Views on a visit home

This appears on This is Zimbabwe - very interesting and true.......... http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/4198
Views on a visit home
This was sent to us by a Zimbabwean refugee who visited Zimbabwe after years of being a refugee in South Africa.
My trip to Zimbabwe was good except here and there. I went through Botswana. When I left Botswana I found myself that I am in another continent that is run by Mugabe. I had never been in Plumtree so it was my first time to be there. There is no developement that Zanu PF has done in this area.
I came across quite a number of roadblocks. Police are asking for bribes - if you don’t pay them they don’t let you go until you give them something. If you are coming from South Africa or Botswana, they ask you to pay them with soap, sugar, cooking oil or money. If you ask why are you doing this, they will tell that the ‘government has no money and this is how we are surviving’. From Plumtree to Harare I came across more than fifteen roadblocks.
Police in Zimbabwe are no longer the police that I used to know. Whenever you come across them at the roadblocks they make sure that you leave something for them. If you don’t give it willingly to them, you can be searched and if they find you do have stuff, they will take what you got. The treatment from police is very bad. They behave like they are militia of Zanu PF. Some of these police, they are so young so I suspect that they are Zanu PF militia.
But it seems the GNU has at last brought something to the suffering people of Zimbabwe. People can now manage to buy something for their family. They travel one place to another and they can spend some time with their family, although things are not yet as they were before. I thing Zanu PF should stop dragging when they should be constructing.
Even though many police are corrupt, I have to say its not all of them. Some of them are more cooperative and they ask you what your South African situation is. When you talk to them they are friendly. They are hoping that one day MDC will rule. MDC has brought a smile on their faces. Some, they were saying that they had never touched one thousand rand in their pockets since they were employed as police.
Most of the cars that are being stopped at the roadblocks are the ones which have foreign number plates. Even buses with foreign number plates are also being stopped. Local buses - the police ask mostly the driver if they had helped people with a lift.
I am not sure whether people are safe because Zanu PF are still arresting people for nothing. Right now Blessing Chebundo has been arrested and still some whom we don’t know who may still be in custody for political reasons.
People in rural areas say they are now feeling better than before. They can now manage to get 50kg maize which means that they can go to grinding mill. They can manage to travel to other areas using a bus or other means of travelling. They can also manage to send their children to school.
I spoke to quite a number of some of them, but many were scared to talk to as they were suspecting me to be CIO because of my body. They shared me their views and most said that Mugabe must go so that Zimbabwe will recover quickly. As long Mugabe is there nothing will change as WB and IMF will not give us money. They also said Gono had to go.
In rural areas people are now openly talking or wearing their MDC t-shirts. Their problem is money as they praying that Morgan must bring investers so that their children will get employed again. They have a saying - ‘Morgan Tsvangirai is bread of our children’.
I am still assesing the situation at home. If MDC is in control of the key ministry they want thus when I can decide to go back home, because home is the best.