More than you ever wanted to know about Grif's time in Zim

Just when you think it couldn’t happen, Zimbabwe sinks further into the absurd. This week the government began accusing a really terrific group, the Amani Trust, of harboring terrorists in safe houses around the country. It’s staggering. Amani Trust was created to care for victims of torture -- and Zimbabwe has hundreds of thousands of torture victims. The Trust provides counseling services, medical care, and housing for people forced to flee their homes because of political violence. The number of people who have been run out of their homes is anywhere from 40,000 by the most conservative estimates and 800,000 on the outer edge. And what since Zimbabwe is suffering though a food shortage -- the World Food Program says 500,000 people face starvation in the next six months -- when people flee their homes, their fields and leave behind whatever food stocks they have, they’re battling to stay alive.

Amani Trust also provides what for me has been an essential service, indocumenting the political violence. They have become the only reliable source of information on exactly how bad things in Zimbabwe have gotten.

From the government’s point of view, this is the worst thing they could do. So with the new security bill, the home affairs minister announced yesterday in parliament that Amani’s safe houses would now be under police surveillance. Anyone found to be harboring “terrorists” will be arrested.

That also goes for the independent media. After warning Amani Trust, John Nkomo rattled off a list of recent newspaper stories that would be prosecutable under the new security bill. Now my favorite pass-time is counting how many offenses each of my stories could contain, and what the possible penalties might be.

All of which fires up even more the argument for getting of Zimbabwe for a while. After the media bill passes, maybe today, maybe next week, it will become impossible to do any meaningful work without breaking a law. None of us in the office sees any merit in sticking around, only to be told at a moment’s notice that we’re being deported, or to face arrest. So now the little wheels in my mind are spinning overtime thinking about moving to Jo’burg, even if it’s only for a few weeks. Collectively, the foreign correspondents plan to file a Supreme Court challenge against the media bill, which would bar foreigners from working in Zimbabwe full-time. In all likelihood the court will decide not to hear the case immediately, so we’ll have to go. Nothing pisses off the government more than having to go to court to answer for their abuses, so I imagine we’ll be extremely unwelcome after that.

posted by Griffin Shea at 8:47 AM

Wow, what a delay in writing. Here's a few stray bits I've been assembling and neglected to toss up here. This is from the Dec 24-30 trip to Zambia for general elections.

I never realize the subtle stress we live with in Zimbabwe until I leave Zimbabwe. This time in Zambia, from the little I’d seen and heard before, I’d envisioned Lusaka as this smaller, poorer, dirtier version of Harare. That was true in many ways, but somehow walking and driving through Lusaka’s neighborhoods was still less depressing than here.
Certainly Lusaka’s open sewers were a fright. In the outlying townships, few of the roads were paved. Some neighborhoods conceivably had never had any garbage collection. Driving even in a 4x4 was like skiing through the moguls, except you were slicing through mud and trash instead of fresh snow. At the polling centers we visited, not all of them had electricity or appropriate window lighting, so people had to mark their ballots by candlelight. In Lusaka, people only got to mark a ballot after waiting for hours in lines that wound percariously among the potholes, which were often bloated with water and trash and large enough for small children to swim in. Even in the upmarket neighborhoods, people stood for hours in line, to the point where polling hours were extended through the night and into the next morning to accommodate everyone who wanted to vote.
In all of that, the only disturbances were occasional reprimands for people who cut in line, and they were dealt with quickly and put back in their place with minimal fuss. Police were understandably overwhelmed by the experience, especially as the electoral officials had expected a low turnout and instead got a very high one. Despite spending hours on their feet managing the lines, police were friendly and helpful throughout the day. The only roadblock I saw was on the highway connecting the airport to town. Even in the Holiday Inn shuttle bus that took us from the airport to the hotel, I found myself sucking in my breath in anticipation of the hassle to come. But there was no hassle, just a wave and we drove through.
That’s not to say that the police were all charm. When I dropped out photographer Yoav at the airport for his flight to Jo’burg, he wanted to stop under the trees in front of the terminal so he could file his photos from the shade and still get a signal on his sat phone. After I dropped him off, the curbside cop flagged me down, made me park and too me and Dickson to the little airport police station to explain why I had parked illegally.
Since we all had press accreditation, it was no problem. Accreditation! I’ve gotten used to thinking of it as unnecessary, since I haven’t had a valid press card in Zimbabwe for the last two months. When I went to get my card renewed in October, I was told that as a matter of policy, the information ministry was not giving out press cards until the new media law takes effect. They insisted that my old press card would continue to be valid, but I haven’t been brave enough to press my luck with it. Since I’m rarely allowed to cover any government functions anymore, it hasn’t been a major hurdle.
So when I arrived in Zambia, I just hadn’t thought very hard about how to get press accreditation, which would allow me to enter the polling stations and gives me something to show the authorities if they wonder why I’m always poking around and talking to people in the lines. Realizing a little late that the press card would be good to have, we all showed up at the Electoral Commission, after hours ever, and in about 10 minutes our little crew of four had filled out the paperwork (name, organization, and nationality was about all they asked for), had our picture taken and been issued with smart little plastic press cards. Not even a fee -- and to think I’ve spent US$300 on press card in the 18 months I’ve been in Zimbabwe, only to have accreditation taken away in the end.
But the most amazing thing was talking to people waiting to vote, or coming out of the polls. No one was scared. Everyone was willing to talk. Everyone was convinced that by casting their ballots, they could change their lives in Zambia. People who supported different parties lined up next to each other, and could disagree about their politics but still carry on a conversation and laugh and shake hands. During the by-election in Bindura, no one would speak to me on the record, for fear the war vets would single them out for further beatings. One elderly man, who said he actually was a veteran of the liberation war, was willing to talk about he and his friends were beaten on the doorstep to a bottle store. Then he saw one his attackers pass by a window and he apoligized and left immediately.
At the political rallies on the last day of campaigning in Zambia, politicians could deride their opponents, without using phrases like “terrorist” or “Rhodesian relic.” No talk of war or eliminating the opposition. No absurd comments about carrying on the fight against non-existent colonial forces. Instead the speeches were about fighting corruption in government, luring foreign investment and boosting local businesses, how to improve agriculture, promises to scrap school fees and lower medical costs -- things that regular people think about in their everyday life.
Regardless of whose rally it was, the atmosphere was lively and energetic, not deadened and mechanical like the ZANU-PF rallies I’ve been to. Nor was it slightly on edge and always on guard like at the MDC rallies. No heavily armed police patrolling around. No teargas canisters waiting to be fired.
Even after the election, when the results were coming out and opposition supporters felt defrauded, the protest was fairly normal and healthy. When the protesters got out of hand and started strorming into the High Court, the police did fire a ton of teargas, and pushed the crowd back shields and sometimes with batons. But no live fire. No one was shot. No one was killed. No one reported excessive or brutal force, even after the protesters started stoning the police. The intense security surrounding the presidential inauguration may have been an overreaction, but no more so than the security surrounding a NATO summit or a G-7 meeting.
The ruling party did manage to stay in power in Zambia, but the only certain thing about how it stayed in power is that it mostly won through legitimate political means. Chiluba played the opposition so well that it split apart. Ten opposition parties contested the election. If they had managed to see past their own egos and form an alliance, the opposition would have easily won. No, the vote counting was not as transparent as it should have been. But why would the ruling party need to rig the vote when the opposition had already ensured Chiluba’s victory by splintering apart? He won the election for his successor by playing off his rivals egos.
Think of Zimbabwe, where the ruling party uses beatings and rape as tools of political persuassion. State-sponsored gangs in paramilitary gear roam the streets in the townships, beating and looting as they please. The police stand by and watch. If anyone gets arrested, it’s the frustrated opposition supporters who eventually do get tired of being beaten and fight back. The only ego at play in Zimbabwe is Mugabe’s.

posted by Griffin Shea at 9:17 PM

Finally, I've learned to create a link to the not-very-good scan of the political cartoon from July, when the state-run paper took a not-very-good poke at the foreign press for covering the pre-election violence in Bindura.

Today it's a quiet weekend, which is a blessing after the last week. We've had a strange cold snap -- apparently it was snowing yesterday in Johannesburg! Trey and Nicole and I went out for dinner last night and had the absolute best pizza I've had in Zimbabwe. Small glories...
posted by Griffin Shea at 12:27 PM

Like everyone else, my last few days have been swallowed by the attacks in New York and Washingon. I was with a few dozen journalists at a hotel here, waiting for a regional summit to end, when the phones started ringing to say a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Most of us thought from that first call that a plane had really just knicked one of the towers, brushed by an antenna on the roof, maybe rattled some windows. Then a few minutes later there was another call, and then another, and another, each time with details more shocking and unbelievable than before. Experiencing it from so far away, what amazes me in retrospect is that it was such an intensely personal and an incomprhensibly big thing, for the initial thoughts to some simultaneously "Where is Dad today?" and "Are we at war?"

After the first tower collapsed, Stephane and I went back to the office. In theory it was time to file our evening stories on the summit, but once we were in front of the satellite images on CNN and BBC, it was impossibly to work. We watched the second tower fall, watched the Pentagon burn, and on our computers read through a mountain of details pouring in from our bureaus in America. The next day we learned that things were happening with such urgency in such rapid succession that our computers, like everyone else's, actually choked on the news and struggled to keep moving. I started calling around to see where everyone was. The office said Dad had already made it to Houston from Washington, which was a relief. He called a short while later to say he was all right, so that was comfort to me.

Getting through to New York was impossible for several hours, but I eventually found Candida at home. Armed guards were patrolling in front of her building, one of the high-rise Trump buildings on the river. She said she had woken up from a nightmare that someone was trying to kill her, to turn on the television and see the Pentagon in flames. It took several minutes for the TV to turn back to New York, for her to realize that what had happened across town. She said she was going to stay home, and that she thought all our common friends were safe. When she went to check her mail in her building's lobby, she said everyone she saw looked like a zombie, walking around in a trance.

In Harare, walking around -- or talking around more precisely -- for me has been like living in funeral parlor. Everyone who hears my accent or who knows where I'm from stops me to offer condolences or sympathies, to express their outrage. Even in Zimbabwe, people will be affected personally. The Zimbabwean ambassador said on the radio that five Zimbabweans worked in the towers and have not been heard from yet, and a Zimbabwean engineer was employed at the Pentagon, though apparently was no longer based there. Our stories say that among the people known to be missing are South Africans, Germans, Irish and Canadians, and certainly many other from many other countries.

Beyond the personal loss is a feeling shared here that the world has suddenly changed in a way that is as yet unclear, that the strings of the web on which we all interact across the world have been restrung, but no one can make out the pattern.
posted by Griffin Shea at 10:05 AM

Have to apologize to everyone for being a bit out of touch. The Internet hasn't been working right here for the last three weeks, so it's been incredible difficult to send and receive email and to get on the Web. They keep telling us it will be fixed soon, but they said that three weeks ago, so...

Trey got here on Aug 21, and the house has been full of joy ever since! Actually, it was full of Trey's jet lag for two days, and then full of Grif's sinuses for another few, so on Sunday we finally had a nice day out where we were both reasonably alert and awake. We went down to the lake outside town. Trey took pictures of the lions at the sanctuary there. They're wild, but they're mostly orphans and it's not a real game park, just a big space for the orphans to live. They get fed instead of hunting, and you can drive around and find them pretty easily, so you can get really close, which is cool. The cheetah apparently was a new arrival, so it wasn't very cooperative. But it was beautiful to watch it run. They also have a zoo, which is a very sad little place. After that we went to the lake shore, had a little writing, a little BBQ, a little sun, saw the kids running around and messing up their Sunday clothes...fun for everyone.
posted by Griffin Shea at 9:58 AM

Malawi turned out to be about as much pleasure as work. We spent most of the week waiting, waiting for the summit to begin, waiting for the summit to end, waiting for Kabila to arrive, waiting for Kabila to leave.

Blantyre has one of these tiny airports. The airport restaurant opens onto a terrace overlooking the runway. Outside there was a permanent grandstand and a speaker box with a microphone. Felix says that Banda used to have a crowd assembled there every time he entered and left the country, and would address the crowd on his way in and out. Now they had singers and dancers and a giant red carpet for all the leaders arriving and departing. Lots of special SADC cloth was printed for the occasion, and a few of the groups of dancing women had cloth with the UDF logo on it, or Muluzi. While we were waiting for the summit’s opening ceremony, by the best group had created a special song and dance for the summit incorporating the names of all 14 member nations and their leaders. It’s got to be tough to write a song using the phrase “Democratic Republic of Congo,” but they did. What’s amazing to me is that none of the pangeantry celebrating Malawi as host actually celebrated Malawi as a nation or a people. It all represented Muluzi as the president, or the UDF as the ruling party. That gets me irritated so often in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe and the ruling party act as if they are the nation, instead of the nation’s elected leadership -- as if he actually is the presidency rather than the president.

The summit itself was pretty dull. No body could say what was happening inside the presidents’ meeting. Everyone asked us about Zimbabwe, and what we thought was going to happen. The Zimbabwean guys lied to us right up to the last minute, saying that Zimbabwe was never discussed, or at least not as a problem spot, when the summit’s final communique said exactly the opposite -- they even set up a task force to help Zimbabwe deal with its economic and political problems, and even an hour before they insisted.

Summit aside, Malawi is a beautiful place. We drove to the lake for a day -- originally we had two days there, but we had to run back to Blantyre for Kabila’s arrival. The lake is enormous, the ninth largest in the world, and almost completely undeveloped. We stayed at a resort-type hotel, but it only had space for about 60 people. (The best part was that an Italian guy named Bizarro owned it). There was another one about the same size, and a few camp grounds, and that’s it. Backpackers go to the northern end of the lake from Tanzania, but Felix said that’s pretty much the whole of it. When Banda was running the country, he was one of the few guys around who openly kept good ties with the apartheid government in South Africa, so the hotel staff said they used to get lots of South African tourists who couldn’t travel anywhere else because of sanctions. Now that that’s over, hardly anyone goes there anymore. It felt a little like travelling in Zimbabwe (where you’re all alone everwhere you go), except without the political uncertainty.

I had trouble understanding exactly why Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. They make good gin and hot sauce, grow nice coffee, tea and tobacco. It seems like any one of those would be enough to power the economy of a small country. I understand that Banda wasn’t really keen on development, but still.

Banda was quite big on nice palaces and fancy cars. I have to say something about Kabila makes me swoon a little, if I block out the bit about him being without any real mandate from his people. But while these other guys are driving around in their limos, Kabila was in one of Banda’s red Rolls Royce convertibles, standing in the back, waving to the people on the street. He doesn’t yack on and on (at least not in public), which as a journalist is a blessing. Some South African magazine called him Africa’s most eligible bachelor -- he’s 30 years old, speaks at least three languages, and he runs a mineral-rich country the size of Western Europe. Too bad we never got to speak to him. Followed the guy around for two days and never got a chance to ask a question. And Margie wanted me to get his phone number for her.

Blantyre was a lot smaller and a good bit poorer than Harare, but it was a lot prettier. The city straddles the hills that seem to run up the country’s spine, which gave it a very tranquil feeling. Granted, not all the roads are paved and malaria is a problem in town because the sewers aren’t all closed, but looks have to count for something.

The last night we stayed at this old colonial house that had been turned into a bed and breakfast. It just reminded me how much I really need 20-foot ceiling and seven-foot doorways.

Felix says he gets malaria two or three times a year, but he acts like it’s the flu. You start to feel sick, you go to the doctor, get some meds, it knocks you down for a day and then you get better. I guess if you get diagnosed early it’s manageable. He very graciously invited me and Stephane to his home for dinner on our last night in town. It turns out his wife grew up on an island in the lake, and that she’s Tonga, which I just thought was hugely interesting. There’s not that many Tonga people, and then to grow up on an island on this undeveloped lake, wow. She says it takes her two days to get home, between the the drive and the boat ride, so she only goes home every few years. The main highway in Malawi was pretty good, but I can see why it would take her so long to get there. Bicycles are everywhere -- really along the entire highway. Most of Malawi’s population is rural, so everyone is scattered through the whole country, and lots of people are getting around on bikes. And you’ve just never seen so many different things strapped onto a bike. One guy had six wicker arm chairs on the back, another had all his chickens in a basket. People had big bundles of sugar cane and firewood, suitcases, trunks, passengers, cases of Coke, you name it.

The lakefront gave me my first experience with waterborne vendors. I was walking along the beach when all of a sudden half a dozen men paddling on surfboards swarmed around me, hawking their handmade personalized keychains and other tchotchkes. Gotta admire the resourcefulness.

The Blantyre airport was the first time I’ve been asked to identify my luggae before getting on the plane. We checked it in, went to the departure lounge, waited for a long time, and then a uniformed man came around and asked who had checked in luggage. We had to go outside and point out which bags were ours before they would load the bags onto the plane.
posted by Griffin Shea at 12:30 PM

The power went off just after the news ended at 9 p.m. At first I thought that would leave me with a very 19h century evening by candlelight with my book, but then it turns out the laptop's battery was fully charged, and since the phone lines are still up I can sit here and surf the Web by candlelight instead. The burglar alarm runs on a battery, which is comforting since the entire neighborhood seems to have lost power, but if this continues through morning it'll be a hassle to open the electric gate to the driveway. We rarely have power cuts in this neighborhood (I think we're on the same grid as the police headquarters), but a lot of Zimbabwe has had rolling brownouts for almost two years because the government has spent all its money in the Congo and doesn't have enough left to pay for electricity. What a place. Still, the candles are nice once in a while.
posted by Griffin Shea at 9:30 PM