Even in death Susan Tsvangirai, wife of Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, gave hope to the people of a country whose economy has collapsed with the world’s highest inflation rate plunging it into a decade-long chronic shortage of foreign currency, energy shortages and the pangs of human hunger.
As her husband and six children tossed flowers on a coffin during a private service in the Tsvangirai’s rural home in Buhera Monday, good news was already drifting in from the outside world.
Australia said it would provide funding to Zimbabwe’s new unity government, and the first Western power to announce direct support to the new administration, called on others to follow suit.
“Australia will provide $10 million to help Prime Minister Tsvangirai and the so-called inclusive Government of Zimbabwe to restore basic water, sanitation and health services and relieve the suffering of the Zimbabwean people, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said in a statement.
Even though Australia had previously given Zimbabwe humanitarian assistance through a number of aid agencies, it did not provide direct funding to the Mugabe government, until yesterday.
It is unlikely that senior Tsvangirai official Roy Bennett, set to become deputy agriculture minister in the power-sharing government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who was arrested on Feb. 13, will ever forget that Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court ordered his release on bail on the day of Susan’s Memorial.
Some 15,000 Zimbabweans attended Wednesday’s public memorial, at Glamis Stadium, some arriving on foot, others hitching rides from as far away as 150 kms.
Morgan Tsvangirai, with his wife at his side, became prime minister on Feb. 11, under a power-sharing deal in the same stadium among rousing cheers.
“Let’s celebrate her existence as God’s gift to me and you.”
Like a loving angel, Susan was always at her husband’s side earning her the reputation as “The Mother of The Struggle” by average Zimbabweans.
“She was the mother of the struggle, our pillar and foundation of the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) and the nation as a whole and one person who has been fighting for democracy for many years...so that each and every one of us can be free,” said Tsvangirai’s deputy premier Thokozani Khupe.
In a world where politician’s wives flout their spousal power and expensive tastes, Susan Tsvangirai walked quietly in humility. Hers were the riches of soul and personality; her most ambitious dream to pour tea from an earthenware pot at State House for women and children to listen to what she could do to improve their lot in life.
As far as anyone knows, former President Jimmy Carter and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, whose diplomacy had done little to ease the pain of Zimbabwe, did not attend the memorial, but President Robert Mugabe did.
Mugabe described the death of Susan Tsvangirai in a car crash as “an act of God” and urged Zimbabweans to support her grief-stricken husband by halting violence.
In front of some 1,000 government and political leaders and diplomats, Mugabe told mourners he was “saddened” by the death.
Mugabe, who has shown little sympathy to suffering Zimbabweans, was said to be inconsolable at the death of his wife Sally, a Ghanaian intellect, in 1996.
The brief words of Morgan Tsvangirai to mourners at the Memorial are an indelible epitaph to a wife who never left his side and proof positive that all is not lost: “Let’s celebrate her existence as God’s gift to me and you.”
Judi McLeod——
Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
