There are some very confused people out there who are calling for political dialogue as the way forward but have no idea who should be demanding change much less what that change should be. All the are doing is mudding the political water.
“Don’t break a bird’s wings and tell it to fly,” argued Jeffryson Chitando in Zimeye.
“Why then should you shoot unarmed civilians, arrest hundreds of MDC Alliance supporters and then call for dialogue?
“In 2008, the Mugabe regime used the short sleeve and long sleeve crude tactic to enforce GNU talks —then is the so called new dispensation different from the old?”
What Chitando, like so many others out there, has failed to understand is that the 2008 to 2013 GNU, for all its shortcomings, did nonetheless offer a golden opportunity to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. The said opportunity was lost because Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends sold out big time.
To blaming Zanu PF for the 2008 GNU’s failure to deliver any meaning change is proof Chitando has no clue what the GNU was about and is just shooting in the dark!
"When praying with a hyena never close both eyes.Should you negotiate to free a trapped hungry lion?The economy has trapped the lion and now it’s demanding negotiations at gun point," continued Chitando.
This is just wishful thinking at best!
Of course, Zanu PF leaders would want the economy to do better so that they in turn can do even better than they are doing up to now. Nothing would please Mnangagwa more than for him to have several Blue Roof mansions in Harare, in his rural home, one for each of his sons and daughters, for small house, etc., etc. As long as the economic success does not threaten his iron grip on power, of course.
As things stand the economy is in total meltdown but his iron grip on power is solid. It is not the ruling elite who are suffering the most from the ill effects of the economic meltdown; it is the poor and to suggest otherwise is just foolish.
Unemployment has soared to over 90%, basic services such as education and health care have all but collapsed and over 50% of our people now live in extreme poverty. In the midst of all this sea of tragic human suffering are islands of the filthy rich ruling elite and their cronies.
Indeed, it is the insatiable greed of the ruling elite; premised as it is on gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and the criminal waste of the nation’s human and material resources; that is fuelling the country’s economic meltdown.
Some people have found solace in the reality that corona virus has not spared Zanu PF bigwigs. 40 years of Zanu PF misrule meant the country’s economy was in a mess and its health care in shambles at the on set of the pandemic. The regime’s resolve to under report the corona virus figures, to hide its blundering incompetence in the handling of the virus has only made a bad situation even worse.
Of course, it is little comfort that the ruling elite have not been spared by the corona virus since it is the poor who are bearing the brunt of it all. The poor are at great risk of catching the virus because they live in crowded housing, with no clean running water, they are forced to go out to earn a living or else starve, etc. And meanwhile the rich are as snug as a bug in their five star mansions!
Right now, the regime is pulling all the stops to get the corona virus vaccine and no prizes for guessing who will be vaccinated first!
“The vaccine might not be enough and there will be a group that will be prioritised such as frontline workers, ministers, MPs and members of the security sector,” Robert Mudyiradima, the head of monitoring and evaluation in the health ministry, told the parliamentary portfolio committee on health.
The poor will have to wait, a year or more, for the freely donated vaccine. Until then the poor must soldier on the best they can burying their dead, who are dying like flies, along the way! Why Zimbabweans have chosen to be as helpless as flies, beggars belief!
Of course, it is for Zimbabweans themselves to demand an end to this Zanu PF inspired criminal waste of the country’s resources. They have a right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country, a right Zanu PF has denied them for the last 40 years.
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and political paralysis is the country’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections.
The corollary is equally true and obvious, implement the democratic reforms to stop the blatant rigging of elections and Zimbabwe will cure itself of the curse of bad governance!
"Don’t exploit people and expect them to stand on your side.. Don’t play with people’s emotions and expect them to support your cause. You cannot expect to give bad things and receive good things,” continued our misguided philosopher.
“Zanu PF must learn to do good things to the people!”
After 40 years of corrupt and tyrannical misrule; with the country drowning, literally, in this man-made “s***thole”, as former US President Trump called Africa; and still Chitando has no clue what is going on.
Zanu PF thugs have ruined the economy and murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish and secure the dictatorship and absolute power. This is what they wanted, they are gloriously happy and are fighting tooth and nail to retain the status quo. It is for you, Chitando, and the impoverished millions to demand change.
“Don’t play with people’s emotions and expect them to support your cause!” It is such nauseating stupidity that is holding the nation back!
THE United Kingdom (UK) has slapped targeted sanctions on four top allies to President Emmerson Mnangagwa, among them security chiefs, accusing them of having a hand in the killing of Zimbabwean protesters.
ReplyDeleteAccording to a statement Monday by British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, those targeted are state security minister Owen Ncube and intelligence director Isaac Moyo.
Also targeted was Police Commissioner General Godwin Matanga and former leader the Zimbabwe National Army Presidential Guard Anselem Sanyatwe (now Zimbabwe ambassador to Tanzania).
“These sanctions send a clear message that we will hold to account those responsible for the most egregious human rights violations, including the deaths of innocent Zimbabweans.
“We will continue to press for the necessary political and economic reforms that will benefit all Zimbabweans,” reads the statement by Raab.
This is a very welcome move.
Zimbabwe’s number one priority right now is to make sure democratic reforms are implemented to ensure the 2023 elections are free, fair and credible. If the truth be said, this is not likely to happen particularly when Zanu PF knows that the corrupt and incompetent MDC will participate in the elections and thus give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy, as before.
Pressure should be brought to bear on both Zanu PF and MDC leaders to take reforms seriously. Imposing sanctions of Zanu PF leaders like Professor Mthuli Ncube who are working for the regime knowing it is illegitimate and on opposition leaders themselves for participating in flawed elections.
If the 2023 elections go ahead with no reforms then this time the plebiscite must be declared null and void without failure!
Unlike previous ICG commentaries, this one is more sanguine about the prospects of opposition politics. Endemic corruption and economic mismanagement is evident across the state, mostly at the hands of ZANU-PF politicians, but also from MDC allied politicians in major cities. The solution no longer seems to be a naïve assertion that all will be well with a new party in power; even the once-feted Nelson Chamisa's star seems to have somewhat faded.
ReplyDeleteSouth Africa cannot afford the complete collapse of Zimbabwe given the fragility of its own economy. And with insurgency troubling Mozambique, the usually stable southern African region looks extremely volatile, requiring solutions soon.
The worst blunder that S A ever made as regards Zimbabwe was for SA President Cyril Ramaphosa to have publicly endorse Zimbabwe’s July 2018 rigged elections. The elections “went well!” he said. He gave Mnangagwa’s and Zanu PF legitimacy and hence the reason Zanu PF has confidently rejected all moves to water down the party’s power and authority by forming any power sharing arrangement.
Ramaphosa should have called a spade what it is - a spade. He should have called the rigged July 2018 elections what they were - rigged elections - or said nothing.
Zimbabwe is gearing for the 2023 elections and, with not even token reforms implemented, Zanu PF is set to rig those elections. One only hopes that President Ramaphosa has learned the lesson and will not repeat the foolish mistake of endorsing another rigged elections.
Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections must be declare null and void and this clear the spare for the appointment of a competent administration that will be tasked to implode the reforms and hold free, fair and credible elections.
“Don’t break a bird’s wings and tell it to fly!”
ReplyDeleteJust the suggestion the bird will not fly just to annoy the person who broke its wings show a shocking lack of imagination. We are talking here of millions of ordinary Zimbabweans whose hopes and dreams of a decent life, of freedom, human rights, justice and liberty have been broken to gratify the insatiable greed for power and looted wealth of the Zanu PF ruling elite.
It is no exaggeration that there is a lost generation of 40 years and younger who left school 20 years ago and have never held a decent job and whose education in the last 20 years has been substandard it is worthless. Of course, these young men and women will curse and swear at their miserable lives they rest of their days. They will be very stupidity indeed if they think by having a wasted life they are somehow punishing Mnangagwa and his cronies!
Mnangagwa and his cronies have ridden roughshod over us all, denying us our freedoms and rights, for the sole purpose of Zanu PF retaining an iron grip on power and after 40 years of enjoying absolute power they have become addicted to it. They have denied us our fundamental rights for the selfish purpose of granting themselves absolute power.
It is for us, the ones with the broken wings, the ones wholes lives is hell-on-earth to demand change.
If Zanu PF is holding a gun to our heads, then it is to force us to accept our miserable lives without dissent and not because the regime is in a trap!
When you listen to people like Chitando, and there are many Zimbabweans out there who “think” like him, it is obvious why democracy was doomed in Zimbabwe!
ReplyDelete"Don't break a bird's wings and tell it to fly," argued Jeffryson Chitando.
When you see yourself as a helpless bird it is far fetched to ever think the bird can ever think of itself as equal of the brute holding it in his hands. All the bird can ever think about is how it can get away; it will never think of holding the brute to account for capturing it, breaking its wings, etc.
Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs told the people if the party did not win the 1980 elections the civil war would continue. To anyone with half a brain that should have set off church bell alarms ringing none stop. If Zanu PF took away their right to a meaningful vote they will have nothing left, absolutely nothing left!
Fighting Zanu PF in defence of one’s freedoms and rights is infinitely easier to do whilst one has the freedoms and rights in the bag than to give them up and then fight to retrieve them.
Zanu PF got its 1980 wish, the people voted to end the civil war not knowing they were in for a life time of wars and misery. As soon as Mugabe got into power he started to methodically erode away the people’s freedoms and rights. In 1983 he launched the Gukurahundi massacre to crash all resistance to his de facto one-party dictatorship. The people were reduced from citizen to no more than powerless and helpless medieval serfs forever grovelling to their overbearing and ruthless Zanu PF overlords!
It is one thing to be a slave but quite another to think like one. A slave who has accept his servitude as a matter of course has stopped thinking of himself as a freeman and has given up the fight for his freedom.
When you see yourself not as a human being but a helpless bird in the hands of a tyrant, all fire of freedom and self-respect have been snuffed out, the slave mentality rules the roost!
Democracy is government by the people, the people are the masters and they hold those in public office to account. When the people have the slave mentality, they will never be the master. And trying to build a democracy with a populous with a slave mentality is like trying to build a multi-storey building out of mud bricks!
In Zimbabwe the tyrants in office are the masters and the people are powerless and helpless for ever grovelling to the tyrants!
A post-mortem of people like Chitando will show his brain-tissue had atrophied, decades of inactivity had turned it into utterly useless fatty-tissue.
@ Mutema
ReplyDeleteBoth Zanu PF and MDC leaders have shown that they do not care about the suffering and deaths of povo. Why are you singling out MDC leaders?
Could it be because you think you have to chose between supporting Zanu PF or MDC?
Many people would agree that both Zanu PF and MDC leaders have proven beyond doubt that they are corrupt, incompetent and, certainly in Zanu PF’s case, vote rigging and murderous thugs. Instead of rejecting both parties some people would go for splitting hairs - looking for the less evil.
In the November 2017 military coup, even people who had long decided that Zanu PF was evil; quickly reviewed their position because they were presented with the choice of either Mugabe and his G40 or Mnangagwa and his Lacoste. Of course, this was just foolish self indulgence; the people would have been better advised to remain resolutely focused on the demand for democratic change.
The slave mentality had the better of them and it was not long before the chickens came home to roost and they have been mourning and wallowing in their suffering and misery in the Second Republic !
Only some one with a slave mentality would never think given a choice between two equally unacceptable alternative, choice of two slave masters, would ever think of rejecting them both, of choosing freedom and being his own master!
Both Zanu PF and MDC leaders are corrupt, incompetent and worse; reject them both and demand the implementation of democratic reforms so the nation can have a fresh start. Why is that such a mountain to climb?
ZANU PF Politburo member and Bindura North legislator Kenneth Musanhi on Wednesday violated the current lockdown restrictions by conducting a party District Coordinating Committee rally at Dawmill farm, Bindura.
ReplyDeleteAt the rally, the supporters were not observing social distancing as evidenced by the video below.
Meanwhile, ZANU PF lost a number of senior officials since the outbreak of the Corona Virus early March last year.
The world over, more than a million people have tested positive to the deadly pandemic some of them currently bedridden.
Some things never change! Zanu PF used to corral the people to attend all-night political rallies, “pungwe”, during the war of independence. Many people lost their lives as the Rhodesian Army targeted the rallies.
The pungwe accomplished nothing of substance as the people spend most of the time singing, repeating meaningless slogans or listen to some half wit wittering about socialism! The people did not dare miss these rallies for fear of being labelled a sell-out; a crime whose punishment was heavy beating and/or death!
So people are once again risking their lives by violating corona virus measure to attend Zanu PF rallies so they sing, dance and repeat meaningless slogans! After 40 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule the only change is the people’s lives is now hell-on-earth.
The people of Zimbabwe must think hard how they are going to end this reign of chaos and terror - it is insane to allow this to continue!
MDC-T national chairperson Morgen Komichi yesterday warned that Zanu-PF would cruise to victory during the 2023 harmonised elections if the country's opposition parties remained divided.
ReplyDeleteKomichi, one of the candidates that lost the MDC-T presidency to Douglas Mwonzora at the party's extraordinary congress last December, said the current disunity in the opposition camp would give Zanu-PF victory on a silver platter.
"The current institution of opposition political parties is disintegrated," he said on his Twitter account.
"They pose no threat at all to Zanu-PF come 2023. Either group, there is no one with the capacity to dislodge Zanu-PF if this division continues. It is like the enemy is no longer Zanu-PF.”
Unite - this is the usual excuse for participating in elections the opposition know Zanu PF will rig. The opposition was united and formed the MDC Alliance for the 2018 elections and still the opposition lost!
MDC leaders had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections and they failed to get even one reform implemented. Instead of admitting their failure they have since pretended they can win rigged elections.
MDC leaders are sell-outs they have given up the fight for free and fair elections and are participating in flawed elections for the sake of the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away as bait.
As long as MDC participate in the elections, they give legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF.
If the 2023 elections go ahead with no reforms then the plebiscite must be declared null and void and a competent body appointed to implement the reforms!
First, apart from Pakistan, China is also providing vaccine aid to Brunei, Nepal, the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Palestine, Belarus, Sierra Leon, Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea, altogether 13 developing countries. Going forward, we will also assist another 38 developing countries with vaccines. We also take an active part in the WHO-led COVAX and provide vaccines through this platform to developing countries
ReplyDeleteSecond, China supports Chinese companies in conducting joint vaccine R&D and production with foreign partners. Vaccines made by Sinopharm and Sinovac have been exported to countries including the UAE, Morocco, Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil and Chile where clinical studies have bee
n conducted out.
It is nice to know that China is doing so much to help but, it must be said here loud and clear, Zimbabwe would not be in such a mess if China had not interfered in our country’s political affairs. There is no deny that China is the one country that has done the most in helping Zanu PF rig elections and stay in power. China has done all this for selfish reasons, a chaotic Zimbabwe has been easy prey for China to loot!
"The UK continues to be concerned by the continued poor human rights environment in Zimbabwe," Robinson told the Daily News On Sunday in December last year. "However … as we look back on the last three years, our overriding sense is that important opportunities for deeper and longer lasting political and economic reform have been, and continue to be missed.
ReplyDelete"And that it is these reforms which will be most important to Zimbabwe's future," she further told the Daily News On Sunday. But Robinson emphasised that her government remained committed to seeing Zimbabwe succeed, and that, in that regard, she was in constant touch with authorities to remind them about their promises to the
world.
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic and political problems is the country’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. For over four decades now Zanu PF has blatantly rigged the elections and got away with it. If the 2023 elections go ahead with no meaningful democratic reforms in place then the elections must be declared null and void.
After 40 years of asking Zanu PF to hold free and fair elections, the world must finally put its foot down and admit Zanu PF lacks the political will to hold free elections.
Zimbabwe needs to appoint a competent body that will implement the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 Global Political Agreement and finally cure itself of the curse of rigged elections and bad governance.
The one event that has shaken MDC to the core was Nelson Chamisa's unconstitutional seizure of power following the death of Morgan Tsvangirai. The more level headed leaders and supporters saw immediately that this was wrong and voiced their concerns. But instead of everyone sitting down and sort out the mess the hot heads took over, silenced everybody and steamrolled into endorsing Chamisa. This was a self-inflicted fatal wound and, as we can, the root cause of MDC's fatal implosion.
ReplyDeleteThe very fact that diehard individuals like Wilstaff Sitemere have buried their heads in the sand and will not even acknowledge Chamisa was wrong much less the consequence of his foolishness does not change the reality on the ground - the fragmentation of MDC. And most significantly rules out an hope of MDC leaders and supporters ever reconciling - people do not reconcile round a lie!