Tsvangirai Nobel Peace Prize Nomination Scandalous

By Obie Madondo

So, Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister-designate, Morgan Tsvangirai, lost the coveted 2008 Nobel Peace Prize to former Finnish president Artti Ahtisaari? What rank nonsense! Tsvangirai may never have been on the coveted 2008 shortlist to begin with.

We have a potential Zimbabwe Nobelgate scandal here. Tsvangirai’s supporters may have exploited the biggest weakness inherent in the Nobel Prize institution – secrecy – to elevate him to the rank of Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and other great global peace icons.

Each year, the respective Nobel Committees distribute nomination forms to an undisclosed number of recipients who pick nominees. These nominees include past winners, prominent institutions, academics and respected members of the field.

Nobel Foundation statutes forbid the disclosure of information about nominees. Only winners in each category – physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace and economic - are announced.
The 2008 Peace Prize list reportedly had 197 nominees, comprised of 33 organizations and 167 individuals. Candidates reportedly included Irish singer, songwriter and political activist, Bob Geldof and Chinese dissident, Hu Jia.

The secrecy presents a quandary for Tsvangirai’s supporters. The nominator can only step forward with the evidence that Tsvangirai was on the list at the risk of betraying the Nobel Foundation’s trust.

By implication, Tsvangirai’s critics can posit a compelling argument that his nomination may have been manufactured.

For argument’s sake, I’m willing to consider that someone in the West may have successfully nominated Tsvangirai. Acceptable nominators include “members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague and of the International Court of Justice at The Hague” and “university professors of history, political science, law, etc, and university presidents and directors of peace research institutes and institutes of international affairs”.

There’s a personal vested interest here. The Hague hungers for Mugabe. Over the last ten years, the intellectuals noted in the second category have created an irretrievable, larger-than-life evil persona of Mugabe through books, university lectures and media analyses.

It is possible that someone nominated Tsvangirai in retaliation for the spectacular failure of the West’s regime-change project. Maybe the nominator hoped to land a cheap political punch at Mugabe? In 1989, the peace prize was awarded the Dalai Lama, a decision lauded as a “slap at China”.

Or maybe someone genuinely believed Tsvangirai deserved the most prestigious prize in the world? They are wrong. Tsvangirai might have shown extra-ordinary courage in confronting Mugabe’s dictatorship, but he is no Nobel Prize material.

His popularity in the West derives more from being regularly roughed up by Mugabe rather than for bringing substance to the democratic process.

Let’s take a quick analysis of the history of the Nobel Peace Prize and the man’s political career.
Time Magazine suggests that the prize has “peace and security roots” and often favors individuals in the “international peace and security industry”. Time further notes that “it's not unusual for the Nobel Committee to honor individuals from that industry in order to draw attention to the importance of the work of the institutions they represent.”

The magazine suggests that the 2005 prize went to Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei to highlight the importance of the International Atomic Energy Agency's work in monitoring nuclear proliferation “(two years after the Bush Administration blundered into Iraq, pooh-poohing the IAEA's finding that Iraq had no nuclear weapons)”.

Kofi Annan, then United Nations Secretary General, was awarded the prize in 2001 “to affirm the importance of international law and consensus following the shock of 9/11.”

The Nobel Peace Prize has also sought to impact global civil society. In 1990, it was awarded to Russian President, Mikhail Gorbachev, who engineered the collapse of the Soviet Union and helped change the course of history. Local efforts with global implications were evidently in the spotlight when the South African pair of Nelson Mandela and F.W. De Klerk, and Kenya’s Wangari Maathai, won the prize in 1993 and 2004, respectively.

The prize has also drawn attention to courageous individuals who have shown courage, inspiration and leadership in the face of violent repression. Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is one example.

All these examples have “inspiring leadership” and “global implication” as qualifying pre-requisites.

There are three types of great leaders: leaders who are born with greatness; leaders who achieve greatness and leaders who have greatness thrust upon them.

There’s nothing in Tsvangirai’s humble upbringing to suggest that he was born with greatness. He is yet to achieve greatness.

Stephen Chan, author of “Citizen of Africa: Conversations with Morgan Tsvangirai”, describes the PM-designate as “a hit-and-miss politician… prone to periods of wayward and ineffectual leadership”.

Chan only partially sums up the stagnated democratic struggled of the last nine years. Tsvangirai’s is an impressive history of failures.

Remember his famous call for the violent overthrow of Mugabe before the 2002 presidential poll? The election came and Mugabe stole it. In 2002, Tsvangirai pledged to unseat Mugabe “within a year”. The crippling mass protests and boycotts subsequently promised never materialized.

Tsvangirai’s dictatorial leadership and violent crackdown of dissent facilitated the 2005 split of the MDC. His failure to heal the rift and galvanize disparity democratic forces around him cost Zimbabweans outright victory against Mugabe in the March 29 Presidential election. He won the first round but lost every contest.

After the election Tsvangirai went self-imposed exile, putting his personal safety above the welfare of his supporters. Returning from exile, he promised a “rude shock for Mugabe” that never materialized.

Need I say more?

Tsvangirai’s jinxed politics have now contaminated the current inclusive government, condemning it to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). With an inflation rate of present Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, is burning, her spine broken.
Tsvangirai belongs with the group of leaders who have greatness thrust upon them.
The Nobel Peace Prize has often been linked to the anniversary of some significant event. The 2008 Prizes coincide with the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Could Tsvangirai’s nomination have been designed to associate him with the noble struggle for human rights? Tsvangirai is no human rights champion. By signing the power-sharing agreement, Tsvangirai invited Zimbabweans to worship the same devil he condemned yesterday. After signing the agreement, he declared that Mugabe will not be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

Those who may accept this undeserved immunity for Mugabe for the sake of national unity and progress had another rude awakening. For the MDC prosecuting other alleged human rights abusers in Mugabe’s Zanu PF, including the military chiefs, is tantamount to sabotaging its future.

What a way to rubbish Gukurahundi, Murambatsvina and all the innocent lives the Mugabe dictatorship consumed over the last 28 years? Maybe Tsvangirai is just admitting that he is just an accidental by-product of Mugabe’s dictatorship, without the political substance of his own?
Without Mugabe, there would be no Tsvangirai.

Over the last nine years Mugabe has been demonised and associated with everything and everyone evil. A parallel campaign has sought to prop up Tsvangirai’s image by portraying him as Mugabe’s exact opposite. While Mugabe was busy destroying Zimbabwe, Tsvangirai was the “man who embodies Zimbabwe’s hope for Change”, a democrat.

The West imposed sanctions on Mugabe while simultaneously sponsoring ‘events’ in Zimbabwe aimed at ‘discrediting’ Mugabe. Last week US Ambassador, James McGee inadvertently confirmed that he was among Tsvangirai’s top advisors when he admitted to playing golf with the PM-designate.

Then there were attempts to associate Tsvangirai with world-renowned movement and institutions. On October 10, The Telegraph told us the “Nobel Peace Prize shortlist includes Morgan Tsvangirai and Chinese dissidents”.

In one instance of absurdity, one Zimbabwean website proclaimed: “Tsvangirai loses Nobel prize to scientists who discovered AIDS virus”.

After Tsvangirai had “won” the March 29 presidential election, both the USAToday and International Herald Tribune newspapers carried biographies of the Presidential candidates. Tsvangirai: “graduated from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 2001 with a diploma in Executive Leaders In Development Program”.

In the real world, even a 2-week Harvard University “executive leadership training” crush course does not make a leader, let alone a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Surely, if Tsvangirai had a single drop of Nobel Prize blood in him, this spirited, expensive campaign to spruce up his image would be unnecessary.

Again, I’m willing to consider that Tsvangirai may have been nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize. By denying him the honor, the Nobel Foundation preserved its integrity and saved the West from sinking to yet another lower level patronage and desperation.

This article was originally published by NewZimbabwe.com, Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Time Person Of The Year: Morgan Tsvangirai

This Is A Rude Joke, Right?

Zimbabwe Secret Files: Transcript 1

By Zimbabwe Confidential

Inconceivable as it may seem, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and opposition Movement for Democratic Chamge (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai have a direct line of communication. After Tsvangirai won the first round of the presidential vote on March 29, Mugabe was ready to concede, but he knew that his generals would not accept it. He secretly reached out to Tsvangirai and two men set up a secure, direct line of communication through which they have kept in touch almost on a daily basis.

In early May, we were alerted to this interesting arrangement and set out to breach the line. Our effort involved placing a mole within the Zimbabwe Secret Service, a branch of the Zimbabwe's spy agency, Central Intelligence Organization (CIO). The Zimbabwe Secret Service is responsible for the protection of the Zimbabwe President, his spouse, children and visiting foreign heads of state and government.

At the end of July, our mole made a stunning breakthrough and breached the line. Since then, we have been collecting transcripts of all the communication that has transpired between the two men. Since the information is not classified, and in the spirit of openness, we will share it all with you.

Today we bring you the following transcript from the conversation between the two men around midnight on Wednesday, August 27, 2008.

Robert Mugabe: Hello, Morgan! Hello! Are you there! Morgan! Pick up the damn phone, Morgan!

Morgan Tsvangirai: Jesus Christ, Robert. I pick up the phone after three rings, remember?

Robert Mugabe: The line is secure, Morgan.

Morgan Tsvangirai: You sound agitated. You need to calm down.

Robert Mugabe: Don’t tell me to calm down. Especially not after your MPs heckled me in parliament yesterday. What a rude bunch of lieutenants you have.

Morgan Tsvangirai: I had nothing do with it-

Robert Mugabe: Really? You mean you have no control over the agenda of your caucus?

Morgan Tsvangirai: Oh, you have complete control?

Robert Mugabe: Maybe not any more, but I’m proud of my record. For twenty-eight long years I controlled every Zimbabwean’s mind-

Morgan Tsvangirai: Here we go again! Listen, have you really decided to form the next cabinet without me as reported in The Herald?

Robert Mugabe: What other choice do I have? What is a country without a government? Besides, you want me to transfer my powers to you, instead of sharing them. There is a difference between power-sharing and power-transfer-

Morgan Tsvangirai: I know the difference. But I won the March 29 election.

Robert Mugabe: I won the June 27 election mandated by the law of the land.

Morgan Tsvangirai: OK, this is obviously not working-

Robert Mugabe: Thank you! But I will tell you why it’s not working. You were ready to sign on to the power-sharing agreement.

Morgan Tsvangirai: No I wasn’t. Not as long as you retained all the executive authority-

Robert Mugabe: Oh, yes, you were ready, Morgan. But then the British nudged you and said “give us another six months to roast Mugabe”. They assured you that sanctions would be more devastating this time around, that in six months' time my government would collapse-

Morgan Tsvangirai: That’s preposterous! I don’t take orders from the British. I follow the wishes of my fellow Zimbabweans.

Robert Mugabe: How naïve of you, Morgan? Would I have lasted 28 years if I followed the wishes of my fellow Zimbabweans?

Morgan Tsvangirai: You’re the past, Robert. In the now and the future, the people’s will prevails. Any ways, lets’ stick with the issue of the new government, shall we?

Robert Mugabe: Absolutely, and I’ll tell you something about a thing called perception.

Morgan Tsvangirai: What has perception got to do with anything?

Robert Mugabe: Hear me out, first, Morgan-

Morgan Tsvangirai: Alright, get on with it.

Robert Mugabe: Suppose I make one of your MPs Minister of Foreign Affairs, another, Minister of Economic Development, a third, Minister of Social Welfare, and you – (pause) - a ceremonial Prime Minister-

Morgan Tsvangirai: Over my dead body.

Robert Mugabe: Mind your language, Morgan.

Morgan Tsvangirai: You’re insulting me. You have the audacity-

Robert Mugabe: It’s a hypothetical scenario, okay. We form an inclusive government in which you are ceremonial Prime Minister and your lieutenants control the key portfolios just mentioned.

Morgan Tsvangirai: Forget it. Your hypothetical scenario seeks to dump the responsibility for the country’s economic recovery and social services on my lap.

Robert Mugabe: And foreign relations, especially foreign relations. I’ll need your help to re-establish our standing with the family of the nations of the world.

Morgan Tsvangirai: Forget it.

Robert Mugabe: I’m coming to the perception point, Morgan. You see, Zimbabweans have already given me an A-plus for destroying the country. If the country recovers from its current pariah state, even with you as a ceremonial Prime Minister, you think they will forget the pain and suffering I have inflicted upon them? You don’t think they will give you an A-plus for the turn-around? (Pause) Perception, Morgan, it’s all about perception.

Morgan Tsvangirai: My God!

Robert Mugabe: What? What is it, now? I’m just trying to help here-

Morgan Tsvangirai: I know, Robert. Put it in writing

Robert Mugabe: Put what in writing?

Morgan Tsvangirai: All the stuff you just told me.

Mutambara Criticism Reveals Disturbing Zimbabwean Inferiority Complex

By Obie Madondo

The recent criticism of Arthur Mutambara’s Heroes’ Day speech is an attack on a new consciousness that the prolonged Zimbabwe crisis has sired. This consciousness is unequivocally critical of the West’s rigid and counterproductive position against Robert Mugabe. It resents the West’s coddling of opposition MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai as much as Mugabe’s dictatorship. Mostly, it resents Tsvangirai’s jinxed leadership.

Former South African President, Nelson Mandela, recently suggested that Zimbabwe’s crisis was a failure of leadership. He implied that both Mugabe and Tsvangirai had failed Zimbabwe. The March 29 election produced an electoral front-runner but not a president. The disputed June 27 re-run produced an unacceptable president. The ongoing talks have yet to create democratic leadership.

Both Mugabe and Tsvangirai are now a liability. The Zimbabwe Mugabe now proposes is a cauldron of bigoted authoritarian nationalism masquerading as African self-determination. Tsvangirai is unequivocally pro-West. On the surface his proposed Zimbabwe is an antidote to Mugabe’s. In reality, it is an acquiescing proxy country that will host secret CIA torture chambers while staying silent on Western excesses.

Both propositions are unacceptable.

Mutambara earned the political capital that should allow him to propose a different direction. With 10 seats, Mutambara’s MDC faction holds the swing vote in the lower house of Parliament, where Tsvangirai faction and Mugabe’s Zanu-PF are separated by just one seat. His proposed Zimbabwe is one that honors Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle while insisting on being treated as an equal by the rest of the world. Unlike Tsvangirai, Mutambara is proposing a Zimbabwe that is also willing to challenge the West’s criminal and genocidal military adventure in Iraq.

Now Mutambara is accused of currying favour with Mugabe by parroting the dictator’s anti-West rhetoric. Nonsense! Mugabe does not hold the Zimbabwean monopoly to criticize the West. No sane and peace-loving Zimbabwean condones Guantanamo Bay, the American Gulag. At the core, Zimbabweans share the same revulsion of America’s frequent double standards and abuse of power.

In his speech, Mutambara justifiably asked: “Where are the Western democratic demands to Egypt, Angola, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Israel, Pakistan, and Kuwait? Moreover, what does the record of the US and UK in Iraq, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay teach us?” Mutambara’s critics have yet to answer these questions.

Mutambara went on: “Who took out Patrice Lumumba, Salvador Allende and Kwame Nkrumah?” The West did. These individuals, leaders of sovereign countries, had become expendable because they stood in the way of American imperial interests.

Again, Mutambara asked: “Who created and nursed Mobutu Sese Seko, Sadam Hussein, Manuel Noriega, Jonas Savimbi and Osama Bin Laden?” Again, the West did. These criminals were one-time assets of America’s imperial ambition.

In attacking the West’s proven double standards and patronizing arrogance Mutambara vocalized what Zimbabweans feel at the core. He played the quintessential critic and fearless, independent mind. His chief crime: he is a black African criticizing the benevolent and almighty white West. His other crime is praising Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle, which humbled the white supremacist arrogance of Rhodesia. Mutambara rubbed salt into an immortal white wound.

Forget the hullabaloo about racial tolerance, the West is yet to regard black Africans as equals, let alone accept their criticism. The West has a new definition of an acceptable black person – the Mandelas, Obamas and Tsvangirais.

But here is the contradiction:

Throughout the 1970s and '80s, Apartheid South African banned the then liberation movement, African National Congress (ANC) and designated it a terrorist group. The United States designated Mandela a terrorist; he required special certification from the US secretary of state every time he visited the US.

This is the same Nelson Mandela who spent 27 years in jail for fighting Apartheid; the same Mandela elected South Africa's first black president in 1994. It is the same Mandela who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his reconciliatory leadership which helped South Africa transition peacefully from Apartheid to majority rule. This is the same Mandela who speaks for global justice, an undisputed world statesman and international symbol of reconciliation, peace and freedom. It is the same Mandela who is good friends with former US President, Bill Clinton.

The US only removed Mandela from this infamous list in 2008. Mandela liberated everyone else but himself. This is the kind of African the West is comfortable with. Isn’t this the modern manifestation of racism?

US Democratic candidate for the White House, Barack Obama, is the ideal African American. His conciliatory position makes whites less guilty about slavery and racism. Some radical Obama critics credit his phenomenal success to an unwritten “deal” he allegedly struck with white America, where he will not to rub history in its face in exchange for support for his White House.

The pro-West Tsvangirai is easy for the West to deal with, but no Mandela or Obama. Since becoming leader of the MDC Tsvangirai has never criticized the West. He is yet to honor a liberation struggle that freed him from racist colonial rule. The West purchased Tsvangirai’s conscience with the unprecedented sympathy and moral and material support it has lavished on him in the last ten years. Tsvangirai’s humble education and lack of sophistication has made him the essence of an acquiescing African. He is the epitome of a new and disturbing African inferiority complex.

But what’s to be said of educated Zimbabwean critics of Mutambara? They shamelessly seek the West’s approval through unrestrained Mugabe-bashing. In dealing with European and American hegemony, they practice debilitating self-censorship. They invent myths and excuses to mask their inferiority complex. The West is far too powerful, we are told. We need the West more than the West needs us, etc.

Maybe we are still colonized, mentally, after all? In Australia, South and North America, Europeans conquered the natives’ land. In Africa, they failed to conquer the black person’s land but successfully appropriated most of his conscience.

Heidi Holland, the author of the book Dinner With Mugabe, tells us that the British treated Mugabe condescendingly during the Lancaster House talks. He was bullied, belittled, denigrated and subjected to socially humiliating treatment in a move that sought to weaken him. Mugabe gave in to British power and embraced the same inferiority complex that’s now afflicting Tsvangirai.

The British gave Zimbabwe a constitution that required the protection of white economic privileges acquired through black slavery, lynching and outright theft. They gave Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe. Mugabe relentlessly sought the West’s approval. In the name of reconciliation, he forgave former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Douglas Smith, a war criminal whose regime slaughtered fifty thousands, mostly defenseless black women and children during the liberation struggle.

Then Mugabe slaughtered 20 000 during Gukurahundi and what happened? Gukurahundi partly sought to bolster security for white farms and other investments in Matabeleland and the Midlands. The West rewarded Mugabe with honorary degrees after the massacres. In 1994, the dictator became the Knight Commander of the Order of Bath, knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Tsvangirai is treading Mugabe’s footsteps and this is exactly what irks Mutambara. Those who share his critical view of the West are informed by the unfortunate outcome and subsequent consequences of Lancaster House. They are fearful of another bad deal.

But Mutambara is simultaneously proposing a revisionist position on the Zimbabwe crisis while engaging the larger question of global citizenship. He is chastising both Mugabe and Tsvangirai. Mutambara is challenging the veiled racism that characterizes the West’s engagement of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is now a conglomeration of negative statistics, fodder for the Western intellectual articulation of Africa’s failed democratic project.

Christopher Bickerton, the co-editor of Politics without Sovereignty: A Critique of Contemporary International Relations even suggests that the West is “using Mugabe as a stick to beat Africa” for failing to rid itself of tyrants.

By criticizing the West and Tsvangirai, Mutambara is risking his political career. Already he is deprived on the moral and material support lavished on Tsvangirai. The assault on his reputation has already begun with the futile effort to portray him as a Mugabe reincarnate.

Praising Zimbabwe’s liberation war is not Mugabeism. Criticizing the West’s criminal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is not Mugabeism. It is global citizenship.

If Mutambara is the great future he’s playing, he must be willing to risk it all for the sake of his conscience. He must continue to steer away from Zimbabweans who demean themselves and suppress their conscience for the sake of the West’s approval. Mutambara should be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and declare: give me the freedom of conscience or give me death! It is a matter of life and death. But this one is a different kind of death; it’s the death of the soul of Zimbabwe.

Kirsty Coventry for Zimbabwe President

By Obie Madondo

Nelson Mandela recently bemourned the traggic failure of leadership in Zimbabwe. During the March election opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai beat long-time President and tyrant, Robert Mugabe, but failed to secure a 50-plus margin to secure the presidency. Robert Mugabe "won" the June re-run, in which he he was the sole candidate, after Tsvangirai had boycotted the vote. Now the two Zimbabwean leaders are locked in a battle for supremacy, without any guarantee that an agreement will be reached any time soon, if at all.

Why not compromise and surrender the esteemed office to one Zimbabwean who has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that she's qualified for the job: recording-busting swimming superstar, Kirsty Leigh Coventry.

As the New York Times recently put it, “Coventry’s performances in the pool have been a steady source of good news for Zimbabwe.” For the last ten years, Zimbabwe has suffered tremendously under the brutal dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. Through a combination of sporting excellence and diplomacy, Coventry has consistently raised the Zimbabwean flag and given Zimbabweans something to smile about.

Sporting Excellence
In 2000, while still attending the Dominican Convent High School in Harare, Zimbabwe, Coventry became the first Zimbabwean swimmer to reach the semifinals at the Olympics and was named Zimbabwe's Sports Woman of the Year.Coventry bagged 1 gold and 3 silver medals at the Beijing Olympics. To date, she has amassed 7 Olympic medals and more than 20 gold, silver and bronze medals in World Championships, All-Africa Games and other international competitions.

This phenomenal run started at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Coventry won a full set of medals: gold in the 200m backstroke; silver in the 100m back; and bronze in the 200m individual medley. This was the first time Zimbabwe won an Olympic medal since 1980. Coventry returned home to a riotous and hero’s welcome. She was hailed as a “national treasure” and greeted at the airport by beating drums, traditional dancers and hundreds of fans screaming and waving banners. As if to immortalize her triumph, many new babies were given her first name, often with the middle name of "Coventry". Many other were simply named "Gold Medal".

Even Robert Mugabe, considered by critics to be racist, could not help celebrating Coventry’s undeniable power. He called her "a golden girl" and hosted a reception for her, presented her with a diplomatic passport and “pocket money” to the tune of US$50,000.Zimbabweans put aside racial tensions aside to celebrate a true hero! At the 2005 World Championships in Montreal, Canada, Coventry grabbed 4 medals: gold in both the 100m and 200m backstroke and silver in the 100m and the 200m individual medley. Although she was the only swimmer from Zimbabwe, her performance allowed her country to rank third in the medal count by nation.

Diplomacy
Coventry’s commitment to Zimbabwe is unquestionable. Throughout her international career she has repeatedly had to deal with an international media relentlessly soliciting inflammatory and divisive statements on the escalating political crisis in Zimbabwe. She recently told Reuters news agency: "I strongly believe that athletics and politics should not mix. I just need to be proud that I get to compete for and represent my country and that's it. What I love is seeing people back home feeding off my success, and giving them something to cheer for."

This, undoubtedly, is the language that unites and heals. It’s the language of diplomacy. If there is a better Zimbabwean out there, especially in this difficult time in Zimbabwe, please, let me know!

Here are a few more words of wisdom from Kirsty:

"I wanted to take care of this one, no matter what I will go down fighting," Beijing, 2008, just before bagging the gold.

“As everyone knows, it's pretty tough back home right now. I think sport is kind of taking a little bit of the back seat. But I am excited to be here representing Zimbabwe. Hopefully, it could get people back home especially the youngsters back home excited about sports."

"I take any opportunity I can to raise our country's flag really high and get some shining positive light on things over there (Zimbabwe)."

"I am getting a really good reception from the people back home.""It was awesome to have my flag raised; it's huge for the people back home."

"Oh my gosh, people back home are so excited. I have been getting cards and text messages. " "I try not to think about it (political situation) too much other than as a positive thing to get people excited back home. It doesn't feel like pressure, it feels like an opportunity to get people excited and happy, to give them something to enjoy."

THE MEDAL COUNT:

2008 Olympics:
Gold in the 200m Backstroke (2:05.24 WR)
Silver in the 400m IM (4:29.89 AR)
Silver in the 100m Backstroke (59.19)
Silver in the 200m IM (2:08.59 AR)

2007 World Championships:
Silver in the 200m backstroke (2:07.54)
Silver in the 200m IM (2:10.74) 2007

All-Africa Games:
Gold in the 200m IM (2:13.02 CR)
Gold in the 400m IM (4:39.91 CR)
Gold in the 50m freestyle (26.19)
Gold in the 800m freestyle (8:43.89 CR)
Gold in the 50m backstroke (28.89 AR)
Gold in the 100m backstroke (1:01.28 CR)
Gold in the 200m backstroke (2:10.66 CR)
Silver in the 100m breaststroke (1:11.86)
Silver in the 4x100m medley (4:21.60 NR)
Silver in the 4x200m freestyle (8:38.20 NR)

2005 World Championships:
Gold in the 100m backstroke (1:00.24)
Gold in the 200m backstroke (2:08.52)
Silver in the 200m IM (2:11.13)
Silver in the 400m IM (4:39.72)

2004 Olympics:
Bronze in the 200m IM (2:12.72)
Gold in the 200m backstroke (2:09.19)
Silver in the 100m backstroke (1:00.50)