Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

So, here's this little interesting story in The Herald today . Some joker, a serial rapist, apparently, raped three young women while out on bail for another spate of rapes in Glen View, a high-density township of Harare. But what tickles the fancy and provokes the question in the header is this: The boyfriend or husband of the victim was with her when the rapist attacked. And in each of the three incidents, the husband or boyfriend RAN AWAY or "escaped", as the papers put it. All three times. So, no chivalrous grappling with the rapist (who, admittedly wielded an axe) while shouting to your hon' to run away and call the police? Instead, turn tail and leave the woman to her devices? If it had happened once, as Oscar Wilde would put it, that would have been unfortunate. But three times? You see a pattern here?

Carlos Mambosasa and Wisdom Nzvimbo are two Zimbabweans living and sleeping rough in South Africa. They are seen here in Cape Town on June 8 2009 with all their possessions at the spot where they sleep out in the open every night in the South African city. They went to SA in search of jobs, trying to use their skills to sustain their families back home, where opportunities are being denied skilled people unless their politics are "correct" The US Congress Resolution on Zimbabwe, issued this last week, bemoaned the fact that "many of the reform-minded individuals within the new transitional government are limited by a severe lack of qualified personnel and material resources." This was after one of the Congressmen from the States physically came to Zimbabwe and met with The Solution as well as the Prime Minister and others. He saw for himself the severe constraints that hamper government efforts. First amongst these constraints is the fact that the MDCs lack any poli...

Starving villagers like the ones receiving handouts here destroyed 40acres of maize crop in a feud over the pasture fields This latest news from Zimbabwe would be funny if it were not so tragic. Apparently, villagers in the Uzumba rural areas of Zimbabwe have destroyed 40 acres of maize (corn) crop by driving cattle into the fields and letting them eat up the staple cereal. Uzumba, as most Zimbabwe will instantly recognise, is Mugabe's pride and joy, the area in the whole of Zimbabwe that gives him by far the most votes in every single election. Previously known as Uzumba-Marambapfungwe, the area was split in 2007 by Mugabe's government to create three constituencies of Uzumba and Maramba and Pfungwe in his most glaring and self-serving act gerrymandering. This was in an effort by Mugabe to create more seats in parliament for his party. And sure enough, he won the areas adding three seats where he would previously have had only one. Anyway, these ZANU PF villagers, from the vil...

Two businessmen have been sentenced to death in China over the baby milk scandal of last year. The two, executives of the Sanlu Group, will certainly be executed within the next three months. Tian Wenhua, a female manager at the same company, got a life sentence. China's penal code is extremely stringent and calls for death sentences in cases of financial fraud, corruption and a host of other offences. Very rarely do those condemned to death get a reprieve.   There is a lesson for Zimbabwe in this story.   And it is this: it has been proven time and again that societies like Zimbabwe end up voluntarily turning to dictators.  In societies where there is rampant financial indiscipline, a huge wealth gap and in which the rules of democracy are bent in order to facilitate profiteering and cheating, the population has always been quick to embrace authoritarianism and dictatorship if it turns brutally against this profiteering and greed. There is this stupid misconception you hear ...

We, Zimbabweans in and outside the country, should feel shame at scenes like these. These children and their parents have to scrounge around the edges of dangerous tarred highways, picking up single kernels of corn off the ground in order to have a meal. If this does not show us that all our so-called leaders have  abandoned our people, then I don't know what will. As you do your christmas shopping, remember that more than ninety percent of our citizens are being held hostage not only by Mugabe, but by the world. The world says we "will not come in there with aid until you go" and Mugabe says, "I will not go until you admit you are wrong and say sorry for everything."