Zimbabwe: frightening residents meetings
Updated on 04 July 2009
As ridiculous as it might sound, doing something as simple as going to a residents association meeting is something that takes considerable courage here in Zimbabwe, writes Helen.
Completely dominated by Zanu PF, CIO (secret police) and spies, it's long been dangerous to go to a residents meeting and looking for trouble to say anything, criticise or try and lodge a protest for non-existent service.
Everything was watched, men in dark glasses sat in corners and took notes and the meetings were suffocated with politics. Zanu PF politics.
I'd like to say all this has changed under Zimbabwe's new government, but it hasn't really and now we've gone from the frightening to the ridiculous.
For the third month in a row I went to what was being called a residents association meeting in my home town this week.
I expected to be able to address grievances to the new ward and town councillors and was ready to do some serious table banging about the river of sewage that is flowing behind a local school. Green, slimy and stinking the effluent is coming from a blocked pipe and it runs for at least half a mile in a residential area before diverting off into a wetland and ending up in a stream.
The other matter I wanted to raise with the councillor for my area was when residential garbage collection was going to resume. It's been over two years since dustbins have been cleared and everyone is downing under a mountain of tins, bottles and other garbage that is un-burnable.
Seeing as our town is now completely run by the MDC - Mayor, all the ward and town councillors and even the member of parliament - we really expected things to have started improving by now.
The meeting started 15 minutes late with obvious confusion as to who was in control and no one knew what matters were on the agenda or if there was even an agenda. Not one of the town's councillors turned up, or sent apologies.
In fact, the people that did arrive and sit at the top table were all strangers. One by one they scraped their chairs back and in tiny, inaudible voices, they introduced themselves as the chairman, vice chairman, treasurer, secretary and council members of the residents association.
It turns out that there are two residents associations apparently representing the people of the town. The people who sat at the top table at last month's meeting are apparently impostors.
What! We all asked. Who on earth were these people?
Whispering, questioning and confusion was rampant amongst the dozen or so residents who had been brave enough to attend the meeting. (The fear of intimidation, harassment and being marked as an MDC activist is still widespread and so even getting a dozen people to attend is a major achievement.)
It took about 20 minutes of heated argument, raised voices, accusations and finger pointing for the truth to out. Or a sort of truth floating in a sea of chaos and suspicion.
It turns out that there are two residents associations apparently representing the people of the town. The people who sat at the top table at last month's meeting are apparently impostors, Zanu PF infiltrators.
The people at the top table this month say they are the 'real' residents association and when we asked them who they were, where they'd been for the last 10 years and who elected them to represent the residents, the excuses would have been hysterically funny - if it wasn't all so tragic.
They said they'd formed 12 years ago but had been unable to hold meetings since 1997 due to what they called 'political mishaps'. They said that the person who had all their registration papers was not around and they couldn't answer the question as to whether they were a legally constituted group or not.
The few residents who had come to the meeting soon made the obvious decision that it was utterly pointless to carry on having what had turned into a non-meeting. We left and met informally outside in the car park.
It was hastily decided a lawyer would have to be engaged, a town meeting called and an entirely new residents association would be elected.
In the meantime the garbage piles up and sewage flows unchecked because as fast as we take a single step forward, we just as quickly take two steps back.
