Hartley Neita

It is a black leader, Robert Mugabe, who is responsible for murdering and maiming his black opponents in Zimbabwe. Not the former white leaders.

During the 1860s and 1970s I was privileged to serve with former Prime Ministers Hugh Shearer and Michael Manley and to be part of a national movement they mobilised to free the black people of southern Africa from the tyranny of white oppression.

It was not only the political leaders who were involved. Men such as Jamaica's Ambassadors to the United States, Sir Neville Ashenheim, Keith Johnson and Sir Egerton Richardson and Ambassadors to the United Nations, Alfred Rattray and Don Mills added their voices to the call for freedom from this injustice.

Church leaders

Leaders of the Church carried their voices to their international associations, and sportsmen and women joined the protest.

Sports journalist Alva Ramsay, for example, went on a fast; netball leader Leila Robinson cracked the apartheid wall when she successfully led an international charge to boot South Africa out of the netball association; and Leslie Ashenheim fought tooth and nail to get rid of South Africa from international lawn tennis.

Our poets, like Lorna Goodison, also became involved in the fight. So, too did Bob Marley and other singers.

One of the pleasures in visiting Africa then was being treated like royalty.

"You're from Jamaica? ... the land of Manley and Marley? God bless you."

Today, it is a black leader, Robert Mugabe, who is responsible for murdering and maiming his black opponents in Zimbabwe. Not the former white leaders. And it is after many weeks of political oppression that our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs has issued what to me is a meek and mild statement on the situation. Not one word has come from the Prime Minister. And surprisingly, the Opposition which has been the leading voice in African affairs during the past 30 years, is notably silent. We are a nation of mutes.

Church bells toll no more. Our musicians sing no more about Africa. There are no Peter Abrahamses anymore to give us wise counsel. Shearer, Manley and Marley are dead. So too, are Ramsay, Robinson and Ashenheim. We have become a voiceless people.

Not too late to help

It's not too late.

Our churches pray every week for Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, for our political leaders and their Bishops and Suffragans. I ask them to include the dead and dying people of Zimbabwe in their prayers. I call on our service clubs, our trade unions, our commodity associations, citizens associations, the teachers, nurses, and police associations to bow their heads in silent indignation at every meeting they hold.

And could our radio and television stations designate one minute of silence at noon, every day, to show their protest at what is taking place in that country?