Report-Back Meeting By The Hon. David Coltart M.P. On 27 June, 2003 (Up-Dated 12 August 2003)
Mr Coltart said that it was a reflection of the state of our “democracy” that the last report-back meeting scheduled to be held in Barham Green had been banned. Two other meetings: one a Christian meeting and the other to be hosted by Bulawayo Dialogue had both been similarly banned. The last six months had seen deterioration in the Zimbabwean environment in many different ways. People across the board had been affected and the level of gloom and depression was unprecedented. Inflation had reached 300%; there continued to be a dramatic emigration of skills and a variety of institutions were under great threat. Where such high levels of repression existed, it was inevitable that everyone was depressed. When people awakened in the morning, they immediately had to confront these enormous strains in their lives.
Ironically, this stressful situation had been further unintentionally compounded by the actions of the MDC, who had wrongly raised expectations. Some of the language relating to the mass action had been deliberately positive … it had been referred to as the “final push”. Telling people to turn out in their millions had created expectations that a dramatic miracle would occur in the space of five days, which was hoped for but which did not materialise. Mr Coltart had felt that the stay-away would be a success, but had experienced reservations about the prospect of thousands of people turning out to confront the regime. The regime was vicious and levels of fear intense. What had happened in June should rather be described as the beginning of the final push.