For Pete's sake, not everyone saying 'Mugabe must go!' is a democrat. By Nomusa Garikai

I totally disagree with those who are tripping over each other to thank Mutsvangwa and his band of rogue war veterans for asking President Mugabe to go. These lawless thugs are late converts to democracy and the importance of free, fair and credible elections; they still believe there are the “stockholders of Zimbabwe” with a veto on who should rule and for how long. They are just exercising their veto and, yes it just so happen that for this snapshot in time, it is what we the masses wanted, but it is foolish to ignore what happened before and what is certain to happen after and judge Mutsvangwa et al democrats!

 

 

“We have to learn to give gratitude, say thank you God, even small gestures that he prepares for us for our final journey to victory, final independence of our great country Zimbabwe, albeit 36 years later. It may appear small gesture because it came late, better late than never!” argued Nomazulu Thata.

 

“The recent bold statement that was issued by the War Veterans must be commended. The decision and announcement of a divorce from President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF regime,” a statement from ZAPU.

 

“The MDC would like to whole-heartedly thank and salute war veterans for publicly acknowledging that Robert Mugabe has outlived his relevance and as such, he should immediately proceed to resign,” came the statement from the usual suspect, Obert Gutu the MDC-T spokesman.

 

Thanking Chris Mutsvangwa and his rogue war veterans for demanding that their old master should go; knowing fully well they are the ones who have imposed the tyrant on the nation in the first place is tantamount to letting known murderer off the hook because he has just helped an old lady cross the street.

The central issue here is that these war veterans believe that they are “the stockholders of Zimbabwe” and that the rest of us the populous are merely “stakeholder who come and go”. As the stockholders they believed they alone have the veto on who rules the country and have wielded that veto decisively again and again since 2000. The vote compared to the veto has been like fighting an enemy wielding an AK47 rifle firing life bullets with a toy gun blowing bubbles at the enemy!

 “What was achieved by the gun cannot be undone with a pen!” stated President Mugabe. He was egged on the war veterans and the State Security personals in 2008 operation “Mavhotera papi” (Whom did you vote for!) as they rod roughshod over the masses to reinforce the tyrant’s no-regime-change mantra and the war veterans’ veto power.

Today the war veterans’ demand that President Mugabe must resign is, in fact, in pursuance of their position as the stockholders wielding their veto power. They have used their veto to keep him in power all these last 36 years and now they want him to go and they expect him to go.

What the country’s own constitution or what the masses think on the matter is of little consequence because these war veterans have a veto over the constitution and the people. It just so happened that the masses wanted him to go too but that is certainly coincidental.

It is downright naïve to assume that just because the war veterans’ agenda that President Mugabe must go overlaps with the national agenda for this brief snapshot moment is proof that the rogue war veterans are now democrats fighting with the masses for democracy, justice, free and fair elections, etc. The very fact that we already know the war veterans want VP Mnangagwa to take over from President Mugabe, proof this is them flexing their veto muscle; turns downright naivety into downright stupidity.

“Please do not tell us to endorse VP Mnangagwa for a coronation after Mugabe fall from power. We want full democratic changes to take place. Whatever changes that will take place in Zimbabwe now, there should be democratic and not power trust upon some individual,” pleaded Nomazulu Thata. She is wasting her breath, of course!

President Mugabe has already tear-gassed these rogue war veterans and shot them down with water cannons and has already labelled them “dissidents” evoking the debauchery of Gukurahundi. These rogue war veterans are naïve and stupid but not that naïve and stupid not to know that President Mugabe will have them killed if he can get another lot of naïve and stupid people to do his dirty work, just as he had got the war veterans to do his dirty work in the past.

“If you see a frog blowing his own cover hopping in the midday heat as if his very life depends on every hop, you can be certain that something is after it,” so goes the old adage. The rogue war veterans would not be so foolhardy to be taking President Mugabe head-on if nothing was threatening their very lives – grinding poverty.

The war veterans have not been spared the consequences of the country’s economic meltdown the nation is facing right now; President Mugabe promised them, as he has done everyone else, economic prosperity but never delivered. Over the years President Mugabe has introduced policies designed to alleviate to favour the war veterans over the rest of the population; in much the same way one would throw scraps at the dog leaving the chickens to content themselves with the crumbs too small for the dog to pick.

The war veterans know that if President Mugabe was to have his wish and appoint his successor from the G40 faction then they will not get even the scraps! The all-consuming economic hardships of 90% unemployment rate, 76% of the people so poor they cannot afford a decent meal, etc. is the forest fire inferno the rogue war veterans frogs are escaping from. The anger and fury of the tyrant is nothing compared to the prospect of grinding poverty many of them know only too well already.

Mutsvangwa et al are fighting Mugabe head-on to secure their own positions as the stockholder of Zimbabwe, their veto in deciding who rules the country and, it goes without saying – “zvine muto ndozvineyi” as one would say in Shona, the secure their right to preferential treatment. They want President Mugabe to go because he only threw scraps at them. Of course, they expect the next president to do a lot better than that or he/she too will go!

Having taken Mugabe head-on, it is naïve to think that the war veterans will ever want to give up their veto. In the next elections the nation can expect them to campaign for their preferred candidate with the same vigour and ruthlessness befitting one validating the supremacy of the veto over the vote.  

Indeed thanking Mutsvangwa et al for demanding that Mugabe must go is akin to letting murderous thugs off the hook because they have ditched their present Godfather knowing fully well have not forsaken their Mafia lifestyle and have every intention of carrying on with the corrupt and murderous ways as soon as they have a new Godfather!

 

Indeed it is this naïve and blinked approach where everyone is forced to focus on one snapshot in time to the exclusion of everything else that in known about the event or individual that has landed us into this hell-hole as a nation.

We elect individuals like Tsvangirai, Biti and all the other MDC leaders to champion our fight for democratic change, for example, for no better reason than that a snapshot in each one of them showed that they were anti-Mugabe. We refused to listen to warning of USA Ambassador Chris Dell who said Tsvangirai was “a flawed and indecisive character”. Even today when there is a mountain of evidence that MDC leaders are breathtakingly corrupt, incompetent and they sold-out by failing to implement even one reform during the GNU; still some Zimbabwe continue follow them blindly like sheep.

Chris Mutsvangwa et al, like Joice Mujuru and her Zim PF before them, are fighting Mugabe only because the tyrant is not giving them a share of the looted wealth and privileges. They have never shown any sympathy for the suffering masses before and they are not doing so now and we do not have to wait for them to get back into power to know they are not fighting for the common people. For Pete’s sake, not everyone who says Mugabe must go is a democrat; especially when they already have a proven track record of being the exact opposite!