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Why is the MDC no longer vocal against ZANU-PF’s abuse of authority?
Poor Farai Maguwu!
It took foreigners in other countries to protest Maguwu’s arrest while the MDC was going about its business of “governing the country”.
We heard nothing from them until his release.
We heard very little token mumbling from the MDC over then non-prosecution of those who murdered more than 200 MDC supporters during the 2008 elections to court.
Police continue to abuse people and to carry out duties on behalf of an individual but Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s co-minister of Home Affairs says our police have “turned over a new leaf”.
We heard nothing from Tsvangirai.
I have no option but to succumb to the simple truth that Tsvangirai and his MDC have betrayed the people of Zimbabwe.
Having been accommodated into a den of thieves who had earlier stolen their property, the MDC, although reluctant at first, slowly warmed up to the idea of sharing their stolen property with the very thieves who had raided and confiscated the property from them.
Now, as things get worse, no one can help because the very same people who should be helped are the ones who say all is well.
Although talking about his own selfish expectations, Mugabe at least admits that things are not okay but Tsvangirai says they are...until something he cannot hide from the people comes up.
The MDC is deliberately protecting Mugabe and his lieutenants that is why it considers the Ministry responsible for Reconciliation and National Healing to be not as important.
There cannot be any national healing before reconciliation and reconciliation can only come about after perpetrators and victims come together to confess and forgive each other.
MDC is not giving national healing the importance and priority that it deserves because the MDC is no longer willing to have ZANU-PF thugs punished.
They are eating at the same table now and do not want their partners exposed.
The MDC wants to ignore this sad episode so as for them to have a comfortable stay in this government born out of betrayal of the people.
The MDC is not interested in national healing at a time their own supporters are bleeding not only from older but from newer and fresh wounds inflicted by the same people they claim to be in partnership with.
If the people were important, national healing could have come first.
Is it progress for the MDC to ask the abused Zimbabweans to sleep in the same blanket with their rapists just so the MDC can say, “Something good is happening and we must be rewarded for our efforts?”
The MDC used the people.
I hear some people say that “things” are getting better and wonder what exactly it is that’s getting better.
If the political situation is getting no better then nothing is getting better.
I would like to know what has changed in politics and in the governing of our nation since even before this nonsensical government of national unity came into being.
MDC supporters are still being beaten up.
MDC Members of Parliament continue to be harassed and arrested over flimsy charges.
There is still selective application of the rule of law and this is always against MDC supporters.
We still lack property rights, with farms and companies still being seized and taken by ZANU-PF stalwarts.
In the last few weeks, so much has been done against the people by ZANU-PF thugs and yet there is hardly an outcry from the MDC.
We had people being prevented from giving input towards the constitution; we had opposition MPs playing hide and seek with the police.
How much noise has the MDC made about all these yet it all happened under Mugabe and Tsvangirai’s government and the MDC wants to tell me that things are getting better?
All these atrocities are being committed by the government who use the army, the police and the intelligence services to violate people’s rights
The MDC has sold the people to Mugabe, a dictator who did not even want the people in the first place.
Last week, Theresa Makone, one of Tsvangirai’s closest advisers and his very own co-minister of Home Affairs, came out in surprising defence of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, saying that the police “had turned over a new leaf”.
Yes, the new leaf the police have turned is one of defying court orders, just like their president.
It is the police who have always been violating human rights.
It is the police who abuse civilians and arrest MDC members who show up at the police station for protection from ZANU-PF thugs.
And an MDC co-minister of Home Affairs defends them?
Just whose interests is Tsvangirai’s MDC serving?
Now their own officials are contradicting each other in public!
Pishayi Muchauraya, Makoni South Member of Parliament and the spokesperson for Tsvangirai’s MDC in Manicaland Province, was forced to publicly rebut the nonsense that Theresa Makone had said about the police.
Muchauraya said the police are still supporting ZANU PF militia terror campaigns during the constitutional outreach exercise, despite claims by Makone that the police had turned over a new leaf
“At Bhumira Primary School we had ten uniformed police officers who also had some guns. But what they did is they had to arrest those people who were injured and make sure they are not spotted by some Constitution Parliamentary Select Committee observers. It was the entire MDC executive in the area which was injured, and arrested by the police. The other one who nearly had his eye removed was also arrested upon making a report,” Muchauraya said.
What really is the MDC up to?
They are talking about elections next year when Mugabe’s brutal war machine is still intact after having been re-enforced by the MDC’s efforts to have the unity government accepted as a legitimate government whose work has to be rewarded.
In the last elections of 2008, Tsvangirai’s party lost more than 200 people at the hands of Robert Mugabe.
Now they are talking about elections again and Mugabe, like any other criminal, would only be too glad to return to the scene of his crimes.
The heart of the matter is that Prime Minister Tsvangirai can no longer be exonerated from atrocities and human rights violation that his government continues to perpetrate.
We can no longer say ZANU-PF is to blame for all the bad things that are happening and the MDC is responsible for whatever good is seeping into the nation.
Tsvangirai is as much to blame as Mugabe, especially since his party believes that the police, the main culprits in this saga, are now decent professionals at a time when they are actually brutalising MDC supporters.
After betraying each other, both MDC formations betrayed the people in the most cruel and selfish way any sell-out would.
It really worries me to see that the MDC has now become so keen as to be silent in the face of increasing discomfort of the people.
As a government, what alternatives did the MDC proffer to those citizens in distress?
Tsvangirai is ignoring the possibility that the next elections could be worse, in terms of violence, than the last one.
They are not worried that there are no safeguards in place but they expect people to come out in millions, risking their lives to vote for them.
They are not canvassing SADC and the international community for proper support and protection for the people.
They are not making enough noise; couldn’t they just try?
The MDC is not even whole-heartedly pursuing that those ZANU-PF thugs who killed 200 of their supporters be brought before the courts.
Tsvangirai said nothing about the arrest and detention of Farai Maguwu.
He said nothing about his minister’s support for the abusive police.
Now the MDC is preparing the ground for Mugabe to kill more of our people just so the MDC leader and his lieutenants can stay put in this disorganised, underperforming and abusive government.
Tsvangirai and the MDC have sold the people out and the worst is yet to come.
Please let me be proved wrong.
I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my fellow Zimbabweans, is the way it is today, Thursday, September 9, 2010.
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