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Small Voices in Zimbabwe by Janine di Giovanni During the 2002 elections, a small group of people opposed to Robert Mugabe struggled to bring their country freedom. This is their story. March, 2002 (The Times of London) Robert is listening to Stevie Wonder's track "Master Blaster" on the car radio. He's singing along because in 1980, when Stevie Wonder came along with Bob Marley to Zimbabwe for the Independence Celebrations – effectively the end of white rule – Robert was there, as a child, with his parents. Two decades on, both his parents are dead, the result of poor health care, and Robert, a former student leader for the Zimbabwe opposition, The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has been beaten and tortured and intimidated because he wants things to change in his country. But for the moment, he's singing along with Stevie Wonder enthusiastically until he reaches the line "Peace has come to Zimbabwe." The car goes quiet. "Peace has not come to Zimbabwe," Robert says, looking at the window where long queues of angry people wait to buy sacks of corn meal, sugar and soap. "My country is in chaos. My country is in trouble." It's the week before 2002 Presidential elections, and Robert is taking me to St. Peter's, a village outside of Bulawayo, the country's second largest city, that has been burnt and looted by ZANU-PF teenage militiamen, the henchmen of President Robert Mugabe. For the past two months, the teenagers have been roaming the lush countryside wreaking havoc on a civilian population who are being terrified into supporting Mugabe. Mugabe, a former freedom fighter in the war of Independence against white Rhodesians, has ruled the country for 22 years. Now, Zimbabwe is sliding into political and social anarchy. Despite the fact this is one of the most literate countries in Africa, the inflation rate is 117 per cent. The unemployment rate is 60 per cent; there is a deteriorating health and education system; and since Mugabe instigated land reforms, whereas Blacks confiscate the farmlands of white Zimbabweans who have lived in the country for generations, there is an added element of racial tension. Mugabe, who is now 80, is desperate to hang on to power. "He's got an enormous amount to lose," says David Coltart, a white Zimbabwean MP who is also the opposition Shadow Justice Minister. "He's not just going to ride off into the sunset." To lose the presidency means Mugabe will lose his grotesquely high standard of living in a country where people are starving (for example, his young wife often borrows presidential planes to go on shopping sprees at Harrods). The full extent of his corruption will also be exposed and perhaps more importantly, he may be vulnerable to a war crimes tribunal for the 20,000 or more civilians who were massacred by his elite troops in the Matabeleland region in the 1980s. To hold onto power at any cost, Mugabe has encircled himself with thugs, like his Minister of Information Jonathan Moyo, who as banned foreign press such as the BBC from reporting inside Zimbabwe. He has enlisted "war veterans" – supposed fighters in the war of independence, but many of whom were not old enough to fight – and the youth militia, the so-called Green Bombers. His election tactics, according to David Coltart, includes intimidation to deter voters; manipulation of the way the vote is exercised, for example, taking people off who are dual citizens, and to lessening the number of polling stations in urban areas where the opposition is higher. "Votes should be equal," says Coltart, who worked as a human rights lawyer for years and defended members of the opposition. "People will be denied their vote as a result of that inequality." The hope for the country lies with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader, Morgan Tsvengerai, a former union leader who will celebrate his 50th birthday on the second day of voting and who is a kind of David versus Goliath folk hero. Tsvengerai has a degree from Harvard and has presented himself as a stable future in a country that is spiraling out of control. For this, he has been vilified by the government as a pawn of Tony Blair's, a man who wants to bring back white rule. Surrounding Tsvengerai are thousands of supporters who are desperate not to see their country slide into the destruction. This is their story – what it is like to live and fight against a regime – one week before the Presidential elections. *** St. Peter's, a half hour outside Bulawayo, was once a village of 2,600 farmers scraping by at poverty level. Now it is the result of Mugabe's desire to hang on to power. These are poor people who live here. Farmers, laborers, simple people, "The small but powerful voices" – which is how Shari Eppel, a human rights worker in Bulawayo, describes them. People who are unable to defend themselves against a regime as powerful as Mugabe's. Now the small voices have lost everything. You get to St. Peter's by driving down a dirt road, past a township where ZANU youth sneer menacingly at our car, and past a dried out field of maize, a metaphor for the drought and subsequent food shortages that plague Zimbabwe. At the end of the road is a village. Here, the houses are primitive mud with thatched roofs. Now only the walls remain, and the smell is reminiscent of the early days of Bosnia, after the Bosnian Serbs had razed a village. The aftermath of a village destroyed always smells the same: burnt houses, charred clothes and destroyed lives Most of the people have left, and St. Peters is now like a ghost village with a lone cow moving slowly down a lane surrounded by rubbish. In the distance, a man limps by. A house has all its' windows broken, the result of stoning, from behind the shattered window a frightened face peers out. Most of the villagers have gone to huddle in an abandoned school down the road that the militias plastered, as a final touch, with posters of an aging Mugabe with his fist in the air. But some remain. They sit in front of their houses as though they are waiting for something to happen, fanning off flies with old newspapers. Their children squat in the dirt. One family has tried to reconstruct their home, using old bricks. St. Peter's is meant to be a stronghold for the opposition. But most of the people seem too poor, too apolitical to care about anything other than getting their next dish of corn meal. Still, they have been punished. This is what the witnesses, and two Norwegian election observers who were the first on the scene, say happened here. The ZANU PF militias came late in the afternoon, hundreds of them, wielding clubs and whips. First one wave of several hundred youths trained by the hundreds of militia camps that have been set up throughout the country since November. Then another wave of them came. The villagers saw the militias approaching from the bush, running down pathways chanting Zanu slogans, their heads wrapped in the Zanu colours scarves. It must have been terrifying. The ones who could run and hide did, the ones who could not stayed behind and met their wrath. They beat a handicapped man, they bashed in the head of another, they slashed an elderly woman. They burned, they stole, they broke the cheap blue ceramic plates that now lie in a pile outside the huts. They burned the food supplies and people's life savings. They threatened and screamed and ranted and when everything was destroyed, they went back to the bush. They scared people, part of the election tactic. But perhaps the most important and chilling thing was that they destroyed these people's right to vote. When they burned their houses, they also burned their ID cards. "In Zimbabwe," says Shari Eppel. "if you don't have an ID card, you don't have a vote." Maggie Moyo, a 50-year old mother of four and the wife of a labourer, is standing outside her hut wearing a green button down 1950s style coat. Despite the heat, she is wearing a wool cap pulled low over her forehead and she is wandering in front of her burnt hut with the look of someone who has just been in a recent car crash. Maggie says, "I had very little to start with in life, now I have nothing." She stares at her hands, then at her feet, still in shock. She has come back to the ruins to see if anything is left salvaging. I ask if it is true that the village is said to be an MDC stronghold, and Maggie says that she is a supporter, although now she – like everyone else in the village – can not vote. "They took my ID and burned it," she says. Then she does something unreal. Even though she has nothing left, not even her birth certificate, Margaret still breaks into a huge grin when she talks about Morgan and the opposition. "I love them, I love them," she says. "Without them, what hope is there for my country? Without them, my children would be herding donkeys."
The next day at the Bulawayo Cathedral, The Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pious Ncube, sits in his office surrounded by portraits of saints and martyrs, listening to the story of St. Peter's. "evil, evil, selfish people," he says, shaking his head, referring to the regime. On this afternoon, a few days before voting begins, the bishop is bad tempered because he is losing optimism that the opposition will win. If they lose, he will continue being an outspoken voice against Mugabe. "I don't like doing it," he says. "I don't like being critical. I don't like being outspoken. I wish someone else would do it, but we have to speak out against a government that is selfish, evil, corrupt." He takes a boiled sweet from a bag on his desk and pushes his papers aside. For many years, Ncube has spoken out against the Mugabe regime. He was instrumental in launching investigations into the massacres in Matabeleland in the 1980s, and he has accused the government of corruption while the people starve. He says his real troubles started when he spoke out against the land invasions in 1999. "I wrote Mugabe a letter saying what he was doing is wrong," he says, as if he is referring to a badly behaved child. "I pointed out that what he was doing is wrong, that he was planting the whole country with intimidation." Ncube continued to speak out, during the Parliamentary elections in 2000, and during the run-up to this election when the level of intimidation and violence spiraled out of control. He speaks out, knowing that nothing and no one will protect him if Mugabe wants to get rid of him. He says they started a smear campaign against him, and they started threatening his 86-year old recently. "I said to them, come after me," he says. "It's my problem. Leave my mother alone." The fact that the archbishop is sitting in this room surrounded by books in Italian, English and German is a testament to his own strong character. Ncube grew up poor, the son of peasants, on a farm outside of Bulawayo, and put himself through Jesuit school, unversity, training in Rome. He says he continues speaking out because he wants to help the helpless. It is with the poor that he identifies and he bristles, for instance, at Mugabe going in front of a war crimes tribunal. "It will do absolutely nothing," he says. "what matters it that the people have food." He sees a bleak future for his country. He does think the Zimbabwe people will rise up once Mugabe takes power again, as the Filipinos did against Ferdinand Marcos. "It won't happen, they are too timid. This is a country with a literacy rate of 85 per cent, but the people are still scared and threatened." He seems saddened by the prospect of the next few years in Zimbabwe. "Such an selfish, self-centered government that is running this country," he adds, taking another sweet, before going to prepare for mass. *** Down the road from the Cathedral where the Archbishop lives are the offices of David Coltart, another opposition fighter. Born and bred in Zimbabwe, the former student leader and activist is an example that the opposition is not divided on ethnic grounds. Coltart calls himself "a thorn in Mugabe's side for the past 18 years." Like Ncube, he is frequently ridiculed in the newspaper or by government officials. He is also threatened with death and intimidated, and since the election campaign has heated up, it has gotten worse. Along with Shari Eppel and Ncube, Coltart is responsible for initiating a report, "Breaking the Silence" that exposed the atrocities of Matabeleand. He knows the extent of Mugabe's corruption, which is what inspires him, "along with my faith", to keep going. But he also knows what Mugabe is capable of. For the past few months, Coltart, who now moves with large bodyguards, has had death threats and has been harassed by youth militias. In January, returning from New York where he met with members of the United Nations, he was returning home with his wife and children, including an infant, when he saw a youth militia camped in front of his house. He reversed, fled and called the police. They never arrived. Returning home several hours later, the police finally arrived. But it was not to protect him, but to arrest him, for allegedly firing at the youth militia. "I don't even own a gun," he says wryly. Coltart, like others here, has a contingency plan for escaping if things get very bad. But he insists he will only use it if he is desperate. Like all of the people I met fighting the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, he does not want to leave, does not want to go into exile. "I passionately love this country," he says and believes that there is still, despite the odds, tremendous capacity for change. "If a country like this, highly educated, with resources, can't function – what hope is there for the rest of Africa? If Africa is going to remain a perpetual basket case, what hope is there?" *** I first met Mark Chavunduka, the editor of The Standard newspaper, at the Amnesty International Awards in May 2000, when we both received awards. I listened to his story, but the impact of what he had undergone did not hit me until I met him again in his office in a block of flats in Harare several days before voting began. Chavunduka grew up a middle class Zimbabwean. His father was the first black veterinary surgeon in the country and had been educated in Scotland, where he met his mother, a nurse. Mark rose quickly through the journalistic ranks, from reporter to chief reporter to editor by the time he was 29. He began running stories that irritated the government, one in particular that drew the attention of the secret police. When they came for him, he went peacefully, believing that he would be released shortly. For nine days, he and his chief reporter were held and For nine days, they held him and his chief reporter Roy Choto, who wrote teh story, and brutally tortured them. The manner – electrocution, drowning, beatings, suffocation – and the specifics of what his torturers used is so horrific that his face still is pained as he talks of it and he says that he wakes up screaming from the memories. "I didn't think I would get through it," he says. "I ket begging them to shoot me. To this day, I don't know how I got through it." Despite three months treatment at Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture in London, he still says, "the physical scars have healed, the emotional ones have not." Chavunduka is lucky in the sense that the international community, largely through Amnesty International, got word of his ordeal. Afterwards, he received the prestigious Neimann Fellowship at Harvard University, and although he opted to leave his wife and three children in America for safety, the decided to return home to Zimbabwe to continue his work. "What else can I do?" he says. "I try not to worry, because what is the alternative? I have to work. " He is aided, he says, by the courage of his convictions. "What I am doing is fair. We're doing proper work. I have to continue for the youth, the young people that are watching what we are doing, as role models." Shari Eppel, a 41-year old clinical psychologist and mother of three who runs the Amani Trust for victims of torture with a kind of ferocious energy and passion, says the same thing. For eighteen months, she says she has been living on her nerves and in the run up to the election, the week before, she seems on the verge of total exhausted collapse. But she still arrives at her office, an old colonial house behind a gate in a suburb of Bulaway early in the morning and stays until after dark. Eppel is one of those characters that is so committed to bringing justice and truth to light that her face seems to change when she talks about her work and her country. She says she will never go, "unless it is life or death. Mugabe can't last forever," she says. "the rats will abandon the sinking ship." But it is not easy. Like Chavunduka, she has sent her children away to safety, in South Africa, to be with her parents. "I don't want them to be there if the police come for me in the middle of the night," she says. One day, she brings four young men who have been tortured by ZANU PF to her office. All four move slowly, their eyes dropped to the ground, almost as if they are ashamed of what has happened to them. Slowly, they lift their shirts and show the marks of the cruelty that has been inflicted on them. It is unthinkable, staring at the skin that has been broken over and over by bullwhips, the cigarettes put out on soft flesh, the bones broken and the backs kicked and beaten, that human beings can do this to one another. Later, Eppel tells me that one of the torture victims told her that all he wanted to do was vote, because he still believed enough in democracy, that his vote would matter. "he didn't want vengeance," she says slowly. "he just wanted to vote, even after being tortured. he still believed in it. " It never occurs to Eppel to stop her work, to do something else, even if she admits that during the investigation into Matebeleland massacres, she often woke up in tears, "found myself wandering around the house in the middle of the night crying, unable to stop." She says she keeps doing it for the small voices. *** On the third day of voting, I go to the high density areas of Harare with Gordon, a young Zimbabwean journalist, and wait at voting stations to talk to people who had tried three days in a row to vote. Gordon, like Robert, is young and hopeful and desperate for his country to change. He takes a risk every day by supporting the MDC, by helping foreign journalists, and by writing anti-government articles. Or rather, simply writing the truth about the government. When I meet Gordon, I remember something David Coltart said when I remarked on his courage. "Courage?" he said in a surprised voice. "The real guys with courage are these guys..." he pointed at Robert who sat smiling proudly at the compliment. "These young black student leaders, the rural guys with no profile. If you're white people have more sympathy. Because of our white profile, we are protected. Our black colleagues can be murdered and the government has immunity." On the first two days of voting in Harare, some people queue for 25 hours. Women are pushed and shoved out of the line and on the third day, they divide into two lines, one for each sex. There is some violence, but not as much as we expected. Instead, there is the quiet determination of the people who want to use their rights and who know, deep down, that they are getting cheated. In Chingeweza, a commuter "suburb" outside the city, the results of Mugabe's greed are evident. Here, people are truly poor. Some have tattered shoes; some are barefoot; the women look ancient and carry their babies strapped to their backs. Near the polling station, at the OK Bazaar, the Southern African equivalent of Sainsbury's, a massive food queue snakes around and around the store. People are desperately trying to buy a bag of mealy-meal, or cornmeal, the national staple, but they are also queuing for sugar, oil and soap. All of life's necessary items are impossible to come by in Zimbabwe if you are poor and powerless. "I'm voting so I can eat," says Petronella, who is a student. She won't say who she is voting for, but it is clear. No one will tell me who they are voting for, but I know they are all voting for MDC. A man, a brave one, gives me the open palmed five fingered greeting, the MDC sign as opposed to Mugabe's ZANU aggressive fist. "chengwa," a man whispers to Gordon. "chengwa," Gordon answers back, triumphantly. Chengwa, change. In the next few days, a lull descends over the city as it becomes increasingly clear that the elections are rigged. The majority of the election observers – with the exception of the Norwegians who have been the real heroes of this election because they dared to tell the truth – basically stood by and did nothing. The South African observers in the room next door to me appeared to do nothing more than observe the swimming pool, drink cases of beer bought on their per diem money, and close their eyes to the ballot stuffing and intimidation. Morgan Tsvengerai gives a press conference (which I am unable to attend because of the presence of the secret police), but Hilarious goes, wearing a button down shirt and tie for the occasion, and comes back telling me that Morgan was practically in tears, begging the international community to intercede and declare the elections unfair. Gordon is putting on a brave face. He says that the MDC are still "sure to win." I say sharply, "I don't want to burst your bubble, but it's high time you thought about what's going to happen when Mugabe wins again." Gordon looks doubtful. "We will win," he says in a strong, steady voice. "maybe not now, but in three months, six months. Mugabe can not go on forever." Maybe not forever, but at least for the moment. By the end of the week, after the "counting" is over, Mugabe has declared a victory and the ZANU followers party in the streets. Meanwhile, MDC leaders such as Welshmen Ncube are caught trying to flee the country to bring their children to safety, and are put in prison. "My God, the witch hunt starts now," says Gordon. This time, he does not sound so confident. *** After a while, the paranoia becomes too much, and I am tired of escaping down the back staircase of the hotel, or waking in the night with a panic attack. It is time to go. Not even in Algeria during the massacres when reporters needed ten bodyguard to avoid Islamic fundamentalist from slashing your throat in the night, had I felt so exposed. When I reach South Africa, a gust of hot wind hits me on the airport runway, and I am flooded with a sense of relief at being outside of Zimbabwe. The tension of the elections, of working under the shadow of the secret police, of the frustration that democracy did not prevail under the noses of the international community was more powerful than I thought. As I wait for my luggage, I get a text message on my phone, then another. It is from Robert in Bulawayo. The first one says: JANINE, PLEASE CAN I COME TO YOU, I HAVE NO WHERE TO GO. As I am contemplating what this means, the second one comes in: PLEASE CALL ME. VERY IMPORTANT. When I reach Robert, he sounds panicked and scared. "I can't go home," he says. "the ZANU milita are everywhere, around my house. They're picking up anyone who was active in the opposition..." his voice breaks. "Where are you?" I say. He is hiding somewhere downtown. I make some calls, we arrange for him to go somewhere safe, and he is calmer when I phone in an hour. The next day, however, there is another text message. This time, he is trapped inside the MDC headquarters on 14th street in Bulawayo with his colleagues, and his voice is high-pitched with fear. "They are outside with combat gear and bazookas!" he screeches. "Please call the cameramen, the photographers! Let them know what injustice looks like!" I put down the phone, feeling utterly powerless. I think Robert will be all right for the moment, but for how long, I do not know. The same for David Coltart, or Shari Eppel or the Archbishop or Mark Chavunduka or any of the "small, powerful voices." I wonder how long they can keep going before they are tracked down and forced to stop what they do. Or worse, how long they can last before they are forced to leave the country that they love, that they have bled for. As Gordon remarked drily a few days earlier, the witch hunt has begun. Note: Mark Chavunduka died after a long illness in November, 2002 © Janine di Giovanni |
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