“The turn of the 21st century was not good for Zimbabwe as the country
was slapped with illegal sanctions by the west which led to the closure of many
industries. Despite going for nearly two decades with no meaningful capital
investments coming our way, Zimbabwe did not go down owing to the resilience of
its citizens,” wrote Elijah Chihota, a well-known Zanu PF apologist.
Ever since former President Robert Mugabe admitted that Zimbabwe was
“swindled” of a staggering $15 billion in diamond revenue in 2016; Zanu PF
propaganda blaming sanctions for the nation’s economic woes stopped. Everyone
knew Mugabe had finally let the cat out of the bag; it was the rampant
corruption that was the cancer killing the Zimbabwe economy, not the sanctions.
However, Zanu PF apologists are back to blaming sanctions for the
country’s worsening economic meltdown because the regime has failed to deal
with the cancerous problem of corruption.
When Mnangagwa seized power a year ago, he promised to end corruption.“There
will be zero tolerance to corruption!” he said.
I say Mnangagwa and not President Mnangagwa to underline the fact that
he was not elected by the people in the recent elections.
It is now, a year since coming into power and Mnangawgwa has not arrested
even one of the diamond swindler and recovered even one dollar of the looted
$15 billion. Worse still, the diamond mining is still taking place under the
same conditions; i.e. the looting is still going on to this day.
Mnangagwa, just like Mugabe before him, cannot stamp out corruption
because he is corrupt himself.
One has to be really naive to believe Mugabe’s Blue Roof mansion was
built with money from “Zanu PF membership subscriptions,” as George Charamba
once claimed. Charamba would have us believe that all Mugabe’s other amassed
wealth and lavish lifestyle were all paid for from the generosity of
impoverished party members.
Mnangagwa is one of the wealthiest individual in Zimbabwe. He was named
by the UN as one of the Zimbabwe leaders who looted wealth from DRC. So
Charamba can spare us another one of his hen’s teeth nonsense.
Mnangagwa cannot tell those around him to stop looting; they will remind
him of his own amassed wealth and tell him to his face that they are playing
catch-up!
Yes, Chihota, Zimbabwe has been starved of meaningful investment for the
last 20 years but not because of targeted sanctions against some Zanu PF
leaders. The investment dried up long before the sanctions were imposed.
Investors, local and foreign, do not like doing business in a country where
corrupt is rampant and there is economic chaos and no rule of law.
38 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have taken a
heavy toll on the Zimbabwe economy, it is in ruins. Unemployment has soared to
90%, basic services such as health care and supply of clean water have
collapsed, etc. 75% of our people now live on US$1.00 or less a day.
Zimbabweans are the poorest nation in the poorest continent on earth!
“Zimbabwe did not go down owing to the resilience of its citizens!” says
Chihota. So, did Zanu PF destroy the nation’s economy to test the people’s resilience?
Are we to understand then that Zanu PF is performing some macabre
experiment to establish how much economic hardship and political oppression
ordinary Zimbabweans can endure without staging mass protests. On the other
hand the ruling elite are granting themselves absolute power and all the
influence and wealth it brings, to tested if there is no limit of their
insatiable appetites! How convenient!
Chihota, Zimbabwe has gone down! Which part of “75% of our people are
living on US$1.00 or less a day” are you, Chihota, and your Zanu PF masters
failing to understand!!!
The root cause why Zimbabwe has a government that cares about the
selfish interests of the few ruling elite and does not care about the suffering
and deaths of ordinary citizens is because the ruling elite have a political
voice and the people have none.
“The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of
government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections
which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote
or by equivalent free voting procedures,” reads Section 21 subsection 3 the UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This is not the case in Zimbabweans; for the last 38 years, Zanu PF has
blatantly rigged elections and we, the people, have allowed the regime to get
away with it. This has set a bad and dangerous precedence; one we must put
right, much more so now given the nation’s very survival is at stake if we
fail.
Mnangagwa and his junta rigged the recent elections, they have no
mandate to govern and therefore they must be forced to step down. As long as
Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging toads
the country’s economic meltdown will only get worse.
“Chihota, Zimbabwe has gone down! Which part of "75% of our people are living on US$1.00 or less a day" are you, Chihota, and your Zanu PF masters failing to understand!!!”
ReplyDeleteI must admit each time Zanu PF leaders and their apologists have dismissed the suffering and even deaths of the ordinary Zimbabweans as some kind of virtue, “resilience of our people”, they would say; I have cringed. These morons have made the lives of their follow country men and women hell-on-earth to feed their insatiable greedy for absolute power and their have chutzpah to boast at how stoically the victims have taken their suffering and deaths.
The nincompoops have blamed sanctions, drought, everyone and everything else but themselves for the country’s economic meltdown and the suffering brought on the masses. No one with half a brain was ever fooled particularly when the morons themselves have seemingly thrived and grown filthy rich regardless of the sanctions, drought, etc.
Only first class morons like these Zanu PF thugs would turn a rich country like Zimbabwe into the poorest country on earth in a few decades. In 1980, the country was the breadbasket of the region but two decades of Zanu PF misrule has left the country dependent on imported food aid.
We are starving in a country that is, all practical purposes, the Garden of Eden!
Instead of hanging their heads in shame the braindead nincompoops are boast about the resilience of the impoverished populous. The only reason the people have not complained more vociferously about their suffering and servitude is because the Zanu PF thugs have denied them an meaningful democratic voice and has used brutal force to silence all dissent.
It is insulting that Zanu PF rigs the elections to stay in power so they can continue to loot and then tells the impoverished majority forced to eke a living as vendors they are enterprising entrepreneur per excellence!