“COVID-19 is our common enemy. We must declare war on this virus. That means countries have a responsibility to gear up, step up and scale up,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
“How? By implementing effective containment strategies; by activating and enhancing emergency response systems; by dramatically increasing testing capacity and care for patients; by readying hospitals, ensuring they have the space, supplies and needed personnel; and by developing life-saving medical interventions.”
It is all very well for you to advise us to “activate and enhance emergency response systems; etc.; etc.” You are just wasting your breath because, in Zimbabwe, we cannot do any of these things. Our health care services has all but collapsed.
Decades of poor funding has left this basic human service with poorly paid staff most have long left the profession and the few still working can only afford to come to work 2 days a week. There is no equipment and no medicine. It is very common for even the big referral hospitals to run out of something as basic as painkillers and to have no running clean water and electricity for days or weeks on end.
One can only imagine the sorry state of the clinics and hospitals in the rural backwaters!
“The most vulnerable are the most affected - particularly our elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions, those without access to reliable health care, and those in poverty or living on the edge,” acknowledged Secretary General Guterres.
You are right there Mr Secretary General, in Zimbabwe, unemployment has been a nauseating 90% for the last decade at least the economy has collapsed and millions are living on the edge with 34% of the population, according to a WB report last year, are living “in extreme poverty”. Millions of Zimbabweans are utterly defenceless against this new enemy, coronavirus.
40 years ago, when the country attained her independence, Zimbabwe had a robust economy with some of the best health care services in the world. Four decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption that have systematically destroyed the nation’s economy, basic services such as health care, everything.
Zimbabwe could have been saved from the ravages of four decades of corrupt and tyrannical misrule if the people of Zimbabwe were not denied their democratic right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country as stipulated in Article 21 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”
Covid-19 is any pandemic , a common enemy for us all and yet we know there are some who will be better equipped to defend themselves than others and yet others will be utterly defenceless - they are sitting ducks!
Of course, the UN has known these last 40 years that Zanu PF has been rigging elections to stay in power and rob the nation blind and in contemptuous disregard of the UN UDHR. The UN has turned a blind eye to Zanu PF’s brutal oppression and a deaf ear to the ordinary people crying out for justice, freedom, human rights and dignity.
“Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts (of the Second World War) which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,” reads the UN UDHR preamble.
The most barbaric and heartbreaking story to emerge out of this coronavirus out break will be of the hundreds of thousands of lives lost unnecessarily for lack of clean running water to wash their hands! A damning testimonial in failed leadership and a damning testimonial on those tasked to champion human rights but are instead cheering and applauding the tyrants!
If the poor and voiceless from the developing countries had a voice then they would be demanding that the post covid-19 UN must be reformed if it is to fulfil its mandate delivering all the freedoms and rights in the UDHR. Because, as far as the people Zimbabwe and many others in the developing countries are concerned, the UN has provided a platform for our tyrannical leader to pontificate about freedoms and human rights with no intention of honouring any of it.
What is UN Secretary General Guterres blubbering about! Zimbabwe's health care services has long collapsed, with no staff, equipment, no medicine, nothing. Of all people Guterres should know that and, more significantly, that the root cause of this is 40 years of misrule. The UN has turned a blind eye to 40 years of Zanu PF rigging elections and denying the people a meaningful vote!
ReplyDelete"I do not agree with the notion that this is God's punishment rather it a natural disaster that could hit anywhere henceforth there is need for us to unite and strategize enough vetting sytems at all boarder post," said Chinese Ambassador to the Republic of Zimbabwe Guo Shaochun.
ReplyDeleteHe further testified that there is no Zimbabwean residing in China that has been affected by the virus yet.
Speaking at the same press conference minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Kazembe Kazembe said there is no need to panic because there is no danger for Zimbabwe as far as the virus is concerned.
For a government official to keep repeating this nonsense of “there is no danger” from corona virus is cause for panic. This is a pandemic and Zimbabwe is not some isolated island that will not be touched.
WHO is recommending that all suspected cases must be “tested, tested, tested!”
How many test kits does Zimbabwe have?
The Zimbabwe government has for the first time in a year released inflation figures, with the Zimbabwe Statistical Agency (Zimstat) reporting that the price of goods and services went up by an average of 540.16% over the past 12 months.
ReplyDelete“The month on month inflation rate in February was 13.52% gaining 11.29 percentage points on the January rate of 2.23%. The year on year inflation rate (annual percentage change) for the month of February as measured by the all items CPI stood at 540.16%,” said Zimstat on its Twitter account yesterday
It is a great tragedy that we have selfish individuals like Professor Mthuli Ncube, Minister Coventry, opposition leaders and Zanu PF leaders themselves who played their part in establishing and sustaining this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship all these last 40 years!
The UN has done an excellent job in safe guarding the freedoms, human rights and keep the peace for America and the rest of its western allies. It has not done the same for Russia and China and all those under their sphere of influence or for those of us in the third world whose oppressive leaders found protection and great comfort in Russia and China UN Security Council veto!
ReplyDeleteIt is a great tragedy that the UN personnel have themselves become double faced; diligent is up holding UN values when it concerns the democratic west and indifferent when it concerned everyone else. Whilst most of the democratic nations have roundly condemn Zanu PF's blatant rigging of the elections the UN has stood out like a sore thumb in saying nothing. Whilst western nations have shown their displeasure with Zanu PF by stopping to deal with the regime, the same nations have had no qualms channeling their dealings with the regime through UN.
For third world nations with weak national institution, utterly useless regional and continental institutions the UN was the only body that, if it had been so inclined, safe guarded the individual freedoms and rights.
Covid-19 is yet to run its course but even now it is clear that whilst it has ricked economic and human havoc in the developed and prosperous nations the poor nations have paid an even higher price. Developed country have suffered greatly economically, most of their commerce and industry has been disrupted and billions and billions of dollars of value lost.
A country like Zimbabwe in which unemployment was already 90% before the virus outbreak did not have much to lose in the form of commerce and industry, covid-19 has got its full due in the form human suffering and deaths.
When the dust of covid-19 has settled the people of China will want to reflect on how the outbreak could have been handled better if their government had been more open and democratically accountable.
We is the third world will want to reflect on why our health care was in such a deplorable state of rot and decay and could not even have clean running water in this day and age! We have allowed corrupt and tyrannical regimes like Zanu PF destroy the nation's economy and have paid dearly for it - the big question is have we finally learned the lesson not to allow the madness to continue another day!
@ Caleb Sustain
ReplyDelete"Munokori you are worse than Muchinguri
you dont use things like the coronavirus for practicing your writing of anti-government stories; roll back three days ago and hear what Chamisa said about the pandemic. That was His best National leader's speech that did not reflect he was an opposition leader!
I think you are having sleepless nights wondering why noone has died yet from the virus. I am sure you would celebrate," you argue.
Zimbabwe's health care service has all but collapsed and if there was to be a coronavirus outbreak, God forbid, the country is certainly in no position to fight the virus. We are indeed "sitting ducks"! These are all true facts and this government does not want the truth spoken for selfish propaganda purpose.
The truth must be said for its own sake but, more significantly, because we need to snap out of our sloth-like slumber and address the root cause of our economic and political mess - bad governance. We have done nothing to end this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship for 40 years and are now paying dearly for our mistake. It will be insane to let this madness continue!
How tragic!
ReplyDelete