Mugabe Legitimizing Attacks on PM, MDC

(Bloomberg) — Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF is using the state-controlled Herald newspaper to “legitimize an attack on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai,” according to the premier’s Movement for Democratic Change party.

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The Return of a noble cartoonist Victor Chadoka

The Zimbabwe Association (ZA) last week welcomed outstanding cartoonist Victor Chadoka who had spent a long spell of time detained at Haslar Immigration Removal centre in the United Kingdom.

At a Zimbabwe Association drop in session held recently in Leicester,  ZA Convenor of Advisory Committee, activist  and joint Leicester Drop In Centre leader Patson Muzuwa praised Chadoka for his tireless contribution through his artwork  in educating the Zimbabwean community in the UK about the situation back home under the Robert Mugabe/Zanu PF regime.

Chadoka who uses the pseudonym ‘Vic Chad’ has produced cartoons which depict the suffering of the Zimbabwean mass under Mugabe and his Zanu-PF. His work has been widely distributed through out the UK and mostly during Vigil gatherings held every Saturday outside the Zimbabwean Embassy.

He has also produced a DVD called ‘Open letter to Mr. President’ with almost the same theme as his artwork. Right at the end of the video clip, he wishes Mugabe ‘DEAD and BURIED’, which is a sentiment he shares with most Zimbabweans. The DVDs were recently distributed at a Vigil protest.  (Watch related videos on You Tube.)

He has been in detention from March 2008 and was released in December 2010. He has since been attending the vigil gatherings and is an active volunteer at the Zimbabwe Association Leicester Drop-in Centre.

Keeping it in the family

(CNN) — They might have left their countries to earn themselves a living abroad but for millions of Africans their paychecks also provide a lifeline for their families left behind.

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The two opposing faces of Zimbabwe

Power-sharing brought Zimbabwe back from the brink of anarchy, but now fears are growing for what follows when Robert Mugabe finally departs

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Source: The Sunday Telegraph

Home unhomely

Brutal acolytes sustaining
Politicians scheming
Greedy and unethical leadership
Blind and docile followers toil
Fractured dissent sleeps
Multiple silent lips talk

Wailing widows
Hungry crying toddlers
Raped pregnant sisters
Armed militant brothers
Toiling moiling mothers
Jobless penniless fathers
Homeless displaced
Starving pensioners
Traumatised lot
Laughing hyenas even

Media parroting propaganda
Courts discharging injustice and injunctions
Unyielding securocrats
Empty barracks
Armoured tanks in motion along Samora Machel Avenue
Hungry soldiers with loaded machine guns parading at Stodart Hall in Mbare
Empty camps
Police in the neighbourhood maintaining disorder
Riot army in gear
Some on horse backs, some in Mercedes, others on foot
Running and leading the marathon of violence
Sweating and swelling eyeballs in the fog of teargas
Coward innocents

Listening to the music of gunfire
The hapless and hopeless taking-in asthmatic breadths of gunpowder
Broken homes, broken bones, missing limbs, hurried burials
Roaming, restless spirits, unappeased
Mobile phone farmers, exiled labour
Exported skills, vegetables overgrown, earth unwatered, barren lands
Empty silos, unpacked shelves,  specified companies, unsellable minerals
Swindled banks, worthless currency, unfed stomachs, morgues overflowing
Countless graves, meaningless consoles
A nation in mourning
A nation at war with dear self
Our home unhomely Zimbabwe

Written jointly by Chinofunga Ndoga and Tendai Gakanje who both are human right activists with ROHR (Restoration of Human Rights Zimbabwe) Yorkshire branch

URC in Easter protest over Zimbabwe peace prayer service attack

(Ekklesia) Representatives of the United Reformed Church have expressed their anger and concern at the news of the violent disruption of an ecumenical prayer service for peace at a church in Harare by Zimbabwean police earlier this month (April 2011).

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Rugby Player Tackles Social Needs in Zimbabwe

WELLINGTON — David Pocock is used to tackling things head-on. It is part and parcel of being a world-class rugby player.

But the drive and passion the 22-year-old displays on the field for the Western Force in Super Rugby and for the Australian national team is just as evident in his quest to alleviate inequality and poverty in Zimbabwe.

Pocock grew up in Zimbabwe, but when he was 14, his family moved to Brisbane, Australia, after their farm was seized during President Robert Mugabe’s land grabs, which saw white farmers forced from their land.

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Church calls for end to violence

Church leaders in Zimbabwe have called for an end to escalating political violence and the “hate language” fuelling it as elections approach and the nation slides deeper into a political crisis.

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Bodies Removed From Mass Grave

Source: Inter Press Service

“War veterans” associated with the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party have exhumed at least a thousand decomposing bodies from an abandoned mine in Mount Darwin, 100 … [read more]

Returns to Zimbabwe resume – Refugee Council response

The government yesterday announced they would resume returning refused asylum seekers to Zimbabwe, following a judgment from the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal that said there was no evidence that those being returned were generally at risk from harm.

In response, Donna Covey, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council said:

“We are concerned the government has announced they will begin returning refused asylum seekers to Zimbabwe, amidst reports of government unrest in the country. We are nevertheless encouraged the UKBA has pledged to consider each case to ensure individuals are not under personal threat of persecution if returned to Zimbabwe, and that they will take the circumstances of individuals who have been living in the UK into account.

“Life has been extremely tough for a number of Zimbabwean asylum seekers here. Without formal permission to stay in the UK while the situation in their country remained unsafe, and without any support, they have been unable to play a full part in UK society and have been forced to live in limbo in the UK for years. We therefore strongly urge the government to put the interests of this group of people first.

“The government must firstly continue to closely monitor the turbulent situation in the country so they can be sure they are not putting people’s lives at risk by sending them back. We also urge the government to make a further pledge to offer support to the people they have returned and to monitor their safety while in Zimbabwe – this is essential, not only to ensure people have not been sent to further harm, but so they can be sure resuming returns to the country was the right decision.”

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