IN TWO WEEKS’ TIME, at a luxury hotel in Scotland, Tony Blair will sit down to dinner with President Mbeki of South Africa, an unashamed ally and apologist of the monstrous Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. As the two leaders wine and dine in Gleneagles, Robert Mugabe’s riot police will be engaged on their brutal and systematic mission to destroy the homes and livelihoods of some of the poorest people in Africa.
How can Mr Blair talk blithely of making poverty history when African leaders led by Thabo Mbeki allow such atrocities to continue unchallenged on their doorstep? The South African President must take huge responsibility for the terror and humanitarian disaster which I have seen over the past week in Zimbabwe.
I write this from Harare, my fury overflowing after days of avoiding police roadblocks and witnessing the terrible scenes left behind in towns and villages destroyed by Mugabe’s Operation Murambatsviva, or Drive Out Rubbish, a violent programme that can be likened to Pol Pot’s. This week as we drove towards Killarney, a sprawling settlement on the outskirts of Bulawayo, rumours were spreading that Mugabe’s henchmen were about to extend their crackdown from the vendors and informal traders in the city centre to the outlying settlements.
Sure enough, the roads are full of trucks with units of police and shaven-headed youth militia drafted in to carry out the destruction ordered by Zanu-PF’s high command. My heart pounds as we take diversions to avoid checkpoints and plainclothes agents loitering on the streets. Eventually we gain a vantage point and look down on a grotesque scene of burning houses spread out across the landscape. Plumes of smoke rise from blazing thatch where houses had stood among meagre patches of withered maize stalks. I can see teams of police clubbing the mud walls and throwing corrugated iron sheets to the ground.
That night I am filled with guilt and anger at my utter helplessness, mixed with shame that, although it has provided aid for the people of Zimbabwe, my Government has continued to back the useless “silent diplomacy” of Mr Mbeki.
Early next morning I return to Killarney with a team of church and civil society activists to offer help in moving families to a place of safety. It is an emotional experience to join this small group of brave local people who, despite the intimidation and fuel shortages, bring their own vehicles to carry a few desperate families away from their homes. Shell-shocked mothers are gathering up what remains of their earthly possessions, in most cases a few enamel pots and a mattress. Near by, dozens of tiny children sit, quietly traumatised.
Perpetua Mpofu, a grandmother and partially blind, begs me to arrange transport for the few belongings that she and her husband had managed to save when the police arrived. “They told us they will come back with dogs and horses tomorrow if we have not gone,” she says. I help her clamber on to a truck as she leaves her home of 25 years. There is a moment of comic chaos when another woman, Khanyisela, refuses to leave with her three children until together we catch her chickens, her most valuable possessions.
In the maze of narrow streets of Makokoba, Bulawayo’s oldest township, I see armed police, in riot gear and vivid blue helmets, intimidating families who have been ordered to knock down their own homes. Angry young men ask me what the opposition Movement for Democratic Change can do to protect them from the regime. The years of repression are finally pushing them to consider defiant action.
As a tiny gesture of support I buy bananas from a brave vendor who has returned to set up her stall amid the ashes of the once-thriving market, which was officially licensed by Bulawayo city council. “They’ve gone too far this time,” she whispers.
At the largest store the shelves have been empty for weeks of staples such as flour, cooking oil and soap. Near by I speak to a young man, his bicycle piled high with boxes. Obert gulps nervously as he tells me that his only income since leaving school has been from roadside vending. Last week armed police ransacked his pitch and confiscated his entire stock.
I was driven north to Harare by a man who as a youth had fought for the liberation of Zimbabwe. Today my friend is still risking his life to free Zimbabwe. Passing through the towns of Gweru and Kwe Kwe we see an endless trail of destruction. The noisy banter and bustle of a typical African market are gone: the pitches are deserted, with the odd mangled wire or plastic bag fluttering in the wind.
Whenever a roadblock appears I freeze and dread being unmasked as a former minister in the British Government, but my companion knows every ruse to avoid detection and we arrive safely in Harare. The poorer suburbs of the city have been bulldozed by Mugabe’s storm troops leaving acres of flattened concrete — the remains of the bustling workshops and the thousands of solidly built houses razed to the ground, their contents destroyed and lives ruined.
As I prepare to slip out of the country I try to focus on what action must be demanded of the outside world. The humanitarian need in the country is overwhelming. Zimbabwe was already a country staring disaster in the face. Now, with nearly a million people displaced, most without shelter or the means of earning a living, the situation is becoming a catastrophe.
The African Union must demand that the International Red Cross and United Nations relief agencies are given unrestricted access to Zimbabwe to deal with the internal refugee and food crisis, as they would in any other disaster situation.
The organisers of Live 8 must urge the millions of people who will enjoy the concerts on July 2 to demand that politicians attending the G8 summit get their heads out of the sand and push Zimbabwe’s plight to the top of their Africa agenda.
Mr Mbeki’s presence at the G8 summit in July is a reward for promising to tackle Africa’s blight of bad governance, corruption and human rights abuses. Disgracefully, he has rallied most of Africa’s leaders in wilful denial that anything is amiss in Zimbabwe and has repeatedly blocked attempts at the UN to address the country’s appalling human rights record.
Instead of looking forward to a convivial dinner of fine food and wine, Mr Blair should be insisting that the South African President condemns the excesses of Mugabe’s regime. If he won’t, the invitation to the Gleneagles summit should be withdrawn.
Kate Hoey is Labour MP for Vauxhall
