In an interview with the State
media, Dr Misheck Sibanda, Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, opened
a window into the working of the GNU.
“As Chair of Cabinet, he (President
Mugabe) managed to steer the whole process, though people were antagonistic
towards each other initially. . .It was his ability to manage contradictions.
They (MDC formations) started respecting President Mugabe, the leader.
“They revered him; they saw him now
– that fatherly figure, that he means well, he means beyond their narrow party
ideology. He is for the nation. They realised they were possibly painting the
President too negatively and that was not correct. They understood the man.
“Some (after losing the elections)
said, ‘If we are needed, even if it’s a Zanu-PF Government, talk to the President.
Possibly we can come and serve because we want to serve.’ (They said they
wanted roles) in any capacity. You could tell that it was because of how they
had been handled. To me, it was amusing.”
Dr Sibanda may find the whole GNU
episode “amusing” the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans do not!
The single most important task for GNU
was to implement the democratic reforms listed in the 2008 GPA so that Zimbabwe’s
next elections will be free, fair and credible and not a repeat of the 2008
elections marred by vote rigging and some of the worst wanton politically
motivated violence the world has ever seen.
How anyone can say President Mugabe “is
for the nation” when he “declared war” on the people, as Tsvangirai rightly
said at the time, to force them to vote for him.
“What was achieved by the bullet
cannot be undone by the ballot,” President Mugabe declared. He was endorsing
operation “Mavhotera papi!” (Whom did you vote for!) by Zanu PF thugs, war vets
with the backing of the Police, CIO and Army that resulted in hundreds of
thousands being beaten and/or raped and over 500 dead in three months. Some “fatherly
figure” indeed!
President Mugabe bamboozled
Tsvangirai and his MDC friends with gravy train lifestyles and, for Tsvangirai,
a $4 million Highlands mansion; in return MDC leaders kicked the reforms into the
talk grass. At the end of the GNU not even one reform had been implemented and
Zanu PF was able to blatantly rig the elections and waltz back into power.
President Mugabe thought after
bamboozling MDC and rigging the July 2013 elections it going to be plane
sailing for him; events have proved him wrong. He has failed to get anyone, not
even his “all weather” Chinese friends, to bankroll his $27 billion ZimAsset
economic recovery plan. No one trusted him and his regime.
By blatantly rigging the elections
again in 2013 when he had just come out of the sin-bin GNU years for the wanton
violence and vote rigging in 2008 Mugabe proved, if any proof was required,
that he has no respect of the law. None! No one in their right mind would trust
someone like that especially with their own money!
Dr Sibanda went to great length in
trying to assure the nation and the world at large the President Mugabe, a
frail 92 year old today and sickly, is fit.
“He is alert, he knows what is
happening. All those things (that he is no longer fit) are myths because he
works — I can tell you. Sometimes he goes beyond nine o’clock or 10 o’clock. He
is amazing . . . He is fit; that I can tell you because we work with him,” said
Dr Sibanda.
The truth is President Mugabe is not
as fit as Dr Sibanda would like us to believe; he has been stumbling and
falling in public. He is not well. But old age and ill health are not his only
problems; his party is imploding, torn apart by the factional wars to find his
successor.
The most pressing problem for
President Mugabe, however, has to be the worsening economic meltdown. 36 years
of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have taken their toll; the Zimbabwe
economy in in terminal decline and without outside financial assistance will
never recover. With ZimAsset dead in the water, President Mugabe has no plan B.
President Mugabe can work all night
if he wished and his wife has already threatened to push him to work in a
wheelbarrow if necessary; that will change nothing. Zimbabwe’s economic dangerous
decline will continue until the country gets the much needed foreign financial
assistances.
Zimbabwe will get financial
assistance on one condition – the country restores the rule of law and political
legitimacy. We have no choice but to go back and implement ALL the 2008 GPA democratic
reforms so we can finally have free, fair and credible elections and a legitimate
government. There is no other way out!
“People should write the truth about
the man (President Mugabe) of his character. He is a unique character who has
been bestowed to us by God,” pleaded Dr Sibanda.
History will judge President Mugabe
as an incompetent (turned a prosperous nations into a basket-case failed state),
corrupt (looting $2 billion per year from Marange whilst the nation starved) and
murderous tyrant with a streak for rigging elections (have murdered over 30 000
innocent Zimbabweans). The good Lord bestowed on us all the discerning mind to
pick right from wrong it is blasphemous to suggest that God approved the
murderous path Mugabe has followed!
Zanu PF is still in denial over ZimAsset being dead but the economic meltdown tells its own story. The longer the present economic situation is allowed to continue the more likely the nation is going to slide into violent social turmoil of one kind or another to force change.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of "fatherly figure" would allow his children to be pushed into this hopeless situation have so many murdered to gratify his insatiable greed for power and wealth.
How anyone, let alone someone like Dr Sibanda who should know better, can still ignore the facts on the ground and continue to praise Mugabe after all the suffering he has brought to the nation is beyond me. It shows just how we, as a people, have allowed power, wealth and influence has corrupted our minds that we do not know right from wrong any more even after 36 years the fog is as thick as it was back in 1980. The suggestion that Mugabe is God's blessing to the nation is blasphemy!
The MDC leaders were queuing to sing Mugabe's praise during the GNU; even notable leaders like Tendai Biti were talking of Mugabe as "unflappable father of the nation". But in typical Mugabe's style he booted them all out as soon as he got what he used from them. They were begging for an job in any capacity and Mugabe ignored them; he had no use for such corrupt and incompetent village idiots.
War vets have just learnt the same lesson; for the last 16 years they were his storm troopers pushing his no-regime-change agenda. The tyrant had the war vets tear-gassed just to remind them who is boss.
There were many blacks who continued to support the white colonial regime right up to the bitter end. The regime ill-treated them the same it ill-treated the rest of the black population, they did not care about that; all they cared about is the scraps the regime gave them. They would have defended the status quo with their very lives for donkey years more if the whites had not thrown in the towel. Dr Misheck Sibanda is a cut from the tree; he has clearly enjoyed his privileged position as Chief Secretary he does not care that millions of other Zimbabweans have paid dearly for his privileged life!
ReplyDeleteIt was not the fatherly figure that charmed the MDC leaders into doing nothing regarding implementing the democratic reforms. President Mugabe charmed them the same way he has charmed Dr Sibanda and his fellow Zanu PF leaders with a privileged lifestyle. MDC leaders sold out just as Zanu PF leaders have sold-out these last 36 years.
MDC leaders thought they were fully fledged members of the ruling elite just as dzakutsaku Police Officers before independence believed themselves a cut above all the other blacks. The fact that Zanu PF went on to rig the 2013 elections did not bother MDC leaders as much because they were pretty confident President Mugabe would find them something to do in keeping with their privileged new status. They were disappointed that President Mugabe failed to get them a slot somewhere!
Dr Sibanda might well find MDC leaders' expectation of President Mugabe granted them a privileged lifestyle beyond the GNU amusing. He has seen the same great expectations expressed by hordes of Zanu PF leaders, who too had sold their very souls and yet they too were to be disappointed.
Not that any of these MDC sell-outs deserved anything, of course. If anything we must recover the loot MDC leaders and people like Dr Sibanda have received for selling-out their fellow Zimbabweans to the tyrannical regime.
We have become a nation of sell-outs and we really need to send a clear message that the business of selling-out one's fellow man does not pay in the long run!
@ Tapiwa Gomo
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting piece, thank you.
I cannot speak for Uganda but as for Zimbabwe we cannot deny that we had the golden opportunity to break the cycle of using “all the power and State machinery to sway election results in favour of the sitting President. Etc.,” as you rightly said and have free, fair and credible. We had five years to implement the GPA reforms during the GNU but failed to get even one reform implemented.
In 2007 Kenya’s Raila Odinga was given the same task as Tsvangirai to implement democratic re-forms and he did and Kenya’s last elections were free, fair and credible. President Mugabe bribed Tsvangirai with the gravy train lifestyle and he kicked the reforms into the tall grass.
Instead of implementing the GPA reforms Zimbabwe’s opposition is wasting time on useless elec-toral law reforms and on endless coalition talks. They will take part in the next elections and com-plain of violence and vote rigging and yet we have all known that without reform that will happen.
Yes we need elections because the process gives us something to hope for that it would end our suffering. We keep electing leaders like Tsvangirai who promise us change although they do not have a clue what the change we need much less how to bring it about. We are too slow to learn they do not know what they are doing and so elect them in the hope that someday they will deliver the change we want.
The bottom line is we get the corrupt and tyrannical government we deserve complete with its corrupt and incompetent opposition.