"Let them eat chocolate"

Under Mugabe’s rule, all Zimbabweans are the ultimate losers. The current fast track land acquisition exercise simply supplants a once stubborn minority racial elite with a deceitful clique of the political elite. This “land reform” is an opportunistic political manoeuvre, which merely transfers “ownership” from one affluent clique to another.

The once productive farms that belonged to “Mr Colonial Settler”, taken under the pretext of correcting a colonial wrong, are now the private properties of revolutionaries and pseudo revolutionaries. The hordes of youths, who performed the farm evictions-(jambanja), with orders from their revered “chefs”, are now watching from the fringes. Their comrades in arms, the chefs, now overindulge on the spoils of the “revolution”. Soon the youth will become restless; they are unemployed and disproportionably swell the hungry ranks of the landless poor.

A comprehensive land audit for Zimbabwe will bring to finality the land inequity question and lawfully align the nation on a conclusive agrarian reform program.

The ZANU (PF) chain of command, has now taken all the best irrigable farms in areas such as Mvurwi, Mtepatepa, Mazowe, Enterprise, Concession, Darwendale, Banket, Middle Sabi, etc., which have the finest agricultural land, accompanying agricultural equipment, and infrastructure. The poor landless farmers, already eking a living from marginal lands, are allocated bigger plots in moisture deficient areas like Chiredzi, Mwenezi, Ngezi, Gutu, Gokwe, Rutenga, etc., regions that cannot sustain rainfed agriculture.

When did the dignified fair play policy of a “one-man one-farm” turn into “one-man multiple-farms”? Why is it that only senior ZANU (PF) officials from the same ethnic group, are allocated all the prime farms, which are not subdivided into minimum sizes?

Mugabe via Gushungo Holdings now owns 10 601 hectares (25 760 acres) of the most fertile farms and rich land in the highest rainfall areas in Zimbabwe thus becoming Zimbabwe’s biggest landlord:

1. Foyle Farm, Mazowe—former owner Ian Webster—area 1 000 hectares, now Gushungo Dairy Farm – “The Agricultural Rural Development Authority (ARDA) has now proposed to ‘buyback’ Gushungo Farm to save the Mugabe family from appearing at variance with government’s policies”;
2. Iron Mask Estate, Mazowe—taken by Grace under the pretext of creating an orphanage, former owner John Matthews—area 1 046 hectares—now defunct;
3. Sigaro Farm, Mazowe—Deed of Transfer 8170/2000, 873 hectares, former owner Joe Kennedy, home of National Tested Seeds, Zimbabwe’s largest producer of agricultural seeds and Africa’s first ISO certified seed producer—now derelict;
4. Gwebi Wood Farm, Mazowe—former owner an indigenous Zimbabwean, Washington Matsaire, CEO Standard Bank, exporter of passion fruit, area 1 200 hectares—unutilised, burnt to the ground;
5. Gwina Farm, Banket—Deed of Grant 11120/00, former owner Vernon Nicolle, 1 287 hectares. Ben Hlatshwayo, a high court judge who chaired the commission, which drew up the constitution that was rejected in a referendum in 2000. He had evicted Vernon Nicolle, and was himself unceremoniously evicted by Grace Mugabe to make way for her son from her first marriage, Russell Goreraza. The Nicolle’s were the largest single wheat producers with the biggest private irrigation and grain silo infrastructure in Zimbabwe, unutilised;
6. Leverdale Farm, Banket—former owner Piers Nicolle, 1 488hectares, now derelict;
7. Highfield Farm, Norton—area 445 hectares, where he keeps five camels—gifts from Gadaffi all nearby farms were acquired by Mugabe to create a “security buffer zone”. Mugabe now occupies 4 050 hectares on all the farms below the banks of Lake Darwandale.
8. Cressydale Estate, Norton—Deed of Grant 676/79 former owner Skea;
9. John O’Groat Farm, Norton—former owner Skea;
10. Tankatara Farm, Norton—former owner Skea;
11. Clifford Farm, Norton—former owner Skea;
12. Zvimba—Mugabe owns 60 hectares, his traditional home, where villages nearby were demolished and villagers evicted to make way for Mugabe’s expanded homestead.

Gushungo Holdings corruptly utilises the services of ARDA, itself a technically insolvent state agricultural parastatal, to manage Mugabe’s vast farms at taxpayers’ expense but for the financial benefit of the Mugabe family. Mugabe by virtue of his status does not pay taxes. Twelve tax-paying farmers have been dispossessed of their productive agricultural businesses to make way for a single non-farmer, non-taxpayer, Robert Mugabe.

Zimbabwe must separate the business of an individual, Mugabe, from that of the nation. The land ownership map of Zimbabwe now resembles the old colonial Land Apportionment Act of 1930 and the Land Tenure Act of 1969 map, with the previous white farming areas replaced with ZANU (PF)’s political nouveau riche—who are not even farmers.

Nepotism allowed the Robert Mugabe family to misappropriate a further 10 260 hectares (24 932 acres) of land earmarked for resettlement from farmers he terms, “the offspring of colonial settlers”. Mugabe’s brother-in-law, Reward Marufu, got Leopards Vlei Farm, Glendale, 1 294 hectares and Kachere Farm, Mazowe, 880 hectares; Mugabe’s sister-in-law, Rose Marufu, got Wooller Farm, Glendale, 436 hectares; Mugabe’s sister, Sabina, got Mlembwe Farm, Makonde, 1 037 hectares, Longwood Farm, Makonde, 924 hectares, and Gowrie Farm, Norton, 430 hectares; and Mugabe’s nephew Leo Mugabe got Diandra, Darwandale, 815 hectares, Nangadza, Mhangura, 1 200 hectares, and Journey’s End, Makonde, 3 000 hectares; and nephew Patrick Zhuwao got Marivale Farm, Mazowe, 244 hectares; all are amongst the country’s largest multiple landowners.  On some of these farms, the farmer was killed and the workers’ houses were burnt to compel the landless workers to vacate the properties.

How can one man, in a land hungry nation, take for himself twelve farms, evict twelve farmers, and displace over 14 000-farm workers and their families in the name of land reform? A single family, Mugabe, collectively misappropriated twenty-four farms totalling 20 861 hectares (50 692 acres) of prime land. Farms meant for resettling landless Zimbabweans, now belong to Gushungo and most lie unutilised. All this plunder to nourish the insatiable greed of a few spoiled relatives, who were already privileged by their relation to Mugabe.

Today, January 2010, the eviction of 10 000 villagers from the one million acre Nuanetsi Ranch in Mwenezi is underway, to make way for Mugabe’s business partner and preferred white associate—Billy Rautenbach.

Why do persons who claim to be the liberators feel they are entitled to all the land and yet have compensated themselves for their war contributions ten times over?

The culture of the haphazard farm invasions, evictions, seizures of private businesses and property, will not end when the last white farmers are off the land. A new wave of acrimonious dispossessions will commence, whereby indigenous will be evicting indigenous on a flimsy political raison d’être. Mugabe’s lieutenants have now plagiarised and perfected their commander in chief’s template for multiple farm ownership.

What does correcting a colonial imbalance mean? Did colonial settlers take all the land, now owned by Gushungo, from Mugabe’s family in the 1890’s? Land must be returned to its rightful indigenous peoples, not to an ethnically skewed political party elite. A once proud food self-sufficient agrarian society has been reduced into a beggar nation.

A recent survey by the General Agricultural Plantations Workers Union (GAPWUZ) revealed that the conditions of service for the farm workers on Gushungo Holdings and other acquired farms now owned by ZANU (PF) officials are no better and in most cases worse than the conditions of the previous farm owners.

How does Grace Mugabe, a mere pool typist in the President’s office, without formal agricultural training whatsoever, become Zimbabwe’s largest agricultural landowner?

“Let me keep my Zimbabwe”, said Mugabe addressing the 2002 Earth Summit, September 2 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“True, some land was bought by a few Cabinet Ministers. They bought the land. No minister, to my knowledge acquired land which was meant for resettlement”, said Mugabe in an ABC interview with Jonathan Holmes in March 1998.

“I will never, never, never, never surrender, Zimbabwe is mine”, Mugabe said addressing the ZANU-PF National Annual People’s Conference in Bindura on 19 December 2008.

Mugabe and his associates seem to believe in the politics of entitlement and ZANU (PF) treats Zimbabwe as a private fiefdom. Mugabe also sanctioned the evictions of fellow indigenous farm owners to appease a restive wife and punish his political enemies.

He claims to be an altruistic revolutionary; the ultimate selfless freedom fighter who supposedly sacrificed all to participate in the liberation of Zimbabwe, therefore his disgraceful excessiveness is morally repugnant and criminal. To deviously acquire farms and cunningly become the new absentee landlord, the enthusiastic occupier of the very farms that create a new land imbalance, is predatory and disingenuous.

As Mugabe preaches the virtues of land reform, the one-man one-farm policy, he blatantly hoards the same vestiges of colonial rule meant for redistribution to the landless. The very corrupt practises he conveniently and loudly despises within earshot of credulous followers, he himself illegally practises behind closed doors.

The current fast track land programme is a ruse to steal agricultural businesses from one sector of the economy and only unfairly enrich a particular clique—ZANU (PF).

Does land in Zimbabwe only belong to ZANU (PF) and its “war veterans”? Is Mugabe above the law? Is Mugabe a landless peasant who deserves to be allocated twelve farms? Has Mugabe’s seizure of twelve farms helped in decongested communal areas?

Land is the nucleus for sustainable development and the year 2010 gives Zimbabwe an opportunity to embark on an all-inclusive, sustainable agrarian reform exercise that is transparent and irreversible. My desire is to return home to a country and tolerant society that no longer focuses on its colonial past but embraces progress with values that submits all its peoples, regardless of political affiliation, to the rule of law.

The land audit, will determine, as with Bob Marley’s lyrical words on Zimbabwe’s Independence in 1980, “Soon we will find out who is the real revolutionary”.

Phil Matibe – www.madhingabucketboy.com

Bob Marley Performed at Zimbabwe's Independence Celebrations

Zimbabwe lyrics
Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny,
And in this judgement there is no partiality.
So arm in arms, with arms, we’ll fight this little struggle,
‘Cause that’s the only way we can overcome our little trouble.

Brother, you’re right, you’re right,
You’re right, you’re right, you’re so right!
We gon’ fight (we gon’ fight), we’ll have to fight (we gon’ fight),
We gonna fight (we gon’ fight), fight for our rights!

Natty Dread it in-a (Zimbabwe);
Set it up in (Zimbabwe);
Mash it up-a in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Africans a-liberate (Zimbabwe), yeah.

No more internal power struggle;
We come together to overcome the little trouble.
Soon we’ll find out who is the real revolutionary,
‘Cause I don’t want my people to be contrary.

And, brother, you’re right, you’re right,
You’re right, you’re right, you’re so right!
We’ll ‘ave to fight (we gon’ fight), we gonna fight (we gon’ fight)
We’ll ‘ave to fight (we gon’ fight), fighting for our rights!

Mash it up in-a (Zimbabwe);
Natty trash it in-a (Zimbabwe);
Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
I’n'I a-liberate Zimbabwe.

(Brother, you’re right,) you’re right,
You’re right, you’re right, you’re so right!
We gon’ fight (we gon’ fight), we’ll ‘ave to fight (we gon’ fight),
We gonna fight (we gon’ fight), fighting for our rights!

To divide and rule could only tear us apart;
In everyman chest, mm – there beats a heart.
So soon we’ll find out who is the real revolutionaries;
And I don’t want my people to be tricked by mercenaries.

Brother, you’re right, you’re right,
You’re right, you’re right, you’re so right!
We’ll ‘ave to fight (we gon’ fight), we gonna fight (we gon’ fight),
We’ll ‘ave to fight (we gon’ fight), fighting for our rights!

Natty trash it in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Mash it up in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Set it up in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Natty dub it in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe).

Set it up in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);

Every man got a right to decide his own destiny.

Phil Matibe – www.madhingabucketboy.com

“Bob Marley Zimbabwe lyrics are the property and copyright of Bob Marley.”

Special Rapporteur on Torture- Manfred Nowak

If there lived a spine eating ogre for which survival means feeding on a constant supply of protein derived from the spinal cords and backbones of fearless men, that ogre would be emaciated and die of starvation in Zimbabwe.

The Government of National Unity (GNU)’s cohesion is strained by the lack of genuine power sharing. Mugabe is not going to voluntarily relinquish authority; it has to be taken from him, only by men with cast-iron backbones. As with all progressive democratic societies whose governments are held together through loose coalitions, the collapse of such alliances due to ideological discord triggers an immediate call for fresh elections.

If free and fair elections were to be held for a village headman in Zvimba, Mugabe’s “ancestral” home, based on recent opinion polls, Mugabe would lose.

Mugabe lost the presidential election; ZANU (PF) has a minority in parliament and the unity government has set a bad precedent for Africa’s democratic roadmap. A GNU renders election results pointless, wastes scarce resources and breeds closet dictators within the opposition which had the people’s irrevocable mandate to remove tyranny.

The cycle of remunerating and appeasing dictators to avert further chaos must now cease and men with moral fiber and stainless steel vertebrae must now lead and take this fight to the end. Mugabe intimidates the populace and uses violence each time his political fortunes are threatened and menaces rural folk with incendiary remarks, feigning to revert to the bush war should the opposition come to power.

Democracy is not an event but a process and the opposition is merely part of that progression.

The GNU is illegitimate and illegal without the opposition and must be officially dissolved once the other party to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) withdraws. The GPA ought to then be nullified and Zimbabweans should return to UN supervised polls to elect a leader in a “winner takes all” democratic contest.

Zimbabwe will relapse into lawlessness in the absence of accountability and today marks another broken milestone on the treacherous road to elusive social equality and justice. According to a ZANU (PF) spokesperson, Mugabe has withdrawn an unprecedented invitation to a UN independent expert on torture at the last moment.

According to the United Nations, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, Mr Manfred Nowak, is now unable to compile a report on ZANU (PF)’s humanitarian abuses. Subsequently, United Nations human rights expert, Manfred Nowak, was prevented from entering Zimbabwe on Wednesday and was deported, after spending the night at the airport on the orders of ZANU (PF). Under Zimbabwe’s coalition agreement, the foreign ministry is controlled by Mugabe. What does ZANU (PF) have to hide so desperately that it would rather provoke a demarche?

To add insult to injury, Minister of Information, Webster Shamu, was quoted as saying, “The MDC boycott, which began on October 16, was affecting the government’s work in preparing for a new farming season and its efforts to turn around the agriculture-based economy after years of recession. His Excellency (Mugabe) may have to consider appointing ministers in an acting capacity to key ministries for the sake of a successful agricultural season and general economic turnaround.”

What a revelation—fifteen days before the official commencement of Zimbabwe’s rainy season, Shamu inadvertently discloses that the government is unprepared for the forthcoming agricultural season. These preparations (draught power, fertiliser, fuel and seed) should have been in place a year ago, not two weeks before planting starts.

These disingenuous comments come from a minister, whose government through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)’s quasi financial activities wasted precious time and squandered scarce funds, corruptly importing Chinese chalk dust, passed onto to the hapless new farmers as fertiliser. Its cabinet embarked on a futile medieval expedition of extracting diesel from rocks in a clairvoyant’s cave. ZANU (PF) even justified the shortage of cereal production by blaming a monkey for sabotaging the power supply to Zimbabwe’s only ammonium nitrate fertiliser manufacturer thus affecting agriculture.

The propensity for ZANU (PF) to blame everyone but themselves for Zimbabwe’s ills is manifesting itself again. The opposition, the perpetual fall guys, will now be held liable for imagined sanctions, droughts and the looming shortage of cereals and the dearth of investors.

“Every morning in my village, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.

“It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running”. — African Proverb

Phil Matibe – www.madhingabucketboy.com

“Mbudzi yaba nyama imbwa iripo” – The goat steals the meat while the guard dog looks on.

As the bankrupt apartheid regime in South Africa was waning, and in its very last days of existence, it was said that the cabinet of President P.W. Botha convened an emergency meeting. The purpose: frantically allocate funds that were still held in the national coffers before Nelson Mandela assumed power. As frenzied ministers jostled for monies to be allocated to their respective department, Minister of Defence Magnus Malan requested for the lion’s share of the fiscus. This instantaneously triggered a counter-plea from the apartheid’s gatekeeper, the dreaded Adriaan Vlok, Minister of Law and Order.

Malan apparently requested funds to enable him to re-equip the SADF, so that he could effectively defend apartheid, while Vlok wanted the money to build more prisons. Minister of National Education, F.W. De Klerk, stood up and asked for all the funds so that he could build better schools for blacks immediately.

Vlok had eloquently laid out an elaborate proposal to build state-of-the-art prisons complete with air-conditioning, gymnasiums, wall to wall carpeting, and beds with therapeutic mattresses, colour televisions with satellites, three hot meals a day, and hot showers. Weekly conjugal visits from the prisoner’s partner of choice (any sexual orientation and ethnicity) were proposed as an amendment to the Prison Act.

P.W. Botha requested Vlok to explain his unusual, extravagant and seemingly irrational request. Vlok emphatically asked the entire cabinet, “When these ex-freedom fighters take over, do you think they are going to imprison us in schools?”

Whether this cabinet debate took place or not is contentious; however, what is not debatable is the urgent need for ZANU (PF) to recalibrate its violent posture. The day for justice is looming closer and indeed ZANU (PF) human rights violators are not going to be housed in schools or on the farms they misappropriated.

Zimbabwe’s gulag is the notorious flea-infested Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison; a colonial relic built in the 1940’s and home to ZANU (PF)’s imagined and perceived enemies since independence. It shall soon become the new zip code, the eternal domiciliary for all ex-ministers, and the secure abode for their unrepentant lackeys.

To cater for the spill over, and to avoid sharing beds, ZANU (PF) needs to include Khami Maximum Security Prison, Kwe Kwe, Gonakudzingwa, Sikombela, and the Wha Wha detention centres in the same remodelling project. A constitutional amendment to allow the privilege of conjugal visits to ZANU(PF) prisoners shall not be entertained.

Mugabe is cognisant of the looming day of reckoning and has proactively pardoned over one thousand hardcore criminals to prudently make room for his bloated government’s war cabinet (amadhodha sibili). Dockets alleging acts of murder, rape, torture, and theft of state property are being prepared by the people of Zimbabwe who have been witnesses and are the innocent victims of ZANU (PF)’s misrule, since 1980.

Phil Matibe – www.madhingabucketboy.com

Chinobhururuka chinomhara.

Office of the President
Munhumutapa Building
Samora Machel Avenue/ 3rd Street
Harare, Zimbabwe

25 October 2009

Dear Mr President,

On behalf of voiceless Zimbabweans, I write this letter pregnant with anger over the inflammatory announcement of the imminent inauguration of the paramilitary youth militia training by your government. Zimbabweans implore that you immediately reverse any further recruitment of ZANU (PF) youths into these camps that churn out rapists, murderers, and impenitent human rights violators.

The insensitive and unilateral act of reactivating these camps is psychological torture to the multitudes of innocent victims of the dreadful Youth Militia’s last orgy of violence during the previous elections, and the abrupt appearance of hordes of youth militia clad in green military fatigues is an intimidatory tactic meant as a menace to the populace. Our collective umbrage with this latest offensive taunt forms part of a laundry list of provocative acts by you aimed at derailing the fragile national healing and reconciliation process.

Please be advised that the collapse of the Government of National Unity (GNU) renders your already precarious position as Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces untenable and relegates you to the archives of illegitimate presidents.

Avert humiliation, accept the various dignified exit strategies and retirement options painstakingly penned by your peers and laid out before your office.  In the name of democracy, justice, and peace, the people of Zimbabwe beseech you to immediately retire and resign from the Office of the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe needs leadership renewal coupled to an economic revival and your departure from the body politic will be the trigger point for a peaceful national transformation.

Your tenure as President is divisive and continues to cause political discord and ethnic fissures that threaten peace and tranquillity in both Zimbabwe and the region. Your stubbornness and intransigence pauses a palpable threat to the coexistence of Zimbabweans and to your fellow principals of the Global Political Agreement.

Please take this opportunity to dissolve parliament and announce a date for fresh parliamentary and presidential elections in which you shall not participate.

Thank you for your attention in this matter and Zimbabweans await your response.

Yours Sincerely,

Phil Matibe

www.madhingabucketboy.com

cc: The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe – Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai

Tsuro Nenungu - Abayiwa ngaabude

In cases where family planning is used to limit the size of a family unit and modern contraceptives are unavailable, or because of certain religious beliefs, Coitus Interruptus is often practised. This is a method of birth control in which coitus is initiated but withdrawal is deliberate prior to ejaculation. However, this technique is not recommended for overzealous teenagers engaged in casual, premarital recreational sex, or men with hereditary premature ejaculation problems.

The GNU is equivalent to a gullible youthful man reluctantly married to an ageing lady of loose virtues (geza tidye); one is not supposed to impregnate—let alone marry. If the young eager male partner suggests the pull-out method, this will certainly result in an abortion, or a first born child aptly named “Mistake”, or the last born “Zvakwana” –enough is enough.

It is time that all non-ZANU (PF) actors completely pull out of the GNU; leaving it half-way in still results in an unwanted pregnancy.

“Indecision is like a stepchild: if he does not wash his hands, he is called dirty, if he does, he is wasting water.” ZANU (PF) is disingenuous, manipulative and an outright deceiver that treats its Global Political Agreement (GPA) partners like “mubvandiripo”, a stepson to the chief’s family—an unwanted stepchild—who is always neglected. Mugabe has used his GPA partners to buttress his waning political fortunes and to regroup his war machinery for another brutal election campaign in 2011.

Draconian laws have not yet been repealed. Gono, the Reserve Bank Governor, and Tomana, the Attorney General, are still occupying offices they should have vacated. Farm invasions and business property misappropriations are ongoing, encouraged by Mugabe himself. National healing has failed to occur and the continued blatant raiding of state coffers remains unchecked.  Perpetrators of violence and violators of international humanitarian law are still roaming free. Furthermore, specifications, arbitrary arrests, torture, and the murder of innocent civilians is prevalent. The conspicuous absence of the rule of law is a fundamental failure of the GNU. The Joint Operations Command (JOC)—the defacto sovereign authority in Zimbabwe—is still in charge and functioning outside of the provisions of the constitution.

Mugabe lost the presidential election and yet insists on being addressed as: His Excellency, Comrade Robert Mugabe, the Head of State and Government, Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, President and First Secretary of ZANU (PF), Life President of the Republic of Zimbabwe.

The GNU was born out of a secretive political compromise by persons who prematurely penned a surreptitious agreement for political expediency, and to appease an unpopular SADC leader, Thabo Mbeki. Two principals to the GPA, Mutambara and Mugabe, are unelected and unpopular.

Karl W.Deutsch noted in 1953: “…totalitarian regimes require more power for dealing with their subjects than do other types of government, such regimes stand in greater need of widespread and dependable compliance habits among their people…”

Morgan Tsvangirai is being used to legitimise tyranny and to extricate ZANU (PF) from its pariah status. His function in the GNU is to ensure the removal of travel restrictions and the asset freezes imposed on perpetrators of human rights violations. Without Morgan Tsvangirai, ZANU (PF) has no hope of receiving any financial support from multi-lateral institutions. Zimbabweans seeking real change need to suffocate the regime with a chokehold on its air supply—the oxygen that makes it breathe—money.

Mugabe acquiesced to the Ministry of Finance being run by the MDC hoping for a financial windfall. Tsvangirai and Biti were expeditiously dispatched to Western capitals, holding Mugabe’s begging bowls, but returned with less than the US $8 billion Mugabe required for righting his mismanagement. ZANU (PF) is technically insolvent; Zimbabwe is fiscally bankrupt, only foreign aid is propping up our country’s decimated economy. Without political stability brought about by the immediate cessation of wanton violence, a lean government, a new constitution, accountability and an adherence to a stringent ethos of fiscal discipline, the GNU is nothing more than an expensive experiment..

Once a commercial sex worker is married to an honourable man, she becomes respectable too, unless she reverts to her trade whilst married. Tsvangirai should pull out now; the continued human rights violations occurring under the GNU will be a shared responsibility.

“Simba rehove ririmumvura”—once separated completely, Tsvangirai should immediately call for a referendum on the constitution, a fresh general and presidential election under the auspices of the United Nations, and return the perks of ZANU (PF)’s poison chalice. Aristotle warned long ago that “. . . tyranny can also change into tyranny.”

“ZANU ndeyeropa” – ZANU spills blood, the popular dogma that is at the core of the ruling party’s ideology. MDC was offered a quick ride on the back of a man-eating lion and now the challenge is how to dismount.

With the support of the people who voted for the MDC in March of 2008, pragmatic Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) members, visionary African Union (AU) leaders, and the international community, democracy will prevail. Democracy will be ZANU (PF) and Mugabe’s, Achilles’ heel.

Phil Matibe – www.madhingabucketboy.com

“Vana vembwa havasvinure musi mumwechete” – when puppies are born they are all born blind and yet, from the same litter, some puppies open their eyes before the others do.

Commercial agriculture in Zimbabwe was efficiently funded by private banks and the government played no part in subsidising farmers. Even new entrant indigenous farmers received no direct financial assistance from the Reserve Bank or the government.

History illuminates the fact that in the 1890’s white settlers were given land and subsidised by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), their sovereign authority at that time. This period of subsidies extended up to 10 years until the farmer “stood alone”.

The same model was used by ZANU (PF) in 2000, and ten years later the majority of the so called “new farmers” are neither productive nor economically independent.

The difference with these two seemingly similar scenarios is that in the 1890’s, the white settlers started out on virgin land with no infrastructure. However, they had the advantage of “chibharo” free labour provided by “natives”, which was vital for the development of the savannah into productive farmlands.

In 21st century Zimbabwe, at the beginning of the new millennium, the farms were fully developed, highly productive, and had the most modern agrarian infrastructure in Africa. 600 000 persons were gainfully employed on these farms with each worker earning the government’s stipulated minimum wage. The majority of the farms that were misappropriated had crops that had been planted, fertilised, irrigated, and ready for harvest. The war veterans helped themselves to the profits and lined up at the RBZ for handouts for the next crop inputs, which were never used for farming and instead sold on the black market for short term gain. This, and not imagined sanctions, caused Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown.

The very freedom fighters that had fought gallantly to redress the land imbalance rewarded themselves first with compensation for physical and psychological injuries purportedly suffered during the war of liberation. Secondly, they further recompensed themselves with gratuities that bankrupted the country, which was mired in an adventurous colonial style war in the DRC. Thirdly, the government created a housing and car scheme for the same war veterans, which was looted and benefited the same circle of war veterans.

The straw that broke the camel’s back for the already battered Zimbabwean economy was the violent invasion and takeover of productive business units that merely happened to be domiciled on contentious land, which itself was the precursor to the war of liberation.

On these farms were skilled workers, tobacco curing facilities, floriculture units, seed maize grading machinery, cattle breeding units, pedigree cattle bloodlines, housing for farm staff, transportation, tillage equipment and of course, real estate—farm houses.
The tractors that were forcibly taken are now obsolete, the irrigation equipment, if it survived the smelting into aluminium ingots, is unusable, the cattle were eaten –“gandanga haridye derere”, and the skilled workers have dispersed.

Farming and agriculture require a commitment to the land that one is born with. It is impossible to conveniently convert to farming as a last resort when all other business endeavours falter.

Zimbabwe is endowed with generations of professional farmers, both black and white, who should be in the front of the queue for agrarian reform and farm allocations. The most competent of these indigenous farmers earned the Master Farmer badge “hurudza”, and bought farms in the previously designated African Purchase areas before Independence. It is an easier transition to allocate commercial farms to this group than to create new farmers from opportunistic absentee city dwellers.

The second group is the farm managers; every white farmer employed a black manager, although they were referred to as supervisors, foremen or “bossboys”. They were competent, capable, and with a little state assistance, will once again be productive on farms they previously worked on.

Banks have a pivotal role in agriculture and should be permitted to set the conditions for lending seasonal finance to “new farmers”.

Security of tenure—title deeds and legal leases—are a prerequisite for any financial institution lending money to a farmer in the absence of any other form of collateral. The farmer’s track record should be measured by experience, previous crop yields, and the ability to repay past short-term seasonal loans when factoring the lending equation.

Zimbabwe has five agro-ecological regions and each region has unique agronomic characteristics which govern the type of farming and yields to be expected due to the topography and rainfall patterns.

An offer letter penned on a defunct Ministry of State for National Security, Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement in the President’s Office’s letterhead, signed by a minister who still believes in clairvoyants, and delivered by the local ZANU (PF) warlord, must never be the basis upon which our banking system should advance shareholders funds to an incompetent land occupier devoid of a tangible agricultural track record.

All non-performing “farmers” must as a prudent economic measure be permanently jettisoned from agriculture through a vigorous weaning exercise. The time has come to “throw the baby out with the bath water”. Starve the unproductive farmers of free subsidies and let the vagaries of the free market economy determine who should be farming. Once Zimbabwe reverts to the rule law and conducts a comprehensive land audit coupled with real agrarian reform, she can painlessly feed herself within twelve months.

Phil Matibe – www.madhingabuckeyboy.com

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Robert Mugabe – “As the Head of State and Commander in Chief – I command this chicken not to cross the road until all sanctions are removed”.

Morgan Tsvangirai – “We give this chicken an ultimatum to cross back to the other side by tomorrow or we quit the government of national unity (GNU)”.

Giles Mutsekwa – “How can a specified chicken cross the road? It was externalising all its large eggs and its chicks hatching across the road, so we even specified its chicken coop.”

Nelson Chamisa – “That was not a chicken, what you saw was the image of our Road Runner broadband internet; it appears so fast like a chicken crossing a busy highway”.

Augustine Chihuri – “These British imperialist agents are sending spies disguised as chickens again and crossing our toll roads to cause vehicle accidents”.

General Chiwenga – “It was not just any chicken, it’s what in the army we call an IRM – and Improvised Roadside Meal” and the gizzards (zvikanganwahama) are mine.

Joseph Chinotimba – “Sister, I wandi to know, was it a boy chicken or was it a female chicken? If I had my stolen Nokia serufoni I could have telephoned the chicken myself”.

Grace Mugabe – “This chicken was spying on my cows being milked for Nestle and now the whole world knows that I stole cows and 10 farms”.

Patrick Chinamasa – “The road is illegal and our constitution is clear: a chicken cannot live on both sides of the road, so this chicken crossed a road we do not recognise”.

Happytone Bonyongwe – “It was a goat; the CIO will interrogate everyone who claims to have seen this chicken, torture them until they confess that they actually saw a goat”.

Arthur Mutambara – “There were three chickens on the other side of the road, and as one of the principals I shall look into why this chicken crossed the road by itself”.

Peter Chikumba – “This chicken was part of the meal on the flight from the UN; instead we had to serve Bedouin goat meat (oxtailyembudzi) from Gaddafi to our passengers”.

Gideon Gono – “I am the biggest chicken farmer and that must be my chicken. Once we bring back the ZimDollar, this chicken will cross back to my side again”.

Webster Shamu – “This chicken was listening to “illegal, extraterritorial pirate broadcasts” from the other side; all chickens must only listen to the ZBC.

Phil Matibe – www.madhingabucketboy.com

If an investor had a vibrant and profitable company, which of the ministers in the GNU would they entrust with their business and employ as the CEO?

Recently Webster Shamu, Minister of Publicity and Information, named former senior military officers to the state media statutory boards, sending an unambiguous signal to the global community that the military, and Robert Mugabe, remain in charge.

The Army officers listed below, who are now board members of media bodies in Zimbabwe, constitute a well orchestrated advance party for a pre-emptive strike against democracy. Their function is to soften the target –elections – encircle and lay siege to all media outlets, thus denying any opposition broadcasting space. They shall escalate the “pirate stations” mantra into open warfare until a few days before the next elections.

Major-General Gibson Mashingaidze, Brigadier-General Benjamin Mabenge, Brigadier-General Epmarcus Kanhanga, Brigadier-General Elasto Madzingira, Brigadier General Felix Muchemwa, Brigadier-General Livingstone Chineka, Brigadier-General Collin Moyo and Colonel Claudius Makova – this ethnically skewed assemblage of military officers reads like a command structure for a genocidal offensive.

The line between retirement and active service for Zimbabwe’s senior military officers is blurred by political gibberish and veiled in a smokescreen of secrecy, thus rendering the distinction between friend and foe impractical.

Some of the officers unilaterally appointed by Shamu have been fingered by their victims as the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes during last year presidential elections.

Who is Webster Shamu? He is a man who has never worked outside of ZANU (PF), or government, since Independence. He is a gravy-train passenger who has survived and derived his livelihood from parliamentary privilege. He has spent the last decade wallowing in oblivion as the editor of the ZANU (PF) tabloid, the People’s Voice. He is the loyal errand boy for Mugabe and performs his boss’s tasks with satanic enthusiasm. In return for cowardly behaviour, he has been rewarded with the post of Minister of Information and Publicity.

Webster Shamu worked for the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation, African Service during the greater part of the liberation war. He then joined ZANU and became the ZANU (PF) liberation war disc jockey. He broadcast propaganda and other Marxist mantra from the Voice of Zimbabwe radio station in the comfort of Maputo, Mozambique, away from the war front.

He set up a Maoist style re-education camp in Mashonaland West Province as the ZANU (PF) provincial chairman. Rape, torture, and murder all became synonymous with how those camps were operated by the notorious “Top Six” who were on speed dial with “Matemai” – Shamu’s totem affectionately used by his followers.

Shamu, the pseudo-revolutionary, now displays the very contempt for free press as was once the norm with his erstwhile master P.K. Van Der Byl of Rhodesia. Shamu recently attacked independent radio stations by saying they are, “illegal, extraterritorial pirate broadcasts which violate our sovereignty in the name of media freedoms.”

Shamu forgets that it was radio stations like these during the war of liberation that gave the populace relief, hope, and alternative news to the draconian Law and Order Maintenance Act of Rhodesia. If Zimbabwean broadcasting laws today allowed for independent radio stations, these so-called pirate stations would die a natural death. It is important in 21^st century politics for a vibrant political party to have access to a website, internet radio station, terrestrial radio station, television station and other electronic media services. ZANU (PF) utilises and monopolises state broadcasting facilities for the propagation of its own dogmatic policies.

Shamu is part of the furniture in a burning house—ZANU (PF). He is totally unpredictable, a pathological liar, ruthless and irrational. However, he displays an affable public side that confuses the gullible povo around him—gentleman by day and efficient lord of war by night. He has perfected the art of murder, rape and political mayhem and proudly boasts of being the ZANU (PF) franchise holder for brutality.

By performing game changing human culling tactics during the run-up to every election, from a distance on behalf of Gushungo, Shamu secured his permanent place as one of Africa’s worst leaders in post-colonial history. Whereas most human beings are averse to inflicting misery and pain, Shamu is in his element when leading his devotees, who are always inebriated, supplied with copious amounts of cheap alcohol and smoking ZANU (PF) export grade mbanje “weed”.

“If they know those Natives have all those shortwave sets, there is nothing to prevent Moscow from giving them all types of information that we do not want the Native to hear about.“  -  In 1952, the South African Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, Albert Hertzog, told Parliament that the cheap radio set being introduced by the British authorities in their African colonies was problematic.

It is 2009, and Webster Shamu wishes to return Zimbabwe media to the dark ages, keeping her citizens unaware and uninformed and denying any freedom of speech by asking newspapers not to “betray” Zimbabwe, by Zimbabwe Shamu means Mugabe. Mugabe is not a “god”, Mugabe is not Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is not Mugabe, critising him is every Zimbabwean’s patriotic duty. Mugabe is a mere “elected” public servant, a mortal who like all humans is fallible and susceptible to flaws. When left unchecked through totalitarian media censorship Mugabe morphed into a tyrant. Freedom of speech is enshrined in our constitution and no one, absolutely no one, can take that away from us.

Curiously, I find myself agreeing with the Minister’s statement: “Thank God, technology now makes publishing placeless.” I couldn’t have said it more completely.

“Tsuro nenungu mumwena mumwecheta abayiwa ngaabude”

Chapter 47 – “The Man Who Tried to Kill Me”, Madhinga Bucket Boy by Philemon Matibe – www.madhingabucketboy.com

Mukaka waAmai?

Zimbabwe’s farms are like an old dairy cow; ZANU (PF) ties its legs; Mugabe squeezes the last drops of milk from its shrivelled udder, while his wife feeds it raw grain; the masses sit patiently waiting for milk by the cow’s rear end—only for Nestlé and Grace to lift the cow’s tail as it dumps bovine excrement onto the heads of the hungry populace. 

Nestlé Zimbabwe, confirmed media reports that one of its milk suppliers is Gushungo Dairy Estates, controlled by Grace Mugabe, and that the estate supplies ten percent—the equivalent of one million litres—of Nestlé’s raw milk intake.  However, Nestlé Switzerland has issued a statement blessing the arrangement in a condescending announcement, which confirms Nestlé’s place as an enabler of tyranny and an eager accessory to crime.

Switzerland is taking a position that is consistent with its national interest of protecting its banking industry—essentially the ATM for politically exposed persons. This system is the rock underneath which dishonest leaders who enrich themselves from looted state funds hoard so-called potentate funds (dictator’s assets).

Switzerland is a signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and upholds the obligation to return illicitly acquired assets.

However, Switzerland has proposed to donate funds stolen by despots to aid agencies instead of repatriating them back to the countries of origin. In other words, Zimbabwe gets aid, Mugabe pilfers it, and his wife Grace secretly banks the loot with help of Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono in numbered Swiss bank accounts.

If the people of Zimbabwe ever trace these funds, the Swiss government would then donate the loot to the next aid agency for onward “lending” to another despot. The vortex of sleaze and corruption starts all over again. In the meantime, Switzerland appears to be a benevolent aid giver to suffering Africans and yet, in practical terms, is merely sending interest earned from Africa’s stolen wealth back to the very despots who are encouraged to steal it all again. Africans become permanently anchored in bottomless pit of debt and poverty with the complicity of the societies that offer us aid.

The Swiss Federal Criminal Tribunal requires sufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing in order to effect restitution and these proceedings may take up to fifteen years.

Zimbabweans expecting Switzerland to censure a dictator is akin to a farmer chopping down a tree in order to harvest its fruit. Potentate funds are the mother’s milk of the Swiss banking system, and Mugabe is one of the clients who buttress the system.  

Gushungo Dairy Estates is the 4000-hectare farm, part of a criminal enterprise, a vast agricultural land holding owned by Robert Mugabe and his immediate family. He stole state land and allocated it to himself under the guise of correcting a colonial imbalance.

In this melee, 350 000 farm workers, whom Mugabe in his xenophobic tirade on CNN, referred to as aliens, are now classified as internally displaced persons (IDPs), and survive on foreign humanitarian aid handouts.

What happened to the one-man one farm policy? What happened to a maximum farm size (450 hectare) policy? What became of the promise that no farmer shall go without land and the declaration that no absentee landlord may own land in Zimbabwe?

Instead of allocating or distributing “acquired” farms and land to deserving landless peasants, all prime land is now the private asset of absentee landlords, the freedom fighters from yesteryear. Zimbabwe’s entrepreneurs consisting of farmers, hoteliers, and bankers, are facing an unprecedented onslaught from the pillaging ruling party bourgeoisie who unashamedly misappropriate private property for personal gain.

Under the pretext of land reform, indigenisation, and decongesting communal areas, ZANU (PF) politicians now control 95% of Zimbabwe’s prime agriculture with its leader becoming one of Zimbabwe’s largest private landowners.

Switzerland has a moral obligation to side with the suffering people of Zimbabwe and help bring this deplorable chapter to a close. Criminal gangsters, mobs of illicit cattle rustlers, murderers and rapists who trade in misappropriated assets, loot state coffers and launder ill-gotten wealth, must never become the preferred trading partners to Switzerland.

“Chinokanganwa idemo” - What forgets is the axe, but the tree that has been axed will never forget.

The old dairy cow must be now be replaced by a younger milking heifer that will provide real milk for the ordinary people of Zimbabwe.

Phil Matibe – www.madhingabucketboy.com

 Let your umbrage with Nestlé’s trade with Robert and Grace Mugabe be known – http://www.nestle.com/Common/Header/ContactUs.htm