AUGUST 2007
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LOST AND FOUND
Looking for Anna Fairlie ex Hatfield, Salisbury. Last heard of in Florida.
Marion and Rob Southwick looking to make contact.
I'm looking for Eileen & Peter Swart from the Salisbury area, they have two daughters and the last I heard from Eileen was 1968 when she was Eileen Varkevisse. I think they moved to RSA
Looking for Group W Salisbury Central Hospital - Would love to contact members of Group W 1963 - 1967 Some of us are already in touch.Neale, Janine or Ian Ellis anyone know the whereabouts of the Ellis's? Barbara (nee) Smith would love to catch up
Looking for Elizabeth Twine She was in Bulawayo around 1960. Anyone know her whereabouts?
Is there anyone out there who lived on the sugar estate that operated for a while on the southern bank of the Zambezi just downstream from Chirundu bridge? I'd love to compare notes ...
Alice Phillips. Still looking for Alice, used to work with her in Byo, then we came to the UK on SA Vaal, but lost contact, Madeline Potter.
Pete Ramsey from Bulawayo, we had some good times in Byo and would love to contact him again. Dave Eastley
I would really like to find out where the following people are if anyone can help. I lost touch with them about 1963 when we left Byo to go to the UK.
Where is Francis Stanley Ward - he did go to St Thomas Aquinas school. What about George and Lorraine Williams (twins) - believe they moved to the UK in about 1960. Twins Ann and Barbara Thorpe, they have the same birthday as me
Still looking for Nadine Robinson. Live in Harare. Had a brother his name was Shaun. She was married to Mike Robinson. She had 2 girls, Kerry was one of them. Any help will be good. thank-you
Looking for Moses Matarise....he was with me at Que-Que Junior School in 1979 to 1981. He was a great athlete....and also stayed in Hibiscus Avenue, Msasa Park, Que-Que
Hi - Charmaine (nee Theunissen) and John Patrick left from Cape Town to USA a year ago and I would love to catch up with them again. Charmaine was an Umtali girl and good friend for more years than I care to imagine. They have 3 delightful youngsters.
Thanks to the all the people how have replied to our last "Looking For". We have found Caroline and still looking for Sandra Davis.
Calvert Family. Does anyone know where any of them are, at one time Penny and her folks were in Milton Keynes , used to go to Marlborough High with them.
Jeff and Iain Jefferies. Trying to track down my cousin Iain and his father whom I last saw in the UK in 1978. would very much appreciate any clues.Looking for Caroline Godfree(Hope its right) Ex Byo. Last time I saw her was in Byo when I stayed in Montrose. I would like to get in contact with her if anyone knows where she is please let me know
Looking for my buddy Martin Holloway, ex U.B.H.S. Was doing forestry up in Inyanga during the mid-70's. Farmed around Marandellas as a manager for Gordon Milne in the early 80's.
Hi I am looking for Claire Johnstone from Umtali, she has two brothers, Stuart and Simon. Last time I saw her was in 1974. Linda
I am seeking the whereabouts of Hew Jack who served with me at Court Section (BSA Police Bulawayo) and later worked for the main dealership for Mercedes in Harare. Last saw him in Johannesburg 1987 when he was down on holiday.
Nigel Dunn - Iain McGregor. Nigel, last heard of in the UK when my brother Trevor Jones gave me email details, which don't exist any longer. Iain, last saw in Harare before leaving for RSA in 1988. Does anyone have any details?
I am looking for an old friend Karen Allen. The last address I have for her is in Australia. She married Kevin O'Neil, so goes by Karen O'Neil now.
Help with these searches and the many more...post your own "You never know who maybe looking for you"
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RHODESIAN HISTORY TRIVIA
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EDDIE CROSS EDITORIALS
Join in the Discussion in The Message Boards at Rhodiechat.
Pol Pot Revisited
Zimbabwe suddenly looks like it has been in a war. The shops are empty, there is little traffic and everyone is walking around in a daze. People stop me and ask what is going on? Well just remember Pol Pot. He came to power in Cambodia in the mid seventies, launched what they called the Khmer revolution and in a matter of months they reduced the capital city to a shell occupied by 25,000 people - down from two million.
In the process they had killed hundreds of thousands of skilled and experienced Cambodians, forced millions into the rural areas where they were required to undergo re-education and make a living from subsistence agriculture. It will take Cambodia millennia to recover after this rapacious and ideologically driven regime was removed from power by military intervention.
People outside Zimbabwe have no idea of just what has happened in Zimbabwe in the past month. Conditions have gone from difficult to impossible. I am not exaggerating when I say there are no basics - no flour, no maize meal, no cooking oil, no margarine, no matches, no fuel, no meat, no eggs. On top of this there are widespread shortages of water and electricity. I simply do not know how people are surviving.
These terrible conditions are being deliberately created in a Pol Pot style operation that is supposed to be dealing with run away inflation. Its real goals lie elsewhere.
We now know that this operation was planned a long time ago - probably as soon as it became apparent that elections would have to be held in March 2008. This is no knee jerk reaction to inflation, or to remarks by the US Ambassador about regime change. It began with an exercise to generate a sudden spurt in inflation. This was achieved when the State started buying foreign currency on the open market in June, using freshly printed currency. In a week of frenzied activity the price of the US dollar went from about Z$70 000 to Z$400 000. Importers and industrialists were forced to raise prices to cover the replacement cost of stocks.
The State then unveiled its 'operation good governance'. Under secret orders, the security forces were instructed to impose price reductions on all businesses. There was no legal basis for these instructions - just orders to go into firms on a systematic basis and order them to cut prices or else. Managers and owners were specifically targeted to intimidate them into compliance. These have been arrested in their thousands, abused and held over in filthy, overcrowded cells with ordinary prisoners. Trillions of dollars of stock values were slashed from prices, no rational basis for these price cuts were sought or tolerated. Suddenly firms faced the situation where they could not restock, could not manufacture and sell for a profit - most of their established products were now being priced into the market at below cost. The more you produced, the faster your demise. Fuel was priced at half its landed cost and overnight some Z$400 billion in stock values was lost as customers scrambled to buy cheap fuel at half price or less. All imports stopped.
The prices of all staple foods was likewise set at half or less the cost of production and when stocks ran out there was nothing to sell. Now many theories have been put out about this operation - it was popularist is one, 'they are preparing for the elections and forcing firms to cut prices is an attempt to curry favor with voters'. Many actually say it was about time that business was brought to heel - a reaction to the sharp price hikes caused by the first stage of this operation. It is too early for that to be the real reason; they see it as one outcome, but with little long-term value in their strategy.
My own view, based on what I know about the background, is that this is a carefully planned and ruthless exercise to reduce the urban voting population, undermine the remaining support base of the MDC and take full control of the population and the economy in time for the March 2008 elections. The dismantling of the commercial farm industry has reduced the voting population on commercial farms from 2 million to about 600 000 and all of them are now under the control of either the State or Zanu PF elements who can dictate how they vote. These resettled areas are virtually no go areas for the MDC.
In Communal areas the food supply has been brought under control and direction, as has all other essentials for survival including the right of abode. Traditional leaders are tightly controlled by the State and are now under close supervision by resident CIO operatives who watch their every action. They have been through three elections and now believe that they can control the vote in these areas by these means. They are probably right.
So the remaining threat is the urban vote. Now in the majority, with over 6 million people living in urban areas, the towns and cities are the last remaining centers of opposition. So like Pol Pot, the powers that be, in this case the small coterie of leaders surrounding Mugabe and the people involved in the Joint Operations Command, have decided to do some surgery.
When this operation is concluded they hope to have reduced the urban population by as much as half, destroyed or taken over all major firms in the private sector and facilitated the takeover of all other surviving firms by loyal Zanu PF supporters. They are deliberately halting food supplies to the cities, destroying jobs and the transport industry. They will then take the pick of the commercial and industrial infrastructure that remains - intact, almost as if a Neutron Bomb had been used, and move on from there. The remaining urban population would then be in the same position as the population in the rural areas - under tight control and able to vote only under supervision.
Then Zanu can allow an election to take place - probably in March as planned, even with observers for the last few days of the campaign and during the vote itself. Zanu feels confident that it can win a clear majority - even a two-thirds majority vote under such circumstances. The only other issue is what happens to the three million Zimbabweans displaced by this ruthless, but clever scheme.
Most of them will swim the Limpopo or cross the border at Beitbridge. Once in South Africa, or Botswana, or Zambia or the UK or the USA, they will settle down, breathe a sigh of relief to be somewhere where sanity prevails and try to make a living, any sort of living. They will gradually be assimilated and will start sending small sums of money 'home' to keep their relatives alive in Mugabe’s national detention camp. Most importantly, they will not be able to vote.
What remains of Zimbabwe will be a sea of poverty and subsistence activity with Party controlled islands of prosperity. A few foreign firms will be allowed to exploit our resources under close supervision and control and the output used to support the lifestyles of the new elite who will continue to enjoy the luxury and pleasures that have become their norm in recent years on the gravy train. It has nothing to do with price control.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 2nd August 2007
He is still up there.
I walked out of the wholesaler furious at the situation I found there staff standing around with nothing to do, empty shelves and a sense of
desolation. What on earth do these idiots in Government think they are doing? I asked myself. I decided to walk over the road and see the Managing Director, an old friend, to ask him what they are going to do – it was quite obvious to all but the blind, that they were going down the tubes. An old business with a proud record of service to the community.Arriving at reception the man who answers the phone and directs visitors was reading his Bible. Not much else to do I thought. I greeted him and asked if the MD was in his office. He said he was out but I could see his secretary. I said no she could not really help me with the issue I wanted to talk about.
I then asked him what they were going to do about the collapse of the business. Receptionists are like taxi drivers they know everything. His response to me with a broad smile was “He is still up there!” At first I thought he was saying the MD was upstairs and then I suddenly realized he was saying God is still up there and if that was the case we should not worry, just trust in Him.
I felt as if I had been hit with a pole. How could I be so stupid as to think that we could actually do something about this self-inflicted crisis? I had let my faith slip, given in to despair and just wanted to vent my spleen on another victim. I walked back to my car and resolved to trust more and to walk by faith and not by sight. Nothing had changed, but I felt better and went on to scour the City for product eventually dispatching a substantial load to the store, which was sold out in 24 hours. We are down, but not out and we are not going to let these evil people win.
Yesterday I had to speak to the staff in our factory here in Bulawayo. I first met with the Workers Committee and then with the entire staff – we had no electricity so they were all idle and we lost no production. They have worked for us for more than 15 years, many are known to me personally and we have been through some tough times when nobody thought the company could survive. Business is like that – our main concern is not profit, its how to stay in business and ahead of the myriad of problems that confront business every day.
Just a month ago we had a full order book and looked as if we were set for a good year. Then came the price control exercise the neutron bomb campaign and we lost every order that we had from local customers. Major firms were unable to take delivery of product and they called to freeze any further production. We slowed down and then stopped operations sent everyone home on paid leave for a week and then another week and finally tried to reopen on half time.
When you are a low paid industrial worker, any loss of earnings poses an immediate crisis. They have no savings to fall back on and no alternative sources of income. Workers in Zimbabwe are already struggling under a regime that has reduced their real earnings by 90 per cent in a decade. So this latest crisis was not long in impacting on our staff and their families.
I explained that Operation Neutron Bomb was designed to bankrupt all companies and force them to either sell out to the State, or to sell a majority holding to individuals approved by the State it was intended to extend ZANU control to the entire economy so that they could control the residual population and dictate how they would vote in the next election.
Never underestimate the wisdom and understanding of the poor. They know what is going on and in many cases appreciate the implications well before the better off do. They listened intently to what I had to say and then we discussed our survival strategy. We talked about how we might find food for them and their families, what they needed, what we might do from a business point of view, what sales were trying to do to get orders and to see what new products we could put out to avoid the price controls that were designed to cripple us financially.
We then said that they would have to go home for another week but come back on the 20th when we expected that we would be able to resume production and full pay. An act of faith if ever there was one! But I said we all had to play our role, if we got an order, lets get it out fast and to the satisfaction of the client. Lets work together to defeat this monster in our midst so that we might be able to play our part in the eventual recovery and reconstruction of this country.
Nearly all our workers are MDC we have some ZANU PF stalwarts in our midst, but they are a minority, unable to let go of the fact that their Party brought us to independence. Even these faithful now feel let down by Zanu PF and are watching and waiting to see what will happen, they know this nightmare cannot go on for much longer. One asked me plaintively – "if the MDC gets into power, won’t they be the same as Zanu?” This caused much laughter and I did not answer because I think he knows what I think about that possibility. It could happen, as in Zambia, but at least if we restore our democracy we can throw the new regime out with a simple vote.
Yesterday I stood in a queue with an elderly Ndebele women. We got talking and she said to me, not knowing whom I was, that we at least have not made the mistake of fighting. We have chosen the right road, the road for us back to sanity and recovery lies through peaceful, democratic elections and a legal transfer of power. Lets not let go of that route, it is the right one and we will eventually win through and in the meantime trust God to provide our daily bread. He is still up there!!
Eddie Cross
9th August 2007
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