-deadly disease in the city in a year, Zimbabwe state radio reported Friday. The 19 are from the impoverished eastern townships of Mabvuku and Tafara, where residents have gone without clean running water for days and have been using unprotected wells, the report said.”
The problems related to water supplies, did not start yesterday as the Mugabe regime wants the world to believe. Associated Press (Feb 2, 2007) also reported that “Health officials have been sent to the area to hand out water purification tablets. Zimbabwean Health and Child Welfare Minister David Parirenyatwa said the situation was ‘under control,’ the report added”. A similar reckless and misleading conclusion was made by Mugabe last week (December 11, 2008) stating, “so now that there is no cholera, there is no cause for war anymore.” We have just learnt from UN that the cholera death toll has gone past 1000 and the number of infected has more than doubled to over 18 000.
The Associated Press also stated that “Harare once was known as the Sunshine City because of its cleanliness, but six years of economic decline have taken their toll. In many suburbs, garbage goes uncollected for weeks because the authorities have no fuel to power waste collection, while sewage flows freely from broken pipes authorities say they have no money to fix.”
As usual, Mugabe and his men proved again that they are forever stuck in a state of self-deception and denial. We all know that this is about an illegitimate and failed leadership presiding over a pariah of a state. They chastised “maBritish” with the same old tired rants charging that “Gordon Brown must be taken to the United Nations Security Council for being a threat to world peace and planting cholera and anthrax to invade Zimbabwe – our peaceful Zimbabwe,"
How dare they call Zimbabwe peaceful when hundreds have been butchered mercilessly under the hands of Mugabe and his men just in 2008 alone? What is peaceful about Zimbabwe when political violence and several abductions are on the increase? What is peaceful about Zimbabwe when millions face starvation? Where are the twelve MDC activists whom they abducted? Where is Jestina Mukoko?
In any country other than Zimbabwe, such negligence and dereliction of duty that has caused death toll of over 1000 (and mounting) would have been met with great public outrage, several lawsuits, multiple resignations, imprisonments and impeachments. I have a message for Robert Mugabe: For the sake of the people of Zimbabwe, Cholera is not a neo-imperialistic chicanery; it is an indictment of your disregard for the dignity and sanctity of human life.
Fast forwarding to other issues that also constitute a litany of Zimbabwe’s turmoil, there have been a lot of strange things happening in the land lately. Since the soldiers went on a rampage demanding access to their ‘hyper-inflation –bartered’ money as well as the Manyika debacle, conspiracy theorists have mushroomed. As many have argued that the rampage was indeed staged, I had to quickly resume my mildly interesting ‘job’ of blogging.
The bottom-line of my argument was also encapsulated in my previous article “Mugabe’s Self-inflicted Miserable Quandary (www.nationalvision.wordpress.com) .Simply put, what we are seeing in Zimbabwe is a case of ‘chickens coming home to roost’, it is a spontaneous implosion. I argued that people must not continue to elevate Mugabe to some kind of a political genius.
‘Given Mugabe’s own mounting sense of doom and waning conviction of indomitability, there is no doubt these are the last days of the dictatorship. With a usurped presidency and a crumbling crown to secure, only violence is his last resort as he has done throughout his tenure. That same violence will be used indiscriminately on foes and friends alike. No one is safe anymore, not even his so called closest allies.
When Mugabe declared that he was President after losing the elections, he did not anticipate all these problems that have developed in such a short time. Not even Lady Grace herself. Things will only get worse the longer he hangs on.
The recent death of his top ‘general’ Elliot Manyika, though overwhelmingly welcomed by Zimbabweans, should see his epitaph reading “To Whom It May Concern: Be Very Afraid”. Coincidentally there has been a surge in ‘state accidents and incidents’. In the meantime, there will be blood (within Zanu PF) as the vicious internal power struggles and the plots for customary rituals thicken.
Could it be a ploy to declare a state of emergency? No. If so, then what? The problems facing Zimbabwe are too hasty to contemplate while no one in Mugabe’s government has a clue on how to solve them. While Zimbabwe is already a near-failed state, it is less likely to reach the levels of Somalia or Sudan.
The underlying political dynamics have to be changed if progress is ever going to be made in Zimbabwe. President Morgan Tsvangirai has the people’s mandate to restore Zimbabwe’s pride. As argued earlier, seizing the opportunity to settle for a bona fide government of national unity will afford him a quasi-graceful exit from Zimbabwe’s political arena that is long overdue.
www.nationalvision.wordpress.com