Newsday

By Dumisani O Nkomo

12 October 2011

The height of the Zimbabwean crisis saw the Zimbabwean economy shrink by a third, unemployment ballooning to over 75%, health, education and other basic services to all intents and purposes collapsing.

I would like to suggest that while the inclusive government in spite of its inconclusive birth and inconclusive operations has brought a measure of socio economic stability.

We should not forget that at the height of the crisis schools were closed for almost a full year with teachers on strike and government departments were in perpetual go slow mode due to inadequate remuneration, poor work ethics, endemic corruption and chronic incapacity to deliver.

In order to move forward as a country we have to take stock of the incremental changes that have occurred over the past three years even though this has not translated into steady economic growth, infrastructural development, increased access to basic services, increased wages and salaries accompanied by betterment in standards of living.

We are still many years from achieving socio economic transformation as the country is still in socio economic and political transition and is likely to be in such a state for a while even beyond new elections and a new constitution.

Change is not an event but a process and a painful one too. While it may be easy to change the faces of those who are ruling, delivering real change which impacts lives and livelihoods is a difficult proposition.

The economy has stabilised but it may take five or so years before we experience real economic growth and another ten to fifteen years before such economic growth is necessarily accompanied by corresponding positive human development indicators such as access to health services, water, electricity, housing and a decent standard of living.

We have to understand that change of government may happen speedily but transformation takes a longer time. Politically, the constitution-making process may give birth to a new constitution but the process of grounding the new constitutional institutions, processes and values will take time as these are subject to the evolution of political culture and behavior.

Likewise it will take time to change the work ethic of government departments and service providers and to all intents and purposes a new government may not practically translate to a change in the bureaucrats that run government.

I would like to suggest that the inclusive government has brought in some new fresh brains, some positive policies and for the first time several ministers who are actually accountable to the people.

This off course has been blighted by the “Luxurygate scandal” which saw the government recklessly, callously and carelessly splashing millions of dollars on luxury vehicles for government ministers and expenditure on what Finance Minister Tendai Biti describes as “useless things’’ such as foreign travel.

There is however, a silver lining in the cloud and at times it is that which should give us hope. A new breed of ministers has injected new ideas, energy and policies in the past couple of years.

These have included the likes of Moses Mzila-Ndlovu, Gorden Moyo, Professor Welshman Ncube, Tendai Biti, David Coltart and Walter Mzembi. Even the controversial Professor Arthur Mutambara has come with some good ideas on private–public partnerships.

These ministers from across the political divide have achieved some incredible measurable deliverables under very prohibitive circumstances.

These deliverables include but are not limited to:

The possible, probable and potential resuscitation of the iron and steel industry through a strategic partnership deal with foreign investors. The recovery of the iron and steel industry will have a ripple effect industry and the economy at large.

The allocation of US$40 million to ailing industries in Bulawayo largely through the efforts of Industry and Commerce Minister Ncube with the able support of Moyo and Biti with the consent of the entire cabinet.

The formulation of a corporate governance framework for parastatals and state enterprises.

Marginally improved fiscal discipline under Tendai Biti who has irked some of his colleagues in the MDC-T and Zanu PF for his tight-fisted control over the country’s finances.

In very difficult political circumstances epitomised by the emergence of divergent centres of power, conflicting government policy, uncertainty, selective application of the law as well as lack of institutional reform the country has still managed to move forward albeit at snail pace.

However, if viewed in the context of both history and posterity, the country is making incremental strides forward which will only be measurable with hindsight in ten to fifteen years.

Admittedly, the inclusive government has been a spectacular failure in implementing over twenty provisions of the Global Political Agreement including:

The setting up of an all-inclusive economic advisory body.

Failure to institute an independent land audit.

Liberalisation of the airwaves.

An effective and ornamental national healing organ and dysfunctional institutional framework.

Institutional reform.

Selective application of the law and partisan policing by law enforcement agencies.

The socio economic agenda of the inclusive government has also operated in fits and starts with the Short Term Emergency Recovery Programme [S.T.E.R.P] the G.N.U’s economic blueprint being replaced by the Medium Term Policy before it had fully achieved its objectives.

At this period in time in the life of the shaky inclusive government it would be immature and subjective to claim that the GNU is a total failure or a total success.

It would be politically and factually naïve as well as irresponsible to describe the Inclusive Government in absolutes rather the inclusive government has presented the country with breathing space to recover from the pre 2008 madness then stabilize and once again move forward.

Obviously the Inclusive government is not permanent and is likely to come to an end by 2013 but in the absence of viable options it appears to be the only practical solution for the next 12 or so months.

A post G.N.U government should be able build on the successes of the I.G without the hindrances of conflicting and confusing centers of power. The Inclusive Government can best be described in the words of Charles Dickens:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was an age of wisdom, it was an age of foolishness, it was an epoch of belief, it was an epoch of incredulity, it was a spring of hope, it was a winter of despair, we had everything before us we had nothing before us.”

Dumisani O Nkomo is an activist and Chief Executive Officer of Habakkuk Trust

Newsday

By Sukoluhle Mthethwa

11 October 2011

Zifa has agreed to meet Education, Sport, Arts and Culture minister David Coltart after he wrote a letter seeking audience with various stakeholders to discuss issues relating to the administration of revenue generated during football matches in the country.

Coltart said he received communication from the then acting Zifa president Ndumiso Gumede ten days ago.

“I wrote to Zifa last year congratulating them on their coming on board and requested a meeting with them. But I received communication from Gumede saying they want to have the meeting where the issue of tacking financing of football in the country will be discussed,” he said.

Coltart said dates had not been set for the meeting, but said they were hoping to have the meeting soon in Harare.

“We want to have a workshop that will involve different stakeholders who include Zifa, players, coaches, potential sponsors, city councils as well as the Zimbabwe Republic Police. They have a role in football so we want to have the meeting soon,” he said.

He said the meeting will also see the discussion of accountability on the funds raised from gate-takings.

“We need to look at how income generated from football is used. We also need to ensure gate-takings are properly receipted and discuss what percentage each stakeholder can get from the funds,” he said.

Coltart said it is high time the country finds a solution to ensure there are funds to cater for national assignments.

“What is happening in Zimbabwe football is unacceptable. The air fares for the national team have to come from the government and that is unacceptable. We need to ensure that our football is profitable as it is in other countries. We have to be professional if we are to achieve that,” he said.

Gumede confirmed they have communicated with Coltart with regards to the meeting.

“We sat down and discussed the matter and we agreed that it is important we have the meeting. The meeting will be aimed at improving capacity as Zifa must be in a position to stand on its own,” he said.

Coltart had earlier posted on his Facebook page about the Warriors 2-1 to Cape Verde Islands on Saturday.

“I am saddened by the loss of Zimbabwe against Cape Verde this weekend and our consequent failure to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations. So very frustrating when one considers the depth of footballing talent in Zimbabwe.

“But the problem was actually made last year when there was the disgraceful disruption to the coaching team days before the home match against Cape Verde.

“The only positive news is that Zifa have finally agreed to my offer of holding an indaba to discuss the financing of football in Zimbabwe.

“It is time we got football sorted out as we can still qualify for the 2014 World Cup — if we get our act together,” reads his post.

The Scotsman

By Jane Fields

10 October 2011

Amnesty International’s latest report on the lack of education in Zimbabwe’s slum areas makes depressing reading but it shouldn’t detract from the determination of many teachers and parents to give children a chance to learn in the grimmest of circumstances.

Amnesty says thousands of children are being “forced to grow up without access to education” as a result of Robert Mugabe’s shanty clearances in May 2005. Believed to be a plot by Mugabe’s cronies to rid Zimbabwe’s cities of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters in the wake of humiliating gains by Morgan Tsvangirai in March elections, Operation Murambatsvina (Drive-Out-The-Filth) left 700,000 without homes or jobs. Six years on, many have simply reconstructed their shacks in new “settlements”, where they live without access to public transport, jobs or proper education.

The slum clearances had a terrible impact on Zimbabwe’s poorest children. Former teacher Trudy Stevenson, now Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Senegal, recalls that a school in Hatcliffe Extension, an impoverished area of her Harare constituency, was “not so much destroyed as vandalised and cleared out during Murambatsvina.” Some pupils transferred to a primary school in a nearby township. But their now-destitute parents “couldn’t afford even the basic requirements of that school. [There were] lots of dropouts,” she told The Scotsman.

But it wasn’t just shanty-dwelling schoolchildren who were affected by Zimbabwe’s ten years of crisis. Schooling was so disrupted during 2008 that by October some pupils had had only 23 days of lessons.

Last week, a domestic science teacher told me she’d finished school after dark two days running. School is traditionally a mornings-only affair in tropical Zimbabwe, although “hot-seating” to cater for excess pupils means lessons can drag on into the afternoons. The late finish was due to a power cut, meaning my contact’s township pupils couldn’t start their O-level practicals on time. So she, the teenagers and their invigilator sat and waited for hours until the power flicked on.

The Herald newspaper recently carried a profile of teacher Jena Mandivava, who works in the remote central Gwamasaka area. Mr Mandivava lives in poverty, with no hope of pocketing the extra “incentives” that parents pay to urban teachers. But he gives free holiday lessons to his pupils. “First and foremost, a teacher must have children at heart,” he said. No wonder education minister David Coltart last week praised rural-based teachers “for their commitment to educate pupils under deplorable conditions”.

The teachers I’ve met are almost all eloquent, dignified professionals, which may be why they get targeted by Zanu-PF. Last month, the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe complained that Mugabe supporters were interfering with history lessons, forcing teachers to parrot Zanu-PF propaganda.

The Zimbabwean

By Tavada Mafa

10 October, 2011

Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture David Coltart has ordered Mash East Provincial Education Director to produce a detailed report of school children and teachers who were evicted by ex-communicated Anglican church leader Nolbert Kunonga in Mrewa.

“I have instructed the Mashonaland East Provincial Education Director to prepare a report detailing what happened to the teachers, headmasters and children. I got a very disturbing report that teachers were physically beaten up. This is very disturbing as it affects lives of school children,” said Coltart in an interview this week.

Kunonga evicted headmasters, teachers and priests for allegedly aligning themselves with the diocese of his arch-rival, Chad Gandiya.

“I have said time and again that politics should stay out of schools. What is happening in the Anglican Church is not religious – it is politics,” Coltart said.

Sunday News

By Vusumuzi Dube

9 October 2011

A cellphone is a gadget that was originally designed to make communication easier and more efficient but like all inventions made for the good of mankind, it can be abused.

In recent media reports, school children have been reported to be largely taking advantage of this gadget not only to do research, which is good, but also to record pornographic or abusive material that they go on to distribute among themselves.

A recent case of the nude pictures of students from Ihlathi High School made the headlines of our sister paper, B-Metro.

There was also a video of Milton High School students seemingly bullying a fellow student, not to mention the very recent video of teenagers from two of Bulawayo’s “elite” schools engaging in sexual intercourse.

All these vices capture a generation that has become more reliant on the cellphone for their day-to-day operation, this ranging from simple communication, to research right up to entertainment.

Gone are the days when a mobile phone used to be a symbol of wealth and prosperity, when children were the last people expected to have the gadget.

Nowadays it has become a common feature among every child, with almost everyone possessing the once hard-to-get gadget; at school it has now become a common to see school children competing with their teachers in terms of who possesses the best phone.

School children have now been introduced to the famed search engines such as wikipedia.com and google.com, to an extent that even during lessons you find them “googling” their assignments.

However, parents and educationalists have raised concern over the issue of children being allowed to have their mobile phones during lessons, with the main bone of contention being the fact that these children end up abusing the facility by viewing x-rated sites while in some cases they are said to be using the gadget right in the middle of lessons this thereby inhibiting the learning process.

However, as this argument lingers on the question is who really is to blame; the parents who purchase the cellphones for their children, the educationists who allow children to have these during learning hours or the children themselves who abuse a gadget that is meant for their own good.

Now, in this rapidly expanding market, some major networks are about to adopt a range of “kiddie phones” designed for children as young as four, with claims that its handsets are safer and smarter. But does this worsen or improve the education system?

On top of all this are the health effects of the cellphone. According to Britain’s newspaper, The Sunday Times, a study by researchers at Orebro University Hospital in Sweden last year indicated that children may be five times more likely to get brain cancer if they use mobile phones.

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, a leading Australian psychologist, described parents who allow young children to use mobile phones as “insane”.

Dr Carr-Gregg, a University of Melbourne professor of paediatrics, is worried about the power of mobile phones to distract and overexcite.

According to a survey conducted by Dr Carr-Gregg, 40 percent of children with mobile phones are sleep deprived on school nights, as peer pressure has made it normal for children of 6 and 7 to stay up until the early hours texting friends.

His evidence, revealed in a series of Australian academic seminars, suggests that millions of children are allowed mobile phones in their bedrooms, creating a generation of overtired “zombies”.

Other new research has linked deprivation in children with hyperactivity symptoms and hormone imbalances that increase the risk of obesity and diabetes.

However despite all this hype on the effects of a child’s learning implications, cellphone companies have used children and teens as a huge demographic for mobile phone makers and providers.

Mobile phones have become accessories that rival the status of designer clothing.

With each year, the pressure increases for parents to meet their teen’s demands, but at the end of the day the priority of cellphone makers and providers is to cash in on a huge market.

Although they are highly useful and increase one’s efficiency at work, the many demerits of the cellular phone are now taking the limelight.

The hot topic of the day is the use of these cellphones in educational institutions. Many educators find it a nuisance to find students in their classroom possessing mobile phones. Educational institutions also have started prohibiting the use of these phones within their campuses. However, as every coin has two sides, even cellphones have their own merits and demerits.

Contacted for comment, Education, Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Senator David Coltart said while there was no set policy inhibiting school children from bringing cellphones to school, school heads had the jurisdiction of banning them if they felt they were disturbing the learning process.

“Currently there is no policy nationally that says students should not bring their cellphones to school, it is however entirely up to the heads to decide if they can allow cellphones or not.

“They can also only intervene if there is a particular incident where students might be disturbing others in class and the cellphones can be taken only as a disciplinary measure,” said Minister Coltart.

The minister said what was key was that these mobile phones do not interfere with the learning curriculum of the student as this was the primary mandate of any education system.

“What we have to appreciate is that a cellphone is a communication device, but over and above everything we should be responsible enough by ensuring that they do not interfere with the primary goal of education,” he said.

Veteran educationist and Zanu-PF secretary for education, Dr Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, said whole it was acceptable that we are living in a global village, it should be appreciated that allowing school children to freely use their mobile phones during lessons disturbed teachers from executing their mandate of teaching.

“As parents we should at least give our children the opportunity to learn thus these mobile phones should not be allowed within school premises as at the end of the day the children end up concentrating on playing with their phones rather than the learning process.

“While I fully agree that a cellphone helps in the basic communication process, our children are no longer using them for this function but use them for self-aggrandisement and other immoral activities which inhibit negatively on the whole education process,” said Dr Ndlovu.

He said that it was well known that communication technology also played a role in the developing of a child especially with the rising technological era.

“I am not saying deprive the children of the gadgets completely because whether we like it nor not they have a huge impact on the growth of the child, we don’t want to produce a generation that is technophobic considering that nowadays you find a five year old freely using the computer or anf of these technological gadgets.

“What I am simply saying is that let’s not interfere with teaching curriculum because we end up depriving our children of a fundamental right, this being of education,” said Dr Ndlovu.

Former vice chancellor of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Professor Phinias Makhurane echoed Dr Ndlovu’s sentiments, saying while it was appreciable that times were fast changing this was not to be used as an excuse to cripple the education system.

“It is a common rule that cellphones must be switched off during lessons so that the teacher is not disturbed, school heads must play a lead role in this aspect.

“Yes, it is good to have cellphones in terms of communication, but they should not disturb the whole education system,” sad Prof Makhurane.

He said it had to be appreciated that at the end of the day mobile phones had their advantages like they gave students the opportunity to research their assignments and further improve their knowledge base.

So as the argument lingers on who’s to blame on these mobile phones finding their way into the classroom, one thing for certain is that after noting the importance of these communication devices the students themselves should be responsible and ensure that they don’t abuse them and use them during lessons, which goes on to affect the education process.

• Magnificent rain – purple skies to match the Jacarandas – Zimbabwe at its finest – hopefully this will now stop the bushfires #
• There is nothing quite like a Zimbabwean thunderstorm at night – stunning lightening and the freshest air the world can offer – spectacular! #
• Tutu consistently gets it right: on apartheid, on Zimbabwe, on the need for principle to trump trade relations as shown re Dalai Lama's visa #
• Having just enjoyed the Zim v Zim coaches battle in the England/India cricket we await the Zim Beast v Zim Pocock battle in Rugby world cup #
• Coldplay in Southern Africa; great that Chris Martin is just over the Limpopo from his roots; hoping for the day when they play in Zimbabwe #
• Zambia's white vice-president hails 'cosmopolitan' new era http://t.co/AtSPdHqG via @guardian #
• Grave containing up to 60 people found at Zimbabwe school http://t.co/NsIdFMbk via @guardian #
• Coltart intervenes in Anglican saga http://t.co/dHk7TucJ #
• Children Still Affected by Zimbabwe's 2005 Eviction Campaign – Amnesty Intn'l http://t.co/Mrjj6iX3 #
• RIP Steve Jobs – the world was changed by his brilliant simplicity #

The Standard

By Navanji Madanhire

9 October 2011

I got the missive below from Marshall Ngwenya a reader from Bulawayo:

Thanks for your piece on litter. I stay in Bulawayo and it’s not any different. I see very beautiful smartly-dressed ladies throwing used tissue-paper on the pavement and they just spoil their outlook. I hope we can change this as a nation.

He was referring to my column last week in which I bemoaned the littering in our cities and on our highways. This little letter from Bulawayo shows that littering is indeed a national problem. But what is heartening is that people who wrote to me and those I socialise with have said they are very willing to make a difference.

Hazel Magumise a senior officer in the Ministry of Trade and Commerce called and urged a national crusade to keep our country clean. Last Sunday morning as I was driving to the shops, the motorist just in front of me threw an empty beer can onto the road. Guess what? I trailed him until he reached his destination.

He was a lovely gentleman and we had a chat. Afterwards he said he realised the foolishness of his habit and would stop it with immediate effect. He would also talk about it with any motorist he saw throwing litter out their window.

But my most heartening experience was the immediate behaviour change by patrons at my local. Whenever they need to smoke they leave the bar; so the bar is now a non-smoking haven. But there is another little problem with this; they are still dropping their stubs on the paths and the lawn. I will kindly ask the proprietors to provide ashtrays and little bins outside the bar.

The other day while driving in town I saw three ladies dressed in immaculate red dresses; they wore gumboots and elbow long gloves. They were cleaning the streets. Obviously, they were too few to cope but it was heart-warming to see that the city fathers are doing something about the litter.

But another thought struck me! What do litterbugs think about these women and men who clean our streets? Do they respect them? Do they see them as human beings who should pride themselves in their jobs? One thing was certain; litterbugs are contemptuous people who think some lesser humans should go around picking after them.

This I think is a remnant of our colonial mentality. During the colonial days street cleaners were contemptuously referred to as scavengers by their white bosses who had a false sense of superiority.

The term in itself used correctly is not scornful. Any dictionary will define scavenging as both a  carnivorous and herbivorous feeding behaviour in which individual scavengers search out dead animal and dead plant biomass on which to feed. Scavengers play an important role in the ecosystem by contributing to the  decomposition of dead animal and plant material.

In Zimbabwe people ignorantly look down upon scavenging animals and birds such as dogs, hyenas, jackals, crows and vultures. The cleaning role they play to our ecosystem is all but forgotten. So during the colonial era when city cleaners were referred to as scavengers people associated them with these scorned animals and birds.

This is what bore the attitude that we can throw our litter and leftovers on the pavements because scavengers will come along and clean after us. It’s a wrong attitude. These women and men are honourable people and they deserve all our respect.

Their job is maintaining the cleanliness of our cities and towns. They work from the assumption that our cities are clean; all they have to do is to maintain the cleanliness. But litterbugs have reversed this thinking; they work from the warped premise that cities must be dirty so that they can be cleaned.

It will take a while to change this attitude because it seems to be ingrained in our collective national psyche. Two ministries must play a key role in banishing this attitude. The ministry responsible for the environment must come to the forefront and lead in the cleanliness crusade. But more importantly the Ministry of Education should see to it that we “catch them early” so to speak and design curricula that emphasise value of a clean environment targeted at children   from grade zero.

Now and again we see the Minister of Environment, Francis Nhema and officials from his ministry, dressed in new dustcoats joining groups that clean our cities for their own selfish marketing purposes. His efforts to lend credibility to these self-serving groups and to himself do not mean a thing if there isn’t a sustainable, practicable national policy on cleaning the environment.

Without education these half-hearted attempts by the minister to convey a message on the environment come to nought. This is why we should see Nhema work closely with David Coltart at the Ministry of Education.

Zimbabwe has recently seen shadowy groups sprouting all over town and involving themselves in activities that disturb public peace. The most notorious of these is Mbare-based Chipangano. We also have youths who call themselves Upfumi Kuvadiki who advocate, through unsavoury means, youth economic empowerment.

Like Chipangano, they have become a law unto themselves. We also have belligerent war veterans associations, particularly the one led by Jabulani Sibanda which is rampaging across the countryside terrorising peace-loving civilians.

What if they transformed themselves into peaceful outfits that began by cleaning the areas in which they live? Mbare would be the cleanest suburb if the Chipangano thugs cleaned it with the same enthusiasm and gusto with which they beat up people.

When I checked the word scavenger on an online encyclopaedia I found the following fascinating:

“A Scavenger can also refer to someone who is a member of scavenger, a group of people who are trying to reduce the amount of waste that they produce by giving away their unwanted/redundant things to other people rather than disposing of them.

Most of them are within the UK but there are members from all over the world. Scavenger is just one of the many groups, that are springing up around the world, involved in the free gifting movement (gift economy).” We should see such groups mushrooming in Zimbabwe; the best place to begin would be in the streets in which we live.

The Herald

By Felex Share

7 October 2011

Government has finished printing eight million textbooks worth US$10 million to be distributed to secondary schools next  month.

This will help Government achieve its target of one textbook per pupil for the six main subjects – Mathematics, English, Science, Geography, History and indigenous languages. Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart yesterday said the first consignment of the textbooks arrived from South Africa on Wednesday night.

The remainder is expected before monthend. About 6,5 million of the textbooks were printed outside Zimbabwe while local companies printed the remainder. Over 13 million primary school textbooks have already been distributed to schools countrywide under the Education Transition Fund.

This is a Government-initiated programme being co-ordinated by Unicef and the donor community. A total of 5 757 primary schools benefited from the fund created two years ago with the aim of mobilising resources for the education sector.

“We will be launching the programme for distribution on November 3 in Harare and the first consignment is already in the country, ready for distribution. The whole printing exercise has been completed.

“We are just waiting for the other consignment to be in the country and the respective schools will get their share. A large number of the books were printed in South Africa and others from other Sadc countries including us (Zimbabwe).”

The textbook to pupil ratio stands at 1:10 at most secondary schools while an estimated 15 percent of schools in rural areas have no textbooks at all. The Government’s target ratio is 1:1 by first term next year. Minister Coltart said the books would go a long way in improving the country’s education standards, especially in the rural areas.

“We have focused on printing books for six main subjects namely Mathematics, English, Science, Geography, History and the indigenous languages,” he said.  “Our country has achieved a lot in terms of education and these are the standards that we should strive to maintain. This is a huge step in the sector because it was disheartening to see more than 10 pupils reading a single textbook. Other rural schools do not have even a single textbook except probably those used by the teacher.

“Rural schools are the ones that are affected most when it comes to shortages and we are going to concentrate more on them.” Minister Coltart commended rural teachers for their commitment to educate pupils under deplorable conditions.

Most rural teachers do not get incentives from parents like their urban counterparts.

He said the Government secured more than US$52 million for the review and reform of the country’s curriculum, which was last done in the 1980s. “The country’s curriculum has not been updated in line with technological advancements,” said Minister Coltart.

Indepdendent

6 October 2011

How many readers have heard of the “Cuban Five”? It would be surprising if you haven’t because the state media in Zimbabwe has given them an inordinate amount of publicity.

The five were arrested in Miami in 1998 and charged with espionage. The five claim they were helpful to the US authorities. Whatever the case, they remain incarcerated in Miami.

According to the Cuban government: “In September 1998 five Cubans were arrested in Miami by FBI agents. Their mission in the US was to monitor activities of groups and organisations responsible for terrorist activities against Cuba.”

The Herald, which carried a sympathetic account of their ordeal last month, reminds us of Cuba’s contribution to Zimbabwe’s “revolutionary principles” and the assistance rendered at the time of Independence in the field of education and medicine.

We will not controvert any of this. Cuba has been generous in its assistance to Southern Africa over the years since the 1960s. But what strikes us as extraordinary is the way states like Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique have done nothing to express solidarity with journalists, writers and civic activists who have been incarcerated in Cuba and left to rot.

There was a brief episode when a handful of writers were released following Pope John Paul’s visit to the island, but the beneficiaries were obliged to seek exile in Spain.

Meanwhile, the Cuban Five’s supporters here complain bitterly that if the five are released they will have to remain in Miami.

The other dimension to this is that supporters of the Cuban Five have never bothered to tell us what they think of activists held in Zimbabwe’s jails. What about the MDC officials who were accused of involvement in killing Cain Nkala, who was suspected of kidnapping David Coltart’s election agent, Patrick Nabanyama.

President Mugabe went to Bulawayo and branded them terrorists. They were subsequently locked up for 21 months after Justice George Chiweshe reversed an order by Justice Lawrence Kamocha who had ruled that the accused could not be indicted for trial. They were, after a marathon trial, acquitted by Justice Sandra Mungwira in August 2004. Fletcher Dulini-Ncube lost the sight of an eye during his detention.

Surely the supporters of the Cuban Five have something to say about this lest the world thinks them hypocrites.

It was amusing to witness the turn of events in Zambia last week. Zanu PF was celebrating what they considered a great victory. This was a kick in the teeth for imperialism. Acres of forests were being chopped down to produce the pulp necessary to send the word that Michael Sata was a friend of Mugabe and an enemy of the MDC. Columnists like Reason Wafawarova were ecstatic.

“Closer home, Michael Sata of Zambia just won an election against the West’s favourite MMD and the win is an emphatic message that indeed imperialism is not invincible,” he crowed.

Life isn’t that simple. One of Sata’s first moves was to tell the Chinese they could do business in Zambia on the same terms as everybody else. They would not receive any favoured treatment from his government, he made clear. And let’s hope the appointment of veteran nationalist Guy Scott as VP sends a clear message to Zimbabwe’s delinquent nationalists that you don’t have to be a racist to be a good patriot!

SW Radio Africa

By Tererai Karimakwenda

6 October, 2011

The ex-communicated Anglican Bishop, Nolbert Kunonga, has struck another blow at the Church Province of Central Africa (CPCA), by serving eviction notices on all the teachers at St Mark’s in Mhondoro, where hundreds of students are due to take exams next week.

False Bishop, Nolbert Kunonga

Reverend Sydney Chirombe told SW Radio Africa that they have been given 48 hours to vacate the premises, or face the embarrassment of forced evictions. “We are in a dilemma right now and do not know where to put our belongings,” Reverend Chirombe said. About 900 students will be affected.

The eviction notices were delivered by a messenger for the deputy sheriff, Kadoma, and signed by Job Zabaya of Chikumbirike Associates. Chirombe said the reason given is that members of the CPCA should not teach in schools belonging to the Church Province of Zimbabwe (CPZ).

Kunonga split from the CPCA in 2007and formed the CPZ, but has failed to gain support from parishioners. He has used a controversial recent court ruling granting him custody of church properties to evict nurses, teachers and clergy from the CPCA, without considering the children and parishioners they serve. Kunonga also has support from Robert Mugabe and the police.

The renegade bishop is also allegedly planning to protest a visit by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who is due in Zimbabwe this weekend as part of his tour of Central Africa. He has requested a meeting with Robert Mugabe. Reports say the Archbishop plans to hold a service in the National Sports Stadium in Harare on Sunday, because Kunonga’s followers would not allow him to use the main Cathedral or other buildings.

The CPCA Harare Diocese is headed by Bishop Chad Gandiya, whose home was targetted by thugs last month in a robbery that was described as “suspicious”. The thieves got away with the family’s laptops and mobile phones.

Meanwhile Zimbabwe’s Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, David Coltart, told SW Radio Africa the evictions were disturbing but he could not intervene because no formal complaints had been received from the affected schools.

Minister Coltart confirmed that he had ordered a detailed investigation into the children and teachers who were evicted by Kunonga’s thugs from church buildings he seized in Murehwa district.