I just received this from my parents. Eddie Cross is a Zimbabwean MP who sends out updates on a fairly regular basis. I don't have time to comment right now & I know that my little blog isn't even a drop in the bucket, but maybe some interested person will read this and be heartbroken with me.
>
>Despair and Despondency
>
>An immediate outcome of the meeting last Monday was nationwide despair and
>despondency. On the street, the people have virtually given up any hope that
>the political process will deliver a solution. At the same time they are not
>looking elsewhere, just thinking about moving on to another country where
>sanity might prevail.
>
>It is the possibility of flight that has changed the character of African
>conflict. Its implications are yet to be fully understood or appraised. When
>failed by their leaders at home, increasingly Africans are simply packing
>their bags. I saw a study this past week where a think tank in the UK
>estimated that remittances from the UK to Zimbabwe alone, could be running
>at over US$1 billion a year. If this is true, it puts a new dimension on
>this issue it shows that the actual Zimbabwe origin population in the UK
>is much bigger than estimated and that they are sending much more money home
>than we ever imagined.
>
>This would explain where all the foreign currency that keeps this country
>going, is coming from. It explains why many more people are not actually
>dying from the present crisis in terms of hunger, malnutrition and neglect.
>It also explains why the regime in Harare prints money to buy foreign
>currency on the street in such quantities and then uses the resulting hard
>cash to buy luxury items and food or to send abroad to secret bank accounts.
>
>The total population of Zimbabwe is certainly now down to below 9 million.
>An astonishing figure when you know that it should have been close to double
>that had conditions remained the same as had existed at the time of
>independence in 1980. Some of the decline can be explained by millions of
>deaths due to the deteriorating situation here, but even more by the flight
>of millions as economic refugees. The most popular destinations being South
>Africa and the UK followed by the USA and Canada and then Australia and New
>Zealand. And I am not talking about white African migrants.
>
>I am convinced that the authorities in South Africa have little
>understanding of the implications of this massive human migration. Half of
>the population of Somalia and the Sudan has left their homeland. Millions of
>Congolese are on the move and if this migration is not slowed down, it has
>the potential to drown the social and economic systems of South Africa.
>
>There is the upside in terms of skills and experience with thousands of
>migrants now occupying key roles in their destination countries. I
>personally know of men and women who have quickly assumed top positions in
>their new homelands. The problem is that this just reinforces the collapse
>of the societies they are fleeing and makes recovery and growth more
>difficult to sustain.
>
>So when the SADC leadership gather outside Pretoria on Monday, a great deal
>is at stake. It�s not just about power sharing. It�s about acting decisively
>to bring to an end a political and economic crisis that has plagued the
>region for over two decades. The fact that SADC clearly backed the position
>of the Mugabe regime at last weeks meeting in the face of overwhelming
>evidence and rationale, is a real indictment of African leadership. They
>were not even acting in defense of their own interests, let alone the
>interests of the long-suffering Zimbabwe people.
>
>As for the Zanu PF and the Junta in Harare, they continued to behave as if
>it was business as usual. There was no change in the propaganda that pours
>out of the Ministry of Information via the print and electronic media; there
>was no let up in the spurious allegations about the MDC sponsoring
>terrorism. Those abducted and disappeared in recent attacks were still not
>seen or heard from and we fear the worst. Those being charged with treason
>are still in custody. Food is being interfered with and directed on the
>basis of political affiliation, agricultural farm invasions and the theft of
>private property continue in the face of the SADC Legal Tribunal rulings.
>
>One of the most bizarre aspect of the past week was the leaking of a paper
>prepared by Gono, the illegally appointed Governor of the Reserve Bank,
>where he sets out plans to adopt the Rand as an anchor currency and suggests
>that mineral and other high value exports could generate up to US$1,2
>billion a MONTH. His figures and rationale show no understanding of the
>scale of the crisis we are in or the remedies required. The astonishing
>thing is that this buffoon is actually taken seriously in Zanu PF circles. I
>am sure the officials in government departments do not give this sort of
>rubbish any credence but they are not directing our affairs. Another of
>his astonishing ideas is a 30 per cent export tax!
>
>In the meantime, Rome burns. Cholera infections (official only) are now
>nearly 50 000 with reported deaths at over 3000. Aids deaths continue at
>about 3000 a week, human flight at whatever figure you want to estimate
>but not less than 25 000 a week. Deaths from TB, malaria, child deaths and
>death of women in childbirth run at another 1000 or so a week. It is a
>silent genocide and Graca Machel said it best this past week when she
>slammed SADC leadership for standing by and doing nothing, in fact making
>the situation worse by not acting to support democracy, the rule of law and
>all international standards of human and political rights.
>
>One of the worst centers for cholera and the town with the highest death
>toll (18 per cent of all infected) is Chegutu, about 100 kilometers from
>Harare to the south. This past week a fellow MP told me that he went to the
>local hospital to try and get an impression of what was going on. All he
>found was an empty shell every thing that could be moved had been stolen,
>there were no staff on duty and the complex was abandoned.
>
>Another colleague stood up in Parliament and said he had just visited a
>relative in the local Prison. He detailed conditions in both the remand
>section and in the main prison itself. Hundreds of prisoners ill with
>cholera, little or no treatment available, dead bodies left in the cells for
>days and food rations down to 25 per cent of �normal�. It was a chilling
>statement and was received in complete silence by the House.
>
>Eddie Cross
>Bulawayo, January 24th 2009
God only knows what will happen.
theMK
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