A very strong eye-witness account of the violence in Harare.

Jack

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3:15 pm Friday 3 June as I write this a K6 jet of the Zimbabwe airforce has been circling the Western townships of Kambuzuma & Kwadazana for the past 30 minutes. It has made over 10 circled flights. At 3:20 pm it seems to have returned to its airbase.

This morning at 7:45am I witnessed the mass movement of armed riot police moving west wards along the main Bulawayo road towards the western townships.

There must have been 500+ or so police and plain clothes police, moving in marked ...   more »

I'm sending this to people I think may recognize some of the road markers and neighborhoods destroyed last week.

Is this making sense to anyone?

Jack

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Well I suppose nothing should surprise us after all but I have to say this  past 2 weeks has been something else.

I stood in D's office and watched the clouds of smoke over Mbare as the  destruction went on and had to pinch myself to remind myself that this was  the peoples government and not some foreign invasion which certainly was  what it looked like. Then the new Chinese jets flew over and and made the  illusion that we were under attack by some foreign force complete.

Then driving back the once thriving People's market on the Enterprise Road  with all its soapstone carvings and welded artifacts was being loaded by a  front end loader onto a truck the carvings smashed. This was a legal market  established by the City Fathers many many years ago. Why? this is the  question on everybody's lips. And who ordered it all? And why so vicious?

Pat Walsh's letter about Hatcliffe is a document that everybody should read.  Our local tomato and Avo supplier is now operating behind closed doors and C  knows where to go to to get the stuff. A cannot get his apples to his  biggest market, the vendors in Mbare, because there are no vendors in Mbare.

On my way back from Kent on Monday the Tongogara settlement was smoking.  This was a Zanu PF militant takeover of a farm which was squatted on in  2001. The little store called the 4th Chimurenga Store was no more and so  the regime is destroying its own. I have to say that I did not understand  the land grab as it made no sense but this is just madness and who knows  why this is going on.

Here is Cathy Buckle's weekly column. A stunning ending well worth the read.

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Dear Family and Friends,  For the last five years the Zimbabwe government have insisted that there  has not been a breakdown of law and order in the country. As the critics  talked of anarchy, a partisan police force and widespread lawlessness, the  government repeatedly disputed the claims saying they were all lies,  damned racist, colonialist lies. It is ironic that now, as Zimbabwe's  horizons are obscured by the smoke from a thousand fires, the police and  government say they are simply "restoring order" to Zimbabwe. Hello, did ...   more »

Friends:

This is a very tough read that brought tears to my eyes, which have seen a lot. But it does give an eye witness account of what took place last week in Harare and its impact on those people who always seem to be 'in the way" of tyranny.

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This letter is written by Sister Patricia Walsh of the Dominican Order of  the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe. Hatcliffe Extension

Family and Friends thank you for your telephone calls, your e-mails And all  your support and encouragement in these dreadful days and hours - it is A  great help.

The ...   more »