Mugabe's admission of $15b looted in 7 years is suspicious too precise - a warning to Mujuru. By P Guramatunhu

MDC-T and other opposition political leaders have joined the bandwagon of Zimbabweans citizens calling for detailed investigations in the looted $15 billion by President Mugabe’s own admission earlier in March 2015. One has to question the intentions of the opposition in joining in the condemnation of the looting and Mugabe in making the admission.

The proverb “Charity begins at home”, in its benign and charitable original meaning, means that children learn good habits at home from their parents.  The proverb, in its less charitable and corrupted meaning, means that we should look after our own kids, family and nationals before donating anything to help faceless stranger be they the victim of an earthquake, drought, etc.

All our political leaders would do well to know that criticism, like charity, begins at home otherwise it becomes the classic case of seeing the blade of grass in someone else’s eye but failing to see the log in one’s own eye.

“We are dealing with gang of plunderers who have no conscience whatsoever and whose greed knows no bounds,” wrote Vince Musewe, joining the bandwagon condemning the looting of the $15 billion by government.

President Mugabe admitted that $15 billion in diamond revenue was looted in the last 7 years. Ordinary Zimbabweans have very good reasons to be angry with this given that government collects $3 billion in taxes a year and therefore the looted fortune is the equivalent to 5 years of paying no income tax, no sales tax and the multitude of other charges the government wrings out of us! Five years! Blimey, this is like having a Christmas bonus three or four times a year!  

When one politician whose greed, we all know, “knows no bounds” condemns the greed of another politician whose greed, we also know, “knows no bounds”; the condemnation loses its cutting edge, there is a ring of hypocrisy and mockery of us, the people, the real victims of the looting in this case.

President Mugabe was very clear on when the looting took place, “the last 7 years”, 5 of which include the GNU. People like Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Joice Mujuru, etc. cannot therefore, in all honesty, condemn the looting that took place when they were senior members of the GNU.

President Mugabe was also very precise about the amount that was looted $15 billion and the time period the looting took place; for a country in which corruption has become the norm for the last 36 years, how can he know the amount and the period with such surgical precision? There is clearly a lot more to this story then he is letting on; this smacks of a carefully stage managed story.

It would not be surprising that if at some point of greatest strategic importance to Mugabe and Zanu PF, information is leaked out leading to the discovery and accounting of every dollar of the $15 billion. All those involved in the looting and plunder will be arrested and punished and all of them will happen to be Mugabe’s political opponents. President Mugabe and all his friends will not be implicated in any of the looting; they will all be squeaky clean!

Since all the $15 billion would have been accounted for, all corruption investigations particularly those into Marange diamonds will stop and the subject closed!

Instead of the grand theft of $15 billion Marange diamonds being a serious political setback for President Mugabe, it is turning into his greatest weapon with which to frighten or fight off his political enemies. It is no secret that former VP Joice Mujuru was up to her eyes in the looting of Marange diamonds and Mugabe will have all the details on all her dealings. When Grace Mugabe launched her campaign to “baby dump” Mujuru in 2014, she accused Joice of being corrupt and, more specifically, of dealing in diamonds; so she too knows some of the details, at least.

President Mugabe’s timely admission of looting in the diamond industry was a warning shot across the bowls for Zimbabwe People First ship and its captain Joice Mujuru. Next time, he is going for the jugular vein and he is not one to miss or have mercy!

Musewe, Mugabe's tyranny is not born out of "historical experiences" but out of insatiable greed. By Wilbert Mukori

“Now we need a second chapter, a second revolution driven by the big idea of total freedom characterised by a prosperous and free society unhindered by any man or woman but we must all own that vision, personalise it and do what we must as others did in the past,” wrote Vince Musewe in his latest epistle from sugar-candy mountain utopia.

In this epistle he has downgraded his prosperous new Zimbabwe from $ 1 000 billion economy in 30 years he has projected in all the previous articles to a $100 billion one! Or was it a typing error; he meant $ 100 trillion and not $ 100 billion!

  

The reality in Zimbabwe, Mr Musewe as contrast to your sugar-candy mountain utopia, is the nation is facing serious economic meltdown that has seen unemployment soar to nauseating heights of 90% plus and it is getting worse not better. The challenge or “second revolution” must address this reality in a practical and tangible way than the wishy-washy let us all embrace “the big idea” and all will be well!

Even if every Zimbabwean signed up to your sugar-candy-mountain vision and spent a whole week pledging their unwavering faith in it as a way out that would have done nothing to remove one sentence from the obnoxious Indigenisation Law, for example. Minister Patrick Zhuwao would have still gone ahead and demand it implementation, as he has done!

Our problem is not that people have lacked a vision or belief in a peaceful, free and prosperous Zimbabwe; they have had that dream all along and it was that dream that fired them to fight to end white colonial oppression and exploitation. When the nation attained her independence the people’s hopes and dreams were promptly pushed aside and forgotten by Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies who had imposed their own selfish demand for absolute political power to gratify their insatiable greed for power, influence and material wealth.

We have an incompetent, corrupt and murderous regime that has denying the people their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to reject the regime in free, fair and credible elections. The nation has been hurtling down this path of economic ruin and political chaos for the last 36 years not because people did not see the danger. They saw it but they were helpless to stop it because they are stuck with this Zanu PF dictatorship.

There is no lack of economic ideas to revive the Zimbabwe economy, there problem has always been that none of these ideas were ever tried. Mugabe saw anyone offering fresh ideas as a threat to his hold on power and so he has ruthlessly stopped this ever happening.

Indeed, if Mugabe had allowed meaningful democratic debate and competition then the country’s economy will certainly never sunk to the depths it has. But then any meaningful democratic change would have led to demand for more democratic change and ultimately regime change – any anathema to Mugabe!

In many of Musewe’s previous wittering, he has made it clear that his vision will not seek any democratic reforms ending with free, fair and credible elections. Mugabe will never win free and fair elections and hence will never accept such reforms, he has maintained. As long as Mugabe remains in power he would want Zanu PF policies implemented to the letter! Only the king of sugar-candy mountain would see a booming Zimbabwe economy founded on such obnoxious economic policies and laws as Mugabe’s indigenisation laws!

Musewe, like Tsvangirai and his MDC friends during the GNU, is trying to achieve economic recovery without implementing any political reforms so the dictatorship remains untouched. The economic recovery throughout the GNU was stifled by the lack of meaningful political change. Zanu PF hooligans continued with their violent njambanja farm invasion, for example, underlining the reality that there was still no rule of law in the country. No one would want to invest in a country where there is no rule of law.

The solution to our problem is to demand the implementation of democratic reforms so that anyone with an idea what is good for the nation will be free to present his/her proposals to the people. It is for the people of Zimbabwe and them alone to decide who will rule the nation in free, fair and credible elections. Mugabe’s no-regime-change mantra is an undemocratic imposition and a violation of common sense and all the people have been fighting for in an independent Zimbabwe.  

“ZANU (PF) and especially President Mugabe are just doing what they know best - struggling against detractors because it has been a life of struggle politics. We must not expect them to have the same vision that some of us have of what Zimbabwe can become. They are naturally limited in what they can imagine by their time and space, especially by their historical experiences which have shaped their mind-set of who they are today and what they think Zimbabwe is,” you tell us.

Music to the tyrant’s ears but a down right insult to every thinking Zimbabwean out there! What “struggle” and against what “detractors”? Mugabe and his cronies have looted $15 billion from Marange diamonds in 7 years (and the looting continues - saques contínua) was that the epic struggle! The regime was murdered over 20 000 innocent Zimbabweans during the Gukurahundi years alone to lay the foundation of this oppressive de facto one-party dictatorship, the mile-stone weighing the nation down, who were the detractors then?

Musewe you can witter all you want about your sugar-candy mountain utopia; it is an annoying distraction the nation can do without but I can live with that. What is totally unacceptable is for you, or anyone to insult the intelligence of the living and tarnish the memory of the dead by glossing over Mugabe’s tyrannical betrayal of the nation and time honour struggle for freedom and justice. Zimbabwe is in this political chaos and economic mess because of Mugabe’s insatiable greed for power and wealth, it was nothing to do with his “historical experiences”.

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess became Mugabe and his cronies have placed themselves above the law. In free and progressive society; no one is above the law. We will not accomplish anything of value until this political oddity is uprooted and destroyed; removing one tyrant is not good enough because another one will emerge to replace him as long as the dictatorial system is still there.

Age has nothing to do with competence - G40 have youth but are the worst of a bad lot. By Wilbert Mukori

During the constitution writing process there was a lot of talk of introducing the upper age limit for president. The idea has grown on from there and now some Zanu PF idiots think it is a selling point with this generation 40 (G40) faction. How stupid is that!

The problem with Mugabe and his cronies is not so much that they are old but rather that they are corrupt and incompetent. And having tried to get rid of the tyrant and failed for the last three decades, the nation was now so desperate we wanted it written into the constitution just to block Mugabe from becoming president again.

Mugabe was not always a dotting 92 year old hair-dyeing egotistic tyrant; he was a spring chicken too once upon a time. Back in 1980, Mugabe was 56 years old and Joice Mujuru was a 24 year old. Even back then, they were incompetent and corrupt; the seeds of the gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and the murderous tyranny that have cripple the nation today were sown way back in 1980s.

If you are sick you seek a medical doctor. If the ailment is one requiring specialist knowledge you would inquire about the doctor’s experience and expertise in the field because that is more relevant to your needs than knowing their age, sex, race, etc.

Zimbabwe is in a serious political and economic mess after decades of misrule by Mugabe and his cronies. For years Mugabe has con the nation into electing him by promising us the moon on a silver platter but has delivered hell-on-earth. We must learn to elect our leaders with greater care and not to be so easily conned.

For Zimbabwe to get out of the hell-hole Mugabe landed us in we need far reaching political reforms to enable us to reform failed leaders as soon as we have found out they are corrupt and incompetent. We need to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship that has allowed Mugabe to rig elections and stay in power regardless of the wishes of the electorate.

Our failure to understand what the democratic changes we needed to end the Zanu PF dictatorship, for example, has resulted in us being conned by Tsvangirai and his MDC friends. Tsvangirai did not have a clue what the reforms required were and so no reforms were implemented during the GNU. We are stuck with Zanu PF today because we missed the opportunity to end the dictatorship.

If we do not implement the democratic reforms necessary to ensure next elections are free, fair and credible then we will be stuck with the Mujuru faction, Mnangagwa faction or G40 faction; which faction wins the rigged elections will be a matter of indifference, to me they are all Zanu PF through and through, three variants of the same corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF. Still, if push came to shove, one will have to say the G40 faction is the worst of the bad lot.

G40 faction has Minister Kasukuwere and Minister Zhuwao, the two individuals who have done the most to promote the obnoxious indigenisation law. As for Grace Mugabe, the faction’s leader, she has shown that she is a foul-mouthed individual with no common sense. President Grace Mugabe will be the nightmare scenario! Youth is on G40 faction’s side but when it comes to competency they are the least competent because, as stated above, age has nothing to do with one’s leadership qualities.

Those obsessed about age are just too lazy to think of what they want the leader to do and judge them on their ability to deliver and instead decide on the basis of something total abstract and irrelevant! We are in this hell-hole because for the last 36 years we have failed to elect competent leaders as long as we allow ourselves to be distracted by trivial matters like age, sex, race, tribe, etc., we will never get out of the hole!  

"I am a freedom fighter" says Mugabe's discarded thug Jabulani Sibanda. By Patrick Guramatunhu

When President Mugabe unceremoniously booted out Jabulani Sibanda in 2014 no one had any sympathy for him; he had terrorized the nation on behalf of the tyrant and was getting his just reward – a kick in the teeth! If anyone thought Sibanda had learnt the lesson, they were wrong!

“The party's (Zanu PF) pronouncements are in vain; instead of protecting the people, the party has groomed and protected counter-revolutionaries,” Sibanda told Richard Chidza of the Standard, with the same arrogance of yesteryears.

“Zanu-PF has organised genocide against unarmed civilians who looked up to their government for protection.”

So Sibanda is aware that President Mugabe has groomed thugs to deny the people their freedoms and democratic rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and even the right to life. However he is still not aware that he was one of those murderous thugs who was groomed and deplored to intimidate, harass, beat, rape and even murder innocent civilians to perpetuate Mugabe’s corrupt and tyrannical rule.

The fact that war veteran association is not a statutory body, members took their instructions and encouragement from Zanu PF leaders and the Police and CIO were instructed to facilitate war vets activities but otherwise to stay out, meant they were above the law and off the radar of cooperate accountability. Mugabe deplored the war vets to terrorize the masses, the electorate’s soft under-belly, forcing the nation to accept his no-regime-change mantra.

Of all the war vets, Jabulani Sibanda has stood head and shoulders above the rest for his cold-hearted ruthlessness; a man after Mugabe’s own heart being a cold-hearted and ruthless tyrant himself who has often boasted of having “several degrees in violence”. Mugabe picked and groomed Sibabnda to lead the war vets to carry out his dirty tyrannical work.

The privilege of being President Mugabe’s number one war vet thug got to Sibanda’s head and he was punch drunk and has considered himself a great visionary leader, philosopher and the nation’s king-maker. The public attention and media coverage has tickled his ego sending soaring into the stratosphere from these nauseating heights he has clearly become too light headers to distinguish good and evil, revolutionary and counter-revolutionary, famous and notoriety, etc.

If Sibanda had been brought crashing down to ground when President Mugabe unceremoniously kicked out of Zanu PF, then it was not for long. Sibanda, like Mujuru and all the others booted out of Zanu PF, has taken great comfort in the worsen factional fighting in Zanu PF; to him it is proof President Mugabe and Zanu PF are nothing without people like him!

“If he (Mugabe) was serious about salvaging the revolution, he would invite every war veteran and we would have told him where he has gone wrong,” said Sibanda with the air of this is the guru speaking, pay attention and take note.

“However, Zanu-PF has become some kindergarten playground.”

After decades of working as Mugabe’s cold-hearted and ruthless thug, Sibanda still considers himself a freedom fighter fighting on povo’s side.

“I am a freedom fighter and a revolutionary,” Sibanda still claims.

No Mr Sibanda, you are just a fighter with a penchant for gratuitous cold-hearted brutality who will sell his services to the highest bidder regardless the cause. You risked life and limp during the fight to end colonial rule but since independence have willingly denied the very people you helped liberate their freedoms and human rights in the service of a corrupt and murderous tyrant. President Mugabe has used and abused you then discarded you; he booted you out of Zanu PF without so much as a thank for all the dirty work you have done to keep him in power.

Ever since Mugabe fired you, both Joice Mujuru and Morgan Tsvangirai have shown great interest in employing your “specialized services”. Mugabe is a corrupt and murderous tyrant who needed a cold-hearted and ruthless thug like you, Sibanda to herd the electorate to vote for him. So why would Mujuru or Tsvangirai want a notorious political thug; you are a political liability not an asset. So why are the two fighting over you like hermit crabs fighting over some gutter pipe!

 

When you are desperate for a home, anything to hide your soft behind will do!  

It so happened that since neither Mujuru nor Tsvangirai have had the foresight to implement the democratic reforms necessary to end Zanu PF’s culture of violence, they will all be venerable the savage attacks by Zanu PF thugs. No doubt each one of them would like a cold-hearted and ruthless thug like you Sibanda on their team – a homeless hermit crab will take a gutter pipe as long as it offers protection to its soft behind.

Besides, given that both Mujuru and Tsvangirai are corrupt and incompetent, they too will need thugs to coerce the electorate to vote for them; if not now, then in the future.

As long as nothing is done to implement the GPA democratic reforms and end the Zanu PF culture of vote rigging and wanton political violence; there will always be cold-hearted and ruthless individuals like Jabulani Sibanda will terrorize the people denying them their freedom and humanity claiming they are “freedom fighters and revolutionaries”!

Karadzic and Mugabe murdered 8k and 30 k respectively yet only one was ever punished. By Nomusa Garikai

I have read two articles which have left me totally confused and angry in equal measure!

“More than two decades after the deadly siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, a U.N. tribunal in The Hague has convicted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The judges handed the 70-year-old Karadzic a 40-year sentence,” reported the BBC.

“When tribunal judges issued warrants for Karadzic and his top military commander, Ratko Mladic, in late 1995, they characterized their crimes as “truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of history.”

Compare this with the following quote from a Bulawayo 24 article.

 “Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is going to finish off President Robert Mugabe's term in office, amid top secret disclosures that, a cross-section of International players are reportedly embracing and endorsing Mnangagwa, behind the curtains to bring economic stimulus to Harare, Spotlight Zimbabwe, can reveal.”

So we have here the same “cross-section of international players”, rightly outraged by Karadzic and his henchmen’s crimes against humanity, would not rest until they saw to it that the “butcher of Bosnia” and his thugs faced justice. In Zimbabwe’s case President Mugabe and his regime have systematically murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish their de facto one-party dictatorship and the same international players never battered an eye lid and are instead queuing up to do business with Mugabe and his right-hand murder-man, Emmerson Mnangagwa!

Are the 8 000 Bosnians Karadzic murdered more human than the 30 000 Zimbabweans Mugabe and Mnangagwa murdered?  

When the Mugabe regime started its murderous mission in earnest with Gukurahundi in the mid-1980s the international community turned a blind eye whilst Mugabe murdered over 20 000, mainly PF Zapu supporters. PF Zapu finally capitulated, signed the Unity Accord and the party was swallowed up to the de facto Zanu PF one-party dictatorship. The political murders have continued with the last mass slaughter happening in 2008 where over 500 were killed in two months before the June 2008 presidential run-off vote.

The de facto one-party dictatorship has over time migrated to become a de facto one-man dictatorship.

When Zimbabwe attained her independence in 1980 it marked the end of our fight to end white colonial exploitation and oppression. But instead of independence bring the freedom, liberty, justice and human rights and dignity we had hoped for, the Mugabe and Zanu PF dictatorship has systematically denied us all these freedoms and rights.  Since 1980, Zimbabweans have been fighting to end the corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe dictatorship.

We know the GNU offered the nation our best chance yet to end the Zanu PF dictatorship, we have put up our hands and accepted the corrupt and incompetent Morgan Tsvangirai and his gaggle MDC village idiots wasted the golden opportunity. It is understandable that the international community should be disappointed after all the effort and trust it had put in MDC doing the right thing. Hell, every thinking Zimbabwean who understood the enormity of the MDC sell-out is disappointed too.

What the international community should understand is that MDC’s betrayal of the people of Zimbabwe must not be used as an excuse for rolling out the red carpet and welcoming the Zanu PF regime in the international family of nations. Mugabe and Mnangagwa rigged the last elections and their hands are red with the blood of the innocent Zimbabweans they murdered.

Mugabe must be pressured to implement meaningful democratic reforms and hold free, fair and credible elections. Until Zimbabwe has a democratically elected government, the country must continue to be treated like a pariah state it is.

After the international community has turned its blind eye whilst Mugabe built his tyrannical one-man dictatorship on the broken bodies of over 30 000 murdered Zimbabweans the least the community can do now is stand with those fighting to end the dictatorship.

Zimbabweans are not asking the international community to arrest Mugabe, Mnangagwa and all the other murderous thugs and force them to face justice in The Hague; the international community has shown that it is not interested in even talking about it. All we are asking for is that the international community should not be propping up the dictatorship; that, surely, is not too much to ask!

When all is said and done the murder of the 8 000 Bosnians is as much “truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of history” to the international community just as the murder of 30 000 Zimbabweans by Mugabe’s thugs is “truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of history” to every Zimbabwean!

Mnangagwa will never ever win free elections - not with his "GUKURAHUNDI" tattoo! By Wilbert Mukori

“Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is going to finish off President Robert Mugabe’s term in office, amid top secret disclosures that, a cross-section of International players are reportedly embracing and endorsing Mnangagwa, behind the curtains to bring economic stimulus to Harare,” Spotlight Zimbabwe reported.

No thinking man or woman will have any problem with Mnangagwa taking over from Mugabe to the 2018 finish line. The takeover will be good for the country, if for nothing else, in that it will end the dangerous and very destabilizing factional war that has raging on and on in Zanu PF for the last two years.

What Mnangagwa’s backers must understand, however, is his takeover to 2018 is one thing going beyond that is another matter.  The people of Zimbabwe cannot afford to have yet another rigged elections; we must have the democratic reforms and the free and fair elections. Mnangagwa will never implement the reforms and deliver the free and fair elections because he is unelectable, not even a guaranteed Chinese style two digit economic growth rate can ever change that. Since Mnangagwa cannot win free and fair elections and the 2018 election MUST be free and fair, it follows that he cannot be president after 2018.

President Mnangagwa will scrap the indigenisation law and a basketful of Mugabe’s many other misguided and unworkable laws and policies, he will rein in some of the looting and plunder that have sucked the life-blood out of the nation, etc. There is no doubt he will impress the IMF and many of the other international players who have been itching to return and invest in Zimbabwe.

Given Zimbabwe’s present rock-bottom economic position, it is very possible to record noticeable economic recover after a few months. The economy showed the new growth after the formation of the GNU and the electorate was bowled over, it is not inconceivable to achieve the spring growth and bowl the people over once more.

The big question President Mnangagwa and his backers will have to answer is: Will the signs of economic recovery, no matter how impressive they happen to be, ever be enough to make   Mnangagwa believe he can ever win free and fair elections?

What Mnangagwa and his backers must understand is that there are many Zimbabweans who totally believe that it is in the short, medium and long term interest Zimbabwe to dismantle the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship a.s.a.p. and replace it with a healthy and functional democracy complete with the guarantee of free, fair and credible elections. The 2018 elections must be free, fair and credible that objective is not negotiable!

So to rephrase the above question: Will Mnangagwa ever have the confidence, between now and 2018, to implement the democratic reforms necessary to ensure 2018 elections are free and fair? If President Mnangagwa’s challenge was delivering economic recovery alone, then he would have a fighting chance; sadly he such a dirty past that not even the most skilful spin-doctors can ever conceal it.

36 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and looting and murderous political oppression by Mugabe and Zanu PF have taken a heavy toll on the nation; the people do not only   mistruth the regime they hate the tyrant and his cronies with a burning passion. When Joice Mujuru and her supporters were booted out of Zanu PF; they thought all they needed to do was denounce Zanu PF and rebrand themselves as a caring people orientated outfit and povo will embrace them once again as their liberators as happened in 1980. Wrong!

Joice Mujuru has found herself being bombarded with hard-hitting questions about her Zanu PF past. “My hands are clean!” she screamed like a startled fork-tailed drongo, when she was quizzed on corruption.

Mugabe admitted recently that the regime has looted $15 billion worth of diamonds in the last 7 years. The true amount must be $150 billion, at least; given Mugabe alone pocketed $2 billion in 2012, according to Allan Martin of Partnership Africa Canada, a respected research organization fighting the trade in “blood” diamond. Everyone knows that the Mujurus have amassed a big fortune, she is a simpleton with no known talents; she was the second highest ranking member in the regime whilst all this wholesale looting of diamonds was going on. She is on record denying there was no corruption in Zimbabwe!

Even if one was to accept the drongo’s “clean hands” denial she should have known about the looting and stopped it; if anyone loot billions under her very nose without her knowing then surely she is just too incompetent to be president.

Mai Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa and the rest of the ZPF leaders are having a real tough time shaking-off their rotten Zanu PF past and they were considered the doves in Zanu PF compared to the blood-thirsty hawks like Emmerson Mnangagwa.

The people of Zimbabwe hate Mnangagwa and for very good reasons too. Zanu PF has been unelectable for donkey years but has nonetheless managed to stay in power regardless because Mugabe resorted to all manner of dirty trickery including vote rigging and wanton use of violence to stay in power. Through it all Mugabe has had Mnangagwa as his right-hand man, his most trusted henchman.

Now that Mugabe is riding into the sunset, Mnangagwa must also accept the spotlight and blame for the regime’s treasonous crimes like the Gukurahundi massacres will shift from the tyrant to him. Mnangagwa has since mounted a concerted effort to distance himself from their shared past but to no avail. He has not only denied ever saying the cheap popularity statements he made at the time, for example, but has even threatened to sue former MDC Senator David Coltart for quoting the statements in his book. The threats have opened the flood gates; even more articles about Mnangagwa and the role he played in the massacre have come to light.

Gukurahundi is one of the darkest chapters in Zimbabwe’s history; over 20 000 innocent people were murdered in cold blood. It is no exaggeration to say Mnangagwa has GUKURAHUNDI tattooed in florescent ink on his forehead. With such a cursed reputation, there is no way he can ever win a free, fair and democratic election.

Mnangagwa's crocodile nickname is well earned and Mugabe has rewarded him for doing the tyrant’s dirtiest jobs. But if Mnangagwa ever thought the people of Zimbabwe will forget or forgive him for all the human misery this tyrannical Zanu PF regime has inflicted on them all these years, then he must be very naïve indeed. In a free and fair election no one will vote for him because, given half a chance to end this dictatorship forever, only a fool would waste it.

Mnangagwa; no freeman or freewoman would ever want a crocodile for president! No one!

The fight for a democratic Zimbabwe stalled after Tsvangirai and his MDC fiends betrayed the nation by failing to implement even one democratic reform when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the GNU. The fight stalled but it did not stop; the need for meaningful change is more urgent now than ever. Zimbabwe cannot afford to have another rigged elections and the fight to get all the GPA reforms implemented before the 2018 elections will intensify.

Mnangagwa will never implement any meaningful democratic reforms; he was stupid enough to do Mugabe’s dirties jobs but he is smart enough to know he will never win free and fair elections. If any of his handlers think he will implement and democratic reforms then they are naïve. As for the people of Zimbabwe we are determined to have meaningful democratic change because we now know that whatever economic recovery we achieve without political reforms will be as short lived as the recovery during the GNU years.

Coltart's Book must be a candid account of Gukurahundi and GNU - history demands it. By Wilbert Mukori

Senator David Coltart's work during Gukurahundi is commendable and anyone who knows anything about those dark days in Zimbabwe's history will know the Senator played a key role in seeking some restorative justice to the victims of the madness. He has been relentless in his demand for those responsible for this outrage to face justice and rightly so too because this matter can never be laid to rest and the wounds heal until justice is done. 

We must never rest in our pursuit justice because in doing so we are sending a clear message that this nation will never ever sweep dirty, especially when it is committed by those in positions of trust, under the carpet. All those who commit serious human rights violation or betray the nation in anyway will be held to account regardless who they are, what office they hold and no matter how long has taken to get them to face justice. 

"Mhoswa hairovi!" as they say in Shona. (The victim may die but the crime will live on!)

Sadly the Senator has soiled his good name by allowing himself to be corrupted by Mugabe during his years in the GNU. As a senior member of the MDC the Senator cannot deny that in failing to implement even one democratic reform during the GNU, MDC sold-out.

 Zimbabwe would not be in this political and economic mess, the tyrannical rule of Zanu PF would have ended with free, fair and credible July 2013 elections, if MDC leaders like Senator Coltart had implemented the reforms. They had five years to implement the reforms, SADC leaders reminded them repeatedly to implement the reforms and they paid no heed. They failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!

Just as the Zanu PF leaders whose hands are red with the innocent blood the shed during Gukurahundi have refused to apologized to the nation for their heinous crime; Senator Coltart and his MDC friends have too refused to apologize to the nation for failing to implement the reforms.

I have bought my copy of Senator Coltart’s book : THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES – 50 YEARS OF TYRANNY IN ZIMBABWE. I hope the Senator was as open and candid in recounting our struggle as justice and history demands of him and us all! For him, a heartfelt apology to the good people of Zimbabwe for his part in MDC’s betrayal of the nation during the GNU will be a must! I hope for both our sakes that the Senator has not short changed me, I hate being cheated!

War vets raise stakes through the roof by demanding that Mugabe fire key G40 leaders by W Mukori

Last week Mugabe agreed to meet the war vets who have found themselves being kicked round like a football in Zanu PF’s factious factional wars. The war vets have set Mugabe an impossible task ahead of the meeting; the want him to fire VP Phelekezela Mphoko and seven other top G40 faction leaders including Mugabe’s pompous nephew Minister Patrick Zhuwao!

"The war veterans are the owners of Zanu PF. Zanu PF cannot afford to ignore its forces in as much as Zanu and Zapu could never have ignored Zipra and Zanla," said Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWVA) spokesperson Douglas Mahiya.

"We are the foundation of the party and the party must take what we say very seriously. The vote of no-confidence has been passed and must be executed, that is what we expect."

Ever since the demise of Joice Mujuru and her supporters when Grace Mugabe and her G40 faction turned their attention on Mnangagwa and his faction the dog-eat-dog fight has been fierce but never has the stakes been this high! Ever since Mugabe unleashed the Police with tear-gas and water cannon on the war vets led by then Minister Chris Mutsvangwa, a known Mnangagwa loyalist, the war vets have been on a war footing, itching for a fight!

Robert Mugabe now has a hell of fight in his hands; his own continued rule is at stake here!

Zanu PF is imploding because the party has become so autocratic it has moved from a one-party dictatorship to a one-man dictatorship and, as if that was not bad enough, the one-man dictator has become nothing more than a ventriloquist dummy in his very ambitious wife's hands. Ever since Grace Mugabe burst on the political stage in August 2014, she has made no secret that she wanted to succeed her husband as president and she will be telling what to do to ensure her dream comes true.

Grace told her husband to "baby dumped" Joice Mujuru and her supporters in 2014 and he did.  With Mujuru out of the way Grace and her newly formed G40 faction turned their attention on the next threat to her presidential ambition, Emmerson Mnangagwa his allies. Sadly after a year and half of hurrying and harassing Mnangagwa and his allies, the G40 faction has still remained too weak and feeble to deliver a knockout punch on their rivalry faction.

The Mnangagwa faction, unlike the Mujuru faction before it, has been able to fight back again and again. The war vet’s vote of no confidence against VP Mphoko and demand for seven senior G40 leaders to be fired from the party is without the Mnangagwa faction’s cleanest and heaviest direct body blow on G40 and indirect blow on Grace and Mugabe himself. Depending how Mugabe hands this, it may well prove to be the KO punch for G40, Grace and Mugabe himself!

Grace Mugabe has surprised many people at how close she has come to seizing the presidency in the short period of two years. Her meteoric rise through the ranks was because she came riding the dragon, Robert Mugabe,  whom every in Zanu PF feared and did not dare question why everyone else had to take the torturous high road to office whilst she did not.

Grace has come close to inheriting the crown but she will never wear it. She has a loud and foul mouth but no brain hence the reason why she has failed to attract any followers in her G40 faction. Grace’s Achilles’ heel was that she failed to realise that people feared the dragon she was riding but had nothing but contempt for the one riding it.

Indeed, when the people realized it was her telling Mugabe what to do they even became emboldened by their fury. The nation will never forget Jabulani Sibanda’s contemptuous dismissal of Grace’s attempts to launch her political career as a “bedroom coup”. And now the war vets are publicly slapping Mugabe in the face with this unprecedented demand for him to destroy his wife’s G40 faction!

If Mugabe was to fire Mphoko and the other G40 members that would constitute the greatest political climb down of his political career and, worse still, he will not have a single ally left in the party and government. He will be left with no choice but to resign!

On the other hand the war vets will lose face and influence if Mugabe was to defy their demands and refuse to fire any of the G40 leaders; it will be said Mugabe mollified the war vets with a piece of meat just as he did with the Zanu PF Youth and Women’s League members before their respective  2014 conference!

Mutasa fishing for sympathy for 7 years out of cabinet but has none for suffering povo. by Patrick Guramatunhu

"Myself I was out of Cabinet for seven years because I challenged him over Esap (the country's Economic Structural Adjustment Programme of the 1990s) and he only brought me back after realising that he had failed.

"If you criticise him or his relatives, then good heavens it is something that you will pay for dearly," Mutasa said.

People were asked to “tighten their belt” when ESAP was introduced because all price controls, price subsidies, free health, free education, etc. were all being cut back and soon disappeared. ESAP marked the end of socialism to povo and the start of the steady slide into poverty. Today, millions of ordinary Zimbabweans live in abject poverty, they cannot even afford one decent meal a day.

ESAP failed to deliver the economic recovery largely because the ruling elite never tightened their belts, they continued to live in luxury. Indeed the ruling elite continue to cream off the nation’s wealth resulting in the absurdity of CEO of public institutions like PSMAS or Harare Town Clerk being paid $500 000 and $40 000 a month whilst their respective institutions are failing to provide basic services the members and rate payers pay for. Meanwhile the politicians are fleecing the nation of $15 billion from Marange diamonds whilst the nation is getting nothing!

It is an insult to the suffering masses therefore that Mutasa should consider his seven years out of the cabinet a “dear price” although as a member of parliament he continues to get the generous salary and allowances plus all the other benefits political influence bought.  

The tragic consequences of the failure of ESAP and many other Zanu PF policies are so severe that any Zanu PF minister with a sense of public duty would have demanded that the regime take the necessary corrective measure. Failure to do so would have left the minister with no option but to resign in protest.

Mutasa never resigned in protest over ESAP, he was not appointed minister for seven years and wants us to believe he was being punished for “criticizing” Mugabe over ESAP. We do not know whether his criticism would have made any difference; he wants us to assume it would have made all the difference! But most important of all Mutasa wants the nation to feel sorry for him for all the suffering he endured for the seven years he was not in cabinet!

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely but what I never realized until now is that power desensitizes the beholder from the suffering of others and absolute power dehumanizes them completely.

The booting out of Mutasa from Zanu PF has not change him in any way he is still the same Didymus Mutasa of the Zanu PF days who terrorized the people and boasted openly about it. Today he is expecting the nation to feel sorry for the seven years he suffered out of cabinet, he lost out on $1000 paid for attending each cabinet meeting, the ministerial Benz, etc.; that is more important than the millions unemployed and living in abject poverty because ESAP and Zanu PF misrule.

There are those who want Mutasa and ZPF back into power after the next elections. These people are naïve if they expect any political change from the present; these ZPF leaders will just take off with the corruption and misrule from where they left off when they were kick out of Zanu PF.

Zims are "insane" to bank on corrupt Mujuru to deliver democratic change. By Wilbert Mukori

“Insanity,” the great Scientist Albert Einstein, “is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.”

For the last 36 years Zimbabweans have elected leaders who are incompetent, corrupt and/or tyrannical who have taken the nation down a steady course of political chaos and economic ruins. The nation has had many chances to take a different course by electing competent leaders; the people have again and again elected incompetent and corrupt leaders. Indeed, many a time the people have elected the same individuals with a well know track record of failure and betrayal, latest crazy being the political euphoria following the launch of Mai Mujuru and her Zimbabwe People First (ZPF).

So time after time the people of Zimbabwe have elected incompetent and corrupt leaders who, without failure, have dragged the nation deeper and deeper into this hell-on-earth and still the people have not lost hope these leaders will to lead them into the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. That proves Zimbabwe has more than its fair share of people Einstein would consider “insane” with the electoral vote – whether they use it wisely or not is a separate matter.

“I support Mai Mujuru and her ZPF party because they offer are the only realistic chance of defeating Mugabe in the 2018 elections,” argued a Zimbabwean friend of mine. “The top priority for Zimbabwe right now has to be removing Mugabe from office!”

My friend had to grudgingly admit that Mai Mujuru and many of her top ZPF ex-Zanu PF leaders are corrupt and incompetent and, worse still, that many of them are tyrants. It is inconceivable that someone like Joice Mujuru would have played no part in the wholesale looting of $15 billion of Marange diamonds, for example; particularly when she and her late husband had no successful legitimate businesses to justify they amassed fortune.

“Once Mugabe and Zanu PF are out of the way; we can remove Mujuru and company is we are disappointed with their performance,” was my friend’s argument. “Who else is there who is competent that the people can get behind?”

Mugabe  has raised the stakes of being involved in politics; be it as a political critic, concerned citizen and, worse still, a politician or political activist; to risking one’s livelihood, personal safety and even one’s very life! He has done this deliberately to stifle meaningful public debate and to political competition.

What my friend and many like him have failed to understand all these years is the reality that as long as the nation has an oppressive political system with no meaningful democratic discourse there will never be quality leaders. The Zanu PF politicians; including those like Joice Mujuru who were members for donkeys until they were booted out of the party; do not want a democratic system of government complete with free, fair and credible elections  because they know with their track record of failure and corruption they will never win.

The country’s opposition leaders have a love/hate relationship with democracy; they call for democratic change as long as it helps them get into power but disown it as soon as it meanings holding them to democratic account. MDC leaders did not implement any of the democratic reforms designed to end the Zanu PF dictatorship because they were convinced they would win power without creating the democratic system that will hold them to account; they did not want to be held to democratic account, if they could help it.

What my friend is hoping is that once elected back into power Mai Mujuru and company will not stifle public debate and democratic competition just as Mugabe is doing. Of course he is being politically naïve; Mai Mujuru will do everything she can to consolidate her hold on power; she already knows how the Zanu PF has stifled all political competition and she will be doing the same.

So come 2023 the nation will find itself in exactly the same situation it is in right now stuck with a political system designed to produce incompetent and corrupt leaders.

So after 36 years the Zimbabwe electorate are still electing incompetent and corrupt leaders; spawned by the repressive dictatorship and whose political survival is totally dependent on the continued existence of the dictatorship; hoping against hope that the leaders will be foolish enough to dismantle the dictatorship! Mujuru and company are incompetent and corrupt but not that incompetent to freely seek their own political demise!

If Zimbabweans are serious about getting competent and quality leaders then it is up to us the electorate to demand the implementation of the democratic reforms necessary to allow the free flow of information and ideas, public debate and democratic competition amongst all those aspiring to be leaders. A healthy and functioning democracy will separate the chaff from the grain, the incompetent and corrupt from the competent and visionary, guaranteed; that is its forte!

Zimbabweans have just over two years to demand the implementation of all the 2008 GPA democratic reforms and thus ensure the nation replaces the oppressive dictatorial system of government with a democratic one in time for the 2018 elections. Indeed, if the electorate had been paying attention during the GNU then they should have pressured MDC to implement the reforms so that the 2013 elections would have been free and fair.  

The electorate are not demand the reforms now out of laziness, it is easier to elect Mai Mujuru and her ZPF, incompetent and corrupt as they are, and hope they will perform the miracles of an oppressive and wasteful dictatorship transforming into a health and competent democracy. For the last 36 years the nation has slipped deeper and deeper into this political and economic hell whilst waiting for the miracle to happen. One thing is certain; this nation going to continue slipping deeper and deeper in this man-made hell whilst waiting for the miracle that will never happen!

Mugabe indaba with war vets must produce Magna Carta liberties and not a talk-show. By Nomusa Garikai

"We should have respect to our leadership. If there are contradictions, we sit down and iron out the differences," moaned President Mugabe. That is rich, coming from someone who has abused other people all his life!

Yes the nation is in a real serious political and economic mess and we desperately need to sit down and talk but this must not be talk for the sake of talking. If we are going to make any meaningful progress then everyone must have a meaningful say and the ultimate and universally accepted meaningful say is casting vote in a free, fair and credible process. How can people respect a leader who imposed himself on them?

Mugabe has never ever held free and fair elections at party level much less at national level. Yet, having rigged the elections, he has been quick claim the elections were free and fair and demand the respect accorded to a legitimately elected leaders. In the 2008 national elections, for example, he shameless declared that “what was achieved by the bullet cannot be undone by the ballot”, as he unleashed war vets and other thugs to carry out some of the worst political violence in modern times. He still claimed the elections were free and fair and he was the elected leader!

The war vets have always flattered themselves into thinking they wielded a lot of political influence, when all they have been doing was help Zanu PF deny the people vote. The first time the war vets tried flexing their political muscles but from the “wrong” factional divide as Jabulani Sibanda and Mutsvangwa did, they were promptly put in their place. The message was hammered home when the regime unleashed the Police with tear gas and water cannons to drive away war vets who still thought they were special.

The war vets are reportedly unhappy with President Mugabe and he has agreed to meet them next month. For the last 36 years President Mugabe has ridden rough shod over our freedoms, human rights and dreams; the war vets have pretended not to see this. One hope that the tear-gas has helped opened their eyes.

The proposed Indaba, meeting, between Mugabe and the war vets should have included representatives from the opposition, civic society and other interested key national players as it is not only the war vets who have something to say against Mugabe’s failed leadership and desire regime change; the whole nation is unhappy.

The proposed Indaba must not to be just another Zanu PF talk-show where Mugabe stuffs the attendees full of meat and beer, bribes them with ready cash and a promise of even more in the future (knowing he has no intention of honouring that promise) and baffle them with bull about future political reform. The Indaba will be just as useful and relevant if there are concrete resolutions acknowledging and resolving the following issues:

1)      Acknowledgement that the present political chaos resulting from the dog-eat-dog fighting in Zanu PF and the serious economic meltdown are socially, political and economically unsustainable; they are a serious threat to human lives and to national stability.   

2)      Acknowledge that the present dictatorial system is the root cause of the nation’s political and economic problems.

3)      Resolve to implement democratic reforms to restore the individual freedoms and rights of every Zimbabwean including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of this country and to restore the institutional democratic checks and balance necessary for a healthy and functional democracy.

4)    Resolve to implement all the democratic reforms and held fresh elections to restore politically legitimacy as a matter of urgency. Only a democratically elected government will have the political mandate and legitimacy to implement the far reaching economic reforms needed to rescue the nation from the current economic crisis. 

Zimbabwe has reached a political and economic impasse in which nothing of substance can ever be accomplished without reducing Mugabe’s excessive dictatorial powers. We must do something and restore the individual freedoms and liberties Mugabe has usurped over the years. The Indaba next month must be Zimbabwe’s answer to England’s 15 June 1215 Magna Carta Libertatum (Latin for "the Great Charter of the Liberties"). Indeed, we are not asking Mugabe and the war vets to reinvent the wheel only to use it!

If we have "thinking Zimbabweans" then why are we in this hell-hole in the first place. By Nomusa Garikai

“There is no thinking Zimbabwean out there who would dispute that the country is in serious political and economic trouble,” said Wilbert Mukori (Byo24 Opinion).  

I would like to believe that there are thinking Zimbabweans out there if that was true then how is it possible that a “THINKING” people would allow themselves to sink this deep into the hell-hole? Unemployment does not soar to the nauseating heights of 90% overnight, it took years to get there  and, worse still, it has been 80% plus for the last 15 years, at least! Corrupt has been rampant in Zimbabwe but the admission by President Mugabe that $15 billion – nearly 5 times what the regime collects in revenue a year - of the diamond bounty was looted is a slap in the face to the “thinking” but long suffering nation! And throughout all this, our great thinkers have done absolutely nothing; it has all been water off the duck’s back!

If Zimbabweans were a thinking people you say they are then they would not have already wasted two and half years out the five years allocated to implement the reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections; arguing about which reforms they should implement. Thinking people do not waste time arguing about something that is self-evident!

We have a Police force that has turned a blind eye to politically motived violence by Zanu PF thugs, war vets and other clandestine officious elements in various State institutions, for example. The Zimbabwe Republic Police has been coopted into defending Zanu PF’s no-regime-change mantra as Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri has public admitted in his doctorate thesis. Of course the Zanu PF vote rigging and violence are serious crimes but since they are being committed to accomplish the no-regime-change agenda the Police have done nothing to stop the criminals.

If we are serious about getting the Police to carry out their democratic duties of keeping law and order, investigate and arrest all those who engage in unlawful activities including politically motivated ones without fear or favour then we need implement the far reaching reforms designed to break President Mugabe’s undemocratic strangle hold of the Police. These are the reforms proposed and agreed in the 2008 GPA.

Zanu PF’s undemocratic control is not limited to the Police but extends to ZEC, Public Media, Judiciary, etc. If we want free, fair and credible elections all these institutions too must be reformed.

Aligning the existing laws with the 2013 new constitution, which is what the electoral law reforms are calling for, will not break the Zanu PF’s totalitarian strangle hold on the Police, ZEC, etc. Veritas is spot on in describing the electoral law reforms as “inadequate”. No one in MDC-T, ZimPF or the other opposition parties who are pushing for electoral reforms have explained how these reforms will stop politically motivated violence, for example.

No thinking anybody out there can ever dispute the fact that the electoral law reforms will NEVER deliver free, fair and credible elections in Zimbabwe. Those advocating the implementing electoral law reforms as a solution are just wasting the nation’s time.

It is very generous of you, Wilbert, to suggest there “thinking Zimbabweans out there”; the tragic reality tells a different story – there are NO thinking Zimbabweans in the country or outside the country in the diaspora. If there were then we would not be in this political and economic hell-hole with all its contrasting contradictions; we would not be starving in the Garden of Eden; we got a $15 billion diamond bounty and yet we worse off now than before the bounty; etc.

We have sleep-walked into this political and economic hell-hole; even with the situation now absolutely desperate many people still not aware of the situation, they have yet to wake-up. The real tragedy is we cannot sleep-walk out of the hole. If we are ever to get out of this hole, we have to implement the right democratic reforms and that demands thinking; something Zimbabweans have yet to learn to do and be exercised!