ZRP splash $1 m on cars whilst hospital have no basic drugs. By Wilbert Mukori

We started, during the dark years of white colonial oppression and exploitation, with the great vision of a free, just and prosperous nation founded on the key believe that everyone black or white, man woman or child, well-educated or illiterate, everyone; has the right to freedom and basic human rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and the right to life.

“One-man-one-vote!” Or “One-person-one-vote!”, to put it in its more politically correct modern version; was the carrion call that united the nation in the fight for independence and self-determination.

The greatest tragedy that has ever fallen our great nation is that those the people entrusted with the power and authority to govern this great nation in 1980 have betrayed the nation. Instead of remaining faithful to the values of freedom, liberty and prosperity to all Zimbabwe, they have sort absolute power for themselves at the price of denying the majority their freedoms and rights.

Mugabe and his cronies have eroded the freedoms and rights of the individual surreptitiously at first but, as time passed and the ill effects of their misrule became increasingly obvious, the betrayal of the revolutionary values became more ruthless and blatant. Here is one case of just how shameless and yet ruthless the regime has become in riding over the majority’s basic rights in pursuit of its selfish self-interests.

The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has just spent $ 1 million on new vehicles.

“Peace is just like a balloon, once perforated, no matter how small the puncture may be, it becomes useless and a candidate for the trash-bin,” Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri explained.

“This is the reason why we get extremely perturbed when criminally-minded people take peace for granted, juggle with it and putting unnecessary dents on it.

“We always stand ready to lawfully and decisively deal with criminal malcontents, who quite often, are drenched in sheep skins when in actual fact they are shameful agents of the tired crusade of the illegal regime change agenda in Zimbabwe. The law will indeed be applied squarely, fairly and without fear or favour.”

Last week the papers were full on reports of how even the country’s big hospitals like Harare Central Hospital and Mpilo Hospitals have stop carrying out routine operations because they have run out of basic drugs. The shortage is a result of decades of underfunding of the health service by this government.

The finance situation of the small hospitals and clinics across the land will be even worse than that of the big hospitals. Hundreds of thousands of our people are suffering and hundreds are dying unnecessarily every day for lack of the most basic drugs like HBP tablets!

Given the sorry state of the country’s health service, how does the nation justify spending $ 1 million on new vehicles alone (there are rumors that the Police banned all street protest because they had run out of tear-gas) for the Police.

So we have money to spend on tear gas, armored Police vehicles, etc. but have no money to HBP tablets, incubators for sick babies, etc. The ruling elite are not affected by the collapse of the health service because they fly out of the country for all their health needs!

The country’s misplace priorities is glaring obvious and so is the economic and political desperate between the filthy rich and all-powerful ruling elite and the impoverish and voiceless majority. The truth is all the state institutions including the ZRP, have all been roped in to defend the present status quo of the rich and power few vs the impoverish and voiceless majority.

The Police is well equipped and armed to stop the people protesting at the justice of being denying a fair share of the nation’s wealth and a meaningful say in the governance of the country.

We started with one-person-one-vote and not only has Mugabe failed to honor and deliver to all our people this basic right he is ruthlessly silencing all those crying for justice accusing them of being agents of regime change. Ian Smith accused all those demanding a meaningful vote of being Chinese/ Russian communists agents; Mugabe is accusing those demanding the same meaningful vote of Western agents. The racial colour of the two has changed but their patronizing attitude towards the majority of Zimbabweans has not changed one bit – they both believe majority of Zimbabweans out there are so stupid they cannot see they are being short changed and therefore cannot demand change of their own accord, someone else must be pushing them to do so.

President Mugabe and Police Commissioner Chihuri, you are denying the ordinary people their basic freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote just as Ian Smith and his white thugs have done before you for the same reason – to gratify your primeval greed for power and wealth. Just as Smith’s reign of racial oppression and exploitation was unjust so too is Mugabe’s corrupt and tyrannical rule.

Smith boasted there would be no “black majority rule in another 1000 years”; he was wrong. All Mugabe’s effort to stop regime change will similarly fail!