Zimbabwe - Then They Came For Me
From Cathy Buckle
cbuckle@zol.co.zw
9-21-2003

Dear Family and Friends,

Zimbabwe is gripped in a feverish state of indecision
and panic and no one has any answers to the question
we are all asking: what do we do about our money?

The banks, building societies and ATM's continue to have
no bank notes to give to their customers and the queues
of people waiting for money are still crowding the
pavements and spilling out into the streets. When a rumour
circulates that a bank has received a delivery of cash,
hundreds of people run to the doors in huge crowds hoping
that they will be able to draw out a few thousand dollars
to survive for another day.

This has been going on for two months and the cash flow
situation has not improved at all even though our
Minister of Finance has told us that our present red 500
dollar note will cease to be legal tender at the end of
September.

The Minister also assures us that a new 500 dollar note
of another colour will be issued but it has not been
released less than 10 days before the end of the month
and we are all wondering what on earth to do now.

If people pay wages on the last day of the month using
red five hundred dollar notes how will their workers be
able to spend them if they are no longer legal tender?
There is no way of changing the red notes either for the
new colour note or for money in smaller denominations
because there is a chronic shortage of that as well.

The option is for employers to pay their wages a few days
before the end of the month but this doesn't solve anything
either because then employees have the same problem.

Do the employees spend their entire monthly wage on things
that they don't actually need just to get rid of the money
or do they keep the notes hoping that the Minister of
Finance will extend the life of the red note? It is confusing,
chaotic and we are all pathetically asking each other what
to do with our remaining notes instead of demanding a
solution from our government.

The Minister seems to be completely unaware of the massive
crisis now facing every man and woman in the country who
is struggling to survive an official inflation rate which
this week hit 426%.

A month ago the Minister told us we were to use internal
travellers cheques but this failed dismally and now he
tells us we are to use something called "bearers cheques"
which are like money, but aren't money and have been
printed on something he called "notepaper" at huge cost
to the nation. This notepaper "bearers cheque" will only
be valid until January 2004 and has exactly the same
problems attached to it that travellers cheques had.

Why on earth our government have wasted so many billions
of dollars printing travellers and bearers cheques when
they should have been printing money is a mystery, almost
as much of a mystery as why they are removing the red 500
dollar note and wasting billions more dollars printing
another colour 500 dollar note.

If you are confused after reading this then join the club !

This huge money crisis is just one of the things that
should have been reported and debated in the media but
there has been no information at all. The State run
newspaper continues to flight full page and very colourful
adverts telling us about the impending arrival of new
500 dollar note but says nothing about the expiry of the
present red note.

The week began and ended without our only independent
daily newspaper The Daily News. Despite a High Court order
handed down on Thursday which gave the Daily News permission
to continue operating for another 60 days, the police
refused to comply with the order. Earlier in the week
they had seized over 100 computers and other equipment
from the Daily News but when it came time to obey the
court order and give the equipment back, they said they
had no transport to do so.

The High Court Order further instructed police to let
Daily News owners and employees back into their offices
but this also didn't happen. Police refused them entry
to their own offices saying that they had not received
a copy of the High Court Order. Frankly it all stinks
and I'm not really sure why we are surprised.

Police have consistently refused to obey court rulings
relating to farmers and then to members of the opposition
and now they are doing the same when it comes to the
independent media and freedom of speech. They have again
shown to the world that they only represent people's
legal rights if those people belong to the ruling
Zanu PF party.

Bit by agonising bit Zimbabwe's government have
stripped us of our constitutional, legal and human rights.
For me losing the right to be able to buy, read and write
for the newspaper of my choice is the worst. For the last
three and a half years at least we knew what was happening
in our country.

We knew which Ministers were grabbing multiple farms,
which people were perpetrating violence on opposition
supporters and just exactly how our government were
stealing, mortgaging and selling our national heritage
and assets, now we are alone and in the dark.

I would like to end with the quote I use at the beginning
of my book Beyond Tears. For me this says it all about our
lives today in Zimbabwe:

"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not
speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they
came for me - and there was no one left to speak out
for me." (Pastor Niemoller, Nazi victim.)

Until next week,

with love, cathy.

http://africantears.netfirms.com

My books about Zimbabwe's turmoil, "African Tears" and
"Beyond Tears" are available in the UK and USA through: