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.