Sunday 31 January 2016

Mugabe threatens UN with AU walkout over reforms - another contrived skunk fight. By Wilbert Mukori

“Chidembo kana choda kuramba mukadzi chinoshereketa!” (When the skunk (bad husband) wants to desert the wife, it will do anything and everything to provoke a fight, beat her up and then divorce her for “starting” the fight!)
When President Mugabe warned UN Secretary – General, Ban Ki-Moon that Africa will, en mass, walk out of the UN if the continent’s demands for two permanent Security Council seats are not met; this was just him, the skunk, itching for a fight.
Description: C:\Users\Tapiwa\Documents\ZSD\National Convergence Conf\Striped_Skunk.jpg
There is no stopping a skunk, with a hidden agenda, itching for a fight.
“We are supposed to be free and independent Mr Ban Ki Moon; supposed to be free— the 54 countries (of Africa). We come to the United Nations for the ceremonial (General Assembly); every year, September, we are there,” said Mugabe at the AU Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is there to hand over the AU Chairmanship to Chad’s President Idriss Déby Itno.
“We pay lots of money, go there and attend the General Assembly and make speeches, go back home: year in year out.
“But the bosses in the Security Council say you shall never have the powers that we have as permanent members … Reform the Security Council!” thundered Mugabe to thunderous applause from the gathered African leaders.
Mugabe, out of your own mouth cometh thy judgement!
Mugabe is fighting for Africa to have the same power to veto UN Security Council resolutions that the five permanent members have. This is rich coming from the man who has systematically denied the Zimbabwean people the freedoms and basic human rights including the right to a meaningful free vote and even the right to life! In any case giving one or two of Africa’s tyrants the veto would not help advance the post independent Africa’ call for democratic change.
If these African leaders were not suffering from collective amnesia then they would remember that it was the AU itself which resolved that Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections, Mugabe’s claimed were free and fair, were not. The AU would only grant Mugabe political legitimacy after he agreed to implement wide raging democratic reforms and to form a GNU. Sadly none of the reforms were implemented so Mugabe rigged the 2013 elections.  
Mugabe is facing an ever tougher election in 2018 than in 2008 because the national economic is now in total meltdown and Zanu PF popularity is rock bottom. To remain in power Mugabe will have no choice but to once again rig the elections; something the West, the UN and the Zimbabwean people themselves are set to object to with renewed vigour.
Last week VP Mnangagwa confirmed the Zanu PF regime will renew its banning UNPD, although it is the one paying for Zimbabwe’s new biometric voting system, and all the Western nations’ election monitors from observing the country’s next elections. The fight with the UN over reforms is a contrived in that when the regime is criticized for rigging the elections it will counter and accuse the West is punishing it because Mugabe’s repeated demands for UN reforms.
Mugabe played the same dirty trick of picking a contrived fight when he accused the British of reneging on their promise to fund Zimbabwe’s land redistribution programme. So when he was accuse of rigging the 2000 and 2002 elections he countered claiming the elections were free and fair and accused the British and their Western allies of punishing him for seizing white owned farms.
When the AU and SADC both refused to endorse Mugabe’s claim that the 2008 elections too were free and fair, Mugabe had no counter accusation then. If the AU sided with the West in condemning Mugabe’s vote rigging in 2018 he will accuse the African leaders in turn of hypocrisy; many have turned a blind eye to vote rigging in Africa with a number guilt of committing the same crime themselves – to as extensively but enough and that is all Mugabe needs. The few leaders with a clean bill of electoral health, Mugabe will accuse them of being puppets of the Wests taking orders to play hardball with him even though his megaphone diplomacy has accomplished nothing.
In 2003 Mugabe took Zimbabwe out of the British Commonwealth when it was clear the country was going to be kicked over its failure to hold free and fair elections. If push comes to shove he will walk out of the UN and AU too rather than hold free and fair elections and lose.
If the truth be told; Africa does not need the two permanent seats complete with veto powers. Africa has had its share of dictators, despots and tyrants. There is the late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi who ruled Libya for 42 years (he did not bother with the niceties of elections); Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, was schooled in vote rigging, he ruled Egypt with an iron fist for 30 years; President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir of Sudan has been indicted by ICC for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur; we know Mugabe and his checked track record; etc. The thought of any of these tyrants wielding a veto is very worrying indeed for Africa and the world at large!
Africa’s democratic institutions, where they still exist, are very weak to deal with serious institutionalized crimes like genocide, crime against humanity, etc. The presence of rogue states like China and Russia wielding the UN Security Council veto has allowed many African tyrants to get away with murder as long as they had Chinese and/or Russian support. Africa needs a strong UN and adding the number of rogue states with a veto will make the UN even weaker than it is!
How ironic that Mugabe should be using demands for an African UN veto as a smoke screen to hide his more sinister plan to continue denying millions of Zimbabweans the right to free, fair and credible vote. But then it is to be expected given his skunk mentality!
“Ichokwadi! Chidembo kana choda kuramba mukadzi chinoshereketa!”  (Yeah up! There is no stopping a skunk itching for a fight to hide its more sinister agenda!

Saturday 30 January 2016

"We are builders, builders of Zimbabwe!" says Mujuru's PFM - we know and do NOT want another such Zimbabwe. By P Guramatunhu.


There is something about slogans that Zimbabweans find totally irresistible!

 

Zanu PF’s slogan – The people’s choice!

 

MDC-T slogan – The party of excellence!

 

People First Movement slogan – “Tiri Vavaki, Vavaki veZimbabwe!” (We are builders, Builders of Zimbabwe!)

 

What is so ironic about these slogans is that the say the one thing the respective parties are not. Zanu PF has yet to hold free, fair and credible elections so how can it be the people’s choice when that is the one thing – democratic choice -the party has gone to great lengths to deny the people.

 

President Mugabe has had millions of our people beaten and/or raped and over 30 000 murdered to impose and sustain his no-regime-change mantra. What choice did the people have in that!?

 

MDC had the best chances ever to effect meaningful democratic changes in Zimbabwe and yet chance after chance they have wasted them all. The best chance to effect democratic change was during the GNU and yet in five years they failed to get even one democratic reform implemented.

 

“We in the MDC were wrong in participating in that (2013 general) election on the assumption and belief that the sheer numbers of Zimbabweans would overwhelm whatever shenanigans Zanu PF had planned to subvert the will of the people,” admitted Tsvangirai soon after the Zanu PF blatantly rigged the elections.

 

The golden opportunity for change was lost and today the nation is stuck with the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF facing a real grim future.

 

In failing to get even one democratic reform implemented MDC leaders proved beyond all reasonable doubt that they are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent. MDC is a party of excellence! Excellence my foot!

 

Joice Mujuru, Rugare Gumbo, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, Didymus Mutasa and all the other People First Movement leaders have been in power for donkey years and they all have nothing to show for it. As key members of Mugabe’s Zanu PF team they have played their part in creating the corrupt and ruthlessly tyrannical regimes that have brought ruin, destruction, death and despair to the nation.

 

Joice Mujuru is renowned for her laziness, incompetence and corruptions. For individuals like Mutasa and Bhasikiti one has to add murder to that list; the pair have master-minded the murder of a number of innocent people on Mugabe’s behalf.

 

Oh yes Mujuru and the other PFM members are “builders of Zimbabwe” alright but builders of the corrupt and tyrannical Zimbabwe; if we want to build a free, progressive and democratic Zimbabwe then they are not the builders we want!

 
Yes Mai Mujuru and company, we know you are builders of corrupt and tyrannical nations but that is exactly what we do not want to build, another corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship!

Friday 29 January 2016

Musewe, democracy is the "contentious issue" we must debate by being "selective" you killing the debate. by W Mukori


“It is at times futile to have press debates on contentious issues because these debates never really end as we tend to be selective on what catches our attention based on our mental biases and dispositions and may therefore completely miss what we are saying to each other,” said Vince Musewe.

 

It is in fact the “contentious issues” that we MUST debate and no one should ever be “selective” as to what they say because that will indeed make the debate a futile waste of time.

 

Vince you have the knack for contradicting yourself: you have just said you “tend to be selective” on what you say in the quote above. In the next paragraph you tell us “My objective here is really to make sure my readers have the correct information”.

 

Anyone can say they want a democratic Zimbabwe that is the easy bit; how to end the ruthless dictatorship and create a healthy democracy is the contentious bit. The devil is in giving detailed and correct information, in acknowledging and working within the confines of historic facts because to do anything else kills honest debate and, worst of all, damages the prospect of ever achieving the set goal of a democratic Zimbabwe.  

 

There are three contentious issues here:

 

 

  1. What reforms do we need to end the Zanu dictatorship and have a democracy?

 

There are 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) democratic reforms which everyone agreed were necessary for free, fair and credible and elections. Sadly, at the end of the five years of GNU, not even one reform had been implemented.

 

Since this is an honest no-holds barred discussion, it must be stated not even one reform was implemented because MDC leaders proved to be breathtakingly incompetence and corrupt. They were warned by SADC leaders, among many others, to implement the reforms and later not to take part in the elections with no reforms but paid no heed. These are historic facts. For someone of Mr Musewe’s intellect to then dismiss a deliberate and calculated act of corruption, the $ 4 million mansion paid bribe there, as a “mistake” is to blatantly break the rules of honest debate!

 

Having failed to implement the GPA reforms during the GNU MDC leaders are now demanding that the Zanu PF regime must implement electoral law reforms, NERA. This is a time wasting exercise by the opposition designed to give the electorate the impression the opposition is still fighting for free and fair elections when they are not.

 

Legal experts have already dismissed NERA as “inadequate and incomplete”. Not one of those backing NERA has ever dared to claim publicly the reforms will deliver free and fair elections. In fact it is for this reason MDC leaders have picked on NERA and not GPA reforms, they know Zanu PF will implement the former because they have nothing to lose as contrast to the latter reforms in which Zanu PF will be forced to hold free and fair elections with the real prospect of regime change.

 

So only the GPA reforms will dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and deliver democratic change including free and fair elections guaranteed. NERA reforms never deliver a democratic Zimbabwe, never ever; they are a smoke screen to hide the opposition’s cowardly decision to once again kick GPA reforms, the game-changer, into the tall grass.

 

 I challenge Mr Musewe or anyone else who dares to deny that adopting the biometric system alone, which NERA demands, without reforming ZEC, demanded by the GPA, will not stop Zanu PF rigging the vote!

 

 

  1. If Mugabe refuses to implement the GPA reforms by 2018, what then?

 

It was you, Vince, who posed the above question. I totally agree that implementing the GPA reforms, forget for a moment how this can be achieved, will deliver free and fair elections. Mugabe and Zanu PF will never win such elections, not with their track record of corruption, incompetence and murderous oppression. So it would be “political suicide”, as you rightly said for Mugabe to implement the GPA reforms.

 

The question is in fact inappropriate; it should be What if Mugabe refuses any democratic change necessary for free and fair elections and the nation’s chance to end this corrupt and oppressive system of government that has crashed the hopes, dreams and the very humanity of millions of Zimbabweans? Because, ultimately this is what implementing the reforms is about.

 

My answer to the appropriate question is let us not put words in his mouth, let him refuse!

 

Your answer is that we accept implementing the reforms will be political suicide for Mugabe and therefore we accept the status quo. Why then are you pretending to be fighting for democratic change when you are in reality fighting to maintain the dictatorship?

 

Your plan B does not seek to end the dictatorship but to accept it as a political reality you cannot change. After 36 years you have not only failed to see that it is not working but worse still, that it is now your plan A.

 

As to the question of how are we going to get Mugabe to implement the GPA reforms; this is not the impossible task of the mouse tying the bell round the cat’s neck, as you try to portray it.

 

Mugabe signed the GPA in 2008 committing himself and his party to the full implementation of the reforms. We can criticize SADC leaders over many things but the one area no one can fault them, especial SA’s President Jacob Zuma and his representative, Lindiwe Zulu, is their commitment to making sure Mugabe will not refuse to implement the reforms.

 

It was MDC’s fault, not Mugabe’s, that not even one reform was implemented in five years of the GNU. SADC did their best to get Tsvangirai, Biti, Ncube and all the other MDC leaders to implement the reforms but was ignored.

 

So strictly speaking, it was Tsvangirai and his MDC friends “refused to implement the GPA reforms”. It therefore beggars belief that anyone would considered Tsvangirai et al, the breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent individuals who “refused” to implement even one GPA reform in five years, as suitable leaders to be trust implement the same reforms. Worse still, they refused when Mugabe’s hands were tied by the GPA what hope is there they will do so now when the GPA has expired and Mugabe is free to refuse?

 

As we have already seen above, Tsvangirai and his friends have indeed decided to forget demanding the GPA reform in favour of the wishy-washy NERA; proof, if any was still required, that these breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent individuals are not to be trusted.

 

Mugabe is under enormous pressure to accept change from the country’s worsening economic meltdown and from the infighting tearing his party apart. A united public demanding GPA reforms as the only way out could still force him to accept the reality that change is necessary.

 

Even if Mugabe soldiered on to 2018 without implementing the reforms our position should remain that we will not take part in any fraudulent elections designed to deny the people their right to free and fair elections and hope of a better future.

 

There will be some opposition members who will take part in the elections even with no GPA reforms implemented because they know Mugabe will allow the opposition to “win” a few seats. They will be going for the scraps. These opposition members will be exposed for the two-faced traitors they are that they should grant fraudulent electoral processes some measure of legitimacy for the sake of scraps!

 

  1. If there is to be a grand opposition coalition, what kind of animal should it be?

 

All Zimbabwe’s political parties have one thing in common; most of their leaders are corrupt and incompetent. The problem is with the de facto one-party dictatorship Mugabe has imposed of the nation which has stifled public debate and democratic competition. Mugabe has made politics such a dirty game that only thugs, the brain-dead, opportunists, etc. play and little wonder the corrupt and incompetent emerge as their leaders.

 

By implementing the GPA reforms we will dismantle the dictatorship to allow free flow of information, debate and democratic competition. Joice Mujuru will not last long on the political stage under the full glare of a USA type free media, for example, not with her record of 34 years of corruption, corruption and corruption.

 

Implement the reforms and let the democratic process separate the good, the bad and the ugly!

 

The only grand coalition, if there ever to be one, must be united front demanding free, fair and credible elections because this is the one issue that should unite us all who want a democratic Zimbabwe and see the nation finally emerge out of the darkness of corruption and murderous tyranny.

 
Implementing the 2008 GPA democratic reforms and delivering free, fair and credible elections is the Big Issue of our time, has been for the last 36 years; for Pete’s sake let us stop giving excuses and get the job done! People like Vince Musewe have not offered anything of substance other than that we should all accept the Zanu PF dictatorship is here to stay. It will stay only because we let it; even when we have the golden opportunity to end it, as happened during the GNU, it was us the people who refused to end it!