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Dear Family and Friends,

Swine Flu has officially arrived in Zimbabwe. A ZBC TV news bulletin
this week reported that there were a number of confirmed cases of
swine flu in Mutare. The report said that people should not panic
because hospitals were prepared, staff had been trained and
information would soon be disseminated to private practitioners.
Special attention is apparently going to be given to critical areas
like the country's border posts.

This latter cannot come soon enough and I am sure that every poor
soul who has had to endure the horrors of Beitbridge border post will
agree with me. In the last few days I have met two Zimbabweans who
have been through the Beitbridge border post this month. They say it
is hell, a nightmare, a national disgrace, a shame on our country, a
deep embarrassment to Zimbabwe. And this is being polite!

When you arrive at Beitbridge from South Africa you are overwhelmed
by touts. Aggressive young men in their twenties who swarm around you
and solicit bribes in order for you to proceed through the
formalities. The touts control the speed and progress of everything:
the queues, the forms, the stamps and signatures, the customs
inspections and the final scrap of paper, the gate pass, that allows
you get through the boom and into Zimbabwe. Both of the travellers I
spoke to said they simply found it impossible to proceed without
giving in to the demands for bribes. Every time they got near the
counters in the border post the touts and their customers would push
in ahead of them with great piles of papers and none of the officials
on duty were interested in intervening, not immigration, security,
customs or tax collectors. Touts appeared to be making an average of
500 Rand, or 50 US dollars per customer - half the month's pay of a
trained teacher in Zimbabwe.

The toilets at the border are apparently a swamp, there is no toilet
paper, no towels and no way at all to keep yourself clean. Everyone
waits till they are through the border and then pull up on the
roadside and relieve themselves in the bush. If we are to believe
ZBC, it is into this madness of Beitbridge border post that there is
going to be swine flu detection and control. Pardon the pun, but pigs
might fly!

Zimbabwe's unity government has been in place for six months but it
is still the thieves, con-men, blackmailers and bullies that are
manning the entry points into our country. Until they are gone and
until Zimbabwe can clean up the shop window to the country we haven't
got a hope of controlling swine flu, of tempting tourists into the
country or of getting any of the overflow of visitors from the 2010
World Cup football games in South Africa. Its about time that some of
our senior leaders went incognito to Zimbabwe's borders and saw the
thieves and bullies holding tourists, visitors and returning
residents to ransom.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy ©Copyright cathy
buckle 22nd August 2009.

www.cathybuckle.com
. For information on my new book: "INNOCENT VICTIMS" or my previous
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