Thursday 19 April 2018

"I have heard your cry for freedom," says ED - rubbish, with no free media we have no voice W Mukori


The white colonists controlled the country’s radio and TV and most of the print media, the white regime constantly harassed the few newspapers and magazines that catering for black, so the only voices heard in the country were those of whites. Blacks were never allowed to comment even on matters affecting them; whites would talk of how they understood us, blacks, better than we understood ourselves, how we were glorious happy and content even when we were fuming with anger!
After independence Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF regime adopted the same dirty tactics to deny the ordinary Zimbabweans freedom of expression and a free media and thus deny them a meaningful voice.
Ever since last November’s coup that forced former president Mugabe to step down, President Mnangagwa and his coup junta, have insisted the coup transformed Zanu PF and the country with it. Well the transformed Zanu PF leaders have neither restored the people freedom of expression nor given up their patronising habit of presuming to know best what the people think and feel.  
“This year's celebrations have a renewed significance, as they are the first under the new dispensation, the first in a new Zimbabwe,” President Mnangagwa told his Independence Day celebration audience.

“Today, we remember all the heroes and heroines of our liberation struggle, who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we may enjoy our freedom and national self-determination today. We honour and salute them for the independence and freedom that they bequeathed us. May their memory live on through the achievements and aspirations of our great nation, and may their souls rest in eternal peace.

“Fellow Zimbabweans,
“Five months ago, the people of Zimbabwe took to the streets in a peaceful revolution. They called for freedom, progress and a new way of doing things. Like the heroes before them, they called for a new Zimbabwe. We heard their voices, we shared their vision, and we are committed to delivering it.
Here is the man who has been at the very heart of the Zanu PF governments for the last 37 years and has never ever said or done anything to suggest he was aware the people were “crying for freedom”. He certainly took his sweet time to hear us - 37 years!
“We heard their voices, we shared their vision, and we are committed to delivering it,” insisted President Mnangagwa.
No, sir; you are clearly NOT committed to delivering the people’s freedoms and basic human rights including freedom of expression and right to free, fair and credible elections. You are also not ready to change your patronising habit of denying the people a voice and put your words into their mouths!
First let them speak, free the public media and not just for a few weeks before the elections. You have not given them a chance to say anything yet and already you claim to have “heard their voices!”
“We have set our national vision to be a middle income country by 2030, with increased investment, broad-based empowerment, decent jobs, and a country free from poverty and corruption. Granted that the task is great, the pace of change is not always as we would have liked, and we will not achieve all our goals overnight,” continued President Mnangagwa.

“But inspired by this vision, underpinned and buttressed by unity of purpose, transparency, accountability, dialogue and unswerving discipline, we shall realise our goals. Zimbabwe will rise again!

Robert Mugabe and his regime promised the nation “Gutsva ruzhinji!” (Mass prosperity!) but even when it was as clear as day that the regime was delivering mass poverty instead, the nation was helpless to do anything to remove it from power. The nation was stuck with this corrupt and incompetent and vote rigging regime for the last 38 years with the disastrous economic and political consequence we can see today.

In 1980, Zimbabwe had the potential to be a free and prosperous nation, the South Korea of Africa. The country has, instead, sunk to shocking depths of economic despair and political oppression; unemployment has soared to 90%, ¾ of our people living on US$1.00 or less a day, etc. We were once the breadbasket of the region and for the last decade the nation has relied on food aid or starve. We are the basket case of a failed state.

If there is one lesson this nation must learn from all the criminal waste of resource and tragic human suffering and deaths of the last 38 years; then it must be to restore the people’s power to hold those in power to account and to never ever tolerate rigged elections. NEVER EVER!

President Mnangagwa, if your “new dispensation, new Zimbabwe, new way of doing things, etc.” cannot stop vote rigging and guarantee free, fair and credible elections then it is of no value to the nation.

Mr President, you promised to hold free, fair and credible elections; do it. If you fail to deliver on your promise, Sir, then you can be assured that the elections will be declared null and void. A new administration will be appointment and tasked to implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections, guaranteed!

7 comments:

  1. Could not agree with the Americans more; we done with talking about promising free and fair elections we want to see concrete action to make this happen.

    There is absolutely nothing stopping this regime freeing the media and making sure there is freedom of expression in the country. How can the regime talk of holding free and fair elections and yet continue to deny the people this fundamental right?

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  2. Former President Mugabe had disregarded SADC leaders' call for the 2013 elections to be postponed to allow reforms to be implemented. Mugabe would have lost the elections if reforms had been implemented and everyone including Mugabe knew that hence the reason he refused. He even threatened to leave SADC if the regional body insisted on reforms.

    SADC leaders were not sorry to see Mugabe go and that much is obvious!

    In perhaps an unintended tacit admission and confirmation that Chiwenga passed on the presidency to Mnangagwa, Retired Air Chief Marshal Perrance Shiri, this week in Mashonaland West, praised the VP for not seizing power but following due procedure during Operation Restore Legacy.

    "General Chiwenga is the person who orchestrated Operation Restore Legacy. He is a principled man who does things in honesty," said Shiri. "If it was someone else, he could have taken over power, declaring that he was in charge. There was nothing that could have stopped him since he was in charge of the army. General Chiwenga is a person who is politically mature and with the people and country at heart. Due to political orientation, he understood that hove huru dzinofamba nemurongwa (leadership renewal follows laid down procedures). As a result, the party chose President Emmerson Mnangagwa to lead the party, while VP Chiwenga wanted to return to the barracks. However, President Mnangagwa appointed him Vice President and second secretary of the ruling Zanu PF party."

    It is no secret that the next murongwa is for Chiwenga to succeed Mnangagwa. The ordinary people have no say in that one, of that we can be 100% certain.

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  3. "The army confirms that by November 15, 2017, it had put over 2 000 of its officers and embedded them in every community in Zimbabwe not just for the coup but for the forthcoming elections. This number is now over 5 000. Zimbabwe cannot hold free, fair and credible elections with over 5 000 army officers embedded in every village and street communities across the country" Mutinhiri has said.

    In reaction to that, in an interview with South African ANN7, Chamisa said for now the MDC will not start campaigning to minimise the possibility of violence, while he made a passionate plea for soldiers to leave the villages.

    "Our military were very active and have been very active in the politics of this country. We want to devillagise the military and demilitarise the village, making sure that the military are liberated from partisan politics because they are bigger than partisan politics," he said.

    "They have to represent the nation, they are for all of us and they cannot be supporting one party against the other. Zanu-PF is just one party, it is not the nation and it is not the liberation struggle. So, we would like to make sure the military is in the barracks defending the nation and not defending one political party, because the whole essence of going to the liberation struggle was to ensure that we protect the ballot and not for the bullet to undermine the ballot," said Chamisa.
    The only sure way the nation would have effectively "devillagise the military and demilitarise the village," as you said is by implementing the democratic reforms during the GNU and not by you now telling the army to leave the villages! Zimbabwe cannot afford another rigged elections and yet this is where the nation is marched remorselessly towards because of the sheer stupidity of the opposition who believe they can win rigged elections!

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  4. "Maybe that's why for years, Mnangagwa has kept his liberation war nickname, the Crocodile. The undeniable paradox of Zimbabwe's moment of healing is that the doctor was once the butcher," said Mawarire.
    The trouble with Pastor Mawarire is he is as naïve as a goat!
    Mnangagwa has been talking of holding free, fair and credible elections and yet he carried on with his plans to rig the elections. He has paid the Chiefs the new twin cab truck bribe Mugabe had promised them, he has appointed Engelbert Rugeje Zanu PF Political Commissar, deployed war veterans and 5 000 soldiers, etc. all with instruction to frog march voters to vote for him.
    Mnangagwa is one butcher who will never become a doctor.
    Even after seeing another goat being killed by a crocodile, a goat will still believe crocodiles are vegetarians!

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  5. To even be discussing readmitting Zimbabwe back into the commonwealth at a time when the regime in Harare is doing nothing to ensure the coming elections are free and fair is in bad test!

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  6. Social commentator Maxwell Saungweme said Mnangagwa's spell in power, established through the barrel of the gun, would not tackle deep-seated corruption which characterised the rule of his predecessor.

    "ED (Emmerson Mnangagwa) is a product of graft, a coup. He has been part to a graft laden administration for 37 years, in very senior positions including vice president before his coup handlers anointed him president. The only thing to expect from his regime is lip service about dealing with graft as he and his senior associates in government are so much immersed and entangled in the graft cobweb to the extent that the name Zanu-PF is an alternative definition of graft. So expecting these guys to deal with graft is tantamount to asking the Devil to believe in the Bible," he said.
    President Mnangagwa would have found it very difficult to stamp out corruption given that it is such a widespread problem. Mugabe had built and kept Zanu PF together through patronage and if he is going to attract these party loyalists to him then he too has no choice but to give them the same patronage incentives. In these very difficult economic times patronage has assumed an even greater significance but then so too are the consequences in terms of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption.

    The very fact that Mnangagwa himself is corrupt, very corrupt, only makes it even more difficult if not impossible for him to stamp out corruption.

    You do not stamp out corruption if you are corrupt yourself. By the same token, you do not hold free, fair and credible elections if you are unelectable. With his track record of 38 years as Mugabe's most trusted and ruthless thug who did all the looting, vote rigging and murders, Mnangagwa knows holding free and fair elections is suicidal.

    Ending corruption and holding free and fair elections are the two jobs that Mnangagwa knows he is damned if he does not keep his promise to carry them out but he is also damned if he does carry them out. And what is worse he knows that he will not get away with doing a half-hearted job of it! The man is a thug and has been one all his life and now the world expects him to be a statesman with no blemish! What is worse, he is the one who started the ball rolling by pretending the coup transformed him and his regime into democrats - the world is looking at him and saying; "Prove it!"

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  7. The Zanu-PF politburo meets today to deal with the contentious issue of candidate selection for primary elections ahead of the eagerly-awaited harmonised polls, amid revelations that the party's elections commission failed to contain members' antagonism.

    The ruling party is currently burning with senior party officials battling to calm down angry members who are fuming over the conduct of the Zanu-PF regional leadership allegedly favouring their cronies in the vetting of CVs to contest the May 5 primaries.
    With the country facing serious economic meltdown, the only sure escape of poverty now is holding public office. Every council seat, parliamentary seat and senatorial seat will be hotly contested at party level and national level. The hyenas are so hungry and angry, you need every friend you can get and yet trust no one, any wrong move and one will be eaten alive.
    The Army and war veterans are going into these particularly hungry and angry and they are in no mood to take prisons. There will plenty of blood on the flood when the fighting is done and the dust has settled!

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