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The MDC must start afresh now without Mugabe and ZANU-PF
Many Zimbabweans will not forget Robert Mugabe’s concession speech after votes had been counted during the constitutional referendum held in early 2000.
Mugabe had badly wanted that same draft constitution to be adopted as the nation’s constitution because, among others, it left his powers basically intact, while scatting around the issue of limiting the number of terms one individual would be limited to in a presidency.
Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party used everything, including public funds and government issue, to campaign for the acceptance and adoption of the faulty draft constitution.
In Zimbabwe and, indeed, in Africa, there exists no line between ruling party and government property.
A ruling party considers government property as its own and uses it in any manner that is beneficial to them.
In the 2000 constitutional referendum, the people of Zimbabwe noticed too many faults within that particular draft constitution and surprised Mugabe with a thumbs down vote against it.
It was a shocker that no one had expected and it handed Mugabe his first emphatic loss.
For the first time, Zimbabweans said “No!” to Mugabe when he least expected it.
The defeat of the Mugabe-sponsored draft constitution was also a watershed, a landmark of sorts, because it was a political flare in the skies over Zimbabwe confirming the steady but emphatic decline in Mugabe’s popularity.
It was totally unexpected in that Zimbabweans had always given Mugabe whatever he had asked for.
Mugabe surrounded himself with political idiots like Didymus Mutasa, Emerson Mnangagwa, Nathan Shamuyarira and those under-performers who told him what he wanted to hear, not what the people were saying.
But after years of neglect and after realising that Mugabe was not there for them but for himself and his relatives and friends, the people went to polling stations and told Mugabe, in no uncertain terms, that they did not trust him with the draft constitution, let alone another presidential term, and that they no longer wanted him to run for the presidency ever again.
But just last month, Mugabe told the nation that he will, indeed, be running for another term of office in next year’s expected combined parliamentary and presidential elections.
This, precisely, is what the people foresaw and meant to forestall by rejecting the draft constitution, handing Mugabe his first public electoral humiliation.
After the official vote tally had been announced, Robert Mugabe appeared on national radio and television.
He delivered a memorable speech in which he said that although he was on the losing side, he was not disappointed because “our democracy” had shone bright and clear.
He went on to soothe his disappointed followers and said that Zimbabweans had to move ahead and face new challenges together.
Just about everyone who watched that speech, including members and subscribers of the then newly formed Movement for Democratic Change, applauded because that speech, encompassed all that Zimbabwean people are about.
The speech, regardless of what we think of it today, gave an indication that, not only were we able and allowed to differ but that we were still one people who could work together for the betterment of our nation.
It was a speech only a democrat could make.
I was one of the people who watched Mugabe that evening and was engulfed with a sense of belonging.
That speech boosted Mugabe’s stature as a true democrat, although with waning popularity, especially when we consider that he was then a failed and unpopular leader.
Yes, the speech was good and all well-meaning Zimbabweans held on to it with honest hope.
We went to bed to wake up to the news that some “war veterans” had invaded and occupied a farm in Masvingo and had declared that they had taken it over.
Following the law that they knew, the Zimbabwe Republic Police moved in and chased the invaders out.
But the invaders came back with more determination, and now, in hind sight, we know they had not done this out of their own volition.
Someone of authority had sent them.
Like a wild bushfire, farms around the country fell to the illegal invaders.
Police curiously left invaders alone as farm invasions spread across the country.
Then we started hearing that since the farmers had rejected the draft constitution, which, they said, would have effected the transfer of farms on a willing seller/willing buyer transaction, the white owned farms were game.
The white commercial farmers had shown an interest in the newly formed MDC and were filmed donating thousands of dollars to the fledging MDC as Morgan Tsvangirai sat watching.
We have killed thousands of our own people and continue to do so.
The racial barriers that we had broken, boldly announcing to the world our spirit of reconciliation emerged again at our own instigation.
Violence spread across the nation as the murder count picked up.
Mugabe did nothing to quell the mayhem. Instead, he gave tacit approval to what was happening.
On Independence Day last week, Mugabe stood up in a soccer stadium and denounced violence.
It reminded me of his concession speech which was immediately followed by violence and mayhem perpetrated by Mugabe’s supporters.
“As Zimbabweans, we need to foster an environment of tolerance and treat each other with dignity and respect irrespective of age, gender, race, political or religious affiliation,” Mugabe said Sunday. “Let me re-emphasise that we need no violence. We need tolerance in peace and calm and common understanding.”
There is something obscene when a murderer buys a coffin for his victim and goes on to stage a most lavish funeral for the victim.
Mugabe has been at this murderous game for a long time now and it is just not funny.
In the early years of independence, Mugabe pardoned murderers and thugs who had savaged political opponents.
He went on to tell the victims of his thugs that Zimbabwe was a peaceful country and that the police would come down hard on anyone who promoted or engaged in violence.
After the MDC was launched, a new trend emerged.
ZANU-PF thugs and elements of so-called war veterans were let loose on the people. There were killings, muggings, rape and mayhem.
People rightfully rushed to the police stations to report but it was the victims who ended up behind bars. This continues to this day.
So it struck me with merciless impact to hear Mugabe telling people that we need tolerance and to “treat each other with dignity and respect, irrespective of age, gender, race, political or religious affiliation”.
These are things that he himself and his party fail to give the nation, doing the very opposite, but by demanding this from the nation, he makes it look as if the victims are the culprits.
Mugabe’s idiocy did not end there.
He denounced church leaders who abuse church property yet one of his staunchest supporters, fired Bishop Nolbert Kunonga, has received police protection and has used police and army to hold on to church property, chasing worshippers and preventing them from worshipping.
Kunonga used church funds to hire lawyers to stop people from worshipping. This is downright madness but one would never think this is precisely what Mugabe is doing with Kunonga.
As he spoke of religious and political tolerance, his party’s thugs, including the army, were busy terrorising people in most of the provinces.
As Mugabe stood at the podium, “groups of soldiers dressed in full military attire were visiting several areas in rural parts of Masvingo Province, threatening villagers with death if they did not support the Kariba draft”.
The heart of the matter is that those at the forefront must recognise the evil and refuse to be part of it. The MDC’s continued presence in this government is an insult to the people of Zimbabwe.
The MDC cannot afford to hang around Mugabe while the people and MDC supporters continue to be victimised by one half of this government.
It is a terrible indictment on the MDC; it cannot afford to do this to the people who have stood by it through the most difficult of times.
What do you say?
Send me your comments on tano@swradioafrica.com.
The MDC must show some sensitivity to the people and refuse to continue being used by Mugabe and ZANU-PF. Although we know that they are waist deep in this treacherous relationship with ZANU-PF, we cannot stop reminding the MDC of the consequences their relationship with Mugabe has caused the people.
The MDC has legitimised ZANU-PF and it must extricate itself from this unholy alliance to save the people of Zimbabwe.
The MDC must start afresh and without Mugabe and ZANU-PF. The MDC must come out and stand alone.
It owes the people too much.
I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my fellow Zimbabweans, is the way it is today, Thursday, April 22nd, 2010.
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Comments
Fri, 23 April, 2010 12:16:35
Subject:
Tano,
I would like you to comment on the MDCs.They are on a crusade to condemn and use or rather buse some very powerful words and expressions against their petty project they call GNU.They squeal and scream about freedom of press and human rights abuse as if it's ZANU on their own. They are in complicit. I am not a student of law but I am aware here in the UK if you withhold information from somebody who has a right to, it is classified as abuse.If you recall in 1976 and 1979 at the Geneva and Lancaster House conferences respectively after each session the publicity secretaries of the PF, if my facts are correct the late Musarurwa and Eddison Zvobgo would give press briefings about the procedings. .All this was done with our ersttwhile oppressors.Closer homeCODESA was beamed alive. Enter Thabo Mbeki, that South African idiot, our gullible pseudo leaders revelling on a boat on Lake Kariba decide our future away from us and they christen it the Kariba Draft. In 2008 they hide away from the public and decide to parcel out our birthright and come up with a surrogate product they call GNU after another they called GPA.To add salt to a festering sore they go a step further and this time during their endless talks they even have thee nerve to hide the venue. Really???? The people of Zimbabwe are viewed as haing prying eyes, a nuisance. Shocking!Are we not incubating an egg of a snake by creating a larger than life picture of MDC? Calling Tsvangirai Hurrican Save? Sloganeering saying "change?" Any where I don't use or take part in slogans because of my disdain for them.I feel they demean my integrity. Are we really agents fo change or we are agents to be changed?
There is the popular fireside story which MDC could do themselves a lot of good by learning from it. It's about a mamba which was trapped under a stone. By some dint of fortune a baboon searching for scorpions to eat comes across this mamba obviously in pain. The mamba pleads for help which the baboon unwillingly gives after being assured of gratitude. The snake turns to the baboon after being rescued.The matter is solved by the sly fox.We are now at the stage where we need the cunning fox to intervene. MDC better learn from this story. You don't bandage a snake.Never! Because when it has healed it will devour you.ZANU was on its death bed and MDC arrogantly rescussitated it.Whenever they are cornered and can't extricate themselves that's when they know there is the electorate who put them in those lofty positions they are in. People did not vote for the GNU but wanted ZANU out and the MDCs brought them bak through the back door. Seemingly they are afraid of forming a government. Otherwise how do yo account for a situation where the winner gives the lion's share to the loser?
Batshele
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