Dear Friends.
One of the hardest lessons in life is learning who to trust. It’s a sign of maturity when individuals and nations acquire the judgement to know who to trust and who to be wary of. Slowly, with experience we discover the people who will not let us down; we know they will be there when we need them and do what is right for us, the people who trust them. Elections are occasions when we get the chance to exercise that judgement on a national level.

At Independence in 1980, we trusted Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF to do what was right for us as a nation. We, the people, gave Robert Mugabe the power that he has enjoyed for twenty-eight years. One of the hardest truths for Zimbabweans to accept is that our trust was misplaced. We look around and see a nation tearing itself apart. We no longer know who to trust; Mugabe has succeeded in turning what was once a trusting – some would say naïve - and united people into a fractured collection of individuals who can no longer be sure who to trust. We have lost faith in each other and in our leaders, traditional, political and even religious. Mugabe and Zanu PF have almost destroyed the moral fibre of our society.

We have repeatedly been told by Mugabe and his followers that the only thing that counts is loyalty to the ruling party, anything less is betrayal. MDC supporters and anyone else who dares to think differently are branded traitors. ‘Vatengesi,’ sellouts scream the likes of Joseph Chinotimba. According to the ruling party, liberation credentials are still the only criteria of the true patriot. That is the Zanu PF mantra, the very basis of their belief that only they are entitled to rule Zimbabwe through whatever crooked means they choose. How else can they claim as they did this week that they are 99.9% certain of winning the elections!

Enter one Simba Makoni. As Eddy Cross remarked this week, ‘He has a very nice smile’ to which I reply, ‘Beware the smile on the crocodile!’ Where was Makoni during Murambatsvina? Where was he when MDC leaders were being beaten to a pulp? Where was Makoni when the brave women and men of Woza were arrested and beaten for handing out roses on Valentine’s Day or when the police repeatedly misused their powers against the NCA to prohibit any form of demonstration? Where was he when our economy was diving into free fall, when education and healthcare were being destroyed? Where was Makoni when the press was being muzzled and all dissent was being crushed?
The answer to all these question is that Makoni was nowhere to be seen. Not once did he raise his voice in protest. Instead he was there in the Polit Bureau, at the very heart of the ruling party, part of the machinery of government that sanctioned all the repressive legislation designed to keep Zanu PF in power. All his political life, Simba Makoni has been an integral part of the ruling party and now he tells us, the people of Zimbabwe, that he will ‘bring about change through national re-engagement- whatever that means! He speaks of ‘national healing’ a process of reconciliation which he says which will be achieved ‘ with the help of friends’- Thabo Mbeki perhaps?

I can no longer afford to travel regularly to London for the Vigil but I understand that Zimbabweans toy-toying outside Zimbabwe House are divided in their view of Makoni’s entrance onto the presidential contest. Some are saying that it’s a brave move, he’s an honest man and that they might vote for him – if they had the vote that is. Some of these Zimbabweans have been away from the motherland for a long time and may not even be Citizens any longer. They seem to have forgotten that the Zanu PF government of which Makoni was a part was responsible for that piece of disenfranchisement.
From what I hear on SW Radio Africa there are divided views on the Makoni question back home too. Zimbabweans have short memories it seems. Have they forgotten why they are in the mess they are in? Have they forgotten that it was Morgan Tsvangirai who led them in the call for change, that it was Morgan Tsvangirai who was imprisoned and beaten, tried for treason while all around him his colleagues were beaten and arrested? Yes, he has made mistakes but they were political blunders, serious errors of judgement; he too has sometimes been too trusting, but not, I believe, lacking in integrity.
And yet, Zimbabweans are prepared to put their trust in a man like Makoni, who states quite categorically that he is not against Zanu PF, not against Robert Mugabe. Surely, that is trust carried to the point of blind naivety - but perhaps that is just what Mugabe is banking on – and the support of Arthur Mutambara who has thrown his weight behind Makoni. Does anyone else smell a rat?
Yours in the struggle. PH