Bensen Muzamba knows the cost of water only too well. He runs a maize farm outside Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, but because of poor rains at the start of the season, he was forced to purchase water to irrigate his crop &#8211; something he can ill afford.



As with many farmers across the country, he relies on rainfall &#8211; and struggles if it does not come when expected.



“It’s tough when you have to buy water &#8230; and sellers demand foreign currency,” Muzamba told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, inspecting maize plants on his land about 15 km (9 miles) from Harare.



As Zimbabwe struggles with the fallout from a slow start to the rainy season, bulk suppliers that deliver water in tankers have increased their prices, citing the high cost of extracting groundwater.



And with dam levels down &#8211; though recent rains have helped &#8211; cities like Bulawayo have been exploring ways to curb water consumption in homes.



Meanwhile, violent clashes have erupted over shortages of fuel and a government-imposed fuel price hike, while U.S. dollars, one of Zimbabwe’s main currencies, are hard to come by.



Groundwater is essential to ensure farmers can grow enough food crops. But some borehole owners in Harare have been selling 1,000 liters of water for about $30, twice the going rate in October.



The Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), a government agency, charges $10 for 1,000 liters from state-owned dams &#8211; but even that is expensive for farmers used to free rain.



Washington Zhakata, director of the climate change department at the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement, said declining rainfall in the past couple of decades had caused Zimbabwe’s groundwater levels to fall and shortened the time periods in which water is available.



This, he said, had affected farming nationwide.



“The distribution of rainfall across the country has been uneven, coupled with extended dryness,” Zhakata said by email, linking the shifts to global warming.



Average temperatures around the world have already risen about 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial times, and southern Africa is expected to see drier conditions as warming continues.



Sobona Mtisi, an independent researcher on water and climate change in Zimbabwe, said rainfall had been low but the nation had enough groundwater stocks to meet rising demand.



Still, Zimbabwe would benefit from better methods for managing its groundwater, he added.



“(It) needs to be managed sustainably through an effective and evidence-based groundwater policy,” said the UK-based Mtisi.



Despite rains having picked up this month, forecasters’ concerns persist that an El Nino weather pattern could result in below-average rainfall this season, said Tamburiro Pasipangodya of the Zimbabwe Meteorological Services Department.



Up to early January, most parts of the country had received less than 75 percent of the long-term average rainfall, and a smaller amount than in the past three seasons, she noted.



The Famine Early Warning Systems Network said seasonal rainfall was set to continue across southern Africa this week, bringing some relief from dryness, including to parts of Zimbabwe.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">TURNING OFF THE TAP</h4>



As rains become more erratic, Zimbabwe is looking to irrigation to cushion its food supplies against drought.



In announcing the 2019 budget in November, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube allocated nearly $1 billion to the agriculture ministry to fund irrigation and borehole rehabilitation, among other measures to improve water sources for farmers.



And in a bid to deal with the long-term effects of patchy rainfall, the southwestern city of Bulawayo is proposing technological interventions to cut water consumption.



In the last week of December, water levels in Bulawayo’s dams dropped to 60 percent, from 65 percent in early November, ZINWA said.



Turning plastic into profit in Somalia



The city has long turned to groundwater for relief during dry spells, but a recent council report said the municipality had failed to maintain its boreholes, compromising future water availability.



This month, the Bulawayo authorities said they were looking at installing water flow regulators in homes.



According to the city’s director of engineering services, Simela Dube, the devices would be part of water management efforts allowing consumers and the municipality to save water.



The regulators would restrict consumption to pre-determined levels decided by households, depending on how much water they need, he told council chambers.



Residents would be able to use between 1 and 5 cubic meters of water per day, compared with now when can turn on their taps at will even if they cannot pay their water bill.



However, there are concerns the new proposal will meet resistance from customers who have previously rejected pre-paid water meters, said city councillor Sikhulilekile Moyo, calling for more consultation.



Jacob Mafela of the Bulawayo Residents Association told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that schemes to save water were generally welcome.



“We support all initiatives which at the end of the day benefit residents,” he said. “It is historically known that the city faces water challenges, but we need consensus.”



Meanwhile, as El Nino-linked rainfall uncertainty continues, farmers like Muzamba &#8211; most of whom lack insurance against crop failures &#8211; are despairing of help.



“We will keep asking government for assistance &#8211; though we know the money is not there,” he said.



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Marko Phiri</li></ul>

gettyimages-602199089-170667a

Zimbabwe Seeks Wiser Ways to Use Water Amid Erratic Rains

It is a windy day in Johannesburg, South Africa. Thick dark clouds assemble in the sky; the wind is as swift as rush hour. As we meet, Oliver Mtukudzi carries a brown bag, full of his life, on his shoulder. He carries the bag everywhere, just as he wears his trademark poor boy cap. Dressed in a black jacket and grey pants, he stands high up on the stairs to welcome us. He is in South Africa to promote his 65th album, Eheka! Nhai Yahwe, which features South African jazz legend Hugh Masekela. It’s a remarkable career stretching back some 41 years with songs that have enlivened parties all over the world with hits like Neria, Todii and Wasakara.
“I never decided to be in the music industry. It was in me. My mother said ‘you are a good singer but you will never surpass your birth cry. Your birth cry was so beautiful’. So I believe that’s when I started singing, from my first breath,” says Mtukudzi.
Born in 1952 in Highfield, a suburb in Harare, Zimbabwe, on September 22 at 3AM; music runs in his blood. Both his parents were musicians. They met at a choir competition and the competition never ended. They competed at home and the children were the judges.
“If we needed a favor from dad, then dad won and if we needed a favor from mum, mum won.”
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It wasn’t long before he followed.
“I made a three-string guitar for myself from a tin around 1969 or early 1970s with the help of a [relative]. I was always playing it. My father didn’t like it and he broke the guitar,” he recalls.
It wasn’t going to stop him. He made up songs as a child and sang everywhere.
“One day, I decided to perform for my parents standing on the table and they enjoyed it so much I didn’t get smacked for standing on the table. I remember my mother noticed I had been standing on the table, two or three days later. That’s how good it was,” he chuckles.
Mtukudzi followed his passion. In the 1970s, he joined Wagon Wheels, a band which included yet another Zimbabwean star, Thomas Mapfumo, the man who wrote Nyoka Musango and is known as the king of Chimurenga music.
“I love what I do. If I was doing a career, I would be worried about how much money I can make. I am yet to decide on a career to take on. This is not a career for me. I am just doing me. This is about understanding the purpose of a song, to bring life and hope to the people and to heal broken hearts. If you do it right, there is more in appreciation than getting paid.”
His skill is appreciated from Angola to Zimbabwe. He has won many awards; among them, the National Arts Merit Awards, Zimbabwe Music Awards, KORA Awards and South African Music Awards.
“All my songs are my favorites. If it’s not one of my favorites, I will just throw it away. You won’t get to hear it. It won’t make it to my album. Awards are an appreciation. They shouldn’t put any pressure on me, otherwise I will lose the purpose of the song,” he says.
The deep voice of Mtukudzi has brought music to the next generation. Taught by their father, his children Selmor and Sam Mtukudzi became music stars in their own right.
“One day, in March 2010, I was in Johannesburg and my son, Sam, was supposed to pick me up in Harare at the airport.”
Mtukudzi sent Sam a message telling him he was no longer coming. Unfortunately, the text didn’t go through. Sam drove to the airport to pick him up. And tragedy struck.
“I got a call that evening and they said he had been in an accident on his way home from the airport. They were taking him to the hospital and I was to come as soon as possible. They wouldn’t give me the details,” says Mtukudzi.
When he arrived at the airport all his close friends and family were there.
“I realized something was really wrong. They were all crying and I knew my son had passed on. I couldn’t believe it. My last words with him, we joked and now he was gone. I am still learning to live with it.”
This is a big loss for Mtukudzi. Sam performed and toured with his father.
“He was always on my left side when he was on stage with me. That alone, when I’m on stage, it makes me remember he is not there. Every time I am on stage, I feel the emptiness but it is also therapeutic because I feel him the most when I’m on stage.”
After Sam’s death, it was hard to sing again. In 2012, after two long years of grief, Mtukudzi released Sarawoga – in his mother tongue, it means “left alone”.
“Some of the songs in the album were meant to be in collaboration with my son so this was some kind of therapy for me. I didn’t want to throw away the work we had sweated on. I had to finish it off,” he says.
One of the songs in the album is Shamiso, named after Mtukudzi’s daughter.
“Sam was more of a friend than a son. One of the songs we were working on was Shamiso. She was getting married and we were going to sing the song at her wedding.”
It hasn’t been an easy journey. According to Mtukudzi, for as long as there are people, there is something to talk about and if there is something to talk about, then there is something to sing about.
“My music comes from the people, the environment and some of it from personal experiences. Things come up when I’m driving and I park on the side and write it down, you don’t budget time for a song. This is a tough industry. There are a lot of obstacles but you have to be strong. There is no shortcut, you just have to go all the way and remain true to yourself,” he says.
As Mtukudzi learns to live with the loss of his son, he is trying to break barriers. He is adapting a famous 1961 Zimbabwean book, Pfumo Reropa, spear of blood in chiShona, by Patrick Chakaipa.
“I’m not going to retire. I can’t run away from myself. I noticed that some of our literature is being thrown away. It is being ignored probably because there are no visuals to them, so I felt I should take one of the popular books at home and script it into motion picture to encourage our youngsters to be more interested in African literature.”
Through the loss and the pain, Mtukudzi is trying to build something of substance for Africa out of the ruins. Surely, that is a tribute to the loss of a loved son.

“Every Time I’m  On Stage, I Feel The  Emptiness”

It’s a 542-kilometer drive from Johannesburg to Beitbridge. As we arrive the sun is shining its warm golden light over the bridge connecting South Africa and Zimbabwe. There are no birds chirping over the Limpopo River. It seems like a peaceful morning, until you get closer.
There is pandemonium as hundreds of cars line up to be stripped and searched before proceeding into Zimbabwe. A journey to Harare is delayed by at least three hours. President Robert Mugabe’s government has banned the importation of basic goods from South Africa. All banned goods are confiscated.
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Priscilla Ngwenya is a woman in the autumn of her life. She has brown wrinkly skin, dull brown eyes and a jutting jawline that makes her look tired of suffering. On this day, she says she has endured pain and penury working for her grandchildren at home in Zimbabwe. She is not about to let anyone else gain from her sweat, nor her liters of cooking oil that she is trying to import.
“I will not work for the police. I work too hard for you to take food I bought for my family for yourselves. If I can’t get this to my hungry grandchildren, then no one else will have it,” she says as she pours 20 liters of cooking oil onto the street that she carried 2,000 kilometers from her job as a domestic worker in Cape Town.
Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Industry and Commerce banned basic imports of goods, such as cooking oil, coffee creamers, hair extensions, body creams, building material, furniture, baked beans, cereals, peanut butter, jams and mayonnaise. It is all part of a “Buy Zimbabwe” campaign that government hopes will see factories built in its land.
With millions worth of goods going into Zimbabwe, South Africa is the largest importer to the country and the biggest trading partner.
“[The ban] is a desperate move by Zimbabwe, to try and preserve their currency and to stimulate internal trade, however [it is] not viable as no local company can provide the basic consumer goods that South Africa offers,” says Ian Cruickshanks, Chief Economist at the Institute of Race Relations.
“This government is very stupid. We buy from South Africa because it is cheaper and it’s the only way for us to survive. Buying anything made in Zimbabwe is very expensive. The rands I earn can’t support my family,” Ngwenya screams throwing the empty bucket on the ground at Beitbridge.
The ban on imports has irked many like Ngwenya. Next to her is a man breaking the plastic electrical conduits he isn’t allowed to take across the border.
Just days before, traders burned a warehouse, where the confiscated goods were held, and barricaded the roads with rocks and burning tyres, forcing the closure of the border, believed to be the first time in history.
“I buy goods in South Africa and sell them here in a small shop in Bulawayo. That’s the way I have been surviving and keeping my family afloat. I used to be a teacher but I couldn’t deal with the lack of payments by government and I decided to get into business,” says Prudence Dube.
Tuleka Ngci, of GoAfrica, who has been transporting goods from South Africa to Malawi since December, says business has been slow after traders blocked the Beitbridge border. Ngci transports goods such as groceries, fruit and vegetables from South Africa through the Zimbabwean border to Malawi every week.
“If we can’t pass through the border to buy goods then that means there’s no business for us. Customers blame us for what is happening in Zimbabwe and as a result we find ourselves in the middle of a crossfire we don’t even understand,” says Ngci.
“The restriction against imported goods is threatening the livelihood of people and when people are hungry they get angry. And in this case who knows who they’ll take out their anger on.”
According to Dube, many Zimbabweans turn to smuggling.
“My business is registered, I pay duty for the goods I buy, and I employ six people. If this ban is not lifted, I will have to go the smuggling route like most informal traders in the country. That will be a disadvantage to government. I don’t think they thought this through and looked at how we would be affected,” she says.
Smuggling goods in open sight seems easy enough to do. At the border, some authorities are not shy to take bribes. We carried a two-liter cooking oil bottle to test the system. The man doing the checks told us cooking oil could no longer be imported into the country before asking for a bribe to let us through.
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“I have a lot of friends who never pay anything. The officials are also hungry so they just pocket whatever they can get from people,” says Dube.
Most small businesses smuggle goods with the help of transporters like Bongani Sibanda.
“Because of the economic situation in Zimbabwe, smuggling is an everyday thing and we see ourselves as business people providing a service. I carry groceries, and whatever else people send from South Africa to Zimbabwe, twice a week. As long as it is not drugs or any illegal goods I see myself as helping people,” he says.
Sibanda says the ban will affect his “business”. More bribes mean higher fees.
“It will also bring in more business to us because those who cross the border to stock up themselves may be afraid to smuggle things so they will commission us,” he says.
Sibanda worked at a shoe factory in Bulawayo for 15 years before being thrown out by the factory closure. He now makes around $2,500 a month, enough to send his daughter to university in South Africa.
Sibanda may be making a buck, but the Zimbabwean economy isn’t.
According to media, the Chief Executive Officer of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, Christopher Mugaga, estimates Zimbabwe could be losing $1.5 billion every year through smuggling of goods. The figure is more than one third of the country’s $4 billion national budget. Local industries have closed shop as their products fail to compete with the cheap smuggled products, cutting 100,000 jobs over the last five years. The government is said to make $60 million per month from duties charged at Beitbridge.
At the Beitbridge border post, Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) Acting Commissioner General, Happias Kuzvinzwa, in a statement, has urged members of staff to desist from corruption.
“It is time to wipe away corruption! We must all know that we are accountable to the nation and seriously consider our duty as custodians of revenue laws in this country,” he says.
He says ZIMRA will intensify lifestyle audits to decrease numbers of goods smuggled into the country.
As we drive off, it seems trouble and smuggling at the border will not go away anytime soon.

The Border On A Slow Road To Nowhere

When Kirsty Coventry was nine years old, she told her parents, in humble Harare, she would win gold at the Olympics. Twenty three years later, the Zimbabwean is the most successful African Olympian and is preparing for her fifth Olympic Games; and she wants more.
“I have been waking up every morning before sunrise to train since I was six years old,” says the 32-year-old from her base in North Carolina, United States.
Many thought Coventry was finished after London 2012. This year she has been swimming faster than ever and is ripped and ready for Rio.
“I just performed my last big competition before Rio. It went really well. I walked away with five silvers and three bronzes. It’s important to note that at this stage in the game, it’s not what medals I am winning, but what times I am swimming. I got some season best times, so I’m happy with that but I can’t rest now, the field is open to anyone… I have to keep my focus on training.”
Coventry’s calendar is as full as an Olympic swimming pool. In a week she spends 18 hours in the pool and up to four sessions throwing weights in the gym.
“I will also try and add in one or two yoga sessions. Everything we do, in both pool and gym, is focused on quality sets. It’s a passion and when you are truly passionate about something then you will make the necessary sacrifices.”
“I never realized how tough it must have been to swim when I was younger. Our facilities are shocking compared to the rest of the world. But, I can’t complain because it has made me a stronger person&#8230; School was a place where I was teased and made fun of, my swimming club was a safe-haven for me because it was a place I excelled and could gain confidence,” says Coventry.
Coventry took a year off after London to reflect, before committing to Rio. It was hard to regain form.
“I was training with younger athletes who hadn’t taken a year off and, like most athletes, we all compare ourselves to each other and we are highly competitive so having my butt kicked everyday was soul destroying. I had to talk myself through every practice, to remind myself that I was still in the process. Every single day was a bad day. Waking up every morning knowing I was going to lose was terrible,” she says.
All it took was one good day.
“It was like a major reset that helped with the following endless bad days. The reset allowed me to keep pushing through and slowly the good days started appearing more and more until eventually I stopped celebrating the good days and started complaining about the odd bad day,” she says.
There may be merely a handful of Olympians who come back for more at the age of 32. Even fewer had the honor to carry their flag at the opening ceremony.
“Carrying the flag in the opening ceremony is such a privilege because in that moment you are not an athlete but a single representation of your entire nation. Zimbabwe often sends a small Olympic team but we get the loudest applause: we walk out second last, just before the host country, who start walking out as they announce Zimbabwe, and of course the stadium erupts as soon as they see their home country… we’ll take it.”
It’s rarer still to find an athlete with seven Olympic medals under their belt.
“One of the bad sides of winning multiple medals is that it becomes expected of you. There are a lot of people that expect this and it’s sad because suddenly making the Olympics isn’t as big a deal for them, as it should be.”
One of Coventry’s fondest memories was the day she called her parents when she won gold in Athens in 2004.
“My mum couldn’t talk, she just cried. My dad kept saying how proud he was. I don’t think anyone would have made sense of anything that was said between us – it was a beautiful moment that I was happy to share with the two people that had given everything to get me to this point.”
Growing up, Coventry spent a lot of time in the kitchen. The smell of her father’s oxtail and sadza is always a fond reminder of home. Coventry is a proud foodie and cooks hearty meals.
“Fresh produce is delicious – you do not need to smother it with processed junk. My favorite dish to make is pork chops with Aromat and spinach with mashed potato. I have also just recently made my own bread from our own homemade starter (yeast).”
For Coventry it isn’t always about training and eating, it’s also about avoiding. Coventry takes a firm hand when it comes to doping in sport; she has openly criticized the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) for their lack of enforcement of those being caught.
“The International Olympic Committee and Wada have taken recent steps to retest all medal winners from 2008 and 2012 [caught doping] and this does give me some hope. I don’t think it will be a level playing field in Rio but I’m confident that anyone who has doped and continues to dope will be caught. The problem this has for the clean athletes is that they lose out on standing on the podium, watching their flag being raised and possibly earning a far greater sponsorship.”
Some do not escape the long arm of the anti-doping law. In June, tennis star Maria Sharapova tested positive for meldonium, a drug prescribed for heart disease patients to treat inadequate blood flow, which was put on Wada’s list of banned drugs.
“Yet another twist in the epic saga between scandal and sport. While Sharapova’s violation was declared unintentional, she was nonetheless found guilty of negligently contravening the (World Anti-Doping) Code,” says Shweta Mani, Head of Legal and Compliance at CNBC Africa.
As you read this, Coventry will be in the pool for her last minute training for Rio.
“It’s not just my training that has evolved since my first Olympics in 2000 but everything has evolved: my body, my mind, my attitude. I turned 17 at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and I’m entering my fifth Olympics aged 32. I remember being crushed with massive sets during my college years (2001-2005). I would literally be bruised from some of the gym work. It certainly was a military-style boot camp of sorts. Don’t get me wrong, some of the workouts I do now will still make me heave but this comes more from an internal desire to push harder rather than the external motivation from the coach.”
Coventry may have caused a few ripples in her pool in Harare at the age of nine; she is likely to make a bigger splash in Rio.

How Pain, Bullying And A Pork Chop Can Get You To Gold

It was the best of times. It was a time when anything seemed possible; a time when hope blew through the tall blue gum trees like the gentle autumn breeze that wafted us along the road. We were on our way to a military base – a place where you don’t usually look for silver linings. Maybe we were just younger and the world looked better.
It was April 1994 and behind the barbed wire and automatic weapons of this army base in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, there was a story that could have gladdened the heart of anyone sick of war. At this camp one of the symbolic last rites were going to be said over one of the nastier running wars of sub-Saharan Africa – or was that nastier running sores? At last, the days of surveillance, killings, and torture were over.
By the end of this day, former foes would swap stories of war over a cold beer in a new, unified, South African army; a few days later, on April 27, these soldiers would help make history. They were at polling stations as millions of South Africans lined up across the country to vote in the first delicate democratic elections that would bury nearly 350 years of minority rule.
Hope was in abundance in those crazy days in Harare. It had been the home for many political exiles from South Africa for decades. Furthermore, it seemed to be the last stop-off point for returning exiles in their sneakers and baseball caps.
“I’m going home to run my country,” they would say, in the bars of Harare, in accents more Los Angeles than Langlaagte. Most were well educated and well versed; but I always noticed a little uncertainty in their faces when they spoke of a country many had never seen.
It all seemed so fresh then. The chance of a new start for one of the most tormented countries in Africa; a bountiful country about to throw off the shackles of sanctions and reap the rewards of an avalanche of post-apartheid investment – the rainbow nation in waiting.
This gathering at the army base in Harare paved the way for the historic elections. Soldiers of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) – the military wing of the African National Congress and APLA, the army of the Pan Africanist Congress – were preparing for election duty. It was likely to be difficult and dangerous task – as the soldiers drilled in Harare, bombs were going off in Johannesburg. Armed groups of all creeds and colors threatened to hurl South Africa into a civil war. The elections threatened to be a bloodbath.
Many thought it was too late to train troops for an election days away. That is what I asked the then head of MK, Siphiwe Nyanda, who was to become head of the new South African army and later a cabinet minister.
“We will be ready,” he smiled.
In the ranks on that day were a number of white South African troops who were going to have to fall in, in the new army, with black guerrilla fighters they once had been paid to kill.
“As long as they can reject their racism, we can work together,” said one of the battle-hardened guerrillas of his new white comrades.
Then there was the training. Military instructors spent hours instructing the former guerrillas how to thwart the very incursions and bombings that they had been carrying out for decades. Everyone was enthusiastic with one eye on a brighter future as poachers enthusiastically turned gamekeepers.
As the last beers were drained in the golden sunset and the troops climbed onto the back of trucks there was a feeling of camaraderie; almost an end-of-term levity about it. Former foes were to become the midwives of a new democracy.
Days later, we watched the pictures of millions casting their votes for the first time. The soldiers, trained in Harare, were vigilant; it is one of the small miracles of Africa that there was no violence as votes were cast.
On May 10, we watched again as helicopters carrying the new South African flag flew low over the Union Buildings in Pretoria to the cheers of thousands.
“Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world,” Nelson Mandela said to the world.
As we all watched with broad smiles, Norman Mahaja, our sound recordist on the Harare military base story, brought us crashing down to earth.
“I want to go down south and earn the rand now,” he said.
“Why?”
“Before it becomes like the Zimbabwe dollar.”

Guerrillas Turned Gamekeepers On A Day Of Hope

It should have been a peaceful conference in Harare, Zimbabwe; it wasn’t. It turned to chaos, seething anger, peppered by almost comical misunderstanding.
In 1997, the historic first African American conference on the continent, in the plush Sheraton, should have been remembered for its high discourse; it had all the makings: Coretta Scott King – the widow of Martin Luther King – headed a powerful bunch of speakers. The restaurants were full of well-heeled African Americans raising their glasses to their “first night in mother Africa” before complaining about the traffic, the accommodation and the smells.
We journalists, who had spent years flogging our guts out reporting the progress of the continent, shook our heads at a lot of this faux sentimentalism that pervaded like cheap perfume. Our view was that people should bring skills and raise money, rather than glasses, for mother Africa. You couldn’t help but err on the side of scepticism in the face of the often Disney-style perceptions about the continent and its problems.
The chasm between the comfortable dream and uncomfortable reality was epitomized by the horde of angry former guerrilla fighters who had been hurling insults at police and fighting for days to break through the gates of the Sheraton. These were battle-hardened soldiers, formerly of the guerrilla Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), many of them in their 50s, who had spent their youth in the bush fighting the landmines, napalm and heavy guns of the Rhodesian forces. They wanted compensation from a cash-strapped government and were angry as hell. They wanted to disrupt this well-meaning conference to make their point.
I will never forget the moment the mob broke through the gates. A thin green line of uniforms retreated with their hands up as if they feared death – I think one or two did – as the war veterans screamed victory and hurled themselves across the manicured lawn in an angry wave, throwing combat shapes. We filmed it from the top floor of the hotel where we had been interviewing Zambian president Frederick Chiluba. It made stunning footage.
We ran downstairs to see a mass of angry veterans, all regimented high steps and clenched fists, bounding and chanting in an aggressive dance outside the now locked doors of the hotel. One or two delegates, misreading the brimming anger on the faces, tried to dance and chant back from inside the hotel, which made matters worse. I was thinking there was going to be blood when a question from another planet chimed in.
“Say, where did they get these dancers from?” says an old man who looked like he had marched with Dr King in the 60s. I explained that these weren’t dancers, but survivors from the bush war.
“Which war was that?”
I explained the one to create Zimbabwe and told of the compensation.
“Can’t they give them farms, or shops maybe?”
A young lady with dreadlocks sat studiously making notes. She told me she was a teacher in West Africa and also asked about what war the people had fought.
“In chiShona they called it the Chimurenga – meaning uprising,” says I.
“Oh really.”
Sorry readers, I am a journalist who can’t resist a dash of mischief in a ludicrous exchange.
“They got it from a Bob Marley album.”
“Uprising, oh really,” says the teacher earnestly writing another note.
The war veterans didn’t get their compensation on that day, but prevailed months later. I don’t think the conference delegates got anything at all.

A Day Of Seething Anger

It was chaos in the sun. Hundreds of students ran taunting and hurling stones at lines of police armed to the teeth, with tear gas and batons. All of this at a seat of learning, the University of Zimbabwe, in the quiet, green suburbs of Harare, which we filmed for the evening bulletins of South African network television.
“How many O-levels do you have?” shouts one cheeky student, to a distant line of police, before ducking and running.
The reply from the police: a broadside of tear gas that sends us scattering and choking; the cheeky student waits a few seconds before running back with a quip.
“I didn’t think so!”
The issue, in May 1995, was student grants, or the paucity of them, as the government of Zimbabwe tightened its belt.
Day after day, the future lawyers, politicians and financial managers threw stones and held never ending open air meetings to berate the university’s chancellor, the late and avuncular Gordon Chavunduka. Everyone knew he was a sangoma – or traditional healer – known for their spiritual powers.
“Surely he, of all people, should have seen this coming!” says one orator, to the laughter of hundreds.
In those sunlit days this was truly an ice cream war. The lads on their tricycles, with ice boxes fixed to the front, used to gather a safe distance from the fighting. It meant you could dodge a police baton, run across to the ice cream sellers for a cooling cone, then charge back into the tear gas and mayhem.
It got worse as the winter of 1995 wore on. The police were reluctant to ill-treat the students, a number of whom were the sons and daughters of powerful people, when the TV cameras were about. So, one evening, they waited until our crew had left to feed their pictures to Johannesburg, before attacking the students with a vengeance. Riot police clattered through doors, broke bones and cut heads, flailing their way through campus. I can’t forget the image of one of the student leaders, Brian Kagoro, who is now a lawyer working for the UNDP, with several meters of bandage wrapped around his broken head.
This upping of the stakes provoked revenge. When the police sent a patrol car to the campus the students chased off the drivers and battered the vehicle onto its side. Worse still, one of the students opened the fuel tank,  screwed up a newspaper, stuck it inside and set fire to one end – a large petrol bomb was about to go off.
The seconds ticked by as everyone watched the flames lick their way towards the fuel tank. Then an unwitting saviour strode in from nowhere. An English lecturer, who looked the part with a scruffy brown jacket, thick beard and a pipe, strolled through the scene of trepidation without noticing the chaos around him. As he drew level with the burning newspaper, he stopped, did a double take, before pulling the burning paper out of what was about to blow. The rest of us looked through our fingers and laughed in knowing relief. The lecturer walked off, puffing on his pipe, as if nothing had happened.
Fast forward to three years later and the riot police of Zimbabwe were finding their feet. On this sticky November day in 1997, I saw two helmeted riot police standing in the tree-lined Africa Unity square in the heart of Harare.
An old man approached the two riot police and must have asked them a question politely because I saw him clapping his hands as he spoke, a sign of respect in Zimbabwe. One smacked the old man to the ground with his baton while his fellow policeman kicked him in the guts. I ran over to help the old man up.
“Leave him alone,” I screamed knowing they could take me next.
One of the policemen looked me in the eye and threw a spitting, Israeli-made gas grenade, sending me coughing and wheezing out onto the street where thousands were running in anger. I kicked the gas grenade 30 meters across the road; to throw it back was to risk arrest. I never saw the old man again. Troops were on the streets weeks later.

Ice Cream, Gas And Thugs In Uniform

All of this shouting for the removal of the statue and bones of Cecil John Rhodes – the arch African colonist from England who thought, seriously, that America was a colony that should be returned to the empire – has been done before.
More than 16 years ago, I stood spellbound at Malindidzimu, the windswept outcrop of rock a short drive from Bulawayo in Zimbabwe where chiefs of the Mandebele have been laid to rest for centuries. It was a tranquil place that Rhodes used to go to stand and stare at the breathtaking view of the sweeping land of hills and valleys that disappear over the horizon. Rhodes used to call it the world’s end and chose to be buried there.
I was there, as a television journalist, to get the other side of the story that had been raging among the young radicals in Harare for weeks. A bunch of young Turks wanted to exhume and expel the remains of Rhodes to wipe the stain of colonialism from Zimbabwe forever.
I had interviewed their leader, the late Warlord Chakaredza, a polite man in his mid-twenties, in Harare a few days before. He was quite clear the bones of Rhodes needed to be exhumed and thrown into the sea.
“Why the sea?” I asked incredulously.
Chakaredza looked at me as if I was mad.
“That is the way he came to Africa and that is the way he will float back to England where he came from,” he replied.
As crude as it sounds, maybe there was a brutal and sublime logic.
I countered to Chakaredza about the beliefs in Africa about the sanctity of graves and the dead. He didn’t want to hear it. The bones of Rhodes must go and they were prepared to use their bare hands to get him out, if need be.
A story to be taken seriously, I thought. Maybe it was a way of pushing forward the debate over colonialism? Maybe Poland wouldn’t have been too keen to look after any graves, or statues, of German generals in Warsaw after World War Two?
We spoke to a historian who told us that the Mandebele loved Rhodes and lined up to salute him at his funeral by shouting: “Bayete!” – the salute reserved for chiefs. What the historian didn’t tell me, that I read only later, was that the black mourners were kept far from the graveside in a segregated funeral.
I also noticed that the Zimbabwe government, which wasn’t exactly head-over-heels when it came to colonialism, didn’t give much of a damn. They saw it as part of Zimbabwe’s heritage and a tourist attraction that brought in money. We also found out, when the statues of the past were ripped down in Harare, after independence in 1980, they weren’t crushed into rubble, they were put into an odd looking group, behind a fence, at the back of the National Museum in Harare.
Another discovery on the rock outside Bulawayo was that Rhodes was buried about 40 feet down in a shaft carved out of sheer rock. Furthermore, the coffin was encased in lead; it would take dynamite, rather than bare hands, to get the remains of the old man out. Maybe he feared someone may try to exhume him.
Nothing happened. The story faded into the ether – Rhodes slept on. No one gained anything from the story, except the newspapers and TV bulletins who garnered a few catchy headlines. I wondered at the time what the point was.
So it was with a roll of the eyes that I heard that students wanted to remove the Rhodes statue in Cape Town. You can call it a metaphor in righting the wrongs of a colonial past; you can call it tantamount to removing a statue of a German general from Poland.
For the second time in 20 years I wonder whether Rhodes and his statues and bones are worth the time and effort.
If I thought for one minute removing the statue of Rhodes would provide books, bursaries and accommodation for young people who wanted to learn, I would take a sledgehammer and knock the statue down myself and then throw it into the sea.

#RhodesMustFloat

It was nine days of hell that Ray Choto will never forget. Live electric wires were pushed into his genitals; it was so excruciating that he snapped the chain of his handcuffs. With his editor, Mark Chavunduka, he was stripped and blindfolded at a military base in Cranborne, a suburb of Harare. Their captors shoved their heads in drums of water. They were forced to do push-ups in the rain, in between beatings, and afterwards their torturers kicked them through the wet grass to clean off the blood.
It all began because of a news story the now late Chavunduka, founding editor of The Standard, Zimbabwe’s independent Sunday newspaper, and Choto, the newspaper’s former chief investigative reporter, wrote in January, 1999 that 23 soldiers, including seven officers, were under arrest for inciting their comrades to overthrow president Robert Mugabe. The authorities wanted to know who leaked the story. The two young African men suffered at the hands of their own people but never revealed their sources.
“As a journalist, my responsibility is to protect my sources. Even if it meant that I was going to be thrown into jail or killed. I was ready for it in defense of ethical journalism,” says Choto, 15 years on.
“The torture was very barbaric. I was handcuffed, put in leg irons, and tortured by way of electric shocks all over my body. They also hit me with wooden planks, clenched fists &#8230;”
Their crime? According to Choto, it was allegedly contravening a section of the Law and Order Maintenance Act. They challenged the constitutional validity of the controversial colonial law and the Zimbabwe Supreme Court declared the provision null and void and the case fell away.
Both were flown to London for psychological and physical treatment. In May 2000, Choto received further treatment in Australia.
Contrary to reports that he fled Zimbabwe, Choto explains that he went to the United States (US) on September 6, 2000 to take up the prestigious John S. Knight Fellowship for professional journalists at Stanford University in California. It was during his first year at the university that Mugabe’s government introduced strict laws that made it difficult for journalists to work.
The program appointed Choto as a senior fellow, extending his stay in the US for another year. This came at a time when Zimbabwe’s government news publications labeled Choto an enemy of the state. He cites an article that detailed a press conference, held by the military and the police, in which they warned the independent media that they were ready to treat those that write negatively about Zimbabwe the same way they treated Choto and Chavunduka.
Choto went home on the first of day of 2002 and planned to be in Zimbabwe for eight days. A senior source in the military agreed to secretly meet him at a hotel in Harare. Choto had called him to tell him that he was in the country and asked if he had time to meet for a drink. The military source sounded hesitant, but agreed. They communicated in code in case the phone was bugged. When they met, the military source asked Choto why he came back in dangerous times and told him to leave the country.
Choto got on a plane and left. He then telephoned family and friends to ask whether he should return. All, including his mother, said no. Choto, now 13 years in the US, says he will not go home as long as the ruling party, Zanu-PF, is in power.
“The loss of my mother in May 2010 was, and remains, a thorn in my heart. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to Zimbabwe to see her laid to rest.”
Now a senior editor at the Voice of America (VOA) in the Africa Division in Washington D.C., Choto says that it is challenging to work on stories from a distance.
As Mugabe begins his seventh term, Choto clings on to hope.
“The solution lies in the hands of the people of Africa. They have to elect democratic leaders and reject undemocratic leaders who come to power through chicanery.”
You have to listen to a man who shed blood for his beliefs.   FL

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Bloodied But Unbowed:  The Journalist Prepared To Die

A sea of deep blue flowers borders the highway between Harare and Bulawayo. The 74 acres of heavenly blues, morning glory, dahlias and lemon drops are part of an experiment.
Charlene Mathonsi’s project began a year ago, when the 29-year-old approached new farmers in the Kadoma district of the Mashonaland West province, hoping to convince them to cultivate flower seeds instead of Zimbabwe’s staple maize and tobacco crops. With seeds from the Netherlands and basic skills learned from former white farmers, the Chemagora Collective has produced seven tons of seeds ready for export.
Zimbabwe has exported flower seeds to Rotterdam for more than 20 years, peaking at $60 million in 2004, but as the economy wilted, exports dropped by nearly 70%.
Reviving Lion’s Head, the Mathonsi family farm, meant cooperating with new farmers to turn flowers into a cash crop. But the farm’s survival also relied on earning the respect and collaboration of the 40 laborers who called the farm home for generations before the Mathonsis purchased the 1,236 acres of land.
“For me, the biggest challenge was the women. I think in my first few months I actually cried,” says Mathonsi.
“If you come in as a woman, even though you have the education, these people have been working the land. I’m a young girl, 10 [years] or so younger than them, and I’m instructing them what to do.”
While the male workers immediately accepted Mathonsi in her new role as farm manager, the women resisted.
“They have an established hierarchy. You say something and they do something else. They’re not listening and you feel small,” she explains.
It was only several months later, once Mathonsi had proved that she could work just as hard as the next woman, that she finally gained their trust and respect.
“I think they’re the backbone of this. They’re the ones who work the land, so if you don’t have them on your side, you’re doomed to fail.”
Zimbabwe’s aggressive agrarian reform policies and emphasis on agriculture as a source of independence and income has resulted in a generation of women with more say on the land they till. But Mathonsi is quick to add that it is women of privilege and education, like her, and not necessarily the semi-skilled laborers, who benefit.
“The girl child and women are the most vulnerable. Working with them for me is the most important thing I try to encourage our kids to go to school and try to help financially, especially the girl children, because if you don’t educate them, they’ll be just like their mothers and be back in the field. That is not progress. It’s a cycle of poverty.”
Graduating with a degree in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Zimbabwe, Mathonsi was forced to return to the family farm when she could not find a job in a failing economy.
“It was just such a difficult time,” recalls Mathonsi, who jokes that she may have blocked out the worst memories of that period.
“We would pay salaries knowing that the money would be worth nothing the next day.”
That year’s grain harvest not only became a source of income, but a source of survival, as the family bartered grain for basic necessities and distributed the little that remained for food.
“We were lucky that we grew sorghum that year, because there was no maize in the country and the crop saved a lot of lives not only our own, but people in the area.”
The land Mathonsi returned to after her studies had changed drastically. Between 2000 and 2004, Zimbabwe’s Fast-Track Land Reform program saw 170,000 new black farmers occupy 4,000 white-owned farms. The program was a controversial one, plagued by violence and corruption. Europe and the United States reacted to news coverage of white farms being attacked and burned by sanctioning the already ailing economy.
As the dust settled, many of the new farmers struggled to maintain production rates. The commercial farm next door to the Mathonsis’ Lion’s Head became a subdivided village of 50 families, made up of war veterans, former teachers and other public servants.
Kicked off the land after more than a decade, the former farm owner who Mathonsi did not want to name, formed an unlikely bond with the recent graduate, and became her mentor.
“All the contacts, all the advice, is all [from] him,” says Mathonsi who credits her success to this vital relationship.
She was advised to convert the struggling dairy farm into a beef and crops farm.
Kadoma district is Zimbabwe’s rural heartland, and innovative ideas like the Chemagora Collective are not common practice elsewhere in the country.
In areas with better rainfall and more fertile soil, the sacrifices of Zimbabwe’s land reform policies are beginning to yield a healthy profit.
Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land is a collection of reams of data and tables of statistics that aims to prove that the land rogram implemented by President Robert Mugabe’s regime has created a new generation of farmers who are reaping the rewards. Following first-time black farmers, who turned Zimbabwe’s large-scale tobacco, maize and cattle farms to small-scale communal farms, with more unconventional crops like tomatoes and pumpkins, the publication argues that the three decades of empowering black farmers has made southern Africa’s former bread basket a model for reformation.
However, the Commercial Farmers’ Union has pointed out that Zimbabwe’s agricultural output is less than a third of what it was in the 1990s and that the country is still reliant on food aid.
“There is always a period in which farmers are learning and looking for investment,” says Ben Cousins, a researcher with the Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies.
Cousins says Zimbabwe’s strategy shows that it is possible to subdivide singularly owned commercial farms to benefit more people.
“There is lots of room for agency for the farmers themselves, they do not have to be passive beneficiaries of the state,” he explains.
For Mathonsi and the farmers of the Chemagora project, circulation of the US dollar has been a relief, with their flower seeds selling at $3 a kilogram. They say the government’s goal to reintroduce the Zimbabwean dollar will be a setback to the their cash crop.
“What kind of Zim dollar would it be? Would it be the Zim dollar that runs like it did the last time?” wonders Mathonsi.
While land reform has empowered half a million black farmers since independence, the policy still does not guarantee ownership, because the state-based tenure system means that land can no longer be bought or sold.
“When you get this land, what says it’s yours?” asks Mathonsi, who believes real empowerment is marked by a title deed.
“I feel safe in the fact that my parents bought this farm, my family owns it. Yes, our title deeds don’t work, but I have that knowledge that through any sweat, any tears, I know its ownership. It’s not going away, so I will do anything in my power to make sure it works out.”
Cousins agrees that ownership would make access to finance easier.
“Yes rights need to be clarified, but there’s no evidence that you need private property for land to be productive.”
Now as comfortable branding a cow as she is negotiating export rates, Mathonsi and Lion’s Head have weathered the economic storm.
To break even each month, the farm needs $3,000, but Zimbabwe’s continued political isolation and subsequent sanctions make credit impossible. Mathonsi has had to sell a few head of cattle to get the hard cash she needs to pay wages.
Despite the continuous challenges, land in Zimbabwe is as emotional an issue as it is practical. Usually ready with a smile, Mathonsi is passionate but pragmatic as she talks about what the land means to her.
“Land is where the cash is at. Working the land is the basis; I’m the block on which the economy is built.”
She is also clear that it is people who ultimately give land its value.
“It’s not a nine-to-five job. It’s driving pregnant women to the hospital at three o’clock in the morning because they are your workers, you have to look after them. You bury them. It’s like a village. You are a success if they are a success. Failing is not an option. You cannot disengage.”

Harvesting change: Zimbabwe’s new farmers

The narrow tar road, pockmarked by potholes and covered in dust here and there, meanders through the Beatrice farming area, just outside Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. This competition between tar and dust is a microcosm of what is happening in the country. Vast acres of idle land lie cheek by jowl with well-managed farms churning out tobacco—a picture of progress and regression.
The lack of government and financial support is curtailing some new farmers’ hopes, but others are making hay—or rather growing tobacco—while the sun shines. This wealth was once the preserve of around 4,000 white farmers. Ragtag bands of militants and war veterans seized these rich commercial farms in 2000, when President Robert Mugabe abandoned the slow land redistribution process, as he felt the pinch from unrest and political pressure. It was a swift smash-and-grab that cost many lives. A mere handful of white farmers clung onto their farms.
Agriculture has taken a battering since those desperate days, but it still accounts for around a fifth of Zimbabwe’s GDP. Tobacco is the king of the crops.
Analysts say it is possible for agriculture, with the help of tobacco, to surpass mining in foreign currency earnings. This is likely to take time and more investment.
For now, new tobacco growers are slowly turning the corner. There are around 150,000 new black farmers dotted around the country, of which around 60% are tobacco growers.
Tobacco production this year alone is set to increase by around 20%, against last year, reaching the 170 million per kilogram mark. Zimbabwe is set to rake in $600 million in tobacco earnings this year, according to the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board. It is still a long way from where production was in 2000, when production peaked at 237 million kilograms.
In those desperate days, the economy crashed and so did tobacco. The worst output since independence in 1980, was in 2008, when a mere 48 million kilograms were produced. This was a far cry from the years when hundreds of millions of dollars changed hands at the bustling tobacco sales floor in Harare.
In 2013, the growers are fighting back, according to ZB Bank chief economist, Best Doroh.
“That appears to be true, if we go by the current sales figures at the auction floors. Even the quality of tobacco being delivered appears to have improved as well. But the new black farmers still face significant challenges in terms of technical know-how, lack of financial support and equipment viability,” says Doroh.
In the bush-lined fields around Beatrice, at the end of the dusty road, farmers are toiling away towards the next crop.
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Forty-eight-year-old Edson Makina is plowing with the help of knowledge accumulated in years living on a commercial farm—the very farm he now tills. He says his father worked this land for a white farmer. He is one of the thousands who took over land in President Mugabe’s land grab.
“I feel empowered; I’m now richer than a British professor. I’m getting richer each day I wake up. To me, President Mugabe is my hero, a political messiah,” he says.
With a scarcity of tobacco on the international market, most black farmers are cashing in. The Chinese have increased their consumption, snapping up 45% of Zimbabwe’s crop, the largest share after the West.
Many in the industry believe the government could do more to help agriculture out of the doldrums. Doroh says the agricultural producer price-setting mechanism needs to be refined so that it acts as a guide for farmers before they invest.
“There is need for government to make prompt payments for inputs supplied by the sector’s main input suppliers such as fertilizer companies, seed houses and agriculture chemical suppliers,” he says.
This tobacco-selling season, Makina sold around 170,000kg of tobacco.
“With each bag going for $467 a kilogram, you can imagine how rich I am now. It has changed my lifestyle. My children are attending the best universities around the world, and those that are here are at private schools. I pay all the fees without any hassle,” he says.
It is in contrast with the poverty Makina grew up in.
“The land reform was a revolution to me. I grew up on the farm. My father… was treated like a slave. I’m told at surrounding farms, if you couldn’t maintain the correct temperatures at the tobacco barns, the white farmer would flog you,” he says.
But the circumstances under which Makina obtained his farm were marred by violence. Beatrice was one of the country’s most dangerous farming districts in the land grab of 2000. Makina downplays the violence calling it a mere exaggeration by the media.
“There wasn’t the scale of violence you people reported. It was distorted. In most cases, white farmers were provoking the new settlers that were merely demonstrating against land imbalances,” he says.
Makina may be working his way to the wealth of a British professor, but across Beatrice, there are vast tracts of land lying idle. It is often difficult to ascertain who owns it. Many in these farming districts complain land reform has given rise to part-time farmers and a new breed of “cellphone farmers” or absentee landlords, often civil servants, who struggle to invest from their meager salaries.
“There are many successful stories in this area; of course others are still struggling, here and there. Most banks are reluctant to finance new black farmers. It’s because the media has been despising the new farmer. Farming is not an easy business,” says Makina.
Back in the banks of Harare, the view is less emotion, more balance sheet.
“I don’t think banks are intentionally denying black farmers access to loans. Rather, what most banks are looking at is the viability of the particular farmers or clients. Where viability is not evident, then banks have no option but to look at other sectors and clients where risk is better mitigated. Most small-scale farmers do not have sufficient security to back up borrowings, and this makes it difficult for banks to be able to extend credit on an unsecured basis at a time when there are tight liquidity conditions in the market,” says Doroh.
The Commercial Farmers Union is training new farmers.
“We began to train many of them.Some of them are now producing more than me. Those farmers still limping, it’s due to banks failing to support them,” says Makina.
Makina is a living example of how well-trained, new farmers can be a symbol of success. He attended the best agricultural schools in the country. Makina says he has built 21 houses for his workers; they admit that there is little difference in pay from the days when they worked for a white farmer.
“The salaries are okay, just that the difference is that we can easily relate well to Mr Makina, because he is black, he is quick to understand our concerns, unlike the white man,” says Keeper Martin, a worker on Makina’s farm.
So life tilling the land in Zimbabwe remains harsh. Whoever wins the elections this year would do well to help the hard working tobacco farms of the country invest in restoring the shimmer of the golden leaf.

“President Mugabe  Is My Hero”

After their poor showing against the Klitschko brothers—both losing in 12 rounds—British heavyweights Dereck Chisora and David Haye had their day in the sun, when they squared off against each other at Upton Park in London.
Many forces tried to stop the fight going ahead, including the British Boxing Control Board. The reason was that despite both Chisora and Haye being unlicensed in Britain, both men had behaved badly in front of the international media following Chisora’s loss to World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in Germany. Chisora and Haye were involved in an unsavory brawl at the post-fight conference, culminating in the former being briefly detained by the German authorities and gaining himself an outright ban from boxing in his adopted country of England.
Despite protracted efforts to stop the grudge fight from taking place, the momentum of what happened in Germany at the post-fight conference of the Klitschko-Chisora bout was too much for the fight not to happen. You see, there’s hype to promote fights and there’s just plain hype. With the Chisora-Haye brawl, it was no hype at all. Both boxers got involved in a genuine fight and it seemed Chisora was serious when he threatened to hunt Haye down and shoot him. Such was the animosity between the two pugilists that a German promotional outfit quickly jumped on the bandwagon and signed both boxers to fight each other, not in Germany but in England, where the tournament was guaranteed a 30,000 sell out. However, the promoters had to deal with all the opposition to the fight and after they weathered the storm, the interest was so huge that there was no turning back.
The result was a proper fight in the ring at Upton Park and Haye prevailed courtesy of a 5th round knockout over his tormentor. If anything, the outcome confirmed two things: that Haye is a much better boxer than the one who lost a lopsided bout against Wladimir Klitschko last year, after predicting that he would knock out the WBA/WBO/IBF heavyweight champion; that Chisora is much better off shooting with his mouth than with his fists and that the only reason he went the distance with Vitali Klitschko was because he applied safety-first tactics and never took any chances. Chisora was also exposed as nothing but an overblown cruiserweight.
As expected, Haye made hay while the sun shone on him, following his knockout victory over Chisora. He called for a clash with Vitali because he stopped the man who the Ukrainian went the full distance with. But the truth of the matter is that the only reason Haye managed to knock out Chisora was that the former Zimbabwean threw caution to the wind and engaged with Haye. Had he adopted the same strategy against Vitali, the outcome would have been similar and the knockout probably would have come even sooner. With the Klitschko brothers all but out of credible opponents, Haye will probably get another shot at the heavyweight title, while Chisora will be relegated to the ‘stepping-stone’ heap. He has now lost three times as a pro—Tyson Fury being another loss.
After all is said and done, Haye’s win over Chisora benefitted a leukemia charity to the tune of £20,000. Chisora honored the pre-match bet he made with Haye and made the £20,000 donation to the African-Caribbean Leukemia Trust (ACLT), of which Haye is a patron. The money will be used to support the charity in their work to spread awareness and increase the number of bone marrow, blood and organ donors from ethnic minorities.
Perhaps it would have been magnanimous of Haye to also donate £20,000 of his purse money to the same cause.

Tag: Harare

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