- Dear Family and Friends,
-
- The propaganda in Zimbabwe has reached new boundaries
in the last fortnight. First it was the mercenaries and their bolt cutters
that made headline news every night and still appear on virtually every
television bulletin. Now it is the BBC documentary on Zimbabwe's youth
training camps. Day after day ZBC have vehemently denied any wrong doing
in Zimbabwe's youth training programme. They deny the allegations exposed
in the film, deny rape, instruction in torture, human rights violations
and victimization of supporters of the political opposition. Unbelievably
this week, ZBC even flighted the entire BBC documentary here in Zimbabwe
and then followed it with a point by point denial of every millimetre of
the film. At the end of this "critique" on what was advertised
as BBC's "fiction", the ZBC presenter challenged the documentary
producers to prove their story, but this challenge was not accompanied
by a removal of the three year ban which has prohibited the BBC from entering
or reporting from inside Zimbabwe. Despite the fact that one of the women
being interviewed in the documentary is described as being a youth camp
deserter now in hiding in South Africa, ZBC announced triumphantly on Friday
that she was an actor. They said she was outside the country and offered
as proof the mountains and ocean behind her. Presumably this little gem
was intended for those of us who have not yet realised that Zimbabwe is
a landlocked country!
-
- A week of propaganda reached dizzy heights on Friday
morning when the headline news on ZBC radio was that political anlaysts
have described the documentary as part of Britain's plan to control the
world. It seems to have completely escaped the notice of the state media
and all their political commentators and analysts that the opposition have
been calling for the closure of the youth training camps for two years.
Also ignored by ZBC was the announcement by a grouping of Zimbabwe's former
war veterans yesterday. Quoted in the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, the
President of the Liberator's Peace Initiative said that they too had interviewed
deserters from the youth training camps. Max Mnkandla said that what they
have established "is exactly what was highlighted in the BBC programme."
-
- The propaganda presently suffocating Zimbabwe about mercenaries
and British Plots to take over the world have done nothing to help cloud
the real issues consuming Zimbabweans this week. We are again a country
crippled without petrol. The capital city still has some fuel queues but
in smaller towns like Marondera there is nothing to even queue for. We
are also a country gripped by panic about the safety of our money in banks
which are collapsing, being closed or going into receivership. This week
I have met three people who had their life savings in a building society
which used to be called Founders before it was taken over by a bigger company.
That company has been closed and the money belonging to ordinary men and
women is lost, savings are gone and no one knows who to turn to for help
or how to survive. Recently an American writer on matters Zimbabwean said
that what had frightened her was to see how much people here bend as the
situation deteriorates. We bend, and bend and then bend some more and surely
the point must come when, like a green stick, eventually we will break?
-
- Until next week, with love, cathy.
-
- Copyright cathy buckle 27th March 2004. http://africantears.netfirms.com
My books on the Zimbabwean crisis, "African Tears" and "Beyond
Tears" are available outside Africa from: orders@africabookcentre.com
; www.africabookcentre.com ; www.amazon.co.uk ; in Australia and New
Zealand: johnmreed@johnreedbooks.com.au ; Africa: www.kalahari.net www.exclusivebooks.com
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