First I must explain how I came to be here.
About two weeks ago during our Thursday Bible and Prayer fellowship in our Honiton Methodist church we were praying for Zimbabwe and studying the 40th Psalm (Hymns and Psalms v17 and 18).
“Be pleased O Lord to deliver me ....... Let those who seek my life to take it away be put to shame and confounded for ever.”
I think I said something like, “The psalmist is expecting God to do things which he ought to be doing himself. If I was talking to God about Zimbabwe and if the best I could do was to hold up my hands in despair saying God, “it is your problem not mine”, what would He think about that?”
Anyway I woke early on Friday morning and found myself saying to myself “What are you going to do about the situation in Zimbabwe?”
I can’t do much, I said, because I haven’t got any money to go to Zimbabwe. Oh, but you have! What about the £3000 which Mrs. Robinson left you?” (I knew she would be chuckling in heaven because when she died she left £40,000 to the ANC in S.A.). “O.K.” I said, I’ll go down to Baker Dolphins, the travel agent and book a ticket.
“All the flights are booked for weeks ahead” said the helpful agent.
“I must go,” I said, “on compassionate grounds.” She didn’t seem to want to know who I intended to visit but, had she asked, I would have said it was out of compassion for the people of Zimbabwe.
There were lots of problems including getting a visa quickly (actually there should have been no problem at all because you can buy one at Harare Airport).
I then had to decide why I was going and what I hoped to do. I had to decide whether I should act non-violently, as I had done when we got independence for Zambia from Britain. But that was all comparatively simple because both Kaunda and I knew that Britain would be a pushover. Britain had always said it was holding Zambia “in trust” until such time as Africans could run it themselves. Zambians were not really ready to take over but Britain knew that she did not have enough force to hold down the Zambian people indefinitely.
Not long after Independence Kaunda was faced with Lenshina’s people moving down the Luangwa Valley killing and murdering the people. No chance that Non violence could work there and he had to send in the troops to shoot a few Lenshinas which he did and the whole thing fizzled out.
In Zimbabwe Morgan Tzvangirai acts non violently with marches and strikes but where is it getting him? The churches here in Zimbabwe are acting non violently by persuading Mr. Mugabe’s party to sit down with Morgan’s MDC and hammer out a compromise, but trying to negotiate with a satanic force is supping with the devil.
It seems to me that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right to believe that force was needed to topple Hitler.
The more I thought about it the more I found myself in agreement with Peter Tatchell that Mr. Mugabe should be arrested and charged with crimes against humanity. But no one is listening to Peter because he is a marked man and would never get within sniffing distance of Mr. Mugabe.
I finally came to the conclusion that Britain, with the agreement of course of the UN should do the job because of her long association with Africa. The situation in Sierra Leone and Liberia makes me believe that what Africa needs is an international peace keeping force to step in when things get out of hand.
I had already drawn up the letter which I intend to deliver at noon tomorrow.
I quickly realized that Mr. Mugabe would have to be taken completely by surprise so secrecy is of the essence which meant that I could not discuss it with anyone (still no one knows except the person who booked the flight and all she knows is that she has organised a compassionate flight.
Then I thought it would be a dotty thing to go out with only one suitcase because I am allowed to take 30 kgs - that was when I got the idea about the bread flour.
For the past 3 years I have been trying to persuade our little elderly congregation in Honiton to focus their prayers on Africa hence the web site
http://www.angelus-for-africa.com.uk/ .
I have also been hammering on about the miserable amount of money we put in our Benevolent Fund. I regularly quote that saying of Father Tissa Balasuriya, the Sri Lankan Catholic who said something about “...a billion flawed Eucharist’s that take place where we share bread with on another but still refuse to share our bread with the world”. But no one seems to be listening. How could I find some symbolic way of fixing the bread thing in their minds? In a curious way, what I am going to do is not just about Mugabe, it is also about Christ’s followers sharing bread with the world.
The Holy Communion has links with the feeding of the five thousand so after the sacrament last Sunday I asked Marilyn Tricker our Circuit Superintendent if I could have some pieces of the consecrated bread and ask God to multiply them.
What a palaver it has been getting 15 kgs of organic bread flour to Harare!
When I asked the agent to book me a hotel in Harare she replied that since there is no petrol in Zimbabwe there are no taxis to take passengers into town. They might try to book me into a hotel at the airport but since these hotels are sometimes targeted by terrorists it might not be such a good idea.
OK, I said, then I’ll walk, imagining the airport to be about 3 miles out of town. But how to drag 15 kgs of flour plus my suitcase that distance? Then I had one of my brilliant but impractical ideas. In my garage I have a battered 90 year old suitcase which belonged to my father-in-law Douglas Gray (his name is still painted on it) but it does not have as modern suitcases do, wheels to drag it along. I spent a morning trying to find a shopping trolley in our numerous charity shops but to no avail. Then I remembered that I had fixed four casters on the bottom of my recycling bin. I took them off and fixed them onto the aluminium suitcase.
It was much too heavy for me with my injured back to lift but I got the taxi driver to get it to his car. At the bus station in Exeter they said it was over the 20 kgs limit so I had to flatter the baggage man on his biceps. He proudly showed me what a strong man he was. I did have problems especially when the lifts at Heathrow were not working but I always found someone to help.
Of the 300 passengers who boarded the jumbo jet for Johannesburg only a handful were black and yet to my amazement I found myself sitting next to a young black woman. “You lucky dog” I thought “you are right in Africa even before the plane takes off”. Even before we had buckled on our seat belts we had introduced ourselves and we hardly stopped talking until they brought our evening meal. Before she pulled her blanket over he head, as do all Africans everywhere before they sleep, I touched her hand. I had to say thank you to God for letting me meet, out of all those 300 passengers the one person who could make me quite sure of Africa’s future.
She was petite and smartly dressed. A woman of about 40 with a daughter called Xolile who is an electronics engineer in Indonesia. Both her brother and sisters are lecturers in the University of Johannesburg.
I asked her how she came to be on the plane. She said “I am the Director of Health Promotion at the National Department of Health of the Republic of South Africa. I am returning from an international conference in Helsinki where 40 nations have been discussing the problems of nicotine and how we can reign in the voracious appetite of the tobacco companies who seem determined to decimate our population with cigarettes.
What amazed me about Zanele Mthembu was her clear-eyed certainty that her country, South Africa, had joined 40 other nations in a crusade which they felt quite certain they would win.
(Subsequently on the plane from Johannesburg to Harare the man who gave me a lift was a Zimbabwean doctor who had been attending the same conference. Zimbabwe is the 4th largest exporter of tobacco in the world and they export 80% of their crop overseas! I began to see one reason why Zimbabwe’s economy is in such a mess because it is the expertise of the white farmers which underpins their economy.
In the plane from Johannesburg to Harare I shared my little problem with a fellow passenger Jephat Chisamba. He found the prospect of an 83 year old dragging a suitcases full of wholemeal flour from the airport to town highly amusing. He said actually it is 20 kms into town but since his wife was coming to meet him in a car for which they had obtained a special ration of petrol, he would be happy to give me lift. So here I am.
When we called at the Trinity Methodist Church to leave the aluminium suitcase we found the whole place a hive of activity. There was a woman minister there. I said I would come back at 9.30 tomorrow for one of their four morning services. She will unpack the suitcase which I said is a gift from Honiton and I will explain that we are sending this gift as a parable of our concern for the people of Zimbabwe. I think she thinks the case is full of Bibles it is so heavy!
I know this is all a risky business and nothing may come of it but I wonder what Mr. Mugabe will do?
1. He may just ignore my letter in which case I shall fast outside State House until he does.
2. He may arrest me for disparaging his Presidency but he will have to think twice before torturing a British citizen.
3. He may just deport me back to the UK but the cat by then will be out of the bag.
There may be a 4th alternative but I do not what it is.
10th August 2003 Bronte Hotel 08:45
I am ready now to walk to the Methodist Church - about a mile away to meet the people there. In my bag I have
- the magnificat “I will put down the might from their seats and exalt the humble and meek”
- My Hymn Book
- My toothbrush
- My passport and my Warfarin tablets.
The Lord’s Prayer should be sufficient for all my spiritual needs.
The hotel concierge warned me to be careful because there are always thieves lying in wait for an old white man like me walking along with a couple of bags. Anyway I persuaded one of the hotel porters to accompany me, just as well as the church is 20 mins walk from the hotel.
They had taken Douglas Gray’s aluminium suitcase into the vestry of the church. On the wall were the names of previous ministers and there was his name: - Rev Douglas Gray 1910-1912
The steward, a tall broad formidable lady, who chewed gum all the time said to me, “You can have three minutes at the start of the service to offer your gift”.
When my turn came I stood up by the altar and placing one carton of flour on it I said “Greetings from the Methodist Church in Honiton. I salute you in the name of Douglas Gray who was the minister here in 1910. We have heard of your sufferings so I have brought 15 kgs of organic flour so that you can have a party”.
Everyone clapped and I sat down.
During their final hymn I asked if I might have one last word before I left. The preacher allowed me into the pulpit. I said “I would like to read you a letter I have brought to deliver to Mr. Mugabe at State House. There is a copy for your Presiding Bishop, Tony Blair, The President of the Methodist Conference, Rev. Dr. Colin Morris et al.
Dear Mr. Mugabe,
The sufferings of the people of Zimbabwe are an abomination in the sight of the Lord. I am praying that the British Government arrest you and charge you with crimes against humanity.
Yours faithfully
Merfyn Temple
“You may be wondering why I have done this, so I will give the top copy of my diary to your Presiding Bishop. If there is anyone here with a computer you can copy it for to all to see.” I said my protest was a ‘personal’ one so I hoped no one would accompany me on my walk to State House.
Everyone laughed in embarrassment and we all went into the adjoining school room for a cup of tea. No one spoke about the letter and after 10 minutes I asked if someone would direct me to State House. They said that if I went up the main road to 7th Avenue and turned left I would see State House.
I had left all my possessions in the church and carried only the small canvas shopping bag. It was quite a long walk and I saw nobody as the streets were empty at that time of day. Finally I saw a European man and his African partner so asked the way.
“Keep going and on the right you will see the road leading up to State House”. Then he laughed, “but you won’t get anywhere near it, it is surrounded by the army”.
Then I saw what seemed like a very high fence topped with coils of barbed wire. Both sides of the road were lined with bushes and tall banana trees and in their shade I saw a soldier marching with fixed bayonet along the perimeter fence. I walked quietly along the other side of the road thinking at least I would have some shade if Mr. Mugabe kept me waiting a long time for an answer to my letter. I wondered if someone from the church might have followed me at a discreet distance and whether he/she might bring me a blanket at because the nights are cold.
I walked a little further and saw another soldier who called out, “What are you doing here? Come over the road”.
When he asked me what I wanted, I said, holding out the letter in its white envelope, “I want to give this letter to your President”.
“Why didn’t you post it?”
“Because when you post a letter you can never be sure it will arrive, so I thought I would deliver it by hand”.
“You should have made an appointment. There are notices everywhere saying you should make an appointment”.
“But I am also a busy man and anyway I only want to deliver this letter”.
There were now three soldiers surrounding me at bayonet point. One of them went off to find a senior officer. I was glad of the shade of the banana trees as it was getting towards noon which was the time I had written on my letter.
Noon, Sunday August 10th 2003.
The senior officer arrived in his land rover and told the soldiers to march me off to the gates of State House being sure to keep on the road while they walked in the shade of the banana trees. We came to some high barred gates and I was let through by the police who guard the inner sanctum of State House while the army guard the outer perimeter.
When they had searched my shopping bag they found my passport and read that I was born in 1919. They then began the questions all over again. There were about eight police by this time each armed with a police notebook about the size of a large diary. Every policeman wrote down laboriously everything I told them.
“Please just take this letter to the President and I will wait outside in the road for his answer”.
They handed round the letter, every now and then holding it up to the light of the sky, I suppose to make sure there was no bomb inside. They searched my bag meticulously, and then let me sit down on a seat by the gate while somebody took the letter to the security guards in State House. After what seemed a long time a man in mufti came back and I went through all the questions again.
More senior police officers arrived in a land rover. More discussions, more questions, then the security man said.
“We would never deliver a letter like this to the President himself without opening it first to read it ourselves. Everyone, but every one, crowded around as he ceremoniously unfolded it. He did not read it out loud, he just passed it round for all to see. It took time for the contents to sink in then suddenly all hell was let loose as they shouted,
“Who do you think you are delivering this letter to State House?”
“We don’t want you here white man”
“Go back to Blair ....”
Perhaps one of the senior police officers saw that things might get out of hand. Within moments a police pickup truck arrived and I was bundled into the back and we drove off at high speed along a very bumpy road. There were two others in the back a young man and a young woman “She said I raped her” said the man “but it is not true”.
“Oh yes you did” said the woman.
None of us knew where we were going. I tried to sit on the spare tyre but I kept being bumped off onto the floor. Finally we came to a group of houses somewhere in the bush. The security man got out of the front and disappeared. We just waited wondering what was going to happen next. Finally he returned. More bumping over atrocious bush roads until finally we were on tarmac again for the long smooth drive to Harare’s Central Police Station.
With a policeman grasping my arm I was marched into a room with 150 numbered kit bags hanging on the wall. One was allotted to me, No 137.
Into this I had to put my shoes and socks, my clerical collar and my watch. I was allowed to exchange my clerical black shirt for a grey pullover. The other things, soap, toothbrush, bottle, medicines, hymn book, the Magnificat which I had torn from my Good News Bible “.... He shall put down the might from their seats and exalt the humble and meek ....”, my pen, my diary, my biro and my reading glasses (which didn’t really matter since I had noting to read).
From an old exercise book they tore out a piece of paper the size of a large postage stamp on which was written my name and number. Temple is a difficult word to pronounce in Shona because it has three consonants together in the middle so they called be “Tembo”. Someone had made a note that I should take my medicines every evening, so once a day I would take my piece of paper downstairs to my “locker” room and take my pills.
I was on the ground floor of a four storey building centered round an extensive courtyard measuring probably 80 x 80 yards. They marched me up and down innumerable concrete stairs and along interminable corridors until we came to the Department of Law and Order. I stood in front of a desk at which sat a genial fellow in a cloth cap. On the wall were ten cup hooks but only two carried police revolvers. There were four or five other policemen there and one police woman. They all carried notebooks and wrote down my replies.
“What is your name?” “Merfyn Temple.”
“Spell it out please, slowly”.
“Where do you live?” “Honiton, Devon, UK.”
“Why did you come here?” “To deliver a letter to your President.”
“Why didn’t you post it?” “Because it is always safer to deliver a letter by hand than to post it.”
“Who sent you?” “Nobody, I just came by myself”.
“We don’t believe you”. They looked at my passport.
“How can a man of 83 just get on a plane in UK and fly to Harare?”
“Who paid you to come?” “Nobody. I just bought the ticket myself.”
“How did you get through immigration at the airport”. I had my visa and said I was a tourist on holiday in your beautiful country.”
“But that was a lie. You should have shown them the letter.”
The interrogation went on and on and my feet got colder and colder on the cement floors. The police of course all wore brown shoes. Finally they said that more senior officers would interrogate me the next day and I was marched upstairs to my cell.
When I arrived at the barred gate of the cell I was met by a sea of black faces all peering at me through the bars. The iron gate opened inwards so the other inmates had to step back to let me in. The gate clanged shut and the warder taking out a large bunch of keys locked us in. (I noticed as the days passed that the warders never seemed to know which key fitted the heavy padlock on our door. They kept trying one key after another until they found the right one). Five times a day we lined up in the corridor and were counted and every time the warders went through the same palaver with the keys.
The cell was designed for six people. Three bunks on either side, each with a flimsy cotton mattress and a red cotton blanket. The first bunk started two feet from the ground, then two feet to bunk number 2, then two feet to bunk number 3, then two feet to the ceiling which was truly filthy. It was covered with smears of blood where the inmates had squashed the bedbugs and the lice. Sometimes somebody had found a piece of chalk and written graffiti over the blood stains but it was all in Shona so I did not understand what they had written. On the last day the man on the top bunk wrote in large letters “TEMBO” but what he wrote after that I do not know.
There were two concrete benches on either side with room for three to sit during the day as there was no room to sit up in the bunks. In the corner by the door was a shit hole. Long ago the lid had gone missing so someone had torn off the corner of a mattress to cover the hole but it itself was soaked in foul smelling urine. There was a brass tap from which we could drink, but sometimes the whole prison had no water.
We were 18 men in the cell. As I came in the man nearest the door was a big man as tall as myself but stronger. He wore a khaki shirt and shorts and his head was as bald as a coot. He never smiled but with his eyes. Everyone recognized him as boss in the cell and he it was who decided where we slept, two top and tail to a bunk and six on the floor. He seemed to take a shine to me and just before we bedded down for the night he said,
“I am a Roman Catholic and my name is Emmanuel”
“Good” I said “that means ‘God is with us’ even in this shit hole”.
“Will you bless me father?” he said.
“Of course”, I replied, as he knelt down at my feet
“May the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you and give you peace”.
For a moment I wondered whether a Roman Catholic priest would have said something different but I doubt that God was too bothered.
Emmanuel said, “You can sleep next to me on the floor by the gate”.
I lay down beside him with another man as big as he on the other side of me.
We couldn’t move unless we all moved. After a while I couldn't bear it so I said to Emmanuel,
“It isn’t working is it? We are all too big for this tiny space”.
A small man on the 2nd bunk overheard our conversation and without a word gave up his place on the bunk to me and lay down beside Emmanuel. My real problem was that I had no pillow for my head, but it seems to be no problem for my African companions who simply tuck their hands under their heads and drop off.
When the cell door is open during the day air comes in from the corridor but at night when the door is closed the only ventilation is through a tiny grill measuring one foot by one foot high up in the corner above the top bunk.
Monday 11th August 2003Our jailer unlocked the cell door and we all trooped out into the corridor. Emmanuel signaled to me to stand beside him and I felt encompassed by this small sign of his friendship. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, in Shona of course, so I sat hunched up in one corner of the seat and waited to see what would happened next. Apart from the tiny shaft of light from the grill, our cell was lit night and day by a neon strip light in the ceiling above the barred gate so since no one had a watch we never knew what time of day it was.
I heard a warder shouting above the sound of conversation “Tembo, Tembo”. The cell grew silent for a moment and a warder came to unlock the gate. He was a tall thin man with an entirely expressionless face. He wore a cap on his head which made him seem even taller and he always carried a leather strap in his hand. I followed him down stairs to the charge office and waited with six others on a wide concrete bench. We watched while the police brought in the people whom they had arrested during the night.
One man lay on the floor crying out in pain. He was shouting and shouting something in Shona which I did not understand, but after a while he crawled across the floor and sobbing lifted himself beside me on the bench. I put my arm around his shoulder to comfort him but he brushed it off.
Barefooted prisoners seemed to be coming and going all the time and one quickly shoved a large bundle of notes into my hand. I had no idea what he was doing but not wanting to incriminate myself I shook my head and he went off to plant his Zim dollars somewhere else.
They brought in a man in handcuffs and made him squat down on the floor - they kept shouting at him and kicking his ankles. Finally they took off the handcuffs twisting them ruthlessly as they did so. He came whimpering to sit beside me, rubbing his swollen arms. He told me he had been in handcuffs for three days.
I never saw my warder beat anyone with is strap, but if he found a new prisoner in a leather jacket he would take him round the corner and the thwack, thwack of his belt would reverberate along the corridors. Everyone would suddenly fall silent.
Another warder came and said “Tembo follow me”. Again we climbed up and down the stairs and once cut diagonally across the wide court yard to another department of Law and Order. I was ushered into what seemed like a small conference room. There was a plush blue carpet on the floor and a long table which might have sat about six people on either side.
At the head of the table sat a policeman in full regalia on either side of him were two other officers in smart mufti. They asked me to sit down on an upholstered chair at the end. They said they had been trained by the FBI in methods of interrogation so we might as well be friends.
“Tell me about yourself Mr. Temple. Where do you live in the UK and who are your friends?”
“I live in the small Devonshire town of Honiton”
“May we have your address please”.
“36 Orchard Way, Honiton, EX14 1 Hotel, Hotel”.
They exchanged knowing glances and I wondered what was significant for them about Honiton.
“Have you ever been to Africa before, especially Zimbabwe?”
“Oh yes, I lived in Zambia for 31 years from 1943-1974 and I sometimes visited Zimbabwe”.
“Now please tell us exactly the dates and the places you visited”
“The first time was in 1946 when I came to Umtare (Umtali) for my honeymoon. I am a member of the Methodist Church and during the next few years I used to attend our Inter-District Committee.
Sometimes in the nineties I went to Binga to visit Dr Peta Jones to talk about donkeys and Oh yes, in 1998 I came with my daughters to visit my grand daughter who was teaching at a school near Bulawayo”.
They faithfully wrote all this down in their bulky notebooks and then said
“How did you get from the airport into the town?”
“I met an African man on the plane who said his wife was coming to meet him and he would give me a lift into town”.
“What was his name?”
“I can’t remember” (this was true because I can’t remember anyone's name until I have heard it a dozen times or more).
“Where did he take you?”
“First to the Trinity Church to deliver 15kgs of flour and then to a hotel”.
“Which hotel?”
“I can't remember, but if you go to the Methodist Church where I left my suitcase which is unlocked you will find the receipt”.
“You may think you know a bit about Zambia and yet you know nothing at all except by hearsay about Zimbabwe. You talk in your letter to our President about “the sufferings of the people of Zimbabwe ...” what are these “sufferings” which you are so concerned about?
“First you have an inflation rate of about 300% and ordinary people cannot even get enough bank notes to buy food.
Second, three years ago Zimbabwe was a net exporter of food, today it is a net importer”.
“Where do you get this information from?”
“Mostly from the Guardian newspaper”.
They laughed “Nobody here believes a word that is written in the “Guardian” we know it is all rubbish.
“Who paid for your ticket? You say nobody sent you, it was all a personal matter. We just don’t believe you. You expect us to believe that an old man of 83 who knows practically nothing about Zimbabwe would walk out of his house in Honiton, go to Heathrow and catch a plane for Harare without telling anybody that you were coming, neither in the UK or here. It is just too crazy for us to take seriously. You are a spy for Bush or Blair.
“Why do you think I am a spy?”
“We have to believe you are 83 years old because your passport says you were born in 1919. But we believe nothing else. We think you are a spy for three reasons
· You are tall and you look like a retired brigadier.
· Your arms are very brown so you must have spent many years in Africa.
· When you gave us your coded address in Honiton you said Hotel, Hotel. That is the kind of language the army uses when it relays messages.
I didn’t say anything but I wanted to burst out laughing.
“We have wasted a lot of time interrogating you and we find you increasingly provocative. You had better go back to your cell and we shall see you again tomorrow.” (They never did).
At midday and in the evening relatives are allowed to come to the prison gates to pass food through the bars to their relatives inside. Some cell doors are open and it is a kind of time of association when you can wander about a bit. I went along to the cell next to ours which also had 18-20 people in it. They called me over and asked what was my charge? There was no warder about so I said,
“No one has told me what I am being charged with but I guess it is because I said something which Mr. Mugabe didn’t like to hear”.
“What did you say?”
“I tried to deliver a letter to State House which said the people of Zimbabwe are suffering and I think the British Government should arrest him and charge him with crimes against humanity”.
It took time for my words to sink in and somebody said “
There is an MP on the top bunk”. He waved to me and everyone was grinning.
I said “I think Mugabe is shit”.
They laughed and stretching their hands through the bars for me to shake but I saw a warder coming so I skedaddled.
Back in my cell I found that quite a few of my companions could speak English so I let them tell me their stories.
First, was a shortish man and a taller one who was his brother.
“We are from Liberia. We escaped to South Africa and were given refugee status. I am a Pentecostalist and want to go to Britain for further training so that I can set up my own Pentecostal church there when Charles Taylor is deposed. My brother is an electrician who also needs further training. We crossed the border into Harare but were picked up by the police for illegal entry and that is why we are here. One of our Pentecostalist friends who was deported with us is now training in London.
“How did he get there?” I asked
“He had brought money from Liberia. In Johannesburg he was able to purchase, on the black market, a fake Zambian passport. He used this to get out of South Africa and into Zambia. He went to Lusaka where he purchased a ticket to UK. (I wondered whether he had smuggled diamonds out of Liberia?) At the end of his journey he went to the toilet, tore his passport into small pieces and flushed them down the toilet. When he arrived at Heathrow he became just a Liberian refugee with no papers. Somewhere he is being trained as a Pentecostal Minster and will return to set up his own church in Liberia. That is what I want to do. I am a “born-again Christian” and I am sure that God wants me to be one of His pastors”.
Second, an elderly man was thrust into our cell. He sat on the bench opposite me. Soon word went round that he had raped an eleven year old girl and before long other prisoners were at our barred gate jeering and mocking him.
After a while I went to sit beside him and this is the story he told.
“I was working for a certain white woman as a garden boy. She kept promoting me and I became her driver. I drove her truck and her car. I married two wives and I have 16 children. They all managed to go to school and many have good jobs. One of my daughters is a lawyer in Johannesburg and another in London. One is a doctor and some are trained nurses.
When the white woman retired she gave me the truck so that I could set up in business myself. All my family helped me and I bought a shop. I joined Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC (Movement for Democratic Change). Mugabe’s thugs came and stole all my goods and trashed my shop. They drove away my lorry using it to bring their members to Party rallies. They are the ones who accuse me of raping that girl but it is not true.”
Putting my hand on his knee, I said “At least you have a couple of lawyers in your family and I am sure they will help you out.” He said “It was a white woman who enabled me to send all my children to school and she gave me that truck. I don’t think my African brothers would do a thing like that”.
Third, “I am married with two children and I worked in the “Bata” shoe factory. But it went bust and I lost my job. All our food was finished but I had enough money to buy a bus ticket so I came to Harare to see a friend. When I got here my friend he had left and gone somewhere so I had no food to eat. Everyone is shoplifting now so I stole a pair of shoes. The police caught me and brought me here. If I can pay the fine of 5,000 Zim dollars (about £2.50) they will let me go. But how can I find Zm$5,000? Could you help me Tembo?”
“I would love to help you” I said “but I have no money here in prison. I do have money in the case I left in Trinity Church but I have no way of getting it before your trial on Wednesday.”
Fourth, once when I was waiting to go into the locker room I saw a man with a crutch sitting on the floor. He was the only prisoner in the whole prison allowed to wear one shoe and that was on his gammy leg - he had polio as a child. His name was James and I asked him why he had been arrested.
“There is a rule in this country that no one should be seen drinking in a public place. I was begging and someone gave me half a can of beer. The police saw me drinking it so I was arrested. I have been here for three days and my trial has been put off until Wednesday because Monday and Tuesday are public holidays celebrating our freedom from colonial rule by Britain.
“How much is your fine?”
“Five thousand Zim dollars. Could you help be Tembo?”
Once again I had to give him the same answer I had given to the shop lifter.
Fifth, in the same anteroom with James was a handsome young man with a bright intelligent face. He told me his story.
“Until last week I was in the Zimbabwean Police Force but I made a mistake and I have been arrested. When I get out I want to go to the UK for further training. Can you help me Tembo?”
I explained that it is quite difficult to get into the UK these days unless you have a work permit or someone to sponsor your training.
“I have a relative there in the UK but he is black and the immigration authorities won’t listen to him. You are white Tembo and that would make all the difference.”
He said he had noticed me in prison and wanted to talk to me about something else, about a “Constitutional Forum” which was suggesting that the two conflicting parties - Mugabe’s ZAPU party and Morgan Tzvangirai’s MDC should work out some compromise which would allow Mugabe to become the equivalent of our Queen, a kind of constitutional monarch.
“Mugabe is not clinging to power” he said “He is prepared to step down at any time”.
Once when walking behind a warder along an endless corridor I asked him if he liked his job in the police force.
“Yes”
“How much to you get paid?”
“Enough” he answered smugly.
Suddenly I realised how Mugabe sustains his dictatorship of terror. He sells his army to the Congo to support the regime there. They pay him in diamonds which enable his ministers to buy up farms and live in luxury. Mugabe pays inflationary wages to his vast army of police, army and security guards. He has already built himself a multi-million pound palace which is surrounded by the army and police. The idea that he would step down from his position of absolute power is ludicrous. If he did so he would be dead in five minutes. Meanwhile he drives his country to ruin.
Someone, I think it was Emmanuel, said if you don’t get a lawyer quickly you don’t stand a chance. The next time a warder passed our cell gate I asked him to arrange for me to have a lawyer. He said he would do so. Some time later, how long, I do not know, but Emmanuel said that the warder had gone off duty. For some reason the cell gate was unlocked so I went down stairs to find another warder. He was chasing a couple of prisoners down the corridor back to their cell. I said to him very politely,
“Please will you get me a lawyer and let me see you write it down in your book”.
“You don’t need to see a lawyer”
“But I do”.
He took no notice so I shouted in a loud voice “I want to see a lawyer, I want to see a lawyer, I want ....
“Shut up” he said “You are being provocative. If you are not careful I’ll start hassling you. I guessed he might be serious so I joined the two other prisoners and we fled in panic up the stairs to our cell. I sat panting on the edge of the bunk while the warder locked the gate. I said to myself “You are in a right pickle now Merfyn. No one knows you are here, no one has been to visit you or brought you any food and no one has told you what you are being charged with. I just don’t know what to do”.
A warder unlocked the gate and said all the prisoners were to go up to the fourth floor for their daily food which was a lump of maize porridge and a spoonful of beans. Although I had eaten nothing since breakfast in the hotel on Sunday I didn’t feel hungry so thought I would add of bit of fasting as a protest. When the other prisoners returned they could not understand why I had not taken food with them. It was not that I didn’t like maize meal and beans but I explained that unlike those of you who seldom have enough to eat I came from an affluent world where there was always plenty of food for 3 meals a day and no problem about money to buy it. I needed to lose some weight so they need not worry that I was going to fade away and die (perhaps at the back of my mind was the thought of that dreadful shit hole and no loo paper either).
Suddenly I heard the man with the strap shouting “Tembo, Tembo”. He lead me over to “Law and Order” and there was a young black woman from a private local law office who began to take down any details. She was quickly followed by another young man who immediately took charge of the situation demanding that they give him a room where he would interview his client in private. He had another young lawyer with him called Susan and when we were settled the young man and the first woman left. I said to Susan,
“Please I want two things. First that you get in touch with my family. My daughter’s phone number is in the suitcase which I have left in Trinity Church. Second please find out what is the charge against me. I then dictated from memory the exact words of my letter to Mr. Mugabe.
She had with her a document which contained legislation passed only last year about speaking disrespectfully of the Head of State.
She said “If you plead guilty, and undoubtedly you are, they will make you pay a large fine or put in goal. (I didn’t know then that under international law no one over 80 years old can be kept in prison).
I said I would plead “Not Guilty” because I wanted my lawyer to say in court exactly what are “the sufferings of the people of Zimbabwe” under the dictatorship of Mr. Mugabe.
Before we went to sleep that night Emmanuel asked me to bless him and all the others in our cell. Everyone knelt down because in Zimbabwe everyone is either a Roman Catholic, or a Protestant or one of the “also rans”. I said shall we all say the Lords Prayer in or own language. English or Shona or Sindebele or Liberian. I said it in Zambian Chi-tonga.
When all was quiet the man in bunk number 2 opposite me began talking and at first I thought he must be preaching but I quickly realised he wasn’t by the response of his audience. They grunted in agreement, or asked a question or laughed or swore. It was like being in a village round the fire at night when a story teller tells a story. It was all in Shona or course so I didn't understand a word of it.
That night I was thinking about the Lord’s Prayer which we had just prayed together. Had we just prayed it by rote or had it expressed some sense of the comradeship we had shared together?
What was happening to me so briefly was happening to the people of Zimbabwe all the time. God wasn’t “putting down the mighty from their seats” and He wasn’t “exalting the humble and meek” in fact the exact opposite was happening. “The hungry were not being filled with good things and the rich were not being sent empty away”.
One evening, I can’t think why, I was sitting in the Charge Office. In the centre of the room was a raised dais on which sat the Senior Police Inspector who is in charge of all admissions and controls this whole section of the Central Prison. He was a big man with the most highly polished brown shoes I have ever seen.
In one corner of the room were two very large cardboard cartons. Squatting on the floor beside them was a squitty little man in handcuffs. There were two police officers - one was lifting out the contents of the cartons while the other entered them laboriously in his notebook. The first was an Epson computer, then numerous telephones both standard and mobile. He must have had a wonderful shop lifting spree. Now and again one of the police officers would ask him a question and if he didn’t get the right answer he kicked the man’s ankles until he got what he wanted.
The big man slouched in his chair watched in a disinterested sort of a way what was going on. He made some remark to me and we got talking.
“I think I am going to retire from the Police Force quite soon”.
“And what will you do when you retire? Will you be a farmer?
“A farmer” he snorted “Our family has lived in this town for three generations. I have no intention whatsoever of going back to the land. There is no money in that.
Tomorrow I shall be meeting my wife off the plane from Heathrow. She is a nursing sister there earning a good salary. Go back to the land? You must be joking”.
Tuesday 12th August 2003Very early in the morning when the fetid atmosphere in the cell was almost too hard to bear I climbed on the bunks and put my face to the grill taking deep breaths of sweet fresh air.
After roll call in the corridor we came back into the cell and I found that the iron bars of the gate were like the bars along the side of a gym perfect for any number of physical exercises. The other comrades watched me with a mixture of amusement and disbelief.
The man who had told the story in Shona was still lying on bunk number 2. I asked him if he could tell me the story in English. Haltingly with much help from others I began to piece together some elements though much remained obscure.
“Two black men lived in Las Vegas. One called Jephat and one called LeRoy. LeRoy got a job with the Mafia as a garden boy. In one corner of the big garden was a very small house, he peeped through the window and saw a naked white girl. She was very, very beautiful and he fell in love with her. They managed to steal a car and escape together but the Mafia saw them and gave chase. Guns were fired from both cars and LeRoy managed to shatter the windscreen of the car which followed them.
They finally reached a sea port and boarded a ship. The captain could not understand how a black man could be in love with a beautiful white girl. One night when they were both asleep he entered their cabin and gagging LeRoy squeezed him out of the port hole. Fortunately the ship was passing an island and LeRoy swam ashore. All the inhabitants were white so for a time he hid in the bushes. However, one white called Erskin was a good man who took pity on LeRoy and asked him to work as a cook in his kitchen.
Meanwhile the captain of the ship fell in love with the beautiful white girl and said he wanted to marry her. He said they would have a very big wedding party. He asked for a hundred wedding cakes to be baked and they would choose the best one. Mr. Erskin on the island heard about the competition and asked his cook to bake a cake and ice it. LeRoy divided the top of the cake into four sections each one depicting a scene of the escape.
1. LeRoy peeping through the window of the little house and seeing the beautiful white girl.
2. The car chase and shattered windscreen.
3. Arrival at the seaport.
4. LeRoy’s disappearance through the port hole.
When the beautiful girl saw the cake she immediately understood its significance. She fled from the wedding and ended up in LeRoy’s arms.
That evening I went down stairs to get my medicines but when I asked for a cup of water to swallow them I was told that all the water in the prison for some reason had been cut off. I happened to be with “Papi” my Liberian friend who had come down to the prison gate to get some food from a friend through the bars. He saw I was upset and said “Don’t worry Tembo, I’ll get you some spring water. Just wait”.
Within 20 minutes he was back with a half litre bottle of spring water. I think he must have asked his friend who came to bring him food to get it for me from a shop. No tap water came back until about 10.00 the next day. How I treasured that sweet spring water!
As we prepared for bed that night the hum of conversation through the prison died down and for me a wonderful thing happened. In the cell next door they began to sing. First the cantor then the deep rich voices of the men. Cell by cell they joined in and then from far away in the corridor upstairs came the sound of women’s voices taking up the chorus. When they sang all the men stopped singing. For a moment it was like being with the shepherds on the hills by Bethlehem.
Wednesday 13th August 2003
All the cell gates were opened and we trooped upstairs to the big Assembly Room. The roof was held on nine pillars and I estimated it to be 48ft x 48ft. Down two sides, high up on the wall were about 30 narrow spaces like arrow slits in a castle wall through which the sun streamed making a bright pattern on the concrete floor. Most men stood or sat with their backs to the wall. The only furniture was two upright, very rickety dining room chairs. Papi was sitting on one of them and when he saw me come in he offered me his seat. It was indeed a flimsy perch but better than the floor. Quite suddenly it collapsed and I was spread-eagled on the concrete. No one laughed but there was a chorus of voices saying “Sorry Tembo, sorry”.
Anyone who has lived in Africa knows that when you are walking along a narrow bush path and you stumble or hit your foot against a stone your companion will say “Sorry, sorry”.
A warder told us all to stand up to attention because the Senior Police Officer the Chief Superintendent would speak to us. Of course he spoke in Shona and I have not the faintest idea what he said, but Emmanuel said it was the day when the judges would be sitting. No one was allowed paper or pen but he had scribbled a telephone number on the flap of a cigarette packet. He said “Tembo, I know you don’t have any money, but I need to pay a lawyer, so when you get out please send something to this number”.
Papi also managed to get a tiny scrap of paper on which he wrote “Papi McClaine from Liberia” (He has that name because of course Liberia started as a colony of freed American slaves).
We all sat in the cell waiting for a warder to call our names. Everyone else was talking but I heard a voice say “We shall miss you Tembo”. That gave me a warm feeling as I sat waiting to be called. Everyone knew, except myself, that I would never come back. They repeatedly told me that I would be OK
I was wondering how my lawyer was getting on with the preparation of my case. She had said that when the judge asked why I had come to Zimbabwe, I should simply say that I had come to deliver a letter to the President because I was concerned for the sufferings of the people. Then it would be her turn to describe those sufferings. I expected them to put me back in a regular goal. I did not know then, what I know now, that there is an international law, no doubt subscribed to by Southern Rhodesia long again in colonial days, which says that no person over 80 should be kept in goal.
Above the chatter we heard the warder shout “Tembo, Tembo”. Everyone in the cell stopped talking but they looked at me and with smiling eyes nodded. The man with he strap arrived and after going through his keys one by one, opened the gate and led me up and down stairs to the Department of Law and Order.
Two people were standing by the prosecutors desk. One was Susan my lawyer and the other was man with a white face. The only other white man I had seen since my arrival was the white man on my way to State House. At first I did not recognise him but gradually the truth dawned. It was Bob, an old Zimbabwean friend from long ago and he brought me a bag of food which is wife Beryl had prepared for me. While Susan talked with the prosecuting officer I asked Bob how he had found me. He said,
“Beryl and I had no idea that you had come to Zimbabwe (of course I had not told them lest they be accused of supporting me). However on Monday evening your daughter Patricia phoned me to say that she had heard nothing from you since you called her on Saturday from the Bronte Hotel telling her that you would be attending the morning service at Trinity Methodist church on Sunday morning.
I immediately rang the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church but was told by the person who answered the phone that the Presiding Bishop had gone to a funeral in the south of the country and a white man was seen to be accompanying him. That put me off the scent. However, later Patricia rang again to say she thought you were in prison so I made further enquiries and heard that you were in custody in the Central Prison. What I cannot understand is that 300 people in the church on Sunday morning knew that you had gone to State House taking the letter which you had read from the pulpit. It appears that no one came to visit you, no one brought you any food and no attempt was made to get you a lawyer. I didn’t know you had a lawyer until I met her just now. Anyway have some food.”
“Sorry Bob I have vowed not to eat anything until I know the final result of my case.”
At that moment Susan came over and said they had withdrawn the case and decided to depart me. I would be charged under a “miscellaneous law” and the fine would be 5,000 US dollars.
Why I was deported I still don’t know.
“OK said Bob “ you can eat your food now”. I know from long experience that you have to be careful when you are breaking a fast. The very best thing is a few spoonfuls of honey. I found in Beryl’s bag two bananas, two oranges, half a bar of chocolate and some potted meat sandwiches. I ate the bananas and oranges and gave the rest to the warder who reluctantly gave me back my shoes.
Somehow Bob and Susan and the thin, unsmiling immigration official got my ticket changed from Thursday to Wednesday. It seemed to take hours rushing up and down stairs from corridor to corridor signing innumerable forms before I finally emerged through the prison gates.
We only had an hour to spare so Bob went to the airport to try and hold the plane until I arrived. Fortunately, Susan had come with a male colleague who had a reasonably fast car. He drove it at breakneck speed and arrived as they made the last call for my flight.
When I got to the desk they said that my ticket from Johannesburg to Heathrow was OK but I would have to pay for the flight from Harare to South Africa. Of course, since Mugabe’s government was deporting me, they should have paid but by this time with the prospect of freedom 5 minutes away I took out my own credit card and paid up the £170. Mugabe will have to whistle for his fine of 5,000 US dollars.
Merfyn Temple
September 2003
Honiton, Devon
