David Coltart joins Mutambara MDC

By Violet Gonda

15 June 2006

After several months of “sitting on the fence” MDC legal expert David Coltart has finally announced that he will take his position on the opposition side occupied by the Mutambara MDC.

Addressing a press conference Thursday in Bulawayo he said: “ For the last seven months I have been in a state of limbo and I believe it is imperative that I resume my work in this collective struggle to bring freedom and democracy to Zimbabwe. I believe that I will be more effective working in conjunction with colleagues who share a similar vision for a new Zimbabwe and who are committed to using the same means as I am to reach that goal. I should also state that I find myself in an invidious position in that I would far rather remain in a united MDC than join any faction, but that clearly is not possible now.”

The Bulawayo North MP said his efforts at mediation had been spurned and he has been on the receiving end of direct and indirect attacks by members of the Tsvangirai faction; “That has left me with three remaining options, namely: to resign from politics altogether and to go back to civil society; to become an independent; or to join the faction led by Arthur Mutambara.”

He said he had tried to have issues of concern, especially on violence, but it was not addressed by the Tsvangirai camp.

Tendai Biti, Secretary General of the Tsvangirai MDC said his party believes in democracy and respected David Coltart’s decision. But Biti said the reason why the Tsvangirai camp did not take Coltart’s offer of mediation was because he was a member of the MDC “so he couldn’t have arbitrated on anything as he was not neutral.”

He said; “Yes there was violence in the MDC by both sides, and against each other but the violence was not endemic, and the violence was not structural. So I think he should just simply exercise his right of association without necessarily casting blame on any other democratic forces that are fighting Robert Mugabe.”

Coltart said he had put forward proposals to both factions that there be an independent commission of inquiry but that proposal had only been accepted by the Mutambara faction and rejected by the Tsvangirai faction.

He said he had been particularly encouraged by his discussions with what he regarded as the ‘pro-democracy faction of the MDC’ and in particular with Arthur Mutambara himself, because of the following:

• Their agreement to set up an independent commission of inquiry to investigate and remedy all the violence which has afflicted the MDC since September 2004;
• Their stated commitment to adopt a zero tolerance disciplinary approach to any future acts of violence within the MDC;
• The acceptable assurances that have been given regarding their commitment to engage in peaceful, constitutional and, most importantly, nonviolent forms of mass action designed to get the ZANU PF regime to agree to a new constitution and free and fair elections;
• Their commitment to respecting all the policy decisions taken at the December 2003 conference of the MDC, in particular the resolution to press for a victim orientated Truth Commission which will investigate all human rights abuses, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide which have been perpetrated in Zimbabwe since 1965;
• The acceptable assurances that he has received of their intention to re-brand the pro-democracy faction of the MDC, to end as soon as possible the present confusion experienced by the Zimbabwean electorate following the division of the MDC into two factions.

Coltart added: “In stating this, I should stress that I will continue to work within the pro-democracy faction and with friends and colleagues in the faction of the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai to unite the two factions. I remain absolutely convinced that the struggle for democracy will remain severely handicapped for so long as we are divided.”

Asked on SW Radio Africa why he didn’t resign on principle since violence was on both sides? Coltart responded by saying he could not be part of any organisation that either condoned or organised violence; "There has been violence on both sides but the difference is there is clear evidence that the Harvest House violence was orchestrated by very senior people whereas the violence emanating from – what was called the pro-senate side - seems to me to be the result of over enthusiastic young people, not condoned in any way by people at the top.”

But Biti said to his knowledge Morgan Tsvangirai and the people around him are not violent. He added that everyone must take full responsibility for the incident that took place on the 12 th of October 2005 and that he would not accept a situation where people who want to justify their decisions have to “nationalise and go tooth-picking."

He said, “The critical thing is that David Coltart has the freedom of association and we respect that. And the second critical thing is, let’s all fight Mugabe. It is Mugabe who is the enemy of Zimbabwe, not Morgan Tsvangirai. To me that is the focus. ZANU PF. ZANU PF. ZANU PF.”