Flight MH17: Swallowed in The Confusion of Conflict

The happenings surrounding the apparent shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 are a perfect example of the confusion that reigns in the midst of conflict.

The Western media seem to think that conflict happens as a well organised choreographed activity where everybody knows their place and everything that happens can be attributed to a plan. The intended outcome is that every plan can eventually be attributed to someone.

Sad for them conflict is not choreographed. It is a mass of confused happenings often with the thumb not knowing what the forefinger is doing. The ethnic Ukrainian in the army will never know what the ethnic Russian sitting next to him is thinking and vice versa.

It happens in every conflict. The Americans never new what the Afghans sitting next to them were thinking, until maybe the bullets started flying in green-on-blue attacks.

The bottom line is that every single action is ultimately up to an individual person, who have their own individual aims apart from the collective aims. Once individual aims diverge significantly from stated collective aims confusion might set in. It is a sign of rebellion against the collective.

It is very much likely the responsible people in both Ukraine and Russia probably do not know exactly where all their BUK systems were. One cannot rule out that some, from either side, may have been in rebel hands.

This more likely for the Ukrainian side, since some of their own armed forced have defected or shown sympathy for the rebel cause. Like in Syria, units of the Ukraine armed forces have defected to the rebel side with their equipment.

This perfectly dovetails with my theory on clan politics and their role in the Ukrainian conflict. Members of the Russian clan in the Ukraine armed forces would have felt it better to join the rebels rather than turn against their own clan.

The act of shooting down the airliner itself may have happened because of the confusion that reigns in conflict. Nobody knows who was flying where and for what purpose. In such scenarios people tend to act on the famed gut feeling.

The handling of the aftermaths was also plagued by confusion. Bodies were left lying in open fields for days.

The rebels claim they were told by OSCE observers to leave the collection of bodies to experts. The OSCE denies this. However remember that the 'suggestion' did not have to come on an OSCE letterhead for it to be taken seriously. Especially in a confused situation like this. It may have been an off-the-cuff remark by an official on the ground.

One does not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the rebels did not have the expertise to handle an air accident of this magnitude and nature. The way they eventually trundled around the debris field with cranes and heavy trucks is evidence of that. The rebels themselves clearly acknowledge that shortcoming and rightly expected someone better qualified than themselves to come and handle the task.

However the question of who to send was quickly swallowed up in the dust cloud of confusion. Western leaders seemed to suggest that Russia should take charge of the crash site while at the same time blaming Russia for interfering in Ukraine. If there was a moment Russia did not want to be seen as interfering in Ukraine I can't think of a worse moment than this one.

To make matters worse some leaders and media, particularly from the Western side concentrated on trying to allocate blame. On their part, Russia did not want responsibility for the bucket-load of excrement. They did their best to put some distance between themselves and the accident. 'No we are not responsible for anything' was their basic position.

The accident happened on Ukrainian territory. Conventionally they should be expected to have responsibility. However the fact is the Ukrainian government does not have full control of its territory, and could not be depended upon to handle the recovery.

The only way to handle the situation, in the interests of the bereaved families was outside of conventional ways. The bereaved families and governments, particularly the Dutch government, should thank the Malaysian government for having the wisdom and vision to wade through confusion and eventually extract the remains of the deceased from the rebel area.

If they had fallen lock step in with the Western approach of allocating blame, it is very likely those bodies would have languished in rebel territory for weeks if not months.

The 'Blame Russia' Game Leading to Nowhere

It seems the favourite passtime of Western governments and media has become blaming Russia for a situation that they themselves encouraged and actively campaigned for.

At the start of the Ukraine crisis there was an elected pro-Russia leader in power in Kiev. This was a leader elected in credible peacetime elections. When a section of his population became restive, he did not unleash the full might of the armed forces under his command upon them. Instead he negotiated and made huge concessions.

With the full backing and encouragement of Western governments and media, these concessions were ignored. The pro-Russian leader then left power. He could have chosen to fight but he did not.

The violence that is going on now could have been rebels in Western Ukraine against the government. To me that indicates Viktor Yanukovych made a decision to save his country. A man who placed his country above the petty tribal politics that are ripping Ukraine apart today.

Western backed two bit tribalist leaders then unconstitutionally seized power, with much cheering from very same Western leaders who are pointing fingers at Russia. At one point Western foreign ministers were trooping to Kiev to pat these tribalists on the back, like a herd of drought stricken wildebeest rushing to a watering hole.

The tribalists subsequently organised elections that make the much maligned elections run by my country, Zimbabwe, look like a raffle run by honest old ladies. Half the country could not even get the chance to vote. Yet the so called paragons of democracy in the West were tripping over their own toes in the rush to endorse the farce.

Now that their short-sighted actions have led to a disaster that has claimed mostly Western lives, they have been screaming like a troop of monkeys that has seen a leopard, pointing fingers at Russia. They forget that they invited conflict to their own doorsteps by encouraging one side of a tribal conflict to be unreasonable.

Honestly speaking what do they want Russia to do? Occupy Western Ukraine and impose order? I don't think they would be happy with that. Would they rather have Putin do policing on Kiev's behalf? Why should Putin take responsibility, and costs, for short-sightedness that the West and those in power in Kiev are responsible for. Let them shovel their own waste.

If the shoe of controlling one half of Ukraine's tribes could not fit on a pro-Russian leader's foot, what made the West thing it would fit on the other foot without crippling the country? They forced it on and now the country is crippled. They should not be surprised.

At this point, the only thing I see in Ukraine is long term conflict. Western leaders should be prepared to gather and stomach that harvest, because they planted the crop of nettles. Throwing tantrums at Russia won't help them in the slightest bit. It will only make the nettles bigger, and yield a much pricklier harvest.

It is the West who need to change course, not Russia. Ethnic linkages going back centuries are not controlled by one man.

The West should ask themselves why Britain remains closely allied to the United States. A poodle as some would put it. It is because of ethnic links. No single leader can change the character of that relationship.

No one should expect Vladmir Putin, to perform miracles and change the character of ethnic links between Russia and eastern Ukraine. He will not be able to, even if he wanted. If he tried, the discontent within Russia would probably threaten the fabric of her own society.

Clan Politics and Ukraine

What is going on Ukraine is serious war but I could not help but compare it with the games played by African boys herding cattle in the savannah scrub-lands of Zimbabwe.

Those were the best days of my life.

Life was lackadaisical, with occasional bursts of exciting activity. The years sauntered by, with passing seasons colourfully marked by the foliage of musasa trees exploding into various hues of red and orange.

During that time I, along with other boys, would be found trailing ourselves after our families' cattle, tasked with preventing them from invading the fields full of young succulent maize plants.

Herding cattle is not the most exciting of activities. We invented lots of games and activities to while time. Football was a favourite. Occasionally we set about getting some of the boys among us to fight so that we could enjoy the spectacle.

Our favourite way starting a fight was called kupwanya mazamu amai (breaking your mothers breasts). Nothing riles an African brother like insulting his mother. We would built four mounts of soil, and allocate two to each of guys we wanted to fight saying, 'These are your mother's breasts.'

The logic was that if somebody kickedyour 'mother's breasts' you had to defend your honour through violence. If any of the planned pugilists was reluctant to break the other's mother's breasts, we would egg them on through ridicule and mockery.

It was guaranteed that the moment they kicked each other's "mother's breasts" they would ferociously set upon one another with flailing fists, kicks, scratching nails, head-butts and the occasional sinking of teeth into the rival.

Meanwhile we would be enjoying the spectacle and cheering them on with whistling, shouts of encouragement and the occasional delighted dancing. One could hardly believe that such a fierce fight was over nothing but little mounts of dirt.

A bleeding nose later we would stop the fight, and set about placating the warriors saying things like 'The fight was nice but you guys must remain friends.' Most of the time they did remain friends. No permanent damage would be done to the relationship of even physically to the fighters.

Is what is going on in Ukraine any better than fighting over little mounts of dirt? If I take a government soldier and a rebel and ask them to explain why they are fighting can any of them give me any answer that is better than 'He kicked my mother's breasts!' Never mind that those mother's breasts are little mounts of soil made by others.

There is no way anyone is going to uproot Ukraine and plant it in the Hudson bay, or even the English Channel. Ukraine borders Russia and that is the way it is going to be until donkeys grow horns. Not just that, but Ukraine has got a large population of ethnic Russians.

Consequently, any wise Ukrainian leader, would be better off maintaining relations with Russia than pandering to the whims of hoped for allies thousands of kilometres away. Sometimes we need to accept things the way they are, not the way would like them. It is called accepting reality.

Keeping peace with your neighbour is far much better than making friends with a stranger. Especially if you are married to the neighbour's cousin. It is totally unrealistic to expect peace in your own house when you are insulting your wife's cousin or to expect the cousin to remain quiet while you are beating your wife.

Ukrainians need to do a reality check. There is no way they are going to be virulently anti-Russia and still expect their ethnic Russian population to be happy.

It is also simple logic that if East Ukrainians are ethnically related to Russians then they probably have 'clan members' and sometimes relatives in Russian society including the armed forces. For those of us who belong to clans and know how they work, we know they tend to stick together even across national borders. Take a look at how the Mafia has extended tentacles all over the world from clan roots in Italy.

There is no better time to call upon clan links than in times of need. Clan links are always difficult if not impossible to break. What Ukraine should fear is not what Putin thinks, but what the clan links to Russia might lead to. I personally think that Putin has little choice but to flow with the clan links.

What the Ukraine needs right now, is a reality check from within. There is no way they are going to fight with ethnic Russians in their country and expect the Russians in Russia to stand by. A swear upon the blood of my VaBarwe clan, at some point or another, the Russian clan will respond.

Are the Americans creating more terrorists in Middle East.

Do the Americans have any idea what they are doing in the Middle East.

For a long time and particularly since ISIL started overrunning the Bush project, Iraqi, I have been trying to make head or tail of what the American policy in the Middle East is? As of this moment I am convinced I would have much better luck unthreading a very large bowl of spaghetti.

The mayhem that is ensuing in Iraq at the hands of ISIL is unbelievable. They have captured heavy American supplied weapons. They have been machine-gunning civilians in a manner that rivals the Srebrenica massacre.

They seem to have nudged a deck of cards the USA spend more than a decade delicately stacking together.

The leader of the blood-thirsty group has declared a caliphate and demanded the allegiance of each and every Muslim. They clearly suggest they have no intention of respecting existing borders or even stopping just in the Levant. Secular countries like Jordan certainly have good reason to worry for their future.

Their rhetoric and methods makes the Taliban sound like Sunday school preachers.

Oh! Did I mention the Taliban? Aren't they another group that arose out of superpower misadventure in the region. Specifically the Taliban rose out of the ashes of the Mujaheedin, sponsored by the USA against a Soviet supported regime.

Isn't it ironic that ISIL is rising out of a rebellion sponsored by the USA against a Russian supported regime? Those who do not think history is repeating itself, please I beg to have your opinion on what you think is happening. Oh, remind me again what is it they say, about making the same mistake over and over, and stupidity?

To me it very much looks like USA foreign policy in the Middle East is floundering in a huge pool of sectarian quicksand.

Their best strategy as of this moment, would be to shore up the Iraqi government as best as they can and give Assad breathing space as well. That is their best hope at restoring and maintaining order in the region in a reasonable time frame. Carefully note the use of the words 'best' and 'hope'. I am not sticking my neck out and giving any guarantees. I also deliberately left out adjectives like 'loved' and 'liked'. The best way forward may not be a way they like or love.

One guarantee I am prepared to give is that violence radicalises people. The situation in the middle East is breeding more radicals than ever. A lot of people in the world, including those of us who have nothing to do with it, and are virtually powerless to change the course of events in the middle east, will pay a price.

Al Qaeda sponsored radicalism, which has its roots in the American sponsored anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan of the 1980s, is starting to spread mayhem across Africa. Boko Haram is a manace in Nigeria, al Shahaab in Somalia and Kenya, AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) has wreaked havoc in Mali and the Sahel.

I doubt the Americans would have sponsored the Mujaheedin with such gusto if they knew they were opening such a can of worms. I do not sit in their boardrooms, so I do not know the true answer. I do not think they ever guessed that Osama bin Laden was going to emerge out of their activities. They were short sighted.

Unfortunately there is absolutely no sign that the Americans have learnt from their mistakes. Look at the course they took in Syria and where it has left their pet project in Iraq. If there is any direction in American policy in the Middle East at present maybe I am a complete idiot for not being able to see it. To me their policy seems to have the resolute direction of a windcock in a whirlwind.

As of their latest talk, the Americans want to sponsor 'moderate Islamist rebels' against the Western educated Bashar Assad, and hope the same Islamists will also fight the extreme radicals of ISIL. Bookmakers I think this is your territory. Start taking the bets. Will it work?

It seems to be an assumption on the part of the Americans that there is a solid dividing wall between the 'good' or 'moderate' Islamists and the radical Islamists. My personal opinion is that the dividing line is a fuzzy foggy one across which individuals, fighting units and sometimes entire rebel groups drift back and forth, with whatever weapons they have in their hands.

Maybe my logic is wrong but to me the best strategy to bring stability to the region is to shore up Assad and tone down the anti-Iran rhethoric, and strengthen the Iraq government. The Americans need to stop having their foreign policy in the middle east run for them by Sunni secterianists. To achieve this, they need to pull the leash on regimes sponsoring rebellions in other countries.

Nonetheless, the developments in that part of world are too big for the minds running the United States at the moment. By this I do not mean just Obama and his crop of advisers, but several of his predecessor and a maybe couple of the regimes before them, as well.

Oh Roosevelt! Oh Washington! Oh Lincoln! Where are you when your country needs wise leadership?

The world after the Soviet Union has been beyond the ability of US politicians, who were forged in the furnace adversarial cold war politics, to adjust to. To them they must have a big bad enemy to deal with even when their country is the only big thing around.

After the collapse of USSR they talked so much about a New World Order. Am I alone in feeling that if they came to this New World Order they definitely forgot their minds in the Old World Order? They are still thinking very much in the old way.

Of course they occasionally go forth six-guns blazing in an effort to prove their mettle. Unfortunately, the more they thrash about, the deeper they sink into a foreign policy cesspool.

Also, unfortunately for us the little countries trying to keep our heads above the water, they drag us down with them. They come in, try something without listening to anyone. When things do not work out as they fantasised, they ship out and leave others to deal with the mess.

The US adventure in Somalia during the Clinton years has evolved into a major problem for Somalia's neighbours, particularly Kenya. Pakistan has had to carry much of the burden of Afghanistan's instability since the US sponsored the anti-Soviet mujaheedin. They have also dragged NATO allies into the mess.

Iraqi after Sadaam has been a perfect model of instability. At the time Iraqi was invaded, everyone except the Americans and their allies was saying he was well contained. Now the Americans have shipped out leaving behind an apparently two bit leadership that do not seem to know their index finger from the thumb.

Need I mention Libya after Gadhafi. He was taken out after he had swung well towards rapprochement with the West. Africa was humiliated in the process, with Zuma having to dodge bombs and missiles on his way to  try and negotiate a peaceful way forward. His efforts were ignored with very little effort, if any, to hide the disdain. Right now testosterone driven hoodlums are fighting each other on Tripoli airport grounds.

My personal take is that the US think they know it all when in fact they know nothing. Take for example the vision Bush Junior expounded when he invaded Iraq for the second time. By now Iraq should be an oasis of American ideals. A leading democracy in the region.

What he didn't know was that he was dragging the USA into a cesspit of sectarian divisions which according to some schools of thought are rooted in pre-Islamic tribal divisions between Arabs and Persians, not just Islamic sects. Maybe it is because I am from Africa but I am yet to see democratic ideals transcend tribalism.

Ancient, deep rooted divisions cannot be papered over by any kind of ideology or idealism. They are best healed by long term peace. Conflict of whatever magnitude simply renews them for many more generations.

Take for example the tribal conflict between the Assyrians and Israelites recorded in the Bible. It is still going on with unbelievable ferocity today. One would be shocked at the amount of money and effort supposedly enlightened people are putting into perpetuating what is essentially a pointless centuries old tribal war.

As I write this Palestinians and Israel at each other's throats again. Missiles and rockets have replaced the swords and chariots of yester-millenium, but it is still the same tribal conflict.

Open Letter to President Mugabe on reported 'No Land For Whites' statements.

Your Excellency, The Head of State and Government, Commander In Chief of the Defence Forces, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, I respectfully beg to differ reported assertion that whites should not own land in Zimbabwe.

Denying rights to whites, is not what you spend eleven years in detention for. I have always believed that the suffering you, and thousands of others, went through was so that each and every Zimbabwean would enjoy equal rights. That was a noble fight.

Your Excellency the last time I checked Zimbabwe's constitution did not classify citizens' rights by race, religion or ideology. That is to say the nation you fought for, and helped build to where it is, is not a segregated apartheid state like South Africa and Rhodesia were. It is not a nation that denies property rights to certain races like those evil racists used to.

I hope Your Excellency, you then understand that I was terribly confused when I read in the press that you had declared that whites should not be allowed to own land in Zimbabwe.

Are they any less Zimbabwean than you and me?

Your Excellency may I also draw you attention to the fact that our history as a proud Bantu people, has never been one of discrimination. You are my elder, and I am sure you know these tenets far much better than I do.

For example I am sure you know that descendants of the Portugueese, vana Sinyoro Vazungu vemachira machena, assimilated into our culture without any problem and were given chieftaincy and noble-ship by our forefathers. You probably know the history of the Chitsunge chieftaincy far much better than small boys born yesterday like me do.

I am sure you are also aware that the first European to see the great ancient city that gives our country its name was Adam Renders, not Karl Mauch as Eurocentric history narrates. The main reason European historians ignored Adam Renders was that had been taken in by our African community. Our community accepted him so much that he married the daughter of a chief (mwana waMambo) and lived among us as an equal.

He looked after Karl Mauch for the nine months he was exploring the Great Zimbabwe. Our culture has always accepted and accommodated others, not rejected them.

As you can see, it is not only from the viewpoint of modern day rights conscious humanism that it is wrong to say whites can't own land in Zimbabwe, but from the rich depth of our own culture.

Our culture values Hunhu (humane-ness) above everything else. Yes the forefathers of whites may have come with race based discrimination that makes us bitter. Let us not allow bitterness to diminish our own Hunhu.

Your Excellency, please do not misunderstand my position. I fully support land redistribution to CORRECT past racist, segregationist and idiotic policies that landed us in a lot of trouble. However there is no way I will support reverse racism.

To me a 'no land for whites' policy is as a bad as the 'no land for blacks' policy of old. I hope our country will never go that route.

The Madeleine Albright of South Africa?

The plight of DA MP, Phumzile van Damme demonstrates the futility of trying to enforce an 'us and them' approach with people coming from close neighbouring countries.

May I start by pointing out that the former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright was born in then Czekoslovakia not the USA. That did not stop her from participating fully in the politics of her adopted country. I saw no reason why Phumzile's similar political career should be curtailed.

The nature of national borders in post-colonial Africa makes it futile to strictly police the movement of people. In fact along national borders without a distinct geographic barrier, people often do not know on which side of the border they were born.

Take for example Mozambicans who live between Mukumbura and Zambezi river. After Cabora Bassa dam was built the only way they could catch a bus to anywhere was walk into Zimbabwe first. It is therefore perfectly natural and reasonable to expect most of the them to have acquired Zimbabwean IDs.

In Malawi the main road from Balaka to the capital Lilongwe runs along the border with Mozambique on some parts. Hospitals and schools along this virtually unmarked border cater for people from either side of the border.

Colonial borders were arbitrarily drawn sometimes right down the middle of villages. Thus many people living along the border areas can pick and choose nationality depending on what is convenient for the moment.

Where my wife comes from, in Honde Valley along Zimbabwe's border with Mozambique, people used to live in Zimbabwe and plant the crops in Mozambique and vice versa. Movement was curtailed, but not completely stopped, after the border was heavily mined by the Rhodesians during Zimbabwe's second Chimurenga war.

Even along the famous, or is it infamous, crocodile infested river border, brothers' families live on either side of the river. In the 1980s I went to primary school in Harare with Tsveropile Tlou. A long term tenant at my father's house was a Mr Mbedzi. They were Zimbabweans.

Yet they could easily have moved to Thohoyandou or Louis Trichardt and lived as South Africans. I never bothered to find out on which side of the border they were born and to me it does not matter at all.

That is a fact of life South Africa cannot escape.

Surely, surely you cannot go about making people pay for the sins of colonialists, or even their parents. The digging into Phumzile van Damme's origins is just a xenophobic witch-hunt.

It is no different from Republican 'birthers' digging into Obama's origins and trying to prove he was not born in the USA and therefore should not be eligible for the office he holds.

If Phumzile has been living in South Africa as a South African because of choices made by her parents, how is her case different from that of Madeline Albright?

It is an open secret that probably more than half the people passing themselves off as Zulus in Gauteng are actually Swazis and Zimbabwean Ndebele speakers. Some of their children do not even know that they have roots outside South Africa.

While Phumzile's parents may not have been perfectly honest about where she was born, she is still a South African.

Are the gloves coming off?

Those of us who have been blessed and fortunate enough to herd cattle in our younger days know exactly what is happening to Edmund Kudzayi. We come from the generation that enjoyed the spectacle of bulls preparing to fight.

Accompanied by thunderously loud bellows, the bulls would circle each other. Occasionally one would charge the nearest unfortunate bush, or violently plunge its horns into the soft ground - demonstrating to the foe how ferociously he was going to deal with him.

Both bulls would paw and dig at the ground with unnerving ferocity, heads bowed in attack mode. Tufts of grass would fly, like the clothes and bags of a woman being divorced in a Nigerian movie.

In this ferocious scenario, Edmund Kudzayi is nothing but an unfortunate flying tuft of grass. The real fight is yet to come.

As the twilight of Robert Mugabe's rule darkens, and the sunset of his life approaches, the bulls in Zanu-PF are circling each other. Woe betide to any tuft of grass that happens to be in the battle ground. And there is no battleground more obvious than the state media.

Even a blind mole living underground can see the correlation between accusations of using the state media to fight Zanu-PF factional battles and Kudzayi's sudden arrest. It is as obvious as the buttocks of a baboon.

The gloves might be getting off in the factional fight within Zanu-PF. Fists and feathers are starting to fly. Claws are being bared.

Anybody who thinks the turn of events has been unfair to Kudzayi should go and have a little chat with Julius Malema. There are no permanent allies in politics, especially factional politics. The pedestal from which Kudzayi is falling is far much lower than that from which Malema fell in the ANC.

In both cases accusations of state powers being used to further the ends of factional politics have been made. Malema still has South African Revenue Services (SARS) breathing down his neck.

On more substantive matters, freedom of expression, is protected by the constitution of Zimbabwe. In other words Kudzayi has a right to state his opinion no matter who disagrees with it. In fact, he earns his living by doing just that.

If he told lies, fabrications, the constitution and laws of Zimbabwe equally gives potential victims the right to sue him in a civil court and claim compensation.

When police officers break down doors looking for a newspaper editor and long time journalist 'because of articles he wrote' what form of harassment could be more obvious than this. They are not even bothering to pinpoint a specific article as is normally the case.

This suggests that the 'articles he wrote' accusations are just a convenient excuse.  The inner motive for the arrest lies elsewhere. From whichever angle I look at it, Kudzayi looks like a proxy victim of the Zanu-PF factional struggle.

Which leaves us to wonder, is a bare knuckles brawl on the way?

Who is Shona?

Remember... remember.... the term was coined by the Ndebele. It was then misintepreted by colonialists, for the main purpose of colonising an area as big as they could.

It was extended to include a very large collection of ethnic groups with whom the Ndebele never had contact. Because of strong similarity of language and culture from Hwange, Plumtree to Chimoio, Mukumbura most ethnic groups in this geographic region have grown to accept being called Shonas, not because that is the name they gave themselves, but because that is the name that is in popular use.

That umbrella term, applies to clans who were already in the region for thousands of years such as VaRozvi, maShangwe, etc and clans that are recent arrivals such as my own clan vaBarwe, vaNjanja, etc.

Do not make the mistake of trying to attribute the Shona to a single ethnic origin. Yes some Shona clans came from great lakes region such as VaTsunga, vaBarwe, etc. Other Shona clans such as vaRozvi, vaRemba, maUngwe etc have been in the region much longer. Some of these clans may be offshoots of other neighbouring cultures such as Kalanga and Venda.

But because of the way the recently coined term Shona has been applied to the region, it now applies to all of these clans, newcomers and oldcomers alike. It is more a marker of common culture than a marker of ethnic origin.

If you now say the older clans should not be called Shona but be solely referred to by their old names, then why should the newcomer clans not be referred to by their old names too and not be called Shona.

If you do not accept use of the term Shona for some clans such as vaRemba (with surnames like Hove, Zvakavapano, Hamandishe, Mukwakwami, etc) then you should also reject it for all the other clans and use their original names such as vaBarwe, vaTsunga, vaHera, etc. In other words you should not use the term Shona at all because in such a context it applies to noone.

Take for example myself. My surname is not even characteristically Shona like Hamandishe, Zvakavapano and Mukwakwami. These are the surnames of known vaRemba families. Mine does not have a meaning in the Shona language as those other surnames do.

It is more commonly rendered as Ponongwe in chiChewa chakuNyanja, Sena and Tumbuka. VaBarwe folklore says we came from around Sena in Mozambique.

Why should you apply the term Shona to us vaBarwe and remove it from vaRemba, who are right next door to where the term was invented?

When we consider the origins ofthe term Shona (abantu betshonalanga) it most likely applied to the Kalanga and Nambya who were to the West of the Ndebele as they arrived in the region. It is only later misinterpretation by the colonialists that extended it to the rest of the country.

Of course this was helped by the similarities of language and culture throughout the region. Take for example a typical Kalanga book, Nhau dzabaKalanga. Rendered in Karanga dialect it would be Nhau DzavaKaranga, in Zezuru dialect Nhau DzevaKaranga, in chiManyika Nhau dzowaKaranga. These dialects cover the geographic area from Mberengwa to Chimoio in Mozambique.

The problem seems to be that the communities in close contact with the Ndebele who are often throwing insults at anything 'Shona' are now trying to remove the term from themselves in order to escape the insults.

People if the term was invented to insult you, you will still be insulted by other means even if you reject the term.

A Ndebele friend once told me that Dabengwa is the Kalanga/Nambya rendition of Tavengwa. He was explaining to me that the Dabengwas were offspring of Mzilikazi who ran away because of internal disputes to settle among the Kalanga. According to him the surname came about because they explained to the Kalanga that they were hated by their fellow Ndebele which in Shona would be tavengwa.

Take Mandela to Soweto

There is a reason why June 16 is a national holiday in South Afrika. It was the day on which Hastings Ndlovu and Hector Pieterson lost their lives. It was the day on which more than 400 young people gave their lives to the cause for freedom in South Africa.

It was the day on which the Soweto Uprising began.

It was the day which saw the beginning of sustained agitation that eventually led to the release of Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela, a man whom the whole world is gathered in South Africa to bury. A truly great man.

When Mandela was unjustifiably incarcerated for 27 years he was physically removed from the struggle. The security around him was so tight that we heard little from him in those years. Not even a picture of him is known to have been smuggled out of jail in those 27 years.

Yet in all those 27 years we never stopped hearing about Mandela. Few weeks passed without his name being in the news. People put their lives on line in his name. The streets kept the temperature high for the Boer regime.

Those streets were mainly the streets of Soweto. Day in day out the people of Soweto were in the news. Along with their actions the name Nelson Mandela was regularly mentioned. And of course that of his then wife Winnie Mandela.

Today Mandela's body is being taken in procession around Pretoria not once, not twice but three times.  What about Soweto?

I find it unfair that the people who stood with Mandela throughout his incarceration are now being asked to catch buses and trains all the way to Pretoria to bid him farewell, while those who supported his jailers are being given very comfortable ringside seats.

Why not give the people of Soweto a chance to say their farewells to Mandela, in their own streets. Those are the streets where they stood with him throughout his jailing. Those are the streets, that made him the man he is today.

Gono is gone. Phew!!!

Gono is going. Phew!!!

I will always stand by my opinion that Gono was totally out of his depth running a monetary system despite his bombastic talk of him being 'Your Governor'.

When Gono assumed office, the country had a reasonably strong and stable currency. At the time he left Zimbabwe had no currency of its own and had gone through period of record, currency devaluation driven hyperinflation that has never ever been experienced anywhere in the world since recorded history began. Most likely will never ever be experienced anywhere else in the world.

'Your Governor' was such a failure that he ended up scrounging in areas that had absolutely nothing to do with his job for some credit. He started buying tractors, scotch carts, cooking oil, chains, hoes and who knows what else to try and get some credit any way he could.

As a mark of his incompetence he started importing things like steel for scotch carts, and cooking oil, leading to a massive externalisation of funds and further collapse of the currency which he had the job to shore up.

The importations also led to the massive under utilisation of local manufacturing capacity, leading to eventual collapse of many of the industries like Ziscosteel, Olivine, Willowvale Motor Industries. These are still struggling to find their feet again after this knockout punch from Gono.

The only thing he succeeded in doing is fleece the forex funds of private entities, and run up a massive debt for the RBZ. Maybe there is no link between this running up of a massive debt for the state bank and him getting super rich in the process, but I am sure people do not need to be too imaginative to come up with any number of plausible theories to establish a link.

I know very well of the excuse that he had no choice because of pressure from politicians. Gono was employed to advise politicians correctly, not for him to be advised incorrectly by politicians. Therefore that excuse is a damning admission that he was unable to do his job.

I also know of the excuse that the country was under sanctions by some Western countries. Well the very same country did not implode monetarily while under stricter sanctions by the entire world.

Gono is also leaving behind a massive legal black hole for the government which he created by simply taking money from people's accounts without their consent.

In his heyday Gono had the mentality of a village headman. He considered his word to be the law (Zvandataura ndizvozvo!). He forgot that in this day and age the law is written down and no matter who you are, you have to start by understanding what is written down. Munhu nzwisisa zvakanyorwa mumutemo usati wapaparika.

That is why large organisations always have a legal department. Their job is to carefully scrutinise actions and decisions to make sure they are within the written law. I would expect the RBZ had such a department.

The basic foundation of the law is the constitution and that clearly says you do not expropriate someone's private property. Money in whatever form is private property. You do not take it without the owners' agreement.

The RBZ under Gono did it. As several court rulings have already shown, that was a massive mistake. It has saddled the state with potentially ruinous debt. It also drove out thousands of investors, local and foreign, out of the country.

I personally invested thousands of American dollars in Zimbabwe, which I had earned outside the country. That was around 2003. In less than five years I walked out of the country with basically the clothes on my back to look for a job again.

An uncle got his pension after having been a teacher for 43 years. When he got it, the pension could have bought him a truckload of cement. In less than three months, the very same amount could not but half a loaf of bread. And it was still in the bank.

Thousands of teachers, soldiers, policemen, civil servants and other workers who retired during the Gono era faced similar circumstances. I have met tens of them, all of them patriotic Zimbabweans, who faced the ignominy of having entire decades of saving and planning laid to waste by Gono's ignorant monetary policies.

That is the kind of bitter memory that Gono leaves behind. A very bad taste in the mouth. I do not regret him going. I do regret him ever having been governor.

I am an atheist, but this is the one time, that I will hope that some higher authority will hold Gono to account.

Zambia does not owe Zimbabwe a debt of gratitude

Recently I came across an article moaning about Zimbabwe having to buy maize from Zambia. The article mentioned that Zimbabwe used to export maize and other goods to Zambia.

The article blamed Zambia for not being more sympathetic to Zimbabwe, as well as claiming that Zimbabwe exports to Zambia were destroyed by sanctions.

Let us tell the whole truth not just part of it. Zambia has never ever sanctioned Zimbabwe in any way.

Zimbabwe's exports to the region were ruined by poor policies and idiosycrantic monetary controls during Gono's heydays as 'Your Governor'.

I lived in Malawi from 2000 to 2002. When I first went there supermarket shelves were jam-packed from wall to wall with Zimbabwean goods.

After a few doses of Gono's policies, the last time I visited Malawi around 2005 the shelves were now jam packed with South African goods.

The situation is likely to have been the same for Zambia.

Even now we have a distinct geographic advantage, in terms of access to markets. Harare is less than 600km from both Blantrye and Lusaka. Gauteng is more than 1800km from both.

It is about $3000 cheaper to transport goods from Harare to both cities than it is to transport goods from Gauteng.

The only reason why Gauteng is the preferred source of goods by countries to the North of us is corrupt, ignorant and pompous behaviour by our officials, including senior ministers. It takes a week for a truck with goods sourced in Zimbabwe to get the papers processed at Chirundu.

The same truck with goods sourced in Gauteng takes less than a day to have exit papers processed at Beitbridge and maybe another day or two transit Zimbabwe and get into Zambia.

If they use the Botswana route it takes 30 minutes to have exit papers processed at Martins Drift. The route is longer than via Zimbabwe but hundreds of trucks still prefer it because of the quick processing. The only delay is because there is no bridge at Kazungula and they sometimes have to wait weeks when one of the ferries is broken down.

The smaller 8 ton trucks which don't have to queue at the ferry almost exclusively use the Kazungula route. Guess what, most of them are driven or owned by Zimbabweans. Even for us Zimbabweans it is simply far much less hassle to avoid the corrupt and pompous Zimbabwean officials.

Pomposity, corruption and ignorance of trade and commerce dynamics, is costing Zimbabwe billions in trade opportunities.

That is a fact.

The people to blame for that are government officials, and their management which means ministers and The President.

Lastly on the issue of low maize production in Zimbabwe. That is incorrectly attributed to the restoration of land ownership to black Zimbabweans.

In their drive to higlight their insulting insinuation that we blacks need whites to grow food for us, most analysists leave out to mention that the restoration of land to its correct owners, was also accompanied by price controls, movement restrictions of produce and other not so clever policies that completely wiped out maize production as a commercial agricultural activity.

Even small scale farmers who used to produce 70% of Zimbabwe's commercial maize before land reform, abandoned the crop, because of bad policies, producing only enough to feed their families.

The only reason anyone would plant bumper maize crop between about 2005 and 2009 was for charity, not for business. Maize production has since not recovered from those ruinous policies.

The bottom line is that Zambia does not owe Zimbabwe anything. It is up to our officials to come up with intelligent well researched policies to take the country forward.

Stumbling around doing things such as being told by a school dropout (less educated than themselves) that pure refined diesel flows out of a solid rock does not amount to intelligent policies.

Luck does not also amount intelligent policies either. The current ruling party were lucky that they faced an opposition led by an even more ignorant leader. Luck, eventually runs out, so one should never count on it being there forever.

Religions in overdrive to curtail freedom of expression

Religious people have got all sorts of epithets for those who belong to different religions or who simply choose not to be religious like me.

Pagans! Infidels! Apostates! Sinners! The condemned! Heathens! All these are among some of the choice invective persistently spewed from pulpits and podiums week in week out. It shows that the religious have obsolutely no qualms insulting or even threatening those who do not hold the same views as themselves.

Author Salman Rushdie had to live much of his life under protection after he penned a book mildly critical of Islam. The history of Christianity is littered with burnings are the stake, beheadings and other forms of murder of those who dared disagree with the demagogues of the time.

Recently, during the attack at Westgate Mall in Kenya, people were specifically targeted and cruelly butchered for not belonging to a specific religion.

The world is overflowing with art and drawings depicting us the non-religious being fried by a red man with horns, hoofed feet, a pointed tail and a three pronged pitchfork. Even more depict us in all sorts of inglorious situations, often associating us with evil.

Yet there is absolutely no single fact that links atheism to evil. If anything non-religious people are often the most prepared to accept others. They are often humanist who value people for simply being human not according to what views they hold, or background they come from.

Just this week one of my favourite cartoonists, Zapiro was taken to task for 'insulting' the Hindu religion. I fail to understand how his cartoon, which was merely criticical of India bullying South Africa in the cricket sphere, could have been deemed to be insulting to Hinduism.

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of geography and current affairs will associate Hinduism with India. So what better way is there of symbolising India than using a Hindu symbol. To me that does not in any way amount to any sort of afront or insult to Hinduism.

There is absolutely no reason, to try and impinge on Zapiro's freedom of expression over it.

The question I want to ask religious people is, if you have the right to mock and insult us non-religious people, why can't you afford us the right to do exactly the same back to you. If you have the right to express yourself any way you want, surely you should have no trouble understanding the simple common sense that others have got exactly the same right as well.

If you have got the right to be critical of things not associated with you, others have got the same right to be critical of things not associated with them, which might mean you.

Insulting!

If the Kenyans give themselves as much dignity and pride as a goat tied to the roof of a matatu, they are very welcome to go ahead and have their head of state and deputy tossed around by the ICC.

According to these new colonial lords of all African rulers, they have decided to allow Uhuru Kenyata not to appear before them as and when they wish. The same applies to Ruto.

I would like to ask Kenyatta and Ruto, is the Kenya constitution subordinate to the ICC?

What if a situation arises when Kenya needs to move quickly to protect its president. For example consider what happened on September 11, 2001. The USA had to move Dubya from bunker to bunker quickly and in secret until they understood what was going on.

Crises do not announce themselves. Al Shahaab did not announce their intention to attack Westgate. What if war is declared upon Kenya or a situation requiring declaration of war arises while the President of Kenya as at the ICC on one of those supposedly few, but deliberately vague and unspecified occasions that some non-Kenyans want him to be there.

The bottom line is that Kenya has to ask the ICC for permission to protect its interests. I personally find that idea insulting not just for Kenya but for any African country.

Yes some leaders are warm to it, because it gives them a tool to beat political rivals with. That tool is a double edged sword. One day it will bounce back and cut with the other side.

If Uhuru considers the votes of Kenyans to be as worthless as chicken droppings, fine he can go ahead and do the biding of anyone other than the Kenyan constitution and people.

If he has as much pride as I have, he would not set foot in Europe even if they promised him a 100 tonnes of gold.

Yes Africa needs justice. But not at the price of its dignity. I am not an advocate of impunity by African leaders. Let us not forget that African leaders are acting the way they do largely because they learnt from and inherited the bad ruling habits and impunity of colonial masters. An impunity which is still intact to this day.

Let us start by dealing decisively with those past infractions. As long as we leave those infractions unpunished we are promoting the idea, that there is different kinds of justice for different groups of people.

Take for example the notion that Wouter Basson suggests that there is nothing wrong with what he did during apartheid and he should be left alone to practise as a heart surgeon. The crimes against humanity committed by him and his apartheid masters, and in other places like Rhodesia, are largely considered forgiveable because they are perpetrated by whites.

Even today, white kids with mothers milk still smelling on their noses are allowed to drone bomb villagers in non-white countries with total impunity. Other youngsters such as the grandchildren of Elizabeth Windsor-Mountbatten are allowed to prove their manhood by going to take potshots at the same villagers.

If people cannot see the racial double standard, then they are too blind to see an elephant standing in the doorway.

If the ICC would put Germany on trial for the genocide of the Herero and Nama in Namibia. If the ICC would put 'Dr Death' Wouter Basson on trial for experimenting on blacks with lethal chemicals. If the ICC would put CIA operatives, and their commanders, busy lobbying Hellfire missiles at Pakistani and Yemeni villagers, while nonchalantly seeping coffee and cold drinks and tweaking at joysticks from the cowardly comfort and safety of bunkers, then I would consider it a court worthy of being called a court of justice.

These people are just lazy cowards not willing to do the donkey work or take the risk of making sure that they get the right terrorist and spare the innocent. Yet the ICC allows them to enjoy unprecedented impunity.

The idea of international justice is good. However if that justice is as selective as the ICC makes it, then it is not justice at all. A system that allows those with military power to allocate themselves impunity is not a system of justice. Not by a polar bear's chances in the Gobi.

Not only does the ICC system allow those with great military power to allocate themselves, their allies and their sponsored stooges (such as the Syrian rebels and current Libyan rulers) impunity at will. It also allows them to manipulate the due process.

Often the actions of the ICC are in sync with the pronouncements of Western foreign ministers and media. That surely cannot just be by mere coincidence.

I wish I had the money to put a 10km high speaker on top of 10km high Mt Everest and loudly inform the ICC exactly what I think of their mothers' private parts.

Open Letter to Zimbabwean Cabinet and MPs

Comrades, first I would like to extend hearty congratulations to those of you who have made it into cabinet.

At the same time I hope you realise the enormous burden of expectation and aspirations of an entire people this places upon you. Millions of people who would like to see their lives improve look up to you to make the right decisions for the country.

They sincerely wish that your actions will not be driven by self interest, but the interests of a nation that we are all proud of. It is needless for me to repeat to you that for this nation to be where it is today is today, enormous suffering was endured and thousands of lives were lost.

It would be a great betrayal of those who went through this suffering and even lost their lives, if we as Zimbabweans fail to keep the interests of the nation at the forefront of our thoughts. Given the pinnacle of responsibility that you are perched upon, it is incumbent upon you to lead by example in keeping the interests of the country at the forefront of your thoughts and actions.

Our country needs you, to support particularly its economy through your day to day purchasing habits. Government and people in running it are the biggest spenders in any country. It is therefore critical for government, and individuals within it, to make strenuous effort to support local economic activity.

The money that government has, is acquired through taxation of individuals and utilisation of resources that are meant to benefit everyone.

You might disagree, but I do not think it is proper to tax Zimbabweans in order to employ chiefly Germans and Chinese. It for this reason that I implore you to please, please seriously consider my proposal to acquire government vehicles, including top of the range luxury models, from local assembly plants.

The advice I am trying to give includes your spouses as well since they spent quite a substantial amount of money originating from our taxes.

I implore you to be at the forefront of supporting economic activity within Zimbabwe. Remember every time you import goods you are exporting a number of things. First you are exporting the labour needed to make those goods. Second you are exporting the economic activity in the chain of production of those goods right from procurement of raw material to finished product. You will be exporting government revenue, because that comes from taxing economic activity.

You will also be denying local people the opportunity to improve their skills and knowhow in the making of those goods. In other words, you will be exporting your skills base too. You should therefore not be surprised when professionals leave to try and utilise their skills elsewhere, resulting in massive brain drain. In the end the skills of people upon whom the government has spent a fortune to educate do not benefit the country to the maximum.

I know that you will be under a lot of peer pressure to import a lot of trinkets, and luxuries so that you appear prestigious.

Take for example Mr Chiyangwa. We all know about his imported shoes and cars. However at the end of the day, when he wanted votes, he had to come back to the people of Chinhoyi, not Italians, Germans, the British or Americans, upon whom he has lavished lots of spending power.

The same applies to all of you. Do not forget that it is the local people, who put you where you are and make you what we are. We may be poor. You may even believe that we do not wear underwear like one of the contestants in the recent election said. But, the big but, is that we are the people who make Zimbabwe what it is and by extension who make you what you are - officials in the Government of Zimbabwe.

So may I please beg you, support us. Support us in your purchasing habits. Buy your clothes and other trinkets from manufacturers in this country, so that we can have jobs.

Please ndapota, ngiyakucela.

Stale Cabinet

At the time when some in the cabinet announced by President Mugabe today were first appointed ministers, I was still herding cows barefoot in the dusty plains of Manyene.

Bill Gates was a college dropout tinkering with an operating system called PC-DOS unwanted by the world's biggest computer maker, IBM. HP were yet to make laser printers let alone become the biggest desktop computer vendor in the world. Apple were yet to start selling the now famous MacIntosh computer brand. The iPad and iPhone could not even have been imagined by the engineers of the time.

At that time I never imagined a life beyond digging for roots (fifi and magwiredembo), and consider myself an expert at then seemingly all important life skills like setting traps (kuteya misungo, mariva nezvikirimbani) and making homestead tools like cooking sticks and yoke sticks.

My life has since moved on. I don't know when I last wielded an adze (mbezo). A day spent without touching a keyboard is an abnormal day in my life.

The world has also moved on. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher are dead. The John Majors, Tony Blairs, Bill Clintons and a whole clan of Bushes have stepped into and out of the limelight. Prestroika happened and Mikhail Goberchev went with it. The Russian drunkard, Boris Yeltsin also came and went. After all of them Putin even had the time to perform a now-you-see-me, now-you-don't and now-you-see-me-again trick.

However not so for the Zimbabwe cabinet. Sometime in 1980 I attended St Nicholas school at Mahusekwa for 1 term of my turbulent life. Everything about the school and the place has long since been forgotten. However there is one enduring memory. Enerst Kadungure and Sydney Sekeremayi came to address a meeting at Mahusekwa township and us school children were let off early to attend the meeting.

One was wearing a cream safari suit and the other a light blue safari suit. I sat fascinated as they chanted slogans (Pamberi neZanu!) and literally promised to bring heaven down to us. I was a grade 5 pupil then.

Right now I have just spotted another grey hair on my head (those things are becoming too numerous to pluck out). And Sydney Sekeremayi has just been appointed a minster again!

They say if you breathe the same pocket of air for a long time, it will become stale and you will die from lack of oxygen.

What happens if you appoint the same people into a country's cabinet again and again?

Open Letter to President Mugabe

Your Excellency firstly, I would like to congratulate you on your resounding and thunderous victory in the recent elections. I hope it demonstrates the appreciation and trust that we the majority of Zimbabwean people, place in your leadership.

However, Your Excellency, I believe there are a few issues that you need to pay attention to charting the way forward. As a country we need to avoid the mistakes of the past.

Primarily, Your Excellency, I would like to advise you against including people in government who serve no purpose apart from trying to get rich as quickly as they can.

Mr President, I am not against people getting rich. In fact I would love all Zimbabweans to be as rich as possible. However if you allow a handful of people to get rich by skimming off, whether legally or illegally, money meant to provide services for the entire country, you will be allowing the impoverishment of the rest of us the people.

People should get rich from productive endeavours which expand the national pool of wealth rather than consumptive money grabs from national coffers which diminish the services available to all of us.

In a family of twenty has a pool of twenty bags of maize. If two members grab five bags for themselves, then the rest will be left with half a bag each and will quickly go hungry. Very soon the family will be at each other's throats fighting for the little that is there.

However if those members actually works to produce five more bags each and give one bag to the pool (pay their taxes) they will be richer at the same time the family more secure with 22 bags in the granary. If eight other members can do the same then the family will have ten rich people and a bigger pool of thirty bags in the granary.

Your Excellency, I am of the opinion that some of your appointees have mostly been grabbing from the national pool rather than contributing to it. Vari kungonokora mudura renyika, pane kuti varime zvavo.

Mr President, it is my considered and adamantly held opinion, that you need to focus on providing better services to the people of Zimbabwe. This will help you safeguard your legacy. Remember your legacy lies with the way the people perceive your leadership not the way party colleagues appreciate being rewarded with positions.

I know there is always pressure from those who have been by your side for a long time to be rewarded with positions. Your Excellency, I do not envy you the task, but I beg you try and convince them that the best reward, is through serving the people of Zimbabwe better, and being rewarded with their loyalty.

Your Excellency, be cognisant that since your colleagues have better access to you, they have ample chance to influence you to pursue their interests to the detriment of those of the people. Sir, you are the only one in a position to judge how to best balance all these interests, but never allow those of the people to come at the tail-end.

Mr President, I also beg you not to reward with positions people who lack expertise and knowhow and will hinder progress. May I make the humble suggestion that you appoint people who are competent in the areas they are required to manage. Above all Your Excellency, do not shirk to swing a very big boot against those who do not perform. Chuck them out.

Your Excellency, you success in creating a better country is the success of all of us Zimbabweans. I would like extend you my best wishes, knowing that your success will by my success as well, as a proud Zimbabwean.

Why the US won't lift sanctions

The US government has come out in the open at last and made it clear that reforms carried out do not count for anything in terms of the sanctions they have in place against Zimbabwe.

If anyone ever believed that sanctions would be removed after free fair and credible elections, they were fooling themselves.

The main instrument sanctioning Zimbabwe is the Zimbabwe Democracy and Recovery Act of 2001 (ZIDERA). The full text of the act is found at the links http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-107s494enr/pdf/BILLS-107s494enr.pdf and http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/s494/text.

The provisions of the act are very clear, the Zimbabwe government is to be sanctioned from accessing international finance as follows

the Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States executive director to each international financial institution to oppose and vote against--
(1) any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the Government of Zimbabwe; or
(2) any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the Government of Zimbabwe to the United States or any international financial institution.

It is clear from the above that the provisions of ZIDERA are targeted at the Government of Zimbabwe, not a few individuals as claimed by some.

Throwing in the names of a few individuals is just a public relations exercise. Kufuridzira kwegonzo rakaruma.

The Act goes on to outline that the sanctions can only be lifted after

...determination made by the President that the following conditions are satisfied:
(1) RESTORATION OF THE RULE OF LAW- The rule of law has been restored in Zimbabwe, including respect for ownership and title to property...

In short, the spirit of ZIDERA is that, until Zimbabwe gives back white farmers their farms, sanctions won't go. Alternatively the Zimbabwe government should find money to pay 'fair' compensation.

I find it difficult to swallow the idea that poor peasants should be taxed to pay off rich farmers who got rich from abusing them in the first place based on race. The peasants also got poor from being dispossessed of their assets.

Besides the land being taken, many had their cattle, the main item of wealth at the time, taken as well. Some were violently forced to labour for the settlers against their will. So the fair compensation option is unlikely to take off unless of course the source of the problem, the British acknowledge their responsibility and provide compensation for everyone who has suffered.

It is a fact that Zimbabwe's colonization problem started with a royal charter granted by British monarch to some of her subjects. That charter gave them the protection of the British empire while they abused and exploited the natives. Indeed when the natives tried to resist colonization, it was the British imperial army which was send to put down the rebellion in Mashonaland.

Of course a lot of other nice language about democracy, human rights, rule of law and so on is thrown into ZIDERA. All these other conditions are subjective conditions which can be adjudged to be met at any moment.

Look at Egypt. A thousand people have died during political violence but there is no EGYPDERA in the works. In fact, more guns for the generals doing the shooting are in the pipeline. Yet we have the Americans calling what is a straightforward coup of then elected president, a 'restoration of democracy'.

The bottom line is the the West are not going to help you make their kith and kin, and themselves, poorer. If one thinks seriously about it, is the West and going to abandon land and mineral claims so that one can hand it over to the Chinese? They will go kicking, screaming and scratching all the way.

And the ill-feeling towards land reform is going to last probably a generation or two. Look at us, our forefathers were dispossessed of the land four to five generations ago, but look at how emotional about it we still are. So Zimbabwe should work on the worst case scenario that sanctions will stay for some years more.

Of course the MDC provided a finger for those imposing sanctions to hide behind. Supposedly it is upon their word, and that of ZESN, that the sanctions are being maintained. Personally I don't believe that even if the MDC had sung ballads in praise of the recent elections, it would have made any difference.

The key issue is return of land. Of course any Zimbabwean in their right mind will not agree to a return to the colonial status quo.

Success requires hard work

Success requires hard work.

I can show you a piece of land and call it yours. If you then proceed to fall asleep, you might grow a beard longer than Rip Van Winkle's but you won't have any tall crops on that land.

Possession of assets, does not amount to economic success. You need people with the correct knowledge, skills and work ethic to produce from the assets. You might think that you can always employ people with skills, but believe me the politics of the workplace very quickly militate against the personal motivation the skilled people might have.

You end up paying high salaries for little output. As the initial success of the biggest technology companies shows (Microsoft and Apple for example) it is always worthwhile for the main owner to be an expert in the field of endeavour.

For business highly technical business to be successful the owners also need to have excellent technical knowledge. Owners with little knowledge are often no more than sources of harmful interference, and wasteful expense.

Government policies of the post independence era have firmly shifted ownership of assets into our hands, and a good knowledge base into our heads. It is up to us individual Zimbabweans to polish this rough product into its final lustrous glory. It is up to us to be honest, diligent and humble as we work for the success of our country.

We need to remember that the success we seek is not for purposes of showing off, but for uplifting our communities as well. There is no use in you having ten expensive cars in your garage when the road to your real home, not the fake one in town, is rendered unusable by gullies. Zimbabweans, we need to uplift our communities.

For an economy to be successful it also needs a market. For any country the biggest internal market is the state. If the state is taking its custom and purchasing power and exporting it like we have been doing for a number of years, local ownership of resources is entirely meaningless.

We used to have Dahmer employing locals. Now we don't because we decided to export our purchasing power for buses. We used to have Quest Motors and Willowvale Motor Industries. Now they are stuttering because we have exported our purchasing power for vehicles. The government was first to that with importation of luxury vehicles. The public soon followed with their ravenous appetite for Japanese throwaway rubbish.

Indeed during Gideon Gono's time at came to a point where we were printing money to finance foreign purchases for things as basic as chains and scotch-carts. That is what led to hyperinflation.

Yes sanctions are there and they took a bite of our industrial capacity, but sanctions are not what leads to hyperinflation. Otherwise the Cuban and Iranian currencies, also under Western sanctions, would have tanked a long time ago.

At the end of the day we should not be surprised at the low employment levels in our economy and the high success rate of the economies we are importing from. We are giving them work to do even where we could be doing the work ourselves.

One can only but marvel at how one of the smallest towns in South Africa, Musina,  has boomed because of the purchasing power of Zimbabweans. I have watched the town grow threefold in half a decade with my own eyes.

The governance culture needs to be one of serving the people not one of exercising authority over the people. We need to minimize red-tape at every possible opportunity to allow commerce to flow faster and the country better yields. There is nothing to be gained from making people wait for long times, doing nothing. Rather serve them quickly so that they can use their time for other productive ventures.

For the human resources and skills to run these enterprises we need to strengthen our local education institutions. However our local students have been having to prostitute themselves for sustenance while money is disproportionately poured into the foreign education of the children of high ranking officials and the well connected.

Yet all that counts for little because the proudly one hundred percent Zimbabwean educated people like me, still outperform most foreign educated people even in the countries where they were educated. Suffice to say the foreign education is not about quality but about prestige and bragging rights.

If quality was the main issue, it is right here on home soil. We are the ones destroying what we have through neglect. We are like a man watering another man's livestock neglecting his own.

We need to focus on our country and that should start in the highest echelons of government.

Kudos to ZEC

I I would like to congratulate the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on a job very well done.

Your system was so well organised and run that when a party official tried to tamper with the voting process you very easily caught him out.

Do not be disheartened by the attacks of permanent detractors and sore losers. Some of the permanent detractors cannot even run elections half as organised and transparent is the ones you ran.

Ms Rita Makarau and your team, please keep it up. You make proud Zimbabweans like me even more proud.

Please pass on my thanks to the multitudes of civil servants (teachers, police officers and others) who, I am proud to say, did an extremely professional job, and conducted themselves with immense dignity and poise. This is despite that they were working in probably the hottest political cauldron on this planet. I do not need to add, it shows that they have a diligent and hardworking culture.

I know you faced a tremendous amount of unsubtle pressure from enormously powerful international players to do everything possible to discredit a result they didn't want. However I am proud to say that you held your nerve and fulfilled your duty towards the Zimbabwean people immaculately, and impartially.

If it was up to me the expertise and integrity of individual members of the ZEC team would become very highly recommended in helping organize and observe elections throughout the region and Africa. You are indeed international quality experts at running elections.

Thank you very much.

The MDC should concede graciously

The MDC has refused to concede defeat, even where allies like Lovemore Madhuku have advised that normally you do not contest such margins of defeat. This is a clear indication that there is little, if any, chance that their challenge will make any difference to the material outcome of the election.

If you were to believe what the MDC are saying in public, they were cheated and they want a rerun. It puzzles me as to why they would want a rerun while momentum is clearly with Zanu-PF. Chances are that in any election to be held with then next one to two years, Zanu-PF would win by an even bigger margin. Candidates who survived by the skin of their teeth like the Honourable Tendai Biti, MP would definitely loose.

I think the MDC know very well that they were beaten fair and square. The hue and cry they are raising is primarily to provide cover for their foreign backers to maintain sanctions.The second motive might be to try and give themselves more leverage, in a future government, than they deserve based on their weak electoral showing. I would not be surprised if they are aiming for a couple of places in cabinet, or at the very least, for a face saving post for citizen Tsvangirai.

On the sanctions issue, anybody who has read ZIDERA will know very well that the real reason for them is to try and punish those who threaten the wealth that certain groups of individuals acquired through violent and racist colonial subjugation. They have got absolutely nothing to do with democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe.

Indeed if the issue was democracy, certain generals who deposed an elected president would have been quickly sanctioned as well. Instead they are being showered with billions of dollars worth of weaponry as well as being lavished with money. Despite, their actions threatening the stability of an entire region. Contrast that with a leader who has diligently held elections on time every time being called a dictator.

The MDC's current predicament shows the danger of being funded by foreign interests. You end up being made to look like a fool trying to pursue entirely divergent and contradictory interests. Like a man trying to chase two hares running in opposite directions.

The foreign interests backing the MDC are primarily driven by the desire to own and control natural resources which occur within the natural geographical sphere of influence of the Zimbabwe people.

At the same time the people of Zimbabwe want to fully exercise their natural right to benefit from those resources. To maximize this benefit they need to have ownership of the resources.

The MDC ends up like a man trying to explain the benefits of eating meat to a goat, on behalf of a hyena. 'You see if the hyena eats meat, it will be very fat and strong and protect you from other hyenas.' The catch will be that the hyena has to eat you first.

If a man has got to take ownership of what is yours, use it to make money, then employ you, why not just start by you employing him?

More than a week after the elections, the MDC have failed to come up with the evidence to challenge the result in court. Yet they still refuse to magnanimously concede defeat and allow the country to move on. They are also providing cover for people who want to harm Zimbabwe using sanctions, to continue doing.

Western governments have said they are not going to lift sanctions because the MDC and ZESN claim the elections were not fair. Yet these are groups that a paid and sponsored by the very same governments. Obviously the groups are not using any sort of objectivity, but are trying to produce the best possible outcome for their paymasters.

I do not think Zimbabwe should be held to ransom by such groups. I hope they realise that the possible backlash from Zimbabweans will mean even less support for them. We do not exactly adore having hardships invited upon us.

Why I think the Zimbabwe election was credible

The United States, Britain and Australia have called for an election re-run becuase of 'anomalies' in the voters roll, and they claim a large number of urban voters were 'barred' from voting.

If the voters roll is their main concern, then should never recognize elections in any other country in the region. Zimbabwe has the highest coverage of citizen registration in the region. Its voters roll though not perfect, has therefore the fairest representation of citizenry than any other country in the region.

Other countries including South Africa have got millions of people without even basic documents like a birth-certificate. If the voters' roll were to be the basis for judging the credibility of elections then those countries should be holding permanent reruns.

As for voters claimed to have been barred from voting, nobody has been able to tabulate tell us exactly, how why the voters were turned away. Nobody also is also telling us whether or not those voters eventually voted at other polling stations. The figures that are being bandied about are unsubstantiated thumbsucks like 'almost a million', 'maybe as much as 750 000'.

Mind you being turned away from a polling station does not amount to being barred from voting. Most people are simply referred to a polling station in the correct ward.

Take for example if you are a voter living in Highfield's Egypt Lines. You might turn up at Highfield High One School to vote. In past elections Highfield High One use to be in Highfield constituency and Egypt Lines (just across the road from it) in Glen Norah constituency. You would then be referred to Mukai High School about a kilometre (5 minutes walking distance) down the road. That does not amount to being barred from voting.

This is quite common in urban areas because of the higher population density and closer proximity of polling stations in different wards and constituencies as opposed to sparsely populated rural areas. People make a beeline for the polling station that is physically nearest to them.

So there is absolutely no anomaly in higher numbers of urban voters being referred to other polling stations. That does not amount to being barred from voting.

Anyway, what is the beef about? The MDC won in those urban areas didn't they?

If these countries are not going to lift sanctions against Zimbabwe it has got nothing to do with the credibility of Zimbabwe's elections. They are definitely far much more credible then the actions of the bunch of generals in Egypt to whom they are sending billions of dollars worth of weapons and money. And the situation in Zimbabwe is definitely far much more peaceful.

The only reason they are going to keep the sanctions is because they do not want to aid Nationalist, Afro-Centric and Pan-Africanist policies of Mugabe in any way. In the long run those policies are going to make the former colonialists, the wealth they now possess and whose claim to it is only on the basis of past colonial thuggery.

People often quote the results of the 2008 presidential election as evidence that the MDC was much more popular than Zanu-PF. That is not true. The MDC was neck and neck with Zanu-PF in the parliamentary election. They both had 46% of the vote, with Zanu-PF even slightly ahead.

That Tsvangirai was far ahead of Mugabe was in no small part due a secret campaign codenamed 'bhora musango' (shoot off target) by some Zanu-PF candidates to direct the presidential vote elsewhere. That is why Tsvangirai had 48% and Mugabe at 43% was 3% below his party's popular vote.

This time around the Zanu-PF slogan was 'bhora mugedhi' (shoot right between the goalposts!). Zanu-PF was now pulling as a unit. If Tsvangirai failed to beat Mugabe when some Zanu-PF members were campaign against their leader, how can people expect him to beat Mugabe now, when everyone in Zanu-PF had been whipped into line.

Besides, the arrogance with which he treated breakaway factions of his own party was a clear indication to Zanu-PF members who may have wished to work with him, that they better stick with the devil they know. No meaningful effort was ever made by Tsvangirai to reach out to these disgruntled Zanu-PF members and the MDC completely ignored the 'bhora musango' phenomenon.

How can people expect a party that fails to seize such opportunities to win.

Tsvangirai's loss was always coming

SADC and the African Union should stop entertaining dissatisfied minor political parties from member countries. Otherwise before you know it Renamo's Alfonso Dlakama will be demanding to meet SADC and the AU. If she were politically immature, Helen Zille might also demand to meet SADC and the AU.

These organisations should also be mindful that the most noisome of these minor parties are the products neo-colonial experiments by former colonial masters, not genuine people driven movements. Who doesn't know that RENAMO was founded by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa to destabilize Mozambique for supporting people driven liberation movements like the ANC, ZAPU and ZANU. Who doesn't know that the MDC was financed to the hilt by former colonial masters to try and starve off the definite loss of wealth and control of the economy, that is going to come with policies like indigenisation, restoration of land and resources to the colonially dispossessed black people.

Such organisations seem to have inherited the sense of entitlement and priviledge that was the hallmark of colonial behaviour. RENAMO have been threatening to go to war because they feel they are entitled to win elections in Mozambique. Similarly the MDC seem to think that they are entitled to win elections in Zimbabwe.

In 2008 there was an evenly split election in Zimbabwe which needed a coalition. According to reports, Zanu-PF was the first to approach the MDC to form a coalition. Largely because Tsvangirai had already skipped the country and was refusing to return to negotiate, Zimbabwe had to approach the country hosting him to facilitate negotiation, with the blessing of SADC.

An agreement was signed which was supposed to subsist for two years. Subsequently a number of afterthought demands, which were not part of the original Global Political Agreement, were made. Already it is an anomaly that SADC took these afterthought demands and treated them as if they were part of the original agreement.

SADC is a voluntary group of equal countries. None among them is the headboy of the group, upon whom there is a duty to foist instructions upon others. None, also, should  allow themselves to be the conduit through which former colonial masters can continue to try and assert dominance over former colonies.

Remember the SADC grouping was born out of mainly the former Frontline States, which were at the forefront of dismantling that last bastion of colonialism, apartheid South Africa. The founder nations of this group, among which is Zimbabwe, fiercely and jealously guard against restoration of colonial edifices in what ever form.

The MDC claims that they were cheated. Yet nobody is able to specify where and how the cheating happened. When asked to provide evidence of rigging at a news conference, all Morgan Tsvangirai could say was that he didn't believe the MDC could loose Manicaland because they were so strong there in the past. By the same logic Zanu-PF could claim rigging stating that they don't believe they could loose any election in Zimbabwe because they used to have 117 out of 120 seats in the past.

Based on the facts available now, not speculation and conjecture, it is the MDC which tried to tamper with the voting process. Their elections director Komichi has a pending case right now resulting from special vote ballots which had been tampered with and marked in favour of Tsvangirai. That case did not even arise from Zanu-PF complaints. The MDC were caught out by ZEC on their own.

The entire MDC political doctrine was based on mere hatred of one man. 'Let's get rid of Mugabe' that is all their message was about. In you asked them 'Then what?' there would be no clear answers. There was no clear vision of what they wanted to achieve for Zimbabweans. They had no core principles and values.

They effectively reduced themselves to a single use tool, like a hypodermic needle. If it works, fine, but you throw it away. If it doesn't work you still throw it away. They know they are a cannula which failed to find the vein and are on their way to the disposables bin.

Unlike Kenya, Zimbabwe's politics are not ethnicity based. They do not have an ethnic support base like Raila Odinga in Kenya which might have given them a chance to remain relevant. For one to remain relevant in Zimbabwe, one needs core principles and values in resonance with those of the people.

Coupled with the tendency of their leader to try and please whoever he is facing for the moment, the MDC's message has been confused and confusing. One moment Tsvangirai would be championing gay rights on BBC, the next he would saying he doesn't really support them.

I would also like to politely ask the MDC and their backers, to stop insulting the intelligence of Zimbabweans. They knew about Tsvangirai's weaknesses. They wrote about it in diplomatic cables. Thanks to Wikileaks we know about it. They witnessed the drama surrounding his womanising. They watched as Tsvangirai prevaricated and mumbled incoherent messages on major issues such as land reform and gay rights.

Yet if you go by the claims of unfairness now, it is clear they believe that every Zimbabwean is so dumb and stupid that they would ALL still vote for Tsvangirai despite these glaring faults. That is an insult upon the intelligence of a people who are the most educated in sub-Saharan Africa.

Would the Labour party go to election with a leader who had impregnated a young woman. A leader who would have tried to marry another, changed his mind and jumped into the arms of a third woman, all within six months. On top of it, all these women would be the daughters of prominent Tory peers. The leader would also have cavorted with a sexy French woman in the Bahamas, who would also be claiming she was promised marriage.

If going to election with such a leader would not work in the UK, why would the British government think it would work in Zimbabwe. That is unless they hold a condescendingly insulting view of the intelligence of the black people of Zimbabwe.

Going by some claims the MDC took Zimbabweans for granted so much that one official is said to have boasted that even if Tsvangirai was caught committing murder, he would still win elections in Zimbabwe.

I would also ask the MDC's backers stop making all Zimbabweans pay for their misjudgement of Tsvangirai's character. They should accept Tsvangirai's obvious loss, and stop dishing out negative twaddle about Zimbabwe over it.

The MDC have always been a bunch of disparate opportunists either without, or with ultimately divergent core values. They were only united by their common belief that Mugabe was the only obstacle to their intentions. They forgot that the people of Zimbabwe themselves are the ones favouring the values Mugabe stands for.

Their defeat at free and fair election, unencumbered by economic sabotage, was always a given.

Zimbabwe Elections 2013: My Take.

A lot of people are talking as if I am responsible for the MDC's loss (if that's what is happening because I don't know the results). Yet I did not even vote.

A relative has warned me not to go to my rural home anymore. A friend says Zanu-PF should give me a diamond mine or make me the director of a parastatal. Another friend has told me 'wakadyiswa neZanu.' Yet I am not even a Zanu-PF supporter.

On the other hand, even if the MDC had won by 120%, it would not have changed my opinion that they are a bunch of dubious opportunists not worthy of the boots they were trying to fill. That is an opinion that I have held from the time they were formed.

Right now they are making a lot of claims about having been cheated. I am inclined to think it is part of a strategy to try and negotiate their way into government posts so as to stay in the money.

As usual the claims of cheating are speculative and not substantiated by hard evidence. Take for example the claim that there are people with the same name but different IDs registered at the same address.

For most Zimbabweans the 'address' is the village of origin. Take any Zimbabwean ID card and check, it is there. If you happen to have cousins, nephews and uncles also called Tapiwa (and we do have a tendency to name children after relatives) then it is quiet possible to have 3 or moreTapiwa Chimutis whose address is Chimuti Village. A lot of Zimbabaweans also use the houses of relatives as addresses because they are lodgers.

We have not even talked about totem based surnames like Moyo or Ncube. Get the Zimbabwe telephone directory and check how many pages those surnames covers. Unless your parents were to choose a rather exotic name like Welshman, you are likely to share a first name and surname with hundreds of other Ncubes.

Also remember that we Zimbabweans for reasons other than voting, sometimes register multiple times. When I was in primary school (1970s) I had three birth-certificates. I know of a cousin who once had 4 IDs until she was caught, triggering a big investigation at the registrar general's office. That was maybe 20 years ago. It is us ordinary people who duplicate IDs as we cheat and bribe our way through life, not politicians.

I am not ruling out tampering with the voters roll. But I wouldn't hold a press conference until I have done thorough and competent investigative work. I wouldn't hold a press a conference because I have seen two Thabani Moyos from Moyo Village. Or even two Thabani Moyos living in the same house in Harare. It could be grandfather and grandson.

As for voters turned away. Every party had polling agents at polling stations. Surely it was a simple matter to count the number of people turned away at each polling station and add the numbers to come up with a definitive figure, rather than to speculate on an overall figure that no one has any way of checking.

The MDC only have themselves to blame for wasting a good opportunity to get into power.

It is simply foolish to let people who grew up among the high rises of New York and Los Angeles, people who have never seen a tsombori, gwiredembo or dug for a fifi, to be your guiding light when you are seeking the votes of people who grew up doing these things.

I remember sometime ago I wrote that I will not take political advise, on Zimbabwe, from someone who has never been part of proceedings at a village court. Well the MDC did exactly that, borrow strategies and plans from New Yorkers almost word for word. They borrowed everything including the half-hearted attempt to champion gay rights. Now they are surprised that they are not winning elections in Zimbabwe. Hint, their strategy would have won them elections in Washington DC.

To me the election does not make much of a difference because the structural deficiencies of our governance system have always been unlikely to be addressed by either party.

First and foremost is the failure to collect revenue. The tax system has virtually collapsed with high income individuals in the informal sector largely untaxed.

Second is the excessive consumption of the executive. We have an excessively large executive branch, that is consuming far beyond the means of the economy. (http://punungwe.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-zimbabwes-economy-can-recover.html)

The MDC and Zanu-PF have been concentrating on throwing insults at each other and I never heard them addressing these tough but critical issues. Both parties focused on their traditional matakadyakare issues.

The Baba Jukwa Conundrum

In have just been reading an article about the so called Baba Jukwa on News24.

Two things caught my eye.
1. The writing style changes from day to day, which means it is a team of people not one person.
2. The Baba Jukwa team does seem to have inside information on what goes on at Zanu-PF meetings and what is discussed in private by Zanu-PF people.
3. The Baba Jukwa team seems to have access to the private cellphone numbers of Zanu-PF people.

Apparently Zanu-PF people are suspecting each other and scared. They think someone among them is secretly passing on information to Baba Jukwa.

For me what's going on is very easy to figure out. Think Edward Snowden. Think carefully about what he has leaked.

1. The Americans (NSA, CIA) can listen in on any phone conversation they want. Their laws prevent them from listening in on conversation by people on American soil, not anywhere else.
2. The Americans (CIA) are very good at planting bugs such that they even had bugs in EU offices and had bugs in an EU fax that was supposed to be secure.
3. The CIA have special antennas and listening devices.

Once you understand the import of these facts then the Baba Jukwa conundrum is solved. The Americans have got Zanu-PF offices, probably Zimbabwe government offices, cellphone airwaves and maybe even landlines thoroughly bugged.

This explains how the so called Baba Jukwa got the private cellphone numbers. Probably from American intelligence. It also means whatever Zanu-PF officials are discussing on the cellphones, in their offices and maybe even in their homes is being listened in to. That explains why Baba Jukwa always seems to have early knowledge of these discussions.

Why publish it on the internet. It's psychological warfare. It is meant to plant mistrust and uncertainty among the Zanu-PF officials.

That the Americans have an undue interest on the goings on in Zimbabwe is well known. Recently their ambassador was busy writing letters to senior civil servants in Zimbabwe.

Snowden has a lot for the Russians

Edward Snowden, the man stuck in Russia after releasing some very damaging American secrets is a brave man indeed. Very few people in the world, including Americans, would dare take on the powerful American secret intelligence establishment on matters of principle.

I definitely do believe that Snowden's convictions about freedom, liberty and justice are spot on. However I think he may have escaped the jaws of a Mississippi alligator but he is now in the grip of a Zambezi hippo.

Russia seems to be totally disinterested in Snowden's fate and destination. According to Vladmir Putin, he is a squeeling piglet with no wool. After thinking about Snowden's potential intelligence value to Russians, I think Putin is being disingenuous. He actually know that the Russians have got a woolly mammoth in the hands and there is a lot of wool to be sheared.

From Snowden, the Russians can get information about people he worked with. They are likely to glean information about some of those people's vulnerabilities as well. In other words they are going to find out from Snowden who in the American system they can get drunk.

Everyone seems to think that pressure from Americans is getting most countries to rethink their offers of asylum for snowden. I find it hard to believe that countries like Ecuador are changing their minds because of Joe Biden ranting and raving at them.

I am more inclined to think that it a few well placed bites to the ear by the Russians are achieving that. 'Guys leave him for us.'

Snowden is likely to know some people whose work is so secret that not even their wives know what they do. Imagine the kind of intelligence bonanza it would be for the Russians, to be able to identify even just one or two of such people and their roles. I am sure Snowden can give them much more than one or two names to work with. Information from Snowden is likely to give the Russians a few tiny holes through which they can try and worm deeper into the American intelligence establishment.

As an example take one of the events that turned Snowden against the system he worked for. The CIA got an 'innocent' banker drunk, had him arrested for drunk driving then rescued him to earn his gratitude. The CIA wouldn't have bothered to get the man drunk unless they knew who he worked for and what kind of information he had access to. For them to know that it just didn't happen. They did some other intelligence work upfront. Snowden is a fountain of such upfront intelligence at which the Russians can thirstily drink.

Whether he likes or not Snowden is in a very tight spot and he is going to need big favours to get out of it. The Russians can do him such favours. I don't believe even for a moment that they are going to do it just for the sake of embarrassing the Americans with leaks. They are going to do him a favour because they want to debrief him thoroughly.

Snowden's value for the Russians does not come from poking, prodding and embarrassing the Americans with releases of their secrets. Snowden's value comes from the insight he can give the Russians into the inner workings of some of the most top secret American spying organisations. He has been with both the CIA and NSA.

Snowden effectively has nowhere to go and is already on Russian soil. So time is on the side of the Russians. I think they are going to let him stew a bit and when he is tender enough, they are going to have their meal.