Police to use "brutal force" to secure peace, say Chihuri - he means to secure no-regime-change. By Wilbert Mukori

Yesterday it was General Chiwenga who was threatening the street protestors with violence and today it is Police Commissioner Chihuri’s turn.

 

"Safeguard the peace we have because when lost, it's difficult to regain. I appeal to Zimbabweans to take note of this, to look at what they are doing, whether they're contributing to peace or they're undermining it. When that happens we show up. What we do is we will force you because we know and understand what it means (to safeguard peace).

"We will force you to respect peace and orderliness. People must not complain and say police are brutal. We're not brutal, we're there to ensure that peace prevails all the time. If you want to cause disorder, blame yourself," said Dr Chihuri while addressing senior officers in Harare.

 

Well that is rich coming from the man who admitted in his own doctorate thesis to instructing the Police to disregard their duty of maintain law and order and instead to use all manner of dirty tricks including turning a blind eye to Zanu PF inspired lawlessness and even the Police using violence against the opposition leaders, their supporters and the people at large for the sole purpose of “stopping regime change”.

 

Police Commissioner Chihuri, Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess because we have been stuck with a self-serving, corrupt and tyrannical regime for 36 years. Congratulations Commissioner, your no-regime-change policing has been a great success. What the nation is asking you to do now is open your eyes and see the consequence of no-regime-change.

 

Under this Zanu PF regime unemployment has soared to 90% plus and has been in the 80% plus level for over a decade; millions of our people have been forced to leave the country in search of work, any work; and the millions who have remain behind are now living in abject poverty. Education and health services have all but collapse. Even key institutions like Harare Hospital regularly go for days on end with no running water – something as basic as that.

 

What the nation is asking you Commissioner to do is acknowledge that the present political system with its emphasis on no-regime-change has failed to deliver the people’s basic needs of freedom, human rights and decent living. The present economic meltdown is causing heart breaking economic suffering this cannot be allowed to go on, it is socially and politically unsustainable.

 

The recent street protests is the people telling the regime they are suffering, something the regime should have seen and put right without allowing things to get this bad. The regime’s response of using force to silence the people beggars belief; surely even a tyrannical regime which this is has to accept the economic situation in the country has become unbearable and to expect people to continue to suffer and die in silence is inhumane.

 

Commissioner Chihuri, surely you cannot deny the seriousness of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown. So which part of “the present economic situation is not sustainable” do you not understand?  

 

Let us all be very clear of one thing Commissioner; the people of Zimbabwe have a right to meaningful free and fair elections and regime change is a perfectly expected outcome of such an election process. Since this is a right and not a privilege to be withdraw or denied; the nation expected the Police, whose duty is to maintain law and order, to safe guard everyone’s basic freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair elections.

 

As far as you, as Police Commissioner of the Republic of Zimbabwe, are concerned Zimbabwe is a constitutional multi-party democracy and per se any party elected by the people of Zimbabwe in a free and fair election has the constitutional right to govern the country. So who gave you the power and authority to abandon your set constitutional duties to maintain law and order in pursuit of this no-regime-change policing ethos!

 

The people of Zimbabwe are going to continue with the street protests and to demand any end to their economic suffering. It would be inhumane for them to continue to allow this criminal waste of the nation’s resources whilst they sink into hopelessness and despair; the present situation is not sustainable and it is natural that they should seek meaningful change.

 

So whilst Police Commissioner Chihuri is saying he will use brutal force to secure peace what he really meaning is that he will use brutal force to secure no-regime-change! So for the people of Zimbabwe to get out of the present economic and political hell Mugabe has landed us into we will have no choice but face his riot Police armed with tear-gas, batons, leg-irons, guns, arrest and disappearance licences, etc. and whose instructions are to keep us in this hell forever amen at all cost!

 

The street protests will escalate for the simple reason that the heat in this hell and the thought of living without hope is not unbearable. Like it or not Commissioner, regime change is as certain as day following night.

 

When regime change finally takes place; you, as Police Commissioner, will have to convince a Court of law how much of the tear gas, broken limps and broken heads your Police Officers have inflicted on the people was to maintain law and order and how much was to stop regime change! Even now you, with all the evidence of the disastrous consequences of 36 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule, you are still as keen as mustard to impose the regime on a nation desperate for change. Just remember Commissioner Chihuri that imposing no-regime-change is outside your remit and in doing so you are committing high treason!