What a mess!

                                           By Chinofunga Ndoga 

Pains and bruises sing me a lullaby
Constant fear caresses my soul
to a night of unwanted intimacy
Marital injustice unsanctioned
My bed is wet and unbearable
Verbal vomit, the culprit
Please wake me up!

To join you at the breakfast table
of promises and lies
Sweet coffee of mental trauma
Served sharp and crude
by a monster I vowed to love
Till death do us apart

It’s a three course lunch sweetheart
Politics, patronage and propaganda
Served with slogans and rhetoric
and washed down with red wine
from the vineyard veins of our rivals dead
No sweet heart!
Please order me
Human rights, democracy
and political pluralism

I dread my supper today
Censored news
Served raw by my husband‘s favourite chef
I like a balanced diet not this palate
Hunger, spare me tonight
It’s long before breakfast

Night falls and hope slips away
My love belly is hungry, angry and beckoning
Please fill me up, but the diseased diet
drips with acid shared by all in the women‘s league

Singing and dancing at the vigil tonight
Singing and dancing to the tune
of abduction, torture and murder
Whistling and ululating to the rhymes
of rape and romance
Thumping and clapping to the sounds
of hate and revenge

Enough is enough
I long for peace and progress
I long for harmony and happiness
I long for freedom
from this shame of a marriage
When will priceless love ever be mine?
Maybe an escape….
Is the answer

http://www.hatnews.org/2011/04/15/what-a-mess/

Dzidziso isina ruomba

By Chinofunga Ndoga 

Manzuma yave pauriri

Heyo yozeya chisvusvuro chezuva

Mushure yorara dzemadzikiriri

Uku mwene nyunyuto kuzvuva

Dzake tsoka onanga kwaSadunhu

Kuno rara amire pachivanze chedzidziso

Ko mukweguru anoida yei?

Rwendo kusarudzo akakwenya zvichida kashanu
Jana nhasi kuparura rwechimurenga
Kushirikadzi dzisina chekupakura
Nhasi dzotsinhira nesimba rederere
Uku dova regukurahundi riri banga
Kutsoka dzizere man’a

Hedzoka harahwa nechembere kudzana

Sesvikiro guru Nehanda

Pwere dzouchira moyo yati svii

Nehasha dzechikoro chine

Varairidzi vakaramwa basa

Gutsa ruzhinji yakaendepi?

Aziva donzvo remurairidzi mutsva ndiyani

Baba vemwana tirumei nzeve

Zvichida maziva kubva muzevezeve rechitirongo

Kuno pwere dzarura kupinda shumba

Mwaka uno kana gejo hatibayi

Igangaidzva mukwenyi

Burusasike chairo

Chinopona chine mudzimu wacho

Pamhirizhonga ine maungira

Emapopoma aZambezi

Ratinhira bhanan’ana rebopoto

Kubva mumutema rege wembada

Unoyeverwa neropa risakapara mhosva

Ratungidzwa rimi kudya mhuka dzesango

Nhaka nhomba yenyama ichatibaya

Pasina sanzu rekudzimura wadai

Kukwira gomo kuninga yaNhoworeka

Vari nyikadzimu

http://www.hatnews.org/2011/09/06/dzidziso-isina-ruomba/

                           Mr President

                                                 By Chinofunga Ndoga 

Echoes of discord reverberate
In the vicinity of animosity!
The music of hate plays
To the audience of its victims!

The hate-filled morons strings
The violins setting the agenda of humanity!
Slaughtered human flesh gives taste
To the buds of the cannibals!

Without free freedom
Tensions abound,
Brutality consolidates!
Spears sharpen!
And daggers are drawn
For what,
Whose war?
In this sweet democracy!

In this remoteness and emptiness
Of free movement
Hymns and rhymes of dissent dwell!
Recitation long curtailed!

In this bankruptcy of humanity
Human blood from the canals of
Slit open veins flow!
Washing away the records of mischief
Into the oceans of history!

In the Goromonzi palace of torture
A bird of peace languishes!
With a battered soul
And a determination
To expose the junta for what it is!

In this dumbness and deafness of society
The rule of man takes over that of law!
The noose tightens
On the throat of freedom
And with it freedom disappears!

Weeks on end
Soldiers miscount the numbers
Of a plebiscite in dispute

In the shrewdness of autocracy
Souls and emotions are chained!
To the whip that restrict!
Self emancipation!

http://www.hatnews.org/2011/07/06/mr-president/

Our Experience

By Chinofunga Ndoga

Acts sanctioned by none but you
Acts known by none but you
Acts of deaths witnessed by you
Acts of darkness commanded by you
Acts unkind, evil and unforgiving


Mischief approved and common to you
Mischief paid art in your covert world
Mischief uncommon and disapproved
In the overt world we reside


My capture!
My demise!

His abduction!
His disappearance!
Her torture!
Her callous murder!

Their arrest!
Their incarceration!

Our trial!
A travesty!
Our experience!
Painful and horrific


You gain from our pain
You locate relief in our grief
You count victories in victims
You!
I hate your success
Achieved at the expense of our sorrows


Where is justice for our experience?
My captor still haunts me
His abductor, still roam the streets scot-free
Her murderer still kills more

Their policeman still acts with impunity
Their prison officer continues to deny them food and medication
The intelligence officer unintelligent
still extracts information under duress
The judge remains tribal
His verdict partisan and poisoned


In Zimbabwe, my country
Alluta continua!

http://www.hatnews.org/2011/07/21/our-experience/

Police persecution of human rights defenders continues

The continued persecution and arrests of journalists and civic society members across the country by State security agents is as worrying as it is a violation of human rights.

The arrest today 6 December 2011 of Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) Director Andrew Moyse at his Milton Park offices in Harare comes on the backdrop of a series of arrests of human rights defenders and journalist. On Sunday, three officials from MMPZ - Fadzai December, Molly Chimhanda and Gilbert Mabusa were arrested in Gwanda for facilitating a civic education meeting in the town last month. They are still in police custody.

They are being charged under the repressive Public Order and Security Act (POSA), an Act which should be repealed.

These continued arrests, detentions and persecutions of journalists at a time when the country is supposed to be working hard to open up space for freedom of expression, assembly and communication is very disturbing

The police should be professional and not to be abused by any political party. It is sad to note that the arrests of the four MMPZ officials follow that of four other journalists who have recently been arrested on the instructions of Zanu PF officials.

The Daily News editor, Stanley Gama and reporter Xolisani Ncube were arrested last week on the instructions of Zanu PF’s Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development, Ignatius Chombo. They were charged with criminal defamation after exposing Chombo’s ill-gotten wealth.

Last month, Nevanji Madanhire, the editor of The Standard and reporter Nqaba Matshazi were arrested after reporting that a medical aid owned by a Zanu PF sympathiser was collapsing.

It is very worrisome that any opinions, analysis, news reports or meetings that are not pro Zanu PF suddenly become matters of interest to the police and innocent people are arrested.

Zanu PF manipulate donor food aid distribution

Drought, a chaotic and often violent land reform exercise have all contributed to food shortages in Zimbabwe since 2000. In recent years, the shortages have been severe and given ZANU PF the opportunity to "punish" those members of the public, especially in rural areas who have not supported Mugabe's party.

MDC Members in rural Zimbabwe face harassment,violence and displacement

There is a silent war going on in rural Zimbabwe targetting MDC members, activists and office bearers. In a campaign of harassment and violence, Zanu PF is putting intolerable pressure on opposition members forcing them to abandon their homes and seek refuge in urban areas where MDC regional offices and safety can be found. This, at a cost to their livelihoods, has left many Zimbabwean citizens dispossesed of a normal life in their new status as internally displaced persons.