REPORTER: Ginny Stein
This market might seem normal enough, but to ordinary Zimbabweans it's a godsend. After years of shortages the fact that there's food here at all is a sign the country's devastated economy is finally moving once again. It's the result of the unity government's very first decision - scrapping Zimbabwe's worthless currency and instead paying people with money that's actually worth something - the US dollar.
BRIAN JAMES, MAYOR OF MUTARE: Sometime in March we started paying their January salaries and we paid them $30. This made a huge difference to them - you could see it - the $30 now gave them an appreciable basket of foodstuffs.
Brian James is the Mayor of Mutare, the country's third largest city. Mutare council has been struggling to pay its employees and provide basic services such as rubbish collection and road repairs, but volunteers have leapt in to fill the gap.
VOLUNTEER: We are digging this hole so that we can put all the rubbish, tins and bottles in this, because there is too much dirt in this area. So we are cleaning the whole area.
The clean-up has been crucial in stopping cholera and other diseases which had been spreading across Zimbabwe. On the surface, Zimbabwe is making a promising new start, but this is still a deeply troubled and divided country.
SINGERS (Translation): We’ve buried many of our heroes as a sacrifice to our country that has been destroyed by Mugabe. Morgan, bless the people of Zimbabwe. Be a hero. Stand as a hero and build Zimbabwe. Stand as a hero. Stand as a hero and build Zimbabwe.
At this rural rally near the Mozambique border, supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change are singing the praises of its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. Six months ago, the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, entered an uneasy power-sharing arrangement with its long-time foe, Robert Mugabe. Today, MDC politician Giles Mutseyikwa is trying to explain who's actually running the country.
GILES MUTSEYIKWA, CO-HOME AFFAIRS MINISTER: (Translation): There is nothing that Mugabe does without consulting Tsvangirai and the cabinet. Nothing! We said “Play, skunk, play. But we’ve got your tail.”
Just last year, on this very spot, opposition supporters were being tortured by security forces trying to sway the election outcome. Today, in a show of defiance, supporters cooking lunch for the crowd symbolically slay the nation's octogenarian President, Robert Mugabe.
CROWD (Translation): The rooster is dead, we’ve killed the rooster.
But Robert Mugabe is very much alive and kicking. In fact, despite the formation of the unity government, Mugabe's control over the state remains unbroken. He commands the security forces, the legal system and the media, so the MDC is forced to hold hundreds of rallies like this one.
GILES MUTSEYIKWA: It is because this is our only form of communication which is left open to ourselves. As you are aware, the media is not freed yet.
Giles Mutseyikwa is now one of Zimbabwe's two Home Affairs Ministers. The unity deal means there are dual ministers in almost all of the key posts - one from the MDC and one from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party. While publicly, Mutseyikwa is keen to talk up the MDC's power, away from the crowd he admits it's a difficult way to run a country.
GILES MUTSEYIKWA: Well, as I said we, these are two personalities coming from two political parties with two completely different ideologies. That's the first thing. And you've now got to combine these two ideologies for the benefit of the ministry, and that's not an easy task.
REPORTER: How difficult is it for you, personally, to have to swallow your pride and deal with ZANU-PF?
GILES MUTSEYIKWA: For the sake of Zimbabweans, I am very prepared to swallow pride to save the Zimbabweans.
REPORTER: Is that what it's come down to?
GILES MUTSEYIKWA: That is what it has come down to.
The awkward power-sharing arrangement was brokered by African diplomats hoping to end a conflict that had seen hundreds of Mugabe's opponents killed and thousands more injured. When Dateline visited Zimbabwe last year, we found two MDC supporters who had been attacked by ZANU-PF thugs and set on fire. Neither Kudakwashe Tsumele or his friend were expected to live. Their two colleagues were already dead. Incredibly, Tsumele survived, but he's scarred for life.
KUDAKWASHE TSUMELE (Translation): I am completely blind in one eye, the other is short-sighted.
His friend also survived, and recently they returned home to where the attack took place. They now must live among those who did this.
KUDAKWASHE TSUMELE (Translation): People will see us sitting together just like I am with you and they will ask them “Don’t you feel ashamed to be sitting with your victim?” These are some of the things that get them scared.
Tsumele can forgive his attackers for what happened to him, but not to his friends.
KUDAKWASHE TSUMELE (Translation): They could ask for forgiveness and I would forgive them, but what makes it difficult is that I had friends who were shot dead. It’s difficult to seek forgiveness from a dead person.
Lynne Evans is a former farmer who remembers the recent years of economic madness.
LYNNE EVANS, FORMER FARMER: That was the biggest note ever, was the 100 trillion, and then we lost more noughts from the 100 trillion and these were the last Zim dollars ever.
When we last saw her, Evans was trying to reclaim her property from farm invaders. Despite being armed with a High Court ruling in her favour, Evans was chased away, and a year and a half later she still hasn't been able to return.
LYNNE EVANS: Property rights, just full stop. Isn't that just - it's a basic right. So surely those things do - it absolutely needs to be resolved. How does anyone come and invest and have any degree of confidence with that behind everything? So, no, it has got to be resolved.
Evans still hopes to get her farm back one day, but for now she is living in Mutare and looking for work. She believes the unity government represents the first sign of hope in a decade.
LYNNE EVANS: I think it has been a hugely frustrating time and we all want to move forward and it's slower than we thought and we are suddenly realizing what a long haul it is, but I do think that there is hope. If I didn't, I don't think I'd still be here.
It's not just restitution for past farm invasions that's an ongoing problem.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangarai has attempted to downplay the farm invasions, but they are still taking place. We're on our way now to a farm that's been the centre of a legal challenge that's been going on for years.
This is Ben Freeth, and from this pergola he can see out across his fields where he no longer dares to walk. The invaders who've claimed his farm are camped within eyesight.
BEN FREETH, FARMER: Yah, it's about 1.5 kilometres away. You can see the barns there. That's kind of where they all are. You know, but it's only a handful of people, but unfortunately, they've all got guns and they're violent people.
Despite winning countless legal battles to keep his farm all he has left is his house. Even though Ben has 150 workers and their families on his farm, it's no deterrent - they too have been targeted and are living in fear of the regular attacks.
BEN FREETH: They haven't hassled here for the past few weeks. It's normally at night that they come, but sometimes they come in the day as well.
Just a few weeks before my visit, they were back again. Freeth shows me the spot where the invaders broke in.
BEN FREETH: Once they were in the house, various of them went up into the children's room and were taunting them with noises of hyenas - they were threatening to rape my wife.
Last year the invaders almost killed him and his elderly parents-in-law, in a horrific attack.
BEN FREETH: They fractured my skull, they beat my father-in-law so badly seven bones in his body were broken and he's a 75-year-old man. They beat my mother-in-law up really badly - they broke bones in her arm so that she can't actually lift that arm any longer.
Ben Freeth says that for the sake of his farm workers he won't be scared off. But he has deep concerns about the unity government and, like many, he was unimpressed by Morgan Tsvangirai's recent world tour. In his meetings with leaders such as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Tsvangirai stands accused of downplaying the situation in Zimbabwe to try to attract foreign funds.
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, ZIMBABWEAN PRIME MINISTER: So I want to assure you that we are in the irreversible process towards consolidating the democratic values.
BEN FREETH: You know, Jesus said the truth will set you free and at the moment Morgan Tsvangirai does not seem able or willing to actually face the truth and deal with it.
REPORTER: You are very disappointed in him?
BEN FREETH: Absolutely. You know, I think everyone is very disappointed at this stage. All our workers are incredibly disappointed because they are doing nothing to bring rule of law back into this country at this time.
ROY BENNETT, MOVEMENT FOR DEMOCRATIC CHANGE: I honestly believe that the Prime Minister is doing his best under very, very difficult circumstances to avoid chaos and to avoid a total Somalia-like situation taking place in Zimbabwe.
Roy Bennett is an MDC politician who's well aware of the problems Morgan Tsvangirai faces in trying to govern. Bennett himself is facing dubious terrorism charges. This morning he's meeting his party colleague, Mayor Brian James, ahead of yet another court appearance.
ROY BENNETT: Some say there could be an indictment and they put me straight back inside again. And then have to reapply for bail again, so, I don't know - we'll have to see.
The MDC had wanted to appoint him to the critical post of Deputy Agriculture Minister. But on the day he was meant to be sworn in, Bennett was arrested and jailed.
ROY BENNETT: The Deputy Minister's fully bought, eh. He's fully in their pocket.
Bennett believes Mugabe is using the courts to whittle away the MDC's parliamentary majority. Since the power-sharing agreement, five MDC MPs have been convicted of various crimes, and 14 others face charges ranging from rape to corruption.
ROY BENNETT: ZANU-PF continue to show their intransigence and total lack of commitment to this deal by harassment and arrest of opposition, although we are now the ruling party, if you want to look at Parliament, and it's possible that any member of our side of things can be picked up and locked away at any time under total frivolous charges.
With frustration growing, some MDC members are starting to question whether the unity government is still worth pursuing.
ROY BENNETT: We've gone along with him for how long now, and to what avail? We are no further down the road than when we started. And, if anything, they are entrenching themselves more and more, you know.
Bennett will soon find out whether he's going to be sent back to jail. It's a gruesome prospect. After his initial arrest, Bennett was detained for more than a month, and forced to share a cell with the bodies of five dead men who were left uncollected for days. As Roy Bennett heads into court to learn his fate, another man is being freed. Mike Hitschmann does not belong to any political party, but 3.5 years ago this former policeman was arrested and accused of plotting to kill Robert Mugabe. Hitschmann maintains the accusations were completely false but his appeal was never heard, and his lawyer, Trust Manda, is thrilled just to see him come out alive.
TRUST MANDA, LAWYER: I feel good that he’s out, we didn’t think that he would be out perpendicular – we thought he was coming out horizontal. But he came out alive.
I meet up with Hitschmann, his wife Beatrice and his son Phillip at home.
MIKE HITSCHMANN, FORMER PRISONER: I haven't done this for 40 months, but I like a warm cup. I've been drinking tea out of a plastic lunch box for 40 months - well, not 40 months - I couldn't drink tea for the last few months.
REPORTER: It must be pretty amazing to have your dad back?
SON: It is, but it is weird though. It's going to take some getting used to again.
REPORTER: How old were you when he went away?
SON: 17.5.
MIKE HITSCHMANN: In the prison, though, I've seen something that I've never seen outside. And that's people reduced to beyond the state of animals. I've had young people - much younger than I - dying in the cell over a period of two weeks simply from diarrhoea. And in the 21st century to have someone dying of diarrhoea is ridiculous. And eventually the guy died in agony in the cell.
Hitschmann himself was tortured to extract confessions.
MIKE HITSCHMANN: I was thrown against the desk, so because of the leg irons I stumbled forward so I was leaning over the desk. Then I was kicked twice in the testicles. And then after that within some seconds they had pulled down my pants, my underpants, then they burnt me with cigarettes. But I passed out very quickly after that started.
When he came to he was forced to write five separate confessions, ranging from plotting to kill President Mugabe, to bombing his home town.
MIKE HITSCHMANN: One of the confessions included me working with them from within ZANU-PF to topple the older crew of ZANU-PF - that one never saw the light of day. There was a variety of confessions, and then they decided to pick and chose which confession they would use.
And now he's heard the state wants to call him as a witness in the case against Roy Bennett.
MIKE HITSCHMANN: I've heard that Roy is being charged with exactly the same charge I was charged with - it's possession of firearms with the intention to carrying out acts of banditry, terrorism, etcetera - Roy never possessed anything.
Back at the courthouse, Roy Bennett re-emerges, still a free man. But Mugabe's cat-and-mouse game continues. Bennett's case has been adjourned until October. He still can't take up his position as a deputy minister, and it turns out a relative of Robert Mugabe has just been appointed as his prosecutor.
REPORTER: Do you think you could end up being sent to jail?
ROY BENNETT: Most definitely. I think that's more than likely exactly what's going to happen. It's political - it's a direct attack on me as an opposition minister-designate for not wanting me to go into that ministry and, yeah, there is no rule of law. The Attorney-General has publicly declared himself proudly ZANU-PF, the Minister of Justice is the minister of injustice.
All over the country people are still feeling the after-effects of the years of terror imposed by Mugabe.
LOVEMORE SHORISHORI (Translation): The story is that we are MDC supporters - that was why we were beaten. They actually wanted to kill all of us - including my wife and children.
Betty and Lovemore Shorishori are tending the grave of their son, Timothy. The 26-year-old dared to support Morgan Tsvangirai and, last year, a small group of ZANU-PF thugs came to their house in the middle of the night and attacked them.
LOVEMORE SHORISHORI (Translation): They were actually laughing because an MDC supporter was suffering, they were laughing!
Their son might have survived - if they'd been able to get medical help.
BETTY SHORISHORI (Translation): To get help I would have to go to the local MP and get him to take my child to hospital. It was difficult - they said they would kill us. They didn’t want us to see the MP or talk to him.
Two weeks after the attack, Timothy died from his injuries. The young men who killed him still live nearby. Amazingly, Betty says her faith has allowed her to forgive them, even though they've shown no remorse.
BETTY SHORISHORI (Translation): I have already forgiven them. At first they would say “They’re coming!” to try and scare me and I said “It doesn’t matter - my life is in God’s hands.” We still greet each other, but they have never apologised. When I greet them, they respond and we talk.
But not everyone is so forgiving, and bridging the country's deep divisions is going to be critical for Zimbabwe's future. The first step is to draft a new constitution to lay the groundwork for fresh elections. Constitutional talks have already begun, with delegates coming from all over the country. But the first day of talks collapsed amid scuffles and heated accusations.
MAN: They want to subvert the process by submitting propaganda, lies. That ZANU PF has manipulated this situation is unfortunate.
There are real fears that the longer this process takes, the more likely it will become hopelessly derailed. And Zimbabwe's current calm will turn out to be nothing more than a brief lull between the storms.
ROY BENNETT: You know I think when the transitional government took place, this country was on the brink of chaos. It's slowly getting back to that status again, whereby the ruling party are absolutely determined to pull this country down and pull it into chaos to protect what they have stolen and to protect those who have committed crimes against humanity on their behalf to remain in power.
Reporter/Camera
GINNY STEIN
Fixer
Editor
NICK O’BRIEN
Producer
AARON THOMAS
Subtitling
DENFORD MATEMERA
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN