President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his regime are feeling the heat as more
and more voices have condemned last month’s Police and Army brutality and
barbarism against the rioters and innocent Zimbabweans. The regime is
scrambling to defending the indefensible.
"Those acts of banditry and hooliganism will not be tolerated and
the government is going to use all in its power to make sure that it does not
happen again. We are a peace loving country and we should not allow ourselves
to be used for selfish agendas," said VP Kembo Mohadi.
"All these international and private media are not talking about
the destruction caused by these hooligans, the massive looting, the burning of
vehicles and government infrastructure like tollgates, over running of police
stations and the eventual death of one of the policemen on duty. But they just
want o concentrate on that the security forces were heavy handed in dealing
with the protesters, that is not right.”
Of course, the security forces were heavy handed and for selfish
political gain - Zanu PF used the riots as cover to silence its political
opponents and beat the nation into submission.
VP Mohadi, the nation is pleased to hear your condemn “acts of banditry
and hooliganism”. But are you, sir, being up front and honest with the people
or are you taking them for fools?
Whilst no one would dispute the need for the Police and Army to act to
stop rioting and looting still the brutality and barbarism of the security
personnel was more than was required to quell the rioting and looting. Zanu PF
has a reputation of using minor incidence to settle selfish political scores.
In the 1980s Zanu PF used a proverbial sledge-hammer to kill a fly in
the Gukurahundi massacre. There were a few hundred dissidents at most and yet
the state security personal ended up killing over 20 000 innocent civilians.
There is no doubt that Zanu PF was not after just ending “banditry and
hooliganism” then but after destroying its main political opponent then, PF
Zapu, to clear the way for the imposition of the de facto one-party
dictatorship we have to this day.
It is never too late to carryout a thorough investigation into what
really happened during the Gukurahundi “moment of madness” as Robert Mugabe
once admitted. These moments of madness have happened again and again. Each
time Zanu PF felt its iron grip on power threatened, the sledge-hammer has come
out.
The nation made a serious mistake in allowing Zanu PF to sweep the
Gukurahundi and all the other “moments of madness” that followed under the
carpet. The regime has thus far believed it can do as it pleases and will get
away with it; a dangerous precedence. We must now put this right.
We must carry out a thorough investigation into the barbarism and
shooting dead of civilians the security forces in 15 to 25 January 2019, the
shooting dead civilians on 1st August 2018, the Gukurahundi massacre, etc.,
etc. The investigations must establish who issued the “Shoot to kill!” orders
and what was their motive. This is high treason and those responsible must be
held to account.
One Police Officer was killed during the rioting in January 2019 and it
was one too many. Still, this did not justify the security services shooting
dead of 12 civilians, beating and raping hundreds of thousands and the
arresting of over a thousand civilians. It is the Police and Soldiers who were
behaving like bandits and hooligans and we must find out who gave them the
order to run-riot and why!
The January stay-away was triggered by the country’s worsening economic
meltdown; Zanu PF rigged last July’s elections but has clearly failed to rig
economic recovery. So the country is set to sink deeper and deeper into the
economic turmoil it is just a matter of time before the people are compelled to
once again protest the economic hardship. It is totally unacceptable that Zanu
PF should be allowed to beat, rape, arrest and even shoot people to silence
them.
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