Zimbabwe dispatches: little has changed
Updated on 13 May 2009
It has been 100 days since the winners and losers of Zimbabwe’s elections agreed to share power, but most people have not seen any improvements to their lives in the last three months, writes Helen from Zimbabwe.
Electricity and water remain in short supply or absent altogether. Rent, transport charges, service costs and food prices remain so high as to leave people floundering and still entirely dependent on donor food.
Pensioners are in dire condition, receiving between $US25 and $US45 a month, less than one British pound a day, and surviving almost entirely on charity, food parcels and the goodwill of strangers.
Aside from the physical daily struggles of life under Zimbabwe’s unity government is the even more worrying question about who is really wielding the power in the country.
One hundred days in power and people are openly asking why the MDC is not systematically dismantling the tyranny.
The legislation that terrorised our lives under Zanu PF is still in place and continues to restrict basic freedoms of speech, movement and association.
The only television channel, ZBC, and the only daily newspaper, The Herald, continue to be nothing more than propaganda mouthpieces obviously controlled by the old order.
On the day when 18 political activists were re-arrested last week and civic society were calling urgent press conferences to expose the re-detention of people originally abducted and tortured by the State, ZBC Television did not even report the matter.
The main evening news bulletin reported on sports tourism associated with the 2010 football world cup; tourism promotion in Bulawayo; the funeral of a war veteran and the opening of the school term.
Speaking on a short wave radio station broadcasting from London, a Zimbabwean lawyer said the re-detention of activists was further proof that the judiciary in Zimbabwe was far from being independent:
“We now rely on the charity of politicians.”
One hundred days into unity governance, law and order remains illusive and partisan and known criminals continue to walk free on our streets. It is becoming increasingly common to see crazed, wild men stumbling around shopping centres and rummaging through piles of litter.
Barefoot, unkempt and wearing filthy, tattered clothes, these are not the normal beggars or street children and everyone is giving them a wide berth.
These are young men, often in their thirties or less, and people say they are the perpetrators of the abductions and murders of opposition MDC supporters during last year’s elections.
They have been possessed by Ngozi (angry spirits) and are literally driving themselves mad as they have not owned up to their crimes, been held to account or made peace with the families of the people they killed.
More and more stories are being heard of crazed men openly volunteering that they killed people during the elections, dropped bodies in dams and rivers and hid human remains in the bush and in anthills.
Outside a big supermarket last week one of these crazed men was asking passers-by for food.
“Go and beg for food from your political masters,” was the response from some shoppers and one said: “We are busy trying to support the widows and children of the people you killed.”
