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Mugabe’s notorious ‘operations’ are excuses to murder our people
We always went along with it, didn’t we?
We cheered as Robert Mugabe declared one year to be ‘The Year of People’s Power’, another to be ‘The Year of Changing Things’, while another would be declared the ‘Year of Consolidating People’s Power’.
We gobbled and swallowed all this nonsense as Mugabe declared that it was our year while he took away everything we needed to get through that year.
The English would say we were being led up the garden path.
And, indeed, there are no tomatoes today; we are importing them.
From the very first year of Zimbabwe’s independence, Mugabe started to minimize our presence; he usurped and seized our personal and individual aspirations, stripping us of our personal worth and personage.
He killed personal ambition; we were expected to always be thankful and to be in praise of him.
The North Korean atheists taught him well and he believed he was a messiah.
Even from my frying pan in hell, I would love to hear what our Maker says to Mugabe on that final day.
And he was brought up by Jesuits, of all people!
But then, I don’t believe that we really ever had Robert Mugabe.
It takes a lot out of a normal human being to unflinchingly do to other people what Mugabe has done and continues to do to the very same people who gave him a chance to be great.
We were bombarded with useless slogans that did nothing for the people.
It was always ‘The Year of this…and The Year of that…’
Sickening nonsense!
Then the old goat decided to launch operation this and operation that…anything to divert people’s attention from his failures and the misery he was causing.
The "operations", however, were always directed at the people, punishing them for situations they did not create.
By far the most notorious of these undertakings is "Operation Murambatsvina".
Mugabe was now calling us ‘trash’ because we had become wiser and disenchanted with his ways.
It was a heartless and inhumane undertaking that created worse unbearable circumstances for the people.
The UN says this callous and merciless operation affected more than two and half million Zimbabweans, most of whom have still not recovered to this day.
Mugabe says he carried out the operation as a crackdown against illegal housing and commercial activities and "to reduce the risk of the spread of infectious disease in these areas".
The truth is that, just like he had punished white commercial farmers for supporting the MDC, Mugabe was punishing poorer urban citizens who had shown a preference for the then opposition MDC.
Clearing them out would also be expected to lessen the votes the MDC would get in subsequent elections.
It did not work.
Operation Murambatsvina was against the people, not for the people. It was not meant to improve their living standards.
It was simply punishment because our views of him had changed.
Because of lack of employment opportunities, Zimbabweans turned to alluvial gold panning.
Shame.
Even qualified teachers deserted their profession for the physically taxing and dangerous gold panning because they got more money from that than what the government was paying them.
Then the government took notice and curtailed the operations by demanding that alluvial gold could only be sold to licensed gold buyers, silenced by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
There was only one problem though: the government issued the licenses to its top ZANU-PF cronies who paid "peanuts" for the gold.
But the panners found other avenues to sell their gold, bypassing the RBZ.
Mugabe did not like that at all.
He unleashed Operation Chikorokoza Chapera in November 2006.
Sadly, most of the victims were those who had been displaced by Operation Murambatsvina the year before.
But in reality, it was punishment for gold panners who were withholding their alluvial gold from ZANU-PF licensed buyers.
This operation saw thousands of locals being arrested and thousands of others being deported to their home countries.
But Operation Chikorokoza Chapera was being unleashed with an eye on the real thing: the slowly booming alluvial diamond mining at Chiadzwa in eastern Zimbabwe’s Marange District.
Sadly, all the so-called operations had and still have one thing in common: they are vehicles for horrific human rights violations.
They offer Mugabe an opportunity, a chance to revenge his evaporated popularity.
The diamond diggers were suddenly exposed to greedy violent ZANU-PF autocrats who immediately brought in the security agencies.
The army reined horrifying abuses on the diamond diggers and local communities.
Hundreds of deaths, in addition to cases of assault, rape and forced labour, were reported as the security agencies were now forcing people to work in syndicates under their control.
In late 2008, Mugabe then unleashed "Operation Hakudzokwi".
It was, again, punishment for people who were not selling their diamonds to ZANU-PF big wigs.
The operation ensured that the ZANU-PF elite remained in control of the diamond trade.
The murders, torture, forced child labour and despicable human rights violations being perpetrated on the hardworking diamond miners became so horrific that the international community became involved.
The Kimberly Process came in and appointed South African Abbey Chikane to investigate the atrocities to determine if Zimbabwe was producing blood diamonds.
It was all a charade.
After Chikane had betrayed his informers, the Kimberly Process okayed the sell of Zimbabwean diamonds to the outrage of Zimbabweans and human rights organisations.
This week, Mugabe warned his colleagues about the diamonds, saying they were meant for the nation, not for individuals.
He must actually believe we are as stupid as he is.
Is Mugabe clean of all this?
If so, with all the intelligence services at his disposal, let him bring out one member of his elite group to book.
Just one.
He wouldn’t dare because those people know where the bodies are buried and they know where the diamonds are and who owns them.
But back to our issue.
While all this was going on at dirty mining fields away from modern day town life, the well-to-do in urban areas were jolted to their senses when, in 2008, Mugabe unleashed Operation Dzikisa ma Dish.
As usual, it was an operation to punish those who avoided the nauseating radio and television propaganda programmes by tuning in to international news broadcasts available on DSTV.
It was a sensitive time because it was the period leading up to the 2008 presidential elections, which Mugabe lost to Morgan Tsvangirai, giving birth to the current government of national disunity.
A few weeks ago, Mugabe indicated that his party wants elections to be held next year.
ZANU-PF is already on the campaign trail. It has started broadcasting propaganda songs extolling Mugabe’s successes.
It is telling people in song that "Zimbabweans know that it is Mugabe who is in charge".
It is telling those who have the courage to have their radios on that Tsvangirai has no power or authority.
Meanwhile, Mugabe is also violently interfering with the constitutional outreach programme.
He does not want a new constitution because it will clip his wings and curtail his authority.
So he has unleashed the army, police, intelligence services and the notorious youth brigades to intimidate and beat up people.
They threaten the people and promise them death if they say the wrong things during the outreach exercise.
It is Operation Vhara Muromo.
It is both unsolicited advice and a warning to those who go anywhere near the parliamentarians who have been tasked with talking to the people and incorporating their views in the new constitution.
The government, which is spending millions on the outreach programme, is the very one that is defeating it by violently stopping people from giving their input.
The heart of the matter is that the situation in Zimbabwe is not conducive enough for both elections and the re-writing a new constitution.
Both must be stopped right away because the constitutional outreach programme is already guaranteed to produce a stillborn and that stillborn was expected to conduct elections next year.
What do you think?
Send me your comments on tano@swradioafrica.com
I just do not know what the international community wants to happen in Zimbabwe before they make a collective effort to reign in Mugabe.
Operation Vhara Muromo is laying the foundations for another bloody encounter and the murder of Zimbabweans during the forthcoming elections.
Mugabe wants to silence the people once and for all and the international community is being unwittingly used to oppress the people.
Without outside help, Mugabe would not be doing what he is doing. The international community must take responsibility for what is about to happen in our country.
The signs are there for all to see.
I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my fellow Zimbabweans, is the way it is today, Thursday, August 5, 2010.
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