Is there Change coming or not?

Jestina Mukoko and three other activists close to death from their incarceration in Zimbabwe's prisons have been admitted to a private hospital for treatment of their injuries and an opportunity to restore their health but little is being said publicly about their current state.

As for the rest, they remain in detention, including Roy Bennet. Not only Roy Bennet, but we are also told, ‘Jumbo’ Davidson who drove Bennet to the airport on Friday the 13th is reported to have been arrested and placed in police custody. Bennet has had one of his ‘crimes’ dropped – that of ‘attempting to leave the country illegally’ when it was proved that he presented himself to an immigration officer before his attempted departure. So why Davidson should be arrested for driving him to the airport is a complete mystery. Well, not a mystery really, it is yet another act of spite committed by spiteful people.

Now it is being suggested that the arrest of Roy Bennet and the continued detention of the MDC activists are being used as ‘bargaining chips’ for the new ‘inclusive government’ to provide a complete amnesty for crimes committed by the ZANU PF regime in the preceding 10 or more years. Bennet has reportedly said he will remain in detention and stand trial rather than that this should happen. Yet Morgan Tsvangirayi is reported to have told an audience yesterday, Sunday, that there is a ‘need for national reconciliation’ to heal the wounds of the past and go forward. What exactly does he mean? If he means ‘reconciliation’ of past differences then let it be, but if it means amnesty for some of the most horrific crimes that have ever been committed by man against man – and here I include the crimes of the holocaust – then it should never be. People who brutally kill, maim and torture other people because of their political differences, and are provided with impunity for their acts by a sitting government, must now stand trial in a Court of Law. If that does not happen, the crimes will happen again.

And we still have farm invasions taking place. In the last week some 40 farms are reported to have been invaded and the owners dispossessed of everything they own. The victims now are those who sought a SADC court to intervene in their plight – and the SADC court found in the farmers favour. Now those same farmers whom the SADC court found were entitled to remain on their farms, are being attacked by this same ZANU PF government who have yet to learn that life is changing.

Or is it that we who think that life is changing are yet to learn that it isn’t?