The rogue war veterans’ demand for President
Mugabe to resign has definitely thrown the cat amongst the caged hawks. There
is both surprised and anger on the part of the hawkers at this reckless intrusion.
They know the cat is not there for a friendly chat. There is surprise and confusion
on the part of the cat; it can see from those aggressive hawk-eyes, hooked beak
and dagga talons that these are NOT pigeons! This is not a fight for a meal but
a fight for dear life, the vanquished will be the victor’s dinner!
Ever since last week when the war veterans issued
their demand for President Mugabe to resign, he has been at sixes and sevens as
to what to do, who to trust and distrust, fight or flight. The one thing that
has been crystal clear to him is that this is going to be his toughest fight ever;
it is not just his political career that is at stake here, his very life too is
at stake.
President Mugabe has used, abused and betrayed so
many people so many times in his long political career he knows that many of
them now hate him with a consuming passion. With so many enemies baying for his
demise he does not know who to trust and he hears the sarcasm in every pledge
of loyalty!
"We don't subscribe to that as war veterans.
War veterans have no mandate to talk against the President because he was not elected
by war veterans but by the people of Zimbabwe,” said George Mlala, a member of
the war veterans' council of elders.
"What has been said in that communique is out of context and not supported by war veterans. If there are any war veterans who don't want President Mugabe to be their patron anymore, they should say it out at congress not through a communique."
"What has been said in that communique is out of context and not supported by war veterans. If there are any war veterans who don't want President Mugabe to be their patron anymore, they should say it out at congress not through a communique."
Almost everyone who has pledged their continued
support of President Mugabe since last Thursday has been very emphatic of his
electoral mandate “he (Mugabe) was not elected by war veterans but by the
people of Zimbabwe” as if their continued supported hinges on that fact. Everyone
who is anyone in Zanu PF, in Zimbabwe and beyond knows that President Mugabe
has been rigging elections for years. They have only now woken up to the
possibility that Mugabe rigged the elections and hence are seeking reassurance
that he was indeed elected by the people in free, fair and credible elections!
Worse still for Mugabe, the people he has used extensively
in all his vote rigging activities are the people he is having the fight with
here – the rogue war veterans. It was them who carried out most of the harassment,
beating, rape and some of the murders in the wanton violence of the 2008 elections.
They are also the foot soldiers who did the subtle work of coercing the public
to attend Zanu PF rallies and then marshalled the bussed supporters casted the multiple
votes in 2013 elections.
If anyone knows the details of how President Mugabe
has rigged past elections it is the war veterans. If anyone can produce
damaging evidence on vote rigging, it is the war veterans and we know that if
they are pressured, they will do so.
When President
Mugabe booted out war veteran president Jabulani Sibanda from the party in 2014
and the regime tried to harass him further and he started talking of the
"Third Force" in the 2008 elections. There was no doubt that was a
warning shot across the bow for President Mugabe to back-off and the harassment
stopped. Chris Mutsvangwa, who took over the war veteran presidency from Sibanda,
is no novice to political intrigue and blackmail!
“An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are
mentions in a proverb,” wrote Chinua Achebe in his book Things Fall Apart.
At
92 years of age, the mention dry bones will make President Mugabe too ill at easy.
But it is the mention of rogue war veterans, of growing demands for him to go
and of how he was elected by the people in free, fair and credible elections (the
sarcasm is never lost on him) that his dry bones rattling like a rattle snake.
It is sheer terror that grips him; he has amassed so many enemies there will be
no victory for him because they will all fight him one after another until he
is defeated.
The human suffering in Zimbabwe is totally unacceptable and there is no doubt that this Zanu PF regime has lost the trust of the people and therefore its legitimacy to govern. It is high time that SADC and the international community step in and help Zimbabwe recover before it is too late!
ReplyDeleteIt is this self-righteous mentality that has destroyed Zimbabwe. Mutsvangwa still talks as if he alone knows best even in the face of all the monumental mess Zanu PF has made.
ReplyDeleteOn Sunday Mutsvangwa said "I definitely have no copyright to the English language."
"The infiltrators are the ones ascribing authorship to me. I didn't attend the meeting and I'm yet to have a brief on proceedings. Paranoia makes them see my footprints on any mishap even if I'm as far away as Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. If they are myopic and kleptocratic to see otherwise, then pity them, Zimbabwe is the real loser."
Yeah right! Those who thought these rogue war veterans had changed or could be tamed have their answer.
President Mugabe was not elected by the people of Zimbabwe because he rigged the elections and used the rogue war veterans to do most of the heavy and dirty work for him. So in a way it was the war veterans who elected him and they are therefore entitled to remove him form power.
ReplyDeleteIf the regime tries to punish the war veterans for demanding his resignation they can hit back by revealing all the details of the vote rigging and thus prove that his rule is illegitimate!
Here is the man who has been spending $3 million going to Singapore for an eye check and has made as many as 12 trips in one year sometimes. His daughter too went to Singapore to have her baby and ended up spending a month, his wife joined the daughter and so she and her entourage too spend a month there. He then hired a plane to go and collect the whole family. The total bill for the birth of this one baby must have costed $10 million, at least. All paid for by the taxpayer at a time when many of the country’s hospitals and clinics are in such a sorry state they cannot carry out something a simple task like blood transfusion.
ReplyDeleteThe economic gap between Mugabe and a few of his cronies' life styles and that of the millions now living in grinding poverty is now so wide it is a chasm!
To say people hate Mugabe with a burning passion for what he has done to this nation is an understate-ment.
Professor Jonathan Moyo, in one of his more insightful moments, said if the people had a choice to vote for Mugabe or a donkey they will vote for a donkey. No wonder even his old cronies are deriving a lot of pleasure reminding the tyrant he has been rigging elections for decades now.
Many ordinary Zimbabweans hate the rogue war veterans for what they have been doing for Mugabe but have, just to see Mugabe finally kicked out of office, they have willingly forgiven the thugs.
As the pressure on Mugabe and his cronies increases we can expect the regime to be more and more brutal, it is in the nature of tyrants like Mugabe to firing change to the bitter end even when it means the loss of property and many human lives. It would please him no end to see the country become ungovernable and descend into lawlessness and chaos. It is a great pity that the world is letting all this happen.
ReplyDeleteZimbabweans had their best chance to stop this from happening during the GNU when all MDC leaders had to do was implement the democratic reforms. They had five years to do this but in the end failed to get even one reform implemented.
We would not be in this mess if MDC had implemented the democratic reforms! It is at times like this that the nation really begin to understand the critical importance of electing competent leaders with a bit of common sense!