- Dear Family and Friends,
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- Swine Flu has officially arrived in Zimbabwe. A ZBC TV
news bulletin this week reported that there were a number of confirmed
cases of swine flu in Mutare. The report said that people should not panic
because hospitals were prepared, staff had been trained and information
would soon be disseminated to private practitioners. Special attention
is apparently going to be given to critical areas like the country's border
posts.
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- This latter cannot come soon enough and I am sure that
every poor soul who has had to endure the horrors of Beitbridge border
post will agree with me. In the last few days I have met two Zimbabweans
who have been through the Beitbridge border post this month. They say it
is hell, a nightmare, a national disgrace, a shame on our country, a deep
embarrassment to Zimbabwe. And this is being polite!
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- When you arrive at Beitbridge from South Africa you are
overwhelmed by touts. Aggressive young men in their twenties who swarm
around you and solicit bribes in order for you to proceed through the formalities.
The touts control the speed and progress of everything: the queues, the
forms, the stamps and signatures, the customs inspections and the final
scrap of paper, the gate pass, that allows you get through the boom and
into Zimbabwe. Both of the travellers I spoke to said they simply found
it impossible to proceed without giving in to the demands for bribes. Every
time they got near the counters in the border post the touts and their
customers would push in ahead of them with great piles of papers and none
of the officials on duty were interested in intervening, not immigration,
security, customs or tax collectors. Touts appeared to be making an average
of 500 Rand, or 50 US dollars per customer - half the month's pay of a
trained teacher in Zimbabwe.
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- The toilets at the border are apparently a swamp, there
is no toilet paper, no towels and no way at all to keep yourself clean.
Everyone waits till they are through the border and then pull up on the
roadside and relieve themselves in the bush. If we are to believe ZBC,
it is into this madness of Beitbridge border post that there is going to
be swine flu detection and control. Pardon the pun, but pigs might fly!
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- Zimbabwe's unity government has been in place for six
months but it is still the thieves, con-men, blackmailers and bullies that
are manning the entry points into our country. Until they are gone and
until Zimbabwe can clean up the shop window to the country we haven't got
a hope of controlling swine flu, of tempting tourists into the country
or of getting any of the overflow of visitors from the 2010 World Cup football
games in South Africa. Its about time that some of our senior leaders went
incognito to Zimbabwe's borders and saw the thieves and bullies holding
tourists, visitors and returning residents to ransom.
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- Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy
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- Copyright cathy buckle 22nd August 2009.
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- www.cathybuckle.com
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- For information on my new book: "INNOCENT VICTIMS"
or my previous books, "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears,"
or to subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write to:
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- <mailto:cbuckle@mango.zw>cbuckle@mango.zw
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