“Kune anonzisisa, chokwadi
hachipudzi chinowaka!” so goes the Shona adage. (To him who hears and
understand, the truth does not destroy but builds!) It is in this enlightened context
that one must view Namibian President Hage Geingob’s candid words of advice to
both Zimbabwe’s leaders and people.
"We must get rid of
the days where we believed in strong presidents, personality cults, and that
some are (demi)-gods," he advised the leaders.
"We must know that
killing our people is not the way to go.
"If you do that, you
can't expect the world to respect you. They will intervene and tell you that
you are doing a wrong thing".
In the case of President
Mugabe the advice is coming too late; he has rigged elections and even murdered
over 30 000 of his people to establish and retain his one-party cum one-man
dictatorship.
President Mugabe and his
Zanu PF cronies have enjoyed absolute power for the last 36 years and their
greed for wealth has grown in leaps and bounds; they have more than the lion’s
share of the nation’s wealth, they are taking everything. President Mugabe
admitted in February that the country lost $15 billion of diamond revenue to “swindlers”.
It is no secret that Zanu PF leaders, including Mugabe himself, together with
the Chinese and other foreigner who are doing the mining are the swindlers.
So far, no one has been
arrested for this grand theft; confirming that the swindlers are the ruling
elite and they are above the law.
Last week, Harare Central
Hospital announced that it was stopping all operations because it did not have
essential drugs like painkillers; needless to say the smaller hospitals and
clinics are even worse off. So hundreds of ordinary Zimbabweans are dying every
day because the health service has all but collapsed for lack of funds whilst a
select few are pocketing billions of dollars.
The Zimbabwe government
has to pay for the health and other public needs of the 12 million population
from a misery $3.8 billion in collected revenue and billions of dollars of
potential diamond revenue is shared out amongst just a handful of the ruling
elite, the demi-gods!
President Hage Geingob’s
advice is clearly too late Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies; their hands are
bright red with all the innocent blood their have shed. And, now that their
primeval appetites have been fully aroused, their insatiable greed has gone
into overdrive, they cannot stop the looting.
Zanu PF’s 36 years of gross
mismanagement and rampant corruption have dragged the Zimbabwe economy into
total economic meltdown; the regime is nothing more than that a bacteria
culture that grows exponentially only to collapse suddenly after eating all the
available food.
Mugabe’s decades of
misrule have dragged Zimbabwe and the whole SADC region deeper and deeper into
the abyss and the import of President Geingob’s advice to the tyrant is that he
must expect the people of Zimbabwe, SADC and all those concerned about the
tragic consequences of his selfish greed to criticize him for it!
The Namibian President had
words of wisdom for the ordinary Zimbabweans too; “Zimbabweans, who are unhappy
with strongman President Robert Mugabe should fight for themselves,” he
advised, according to Namibian newspaper report.
SADC leaders’ frustration
with the people of Zimbabwe, specially the MDC party is understandable for all
those who have cared to follow the Zimbabwe crisis. The MDC had the golden
opportunity to implement the democratic reforms during the GNU and SADC leaders
did their best to remind Tsvangirai and company of this but were ignored. MDC
failed to get even one reform implemented in five years of the GNU.
Since the rigged 2013
elections MDC-T has failed to take advantage of its MPs and Senators to push
for the implementation of meaningful democratic reforms. The party has failed
to articulate reforms are required much less how they should be implemented!
“We don't go out in public
and shout, so that you can be happy and dance in the streets of New York,” came
the Namibian President jab! Of course he has a point!
MDC leaders have wasted one
opportunity after another to dismantle the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship
and replace it with a healthy and functional democratic system of government. The
dismantling is done by proposing and implementing democratic reforms and
parliament is the only forum in which this can be done. MDC has never taken
advantage of it parliamentary majority to implement the reforms during the GNU
and now it is abandoning the parliamentary route altogether in favour of street
protests, nagging SADC leaders to pressure Mugabe to change.
In all these years MDC
leaders have failed to come up with any details of democratic changes the
country needs showing that they have not being paying attention. The ordinary
Zimbabweans themselves too have not been any wiser; if they were then they
would have seen to it that Tsvangirai and company implemented the reforms
during the GNU, for example.
By telling Zimbabweans to
fight our own battles President Geingob is being cruel to be kind because like
it or not it for us Zimbabweans, not SADC or anyone else, to implement the
democratic reforms. It is for each nation to determine its own destiny; we are
stuck with a corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship but who can ever deny that it
is what we rightly deserve!
If MDC people were marching up and down in the street with their list of reforms in one hand and stones in the other one would understand. But for MDC to be on the street with no clear idea of what reforms they want smacks on one on the street looking for a fight and using reforms as an excuse. At the end of the day, we will need to implement reforms to stop Zanu PF or whoever it is who takes over after them using the existing undemocratic weaknesses to rig elections.
ReplyDeleteThe real fight is an intellectual one: the first phase in the to produce a list of democratic reforms to dismantle the corrupt and tyrannical autocracy President Mugabe created. The second phase is to get the reforms implemented. The street protests are supporting roles comparable to the crowd cheering their team. To have the best supporting team but no skilled players in the field has never been a winning formula!
Zimbabwean have yet to learn that if we are to have free, fair and credible elections then we must have competent leaders who will formulate the reforms and get them implemented. The likes of Tsvangirai and Mujuru will never do this, that is a fact! This is a fight we, Zimbabweans, have to undertake and, so far, have shied away from! We have paid dearly for our folly and will continue to pay until we fight!
I agree but for the electorate to elect the competent leaders out of the pool full of corrupt and incompetent leaders the electorate themselves must have a rough idea of what the reforms are and how they are to be implemented. To ensure all the reforms are fully implemented the electorate must hold the leaders to account every step of the way; they can only do this if they have a basic understanding of what the reforms are, etc.
DeleteMeaningful democratic reform will only take place once we have an electorate in which each and every individual is willing and able to think for him/herself. As long as we continue to have a naive and gullible electorate who will willingly follow a tyrant or a village idiot no questions asked this nation will never ever get out of the hells-hole we find ourselves stuck in!
Mugabe turns down President Khama’s invitation to attend Botswana’s 50 years anniversary celebrations.
ReplyDeleteMugabe loves globe-trotting, it must have been a real painful decision for him to forgo the opportunity to travel and, no doubt, steal some limelight! I have no doubt Mugabe would not have missed the opportunity to insult the West - with Zimbabwe's economy getting worse and worse by the day he is having a tough time keeping up the lie that it is the West and not him who is to blame.
On the other hand President Khama has just reminded the whole world that it is Mugabe who is to blame and the prospect of being told the same to his face was real. Staying at home was a wise decision! The reality is that the whole world now knows that he is a corrupt and murderous tyrant and so his hen's teeth excuses are not going down well. From now on Mugabe has to be wary of the audience telling him to his face that he is a habitual liar.
He can insist on talking about his golden robes but when the audience continue to laugh at his shriving buttocks it is impossible to keep up the pretense they are covered!