The Fall of Tonderai Ndira

Death of a Zimbabwean activist
The body of Tonderai Ndira was found this week, the 43rd Zimbabwean opposition activist to die in violence since elections in March. Journalist Farai Sevenzo looks back at his life and the circumstances leading up to his murder.
It is clear that the change we were waiting for is here. If we do not get it, the people must rise up and fight for their victory Tonderai Ndira
Tonderai Ndira lived in the desperately poor township of Mabvuku and Tafara, east of Harare.
He was no stranger to the Zimbabwean police and at one stage had 38 charges levelled against him, ranging from "political nuisance" to attempted murder.
He was one of a group of young men and women, barely in their thirties, who formed the backbone of the opposition's ranks.
Theirs was the thankless and arduous task of mobilising moribund, disillusioned and tired folk to believe in this new concept called change and to sign up to the messages of the eight-year-old opposition - the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
On election day, 29 March, the tall and charismatic Ndira was hanging around by what passes for shops in his sewage-ridden constituency, where electricity is erratic and where cholera has already claimed lives in the last 12 months.
I asked him what he felt that day would bring, and if, given the history of elections in this country, the day would make any difference.
"It is clear that the change we were waiting for is here. If we do not get it, the people must rise up and fight for their victory," he said.
Rising up and fighting for victory pits one against the awesome strength of the security machinery the state has at its disposal.
That is an undisputed fact in the history of this country's opposition.
It is an impossible task.
Beyond politics
In the weeks following polling day, a campaign of intimidation was unfurled which largely affected opposition people rather than ruling party folk.
He was campaigning for things like better streets, more rubbish collections, healthy water supplies ZimRights official
Huts and houses were torched on both sides of the political divide; images of the beaten and tortured were wired around the world, and diplomats based in Harare collected eyewitness accounts of the horrors being unleashed in the countryside by people variously described as war veterans, militias or soldiers.
It was with this background that Tonderai Ndira continued to lend his leadership to the idea of democratic change, and his activism went beyond the politics of the MDC.
An official from human rights organisation ZimRights, who declined to be named, outlined what Ndira meant to civic society in and around Harare.
"I knew him personally, he was a youth activist who went around the country holding workshops and teaching people their rights.
"He was very active in the Combined Harare Residents Association - campaigning for things like better streets, more rubbish collections, healthy water supplies.
"And so he became a target for the Zanu-PF, because they are targeting active members."
And why would such people become targets of the ruling party?
"They know that if people like Ndira are removed, there will be less likelihood of an uprising."
Disappearances
Ordinarily it was a mission to find Ndira.
He would venture into the centre of town for the odd demonstration and then disappear for days on end.
His wife and three young children became used to the idea of him coming home after weeks away because a healthy sense of paranoia was needed to avoid spurious charges and lengthy stays in remand prison.
But on Tuesday 13 May, according to his friends and eyewitnesses, Ndira came home and slept the sleep of the exhausted in Mabvuku township.
At around 0645, a pick-up truck packed with 10 men arrived on his narrow street and drove past his house, stopping at the neighbours.
The 10 men were armed with revolvers and AK-47s - some of them wore masks.
The neighbour's child duly told them the right address and they reversed, disembarked and told Ndira's wife they were looking for her husband.
The presence of so many armed men frightened her into calling out his name and announcing that there were people there to see him.
He answered with a voice drunk with sleep and asked her to tell them to come by later, as he needed his rest.
We are like chickens waiting for the knife to reach our throats Tonderai Ndira's brother Cosmas
He was abducted in his underwear, in front of his young children as they were heading to school and beaten into the truck until he was bleeding.
In the ensuing week, his family and friends desperately tried to locate him.
The omens were not good, several activists had been found dead and funerals were happening throughout the city and the rural areas - all connected to Zimbabwe's protracted political impasse.
On Wednesday, the MDC went to claim two more bodies from Harare's Parirenyatwa Hospital morgue.
Party officials were told by the mortician there was another body that had not been claimed.
Unrecognisable
This new body was badly decomposed; a pair of bloody shorts was plastered to a face clearly broken and shattered.
"We only knew it was my brother by his distinctive ring, his bangles, and his unmistakeable height," said Cosmas Ndira, as family and friends filled his small home to mourn his passing before his funeral, which is yet to be finalised.
"His jaw was shattered, his knuckles broken, a bullet hole below his heart, many many stab wounds and a large hole at the back of his head which seemed to have been caused by a hammer."
Jimmy Chidakwa, a colleague and fellow activist, struggled to contain his anger both at the assassins and his party's leadership.
"They are cowards, all of them. Ten men to take down one unarmed man.
"And where are our leaders? Out of the country."
I know so many people now too frightened to vote with their hearts come the run-off Activist Jimmy Chidakwa
Cosmas chipped in: "Yes, we are like chickens waiting for the knife to reach our throats.
"Given his position in the party, my brother should have had more protection.
"I know so many people now too frightened to vote with their hearts come the run-off."
Unlike the opposition leadership, who are not here and have been at pains to tell the world of diplomatic efforts under way as they travel - to Botswana, South Africa, Kenya, the UN headquarters in New York - the foot soldiers like Tonderai Ndira remained on the ground, visiting the injured, co-ordinating relief efforts to the displaced.
The opposition may yet feel the full force of the loss of such urban activists in the weeks to come as the country heads for the presidential run-off on 27 June.
Story from BBC NEWS Published: 2008/05/23 15:12:43 GMT© BBC MMVIII

Britain's Holocaust Shame

Britain's Holocaust shame: The voyage of the Exodus
The ship was filled with Jewish refugees, desperately seeking a new life in the Promised Land after the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. But, thanks to the Royal Navy, they were sent back to prison camps in Germany

By Robert VerkaikMonday, 5 May 2008
When British soldiers reached the concentration camps of Nazi Germany in the last days of the Second World War, the survivors of the Holocaust hailed them as saviours.
The troops' gruesome discoveries at Bergen-Belsen in 1945, where piles of skeletal corpses lay amid the camp's death ovens and gas chambers, prompted Britain's political leaders to promise that the world would never forget the suffering of the Jews.
Yet, just two years later, the British government was accused of mistreating thousands of Holocaust survivors, who, when prevented from fleeing to Palestine, had been forcibly sent back to barbed-wire detention camps in Germany, staffed by Germans.
Secret papers released at the National Archives for the first time today reveal the fate of Jewish immigrants aboard the 1947 refugee ship Exodus and the bitter propaganda battle that ensued when Britain used force to return them to Germany.
British soldiers, ordered to storm the transport vessels to which the Jewish immigrants on board Exodus had been transferred, were accused of behaving like "Hitler Commandos", "gentleman fascists" and sadists.
As the British soldiers clashed with the Jewish refugees at the port of Hamburg, dockside banners read: "You are bringing us back to Germany, to a concentration camp worse than Belsen."
The episode proved hugely embarrassing for the British. But the international condemnation which accompanied the spectacle of Jews being marched off ships and put on trains for internment camps helped create the political climate for the creation of Israel the following year.
At the end of the war, it was left to the British to try to stem the flow of illegal immigration to Palestine, where the British government, conscious of Arab sensitivities in the region, decided to maintain strict quotas upon Jewish entry. So it was that, in July 1947, the Exodus, under the close scrutiny of the Royal Navy, docked in Marseille and picked up 4,553 Jewish refugees, each determined to defy the British blockade of Palestine.
On its voyage, later made into a Hollywood film starring Paul Newman, the Exodus was escorted by the British cruiser Ajax and a convoy of destroyers. The ship's captain, Yossi Harel, who died at the age of 90 last month, had planned to slip away from the escorts as he neared the coast of Palestine but, in the end, he decided to ignore the British warnings to stop, and made a run for the port.
The British response to that was to fire a warning shot into the Exodus's bow, immediately followed by the dispatch of a boarding party.
The passengers and crew resisted, and fierce fighting broke out on the Exodus. Three passengers and a soldier died, and many were wounded. The British then towed the Exodus into Haifa harbour, from where it was planned that the passengers would be sent back to France on three separate transport vessels.
But when the ships reached Marseilles, the refugees refused to disembark and the British decided the only course of action left to them was to escort them back to Germany.
By the time they had docked at Hamburg, many of the refugees were in defiant mood. When they first set out on their historic quest, they had believed they were days away from arriving at a Jewish homeland. The prospect of being sent to prison camps in Germany represented a pitiful failure of their original mission and for many of the Holocaust survivors, it was almost impossible to bear.
But the British government had no intention of backing down or relaxing its policy.
Under Operation Oasis, plans were put in place to storm the ships.
The British had identified one of the ships, the Runnymede Park, as the vessel most likely to cause them trouble.
A confidential report of the time noted: "It was known that the Jews on the Runnymede Park were under the leadership of a young, capable and energetic fanatic, Morenci Miry Rosman, and throughout the operation it had been realised that this ship might give trouble."
One hundred military police and 200 Sherwood Foresters troops were ordered to board the ship and eject the Jewish immigrants.
The officer in charge of the operation, Lt-Col Gregson, later gave a very frank assessment of the success of the storming of the ship, which, according to a secret minute, left up to 33 Jews, including four women, injured in the fighting. Sixty-eight Jews were held in custody to be put on trial for unruly behaviour. Only three soldiers were hurt.
But it could have been a lot worse. Gregson later admitted that he had considered using tear gas against the immigrants.
He concluded: "The Jew is liable to panic and 800-900 Jews fighting to get up a stairway to escape tear smoke could have produced a deplorable business." He added: "It is a very frightening thing to go into the hold full of yelling maniacs when outnumbered six or eight to one."
Describing the assault, the officer wrote to his superiors: "After a very short pause, with a lot of yelling and female screams, every available weapon up to a biscuit and bulks of timber was hurled at the soldiers. They withstood it admirably and very stoically till the Jews assaulted and in the first rush several soldiers were downed with half a dozen Jews on top kicking and tearing ... No other troops could have done it as well and as humanely as these British ones did."
He concluded: "It should be borne in mind that the guiding factor in most of the actions of the Jews is to gain the sympathy of the world press."
One of the official observers who witnessed the violence was Dr Noah Barou, secretary of the British section of the World Jewish Congress, who had 35 years experience of reporting. He gave a very different account of the fighting.
He described young soldiers beating Holocaust survivors as a "terrible mental picture".
"They went into the operation as a football match ... and it seemed evident that they had not had it explained to them that they were dealing with people who had suffered a lot and who are resisting in accordance with their convictions."
He noted: "People were usually hit in the stomach and this in my opinion explains that many people who did not show any signs of injury were staggering and moving very slowly along the staircase giving the impression that they were half-starved and beaten up.
"When the people walked off the ship, many of them, especially younger people, were shouting to the troops 'Hitler commandos', 'gentleman fascists', 'sadists'."
Dr Barou was "especially impressed" by one young girl who "came to the top of the stairs and shouted to the soldiers, 'I am from Dachau'. And when they did not react she shouted 'Hitler commandos'".
While the British could find no evidence of excessive force, they conceded that in one case a Jew "was dragged down the gangway by the feet with his head bumping on the wooden slats".
After the soldiers had cleared the ships, the refugees were packed on to trains and taken to two camps in the British zone, Poppendorf and Am Stau.
At the camps, the treatment of the refugees caused an international outcry after it emerged that the conditions could be likened to the concentration camps where six million Jews had perished.
Dr Barou was once again on hand to witness events. He reported that conditions at Camp Poppendorf were poor and claimed that it was being run by a German camp commandant. That was denied by the British.
But the allegations of cruel and insensitive treatment would not go away and, on 6 October, 1947, the Foreign Office sent a telegram to the British commanders in the region demanding to know whether the camps really were surrounded with barbed wire and guarded by German staff.
It turned out that Barou's reports had been only partially accurate. There was no German commandant or guards but there were German staff carrying out duties inside the camp.
As winter set in, the British government made a further attempt to end the stalemate.
In return for leaving Germany and going to France, the refugees were offered increased rations.
It turned out to be yet another diplomatic blunder, leaving the British vulnerable to the accusation that they were adopting a policy of "starvation or return to France".
In an explanation of its policy a Foreign Office document states: "Those who refuse transport to France and choose to remain in Germany will be accommodated in camps provided by the British authorities.
"Those who volunteer to return to France will continue to receive the present generous ration of 2,800 calories per day up to and including the time of their departure. Those who choose to remain in Germany will receive the same basic scale ration as that received by the normal consumer."
Only two Jews chose to accept the offer of the transfer.
A telegram written by Jewish leaders of the camps on 20 October 1947 makes clear the determination of the refugees, mostly displaced from Germany and eastern Europe, to find a home in Palestine.
"Nothing will deter us from Palestine. Which jail we go to is up to you (the British). We did not ask you to reduce our rations, we did not ask you to put us in Poppendorf and Am Stau."
Britain's impossible position was later summed up by John Coulson, a diplomat at the Briitsh Embassy in Paris.
He pointed out: "The pros and cons of keeping the Exodus immigrants in camps ... there is one point that should be kept in mind. Our opponents in France, and I dare say in other countries, have made great play with the fact that these immigrants were being kept behind barbed wire, in concentration camps and guarded by Germans.
"If we decide it is convenient not to keep them in camps any longer, I suggest that we should make some play that we are releasing them from all restraint of this kind in accordance with their wishes and that they were only put in such accommodation for the preliminary necessities of screening and maintenance."
In the end, the Government decided to follow this advice and the Jewish migrants were set free. The vast majority did find their way to Palestine and help in the struggle to create and secure the state of Israel.

The Independent May 5th 2008

Farewell To Granma Captain

April 2, 2008

NORBERTO Abilio Collado Abreu, the outstanding revolutionary fighter and captain of the yacht Granma, died in the early hours of this morning.
During WWII, in April of 1941, Collado, still very young, joined the Cuban War Navy, having been trained as a sonar technician to detect submarines. From his sonar room aboard the CS-13 destroyer, on May 15, 1943 he participated in the sinking of the German U-boat 176, much feared at that time given the number of ships it had attacked in the Atlantic.
After the 1955 amnesty, he went into exile, joining the group of youth training in Mexico to bring to life Fidel's commitment, "In 1956, we will be free or be martyrs!"
His distinguished experience as a sailor led to his selection as captain of the yacht Granma. Navigating the boat through stormy seas, he landed the expedition on December 2, 1956. After the battle of Alegría de Pío he was captured and imprisoned until the triumph of the Revolution.
In January of 1959, he joined the Revolutionary War Navy, taking on different responsibilities within this branch of the military, until in 1981 he was assigned to the care and maintenance of the Granma.
Captain Collado was always characterized by his lack of pretension, his modesty and discipline in the completion of whatever tasks required of him.
As requested by his family, the body will be cremated and his ashes will be placed in the Revolutionary Armed Forces Pantheon in Colón Cemetery at 3:00 p.m. (AIN)
Translated by Granma International

Is this man Veronica Guerin's killer?

By Chris Summers BBC News

A man has been jailed for his part in a plot to kidnap and torture a London tycoon using a woman as a "honey trap". But did Patrick "Dutchy" Holland murder Irish investigative journalist Veronica Guerin?
Veronica Guerin was a heroine to many people in her native country in the mid-1990s for her tireless exposure of the drug barons who were undermining its "Celtic tiger" image.
The Irish investigative journalist was shot dead in June 1996 by the pillion passenger on a motorbike as she stopped at traffic lights at Naas, just outside Dublin.
Three men were later put on trial for murder. One - Dublin drug dealer John Gilligan - was acquitted.
The prosecution had claimed he ordered Ms Guerin be killed after she wrote about him in the Sunday Independent.
But the judge, Mr Justice O'Donovan, said while the court had great suspicions about Mr Gilligan's involvement in the murder, it had not been persuaded beyond reasonable doubt.
A second man was convicted but cleared on appeal.
Only one man was convicted. Brian Meehan is believed to have been riding the motorbike and he is still in jail for the murder. But the actual gunman has escaped justice.
The man who pulled the trigger is widely believed to be Patrick "Dutchy" Holland, who was jailed on Friday, for his involvement in a kidnap conspiracy.
MURDER OF VERONICA GUERIN
26 June 1996: Investigative journalist Veronica Guerin shot dead in Naas, near Dublin
1997: Eugene "Dutchy" Holland named as her killer during an Irish court case
July 1999: Brian Meehan jailed for life for his involvement in the murder
Mar 2001: John Gilligan, acquitted of ordering Ms Guerin's murder, is jailed for 28 years on drugs charges
May 2008: Holland jailed for eight years after being convicted of conspiring to kidnap a tycoon in London
Holland, a 69-year-old career criminal, was named in court by a Garda officer as being the killer during a trial in the Irish Republic a decade ago.
But he was never tried for the crime.
The crime editor of Ireland's Sunday World newspaper, Paul Williams, has no doubt that Holland was the killer and says he has seen documents which prove it.
He said: "There were several witnesses who named Dutchy as the gunman but they were too terrified to stand up in court and give evidence."
In his book, The Evil Empire: The Irish Mob and the Assassination of Veronica Guerin, Mr Williams described why she was killed.
"A major Irish criminal wanted to shut her up and he considered himself untouchable. But he didn't realise what a big story it would become and how much pressure the state would come under to react," Mr Williams told the BBC News website.
'Honey trap'
Holland was jailed for possession of cannabis by an Irish court in 1997 but in April 2006 he walked out of Portlaoise prison.
He moved to London and a few months later was getting involved in another criminal enterprise.
In early 2007 he teamed up with fellow Irishmen John McDonnell and Gerard Booth and London villain Simon Young, and cooked up an ambitious "honey trap" kidnap plot which they hoped would raise £10m.
After several attempts were made to follow tycoon Nasir Zahid to his home address the gang came up with the "honey trap" idea.
The gang planned to use 24-year-old secretary Khan Coombs as "sex bait" to lure Mr Zahid from the office of his company, Tradex Limited, in Chiswick, west London, so they could kidnap and torture him.
The trial heard Mr Zahid's kidnap was ordered and financed by a Belgian businessman called Patrick van Cantfort, known as "The Banker", who felt Mr Zahid had double crossed him over a deal.
But police heard about the plot and bugged the gang.
I haven't killed anybody ever - there is no blood on my hands "Dutchy" Holland
They overheard McDonnell telling Miss Coombs: "We're going to send you into the office and you're going to try to flirt with this bastard to see if he'll ask you out - which he will, that's the type of dog he is.
"If he comes out we're going to grab him. If this comes off there's £10m involved in this job. When you bring him out we can take him to the slaughterhouse."
The plan began to collapse on 30 April 2007 when Miss Coombs, wearing a £500 Cerutti jacket, arrived at Mr Zahid's import/export firm asking about job vacancies but was turned away without being able to speak to him.
Drug barons
Police swooped before the gang could try again and in March Holland, McDonnell, Booth, Young and Coombs were convicted of conspiracy to kidnap.
But the question remains - did Holland kill Veronica Guerin?
In a television interview 10 years ago Holland said: "I haven't killed anybody ever. There is no blood on my hands."
Mr Williams says the Irish state cracked down on the drug barons for about a year after the Veronica Guerin killing but he said things were now as bad, if not worse, than in the mid-1990s with large-scale drug dealing and frequent gang violence.
"The situation is arguably worse than it was when Veronica was writing her stories," he said.
Last year there were 84 murders in the Republic of Ireland, the highest number since the civil war.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/7332221.stmPublished: 2008/05/02 19:46:41 GMT© BBC MMVIII

Clean Water for the World!

Even with the "massive" 1700 person cryptosporidium outbreak in New York State this past summer, the water quality problems of the developed world pale in comparison to the more than 1 billion people throughout the world without access to safe drinking water. A large percentage of these people suffer because their drinking supply is infected with bacteria, or microorganisms brought on by agricultural pollution and poor sanitation. But a much touted new device called the life straw seeks to give those billion a fresh look at water...
The Lifestraw is a little longer than a toilet paper tube, and about the same diameter(the model shown above is an earlier prototype). Inside the tube, a series of mechanical screens, carbon particles, and resin beads filter and kill most pathogenic bacteria and microorganisms common in water systems throughout the world. Using a patented material called PuroTech Disinfecting Resin, the filters are rated for 700 liters of water -- approximately one year's use for a single individual. They require no training to use (just suck) and minimal maintenance (parent company Vestergaard Frandsen recommends periodically blowing the straw clear of water to clean the filters)
But perhaps most exciting is the cost: Only 2 dollars US if sold individually (presumably, volume discounting could apply). Obviously, this is a large amount of a subsistence farmer's income, but the amount of wages earned during the time lost to illness is probably comparable. And it's still awfully cheap for drinking water -- My water bill was 5 dollars US for just last month, and these last a year.
We're excited to see developments like this which have such potential for improving life quality. At the same time, we recognise that this product needs a philanthropist or great business plan behind it to make sure it gets to the right people. Keep an eye on this one. It's going to be big. :: Lifestraw at Gizmag

The Air-Powered Motorcycle by Jem Stansfield
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 04.21.08
Cars & Transportation

Jem Stansfield is not exactly the average tinkerer. He has a degree in aeronautics and is an inventor and special effects technician. But still, his DIY air-powered motorcycle, the first of its kind according to him, is quite cool.
How Does an Air-Powered Motorcycle Work?Unlike the hilarious single-piston air-powered bicycle that he previously made, this air-powered bike can actually be used in real-world situations.
He took carbon-fiber air tanks that are usually used by firefighters as part of their breathing equipment and connected them to two rotary air engines that drive the rear wheel. One of the benefits of using compressed air over batteries is that you can recharge in a few seconds.
Of course, the compressor works on electricity, so that's not always a clean power source. But even if your local utility uses coal, if you recharge at night or off peak, chances are you are using power that would be wasted otherwise because coal power plants take too long to shut down and restart, so they are often kept producing at night.
But it is with a clean electricity source for the compressor that the air-powered motorcycle becomes a truly green ride. Any companies paying attention? A commercially available air-powered bike would be great. One more option for people wanting to drop their car...
Specifications for Jem's Air-Powered MotorcycleTop speed is 18 mph (29 kph), range is 7 miles (11.2 kilometers) between compressed air fill ups.
Could definitely be used for short commutes. Even better would be if it was turned into a hybrid, with pedal-power as an option.

Volunteer Workday

Volunteer Workday Held Sunday
The Cuban Workers Federation (CTC) reported that more than a million people turned out for a voluntary workday held Sunday. The national effort was led by CTC general secretary Salvador Valdes Mesa.

BY SUSANA LEE - Susan.ll@granma.cip.cu -
A massively attended and productive volunteer work day was held Sunday throughout Cuba as a salute to the upcoming International Workers Day celebration on May 1. Preliminary reports estimate that 1,262,407 people took part in the effort. The main work carried out was planting and harvesting vegetables and tubers, sugarcane cultivation related activities, construction of homes and other prioritized government projects, factory work and clean up efforts.
THOUSANDS PARTICIPATED IN AGRICULTURAL WORK SUNDAY THAT INCLUDED THE PLANTING AND HARVESTING OF VEGETABLES AND TUBERS.
CTC General Secretary Salvador Valdes Mesa led the participation of the national leaders of the labor organization who were joined by staff of the Small Farmers Association (ANAP) National School at the La Iberia cooperative farm at Yaguayay in the Havana municipality of Guira de Melena. The voluntary effort there consisted of planting four hectares of malanga on land recently harvested of potatoes.
Valdes told the press that the effort Sunday was part of a national campaign of volunteer work began on April 1, which will extend through January 28, 2009, as a salute to the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution and 70th of the founding of the CTC. The goal is to boost all the programs and plans contributing to the country’s economic recovery.
The campaign involves a minimum of 70 hours of volunteer labor per worker as prioritized during the period, both on massive turnout days and others according to the needs in each locality and workplace.