Dear Family and Friends,

While the eyes of the world are on South Africa as it hosts the 2010
World Cup Football games, we are sitting here next door shivering in
the dark and the cold. For the past four months we've been
experiencing 16 hour a day power cuts, only having electricity in the
middle of the night. All our protestations have been met with
assurances that these cuts were to enable vital maintenance which in
turn would allow for uninterrupted power during the World Cup
Football Games. That has turned out to be a myth.

In my home area first we missed the excitement prior to the concert
at the Soweto stadium, then we missed the official opening of the
World Cup games, then, to top it all off, we missed the first match
between South Africa and Mexico. When the electricity did finally
come on, after everything was over, we were more concerned about the
essentials of life than about football. Essentials like a hot meal -
the first for days, washing and ironing, charging telephones and
batteries and catching up on the news.

With the world's cameras just a few hundred kilomteres away over the
border, and the great spectacle of extravagance being unfolded in
South Africa, its hard to believe the dark ages events taking place
in Zimbabwe. Behind the football smokescreen an MDC MP was arrested
and spent days in police custody for giving out donated vitamins,
dietary supplements and common aspirin tablets. This comes shortly
before the long awaited and very overdue constitutional outreach
programme begins, a programme in which this MP has been heavily
involved.

Also lost in the football smoke is Farai Maguwa, a researcher into
human rights violations at the Marange diamond fields who was
arrested, denied bail and has remained in custody for the second
week. This comes days before Zimbabwe again tries to get Kimberley
Process approval to sell diamonds.

We wonder if any of the international camera crews might cross the
border and report on the new wave of farm seizures in many parts of
the country. In the past week 16 commercial farmers who had court
orders protecting them have come under renewed eviction attempts.
This is happening at a time when the Commercial Farmers Union have
said that Zimbabwe is set to record its lowest ever wheat output of
about 10 000 tonnes. To put this into context, Zimbabwe used to
produce between 250 and 300 thousand tonnes of wheat prior to land
invasions. Zimbabwe will will need to import up to 400 thousand
tonnes of wheat in the coming year in order to meet national
requirements.

Finally, the last puff in the smoke cloud obscuring Zimbabwe from
international attention, comes the news that our leaders are again to
call for mediation to settle outstanding issues in their power sharing

agreement. Still no governors, no deputy minister of agriculture, no
resolution on unilateral appointments of Reserve Bank Governor and
Attorney General. Most people agree that this is all now a waste of
time and that we should proceed with a new constitution and elections
and stop all this stalling.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle 12 June 2010. www.cathybuckle.com
a href="http://www.cathybuckle.com/">http://www.cathybuckle.com/>

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