There is nothing wrong with using peaceful and none violence to achieve democratic change. That is exactly what people like Ghandi in India and Dr Martin Luther King in USA did. Tsvangirai is NOT, I repeat NOT, the Ghandi or Dr King of Zimbabwe.
“Without the firing of a bullet, we did it,” Tsvangirai said. I do not know exactly what it is it he has done beside letting down the people of Zimbabwe with his blundering and betraying them allowing the dictator so much rope.
Ghandi and Dr King had clearly defined objectives they stood and fought for; independence of India for Ghandi and basic democratic rights and human dignity for blacks for Dr King. Tsvangirai would claim that he has been fighting for democracy and to end human right violations. The fundamental difference between Ghandi and Dr King on the one hand and Tsvangirai on the other is that to Ghandi the independence of India was not negotiable and similarly the blacks’ rights for Dr King. With Tsvangirai everything including the very lives of hundreds or thousands of Zimbabweans was offered for negotiations.
Mugabe being a ruthless and heartless dictator, he grabbed everything offered him and gave nothing back. Tsvangirai has accepted that Mugabe can return his dictatorial powers to arrest and abduct innocent people and detain them at will, commit serious human rights violation including murder and not be brought to book, etc., etc. And on the economic front, the dictator was allowed to keep all he and his cronies have looted from the country, including keep resources like land vital for economic recovery. Now he is trying to unpick the agreement and curtail Mugabe’s powers. Of course, Mugabe will not allow that to happen.
“Don’t ever fool yourselves. We are not going to be naïve to believe that it’s going to be smooth,“ Tsvangirai told guest in a Harare Hotel recently. “This is a transition and there are transitional obstacles that you need to overcome. And overcome we will. Step by step we will make those incremental gains.”
What nonsense; what incremental gains has he achieved so far? Either the people have their democratic right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country, for example, or they do not. At present, they do not.
If MDC had stood firm and said the basic human rights of Zimbabweans were not negotiable, this issue would have been settled by now. Even if Mugabe had refused to restore the people’s rights, at least the nation with have its eyes firmly fixed on the ball. Instead the nation is this pathetic position of having to negotiate with the dictator at every turn!
Tsvangirai is in fact no different from Abel Muzorewa. Muzorewa’s internal settlement of 1978/9 was too achieved “without the firing of a bullet” and it was the Rhodesia Front in everything but name just as the present GNU is a Zanu PF regime in all but name.
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