Wednesday 24 June 2009

TSVANGIRAI CAME BACK FROM THE WEST EMPTY HANDED: HE WILL NOW FACE THE POLITICAL FALL OUT, THE BIGGEST LOSERS ARE THE PEOPLE!

Tsvangirai is going back home empty handed; he had hope to raise something towards the US$ 10 billion Zimbabwe requires to finance its economic recovery. All he got was US$ 42 m from EU for budgetary support; the rest was given for humanitarian assistance. Now he has to face the music and the nation must assess the price of this failure.

Mugabe and his cronies had hoped Tsvangirai would come back with lots of money. Ever since Gono “cleaned” out the last dollar from the last ZRB account, the cabal’s extravagant life styles has suffered; the stead supply of expensive cars, plasma TV and the ready supply of foreign currency to buy all the other luxurious have all but stopped. The ruling elite used to spend Hundreds of thousands of dollars a month and for months now have had to make do with the US$ 100 a month allowances paid to all the other civil servants.

Tsvangirai was sent off with specific instructions to get the targeted sanctions imposed by the West lifted. Mugabe and his inner circle with loot starched away outside the country have been waiting to draw on that to ease the economic hardships caused by the economic melt down. No doubt those Zanu PF officials who have been sidelined in the last few months would happily “melt” away. Sadly the West has spoken with one voice on this; the sanctions will stay.

So Mugabe and his cronies have no new money to loot, they can not leave the country and they can not access whatever loot they had whisked out of the country for “a rainy day”. They will no doubt be foaming at the mouth angry with what they will consider to be Tsvangirai’s failure. The harsh reality is Mugabe and his cronies have only themselves to blame for Tsvangirai’s failure.

Even before the Tsvangirai signed the Global Political Agreement (GPA) it was clear the outcome was a very poorly disguised wolf – Mugabe - in a sheep’s – Tsvangirai – coat. Tsvangirai was naïve, foolish and was readily bullied into signing the agreement. No one else was that easily duped.

Indeed to reassure his own Zanu PF supporters Mugabe was forced to discard the sheep coat and use his wolf teeth even before Tsvangirai was dispatched on the begging trip. On the dictator’s birthday party, held three weeks after the formation of the GNU, Mugabe gave his thugs the green light to invade more white farms. The move was to allow the thugs to continue looting but more significantly to assure them that their looted wealth would not be taken away from them; he calls the shots not Tsvangirai.

Mugabe has always treated Tsvangirai with contempt, but then the dictator has treated everyone else, even those in his own party, Zanu PF, with the same contempt. But after the failure mission, Tsvangirai would no doubt be up for some extra grilling by the dictator. The country’s Mugabe control public media has already starting taking pop-shots at Tsvangirai; from now on they just fall short of the “puppet” abuse of the pre GPA days. The Zimbabwe public and the West are angry with Tsvangirai too.

There was NO logical reason why Tsvangirai agreed to join Mugabe to form this GNU; not after Mugabe did after the 28 March election and then to “win” the presidential run-off. And then to make matters worse, signing GPA in which Mugabe has the sweeping dictatorial power. Of course the GNU was not going to work and the people have warned Tsvangirai of all this repeatedly.

After nearly four months of GNU people had expected Tsvangirai to finally admit that he had been wrong. Instead Tsvangirai stubbornly maintained the GNU was working. The West gave him the two finger sign, literally, when he had the chic to ask them to “reward” GNU for progress they could not see but Tsvangirai insisted was there.

People have a lot of patience and sympathy for the proverbial “underdog”, even a blundering one like Tsvangirai. But when the underdog assume airs and becomes arrogant the people’s patience and sympathy will disappear like mist in the morning heat!

The future looks gloomy for Tsvangirai and MDC; at the end of the day the GNU has meant a lot of rotten eggs on their faces. Mugabe and his cronies will not have any brownie points from having been a party to the GNU still the party bought itself some valuable breathing time.

The country’s economic problems are not over by a long mile; and it was this that forced Mugabe to accept Tsvangirai into the GNU. Still things are not as grim as they were last year; there is food in the shops, Zimbabwe has stopped printing paper money which had fuelled the run away inflation, the West has returned to feed the poor, schools and hospitals have reopened although not functional, etc. Mugabe will no doubt take advantage of the eased economic pressure to regroup.

Mugabe will be desperate to ease the economic hardships of his ruling elite; their continued support is wholly dependent on his continued ability give them the luxuries they have grown accustomed to. He will cream some of the aid money using the “humanitarian plus” Deputy P M Mutambara talked about; a scheme in which the regime expropriate some of humanitarian aid money and use it to pay Ministers allowances and other government expenses.

Mugabe will probably not care either way if the GNU collapsed. His main focus would be to drag his feet over the writing of the new constitution and then steam roll the whole process to ensure he gets what he wants. Hold new elections soon after; he will have his thugs to help him secure yet another election “victory”!

In the present political climate in which Tsvangirai is seen as a weak and indecisive leader prone to blundering; the election is there for Mugabe to lose.
The real big losers would yet again be the people of Zimbabwe. They have been the big losers in all these thirty years under the dictatorship. When Tsvangirai handed the dictator a life-line last year it is the people who have lost the most; the GNU it has failed to delivery any meaningful economic recovery or any political reforms. So it will be a wasted two years when the nation should have done to ease the long suffering people. Unless the people start now to think of a plan to end this dictatorship, Mugabe will be life-president. If the people are expecting Tsvangirai and MDC to stop him, then one thing is certain Tsvangirai will once again let them down

Sunday 21 June 2009

IT'S CONFIRMED, IT'S OFFICIAL: TSVANGIRAI IS MUGABE'S PUPPET - HE CONFIRMED IT HIMSELF!

After two weeks of being told the same thing by Western Government; they will not lift targeted sanctions and renew foreign aid to Zimbabwe because the GNU has NOT made any meaningful democratic reforms. On Saturday Zimbabweans forced him to cut his planned speech chanting “Mugabe must go!” And yet the very next opportunity Tsvangirai had to show he was getting the message; he is back to defending Mugabe and the “progress” GNU has made.

The BBC reporter tried his best to force Tsvangirai off his set course; all to no avail.

“When will there be a free-press in Zimbabwe?” Tsvangirai was asked. He promised that would happen by the end of the month, end of June. So by the end of July, BBC would be back in Zimbabwe!

Freeing the media is something the GNU should have delivered within days of taking office if the political will was there. Will Zanu PF end it’s strangle hold on the country’s print and electronic media; that is doubtful. Getting the said public media to stop calling him a “puppet” has been the extend of Tsvangirai’s fight for press freedom so far. In two weeks time the world will know what kind of free press Tsvangirai is talking about; “Totenda dzamwa dzasera nebenzi!” as one would say in Shona.

The BBC reporter pointed out to Tsvangirai that so far Western governments have pointedly refused to give this Zimbabwe government any financial assistance because there was no progress in the promised democratic reforms, they said. Tsvangirai said his “re-engagement” exercise was a great success because the West that was hugely “sceptical” of the GNU is now “accepting” it. His task now was to get the West to “reward the GNU for progress that has made and support the democratic process”. Clearly the most Western governments are yet to see this progress because none so far have rewarded the regime.

“Did you understand why you were heckled by Zimbabweans, the other day and why most of them do not want to go back home?” Referring to the Saturday June 20 incident in London in which Tsvangirai was force to abandon’s speech.

“Yes, I do,” Tsvangirai answered. “Many of them left the country in extraordinary (economic and political) circumstances ….. We now have a new political dispensation! The situation is totally different.” Zimbabweans everywhere are getting angry and frustrated with all this talk of “progress” and “incremental” gains when they can see for themselves there is none.
"We all know of a post-conflict situation. We had a similar experience in 1980, Mugabe declared reconciliation with the very same enemies he was fighting. In South Africa Nelson Mandela did the same. It is not an unusual experiment." Tsvangirai commented on his extraordinary relationship with Robert Mugabe, given what the dictator did to him, his fellow MDC leaders and supporters and the Zimbabweans in general.
“Transition in all those other cases happened after the old guard had accepted it had lost and that history had moved in another direction. What is unusual here is that transition is taking place when Mugabe has not accepted he lost. .. the violence continues…. the farm invasions have been even accelerated.” The BBC reporter pressed Tsvangirai.

“Mugabe has accepted change,” was Tsvangirai’s reply. This GNU is comparable to the Ian Smith and Abel Muzorewa’s 1979 Internal Settlement in which Smith like Mugabe returned all the real power and Muzorewa was the window dressing.

Tsvangirai had to be pressed before he would admit the Zimbabwe’s land reform has been “a disaster”. He had wanted to describe it as “imperfect”.

About Amnesty International’s recent scathing report, Tsvangirai said the organisation was “still steamed in the past”.

You can take the donkey to the river, but you can not make it drink. Zimbabwe is stuck with Tsvangirai. Whilst the West would have welcomed him as a partner they could work with to pressure Mugabe to accept meaningful democratic change. The West now realises in him they have a Mugabe puppet who would lie through his teeth about “democratic reform” just to get aid.

Meanwhile Mugabe has positioned himself so that he can claw back any “democratic reforms” and re-establish his dictatorship whenever it should suit him.

The West should not be a party to Mugabe’s dirty trickery and in any way indulge Tsvangirai’s mind numbing political naivety and denial of the truth.

Zimbabweans everywhere are angry that the man they had placed so much hope has turned out to be one of the country’s most incompetent leaders. Tsvangirai and the entire MDC leadership should be consigned to herding goats. Zimbabwe’s repressive political system has not allowed men and women of substance, honour and quality to take up leadership positions. I believe the country has such high calibre candidate. The country must now make a concerted enough to find such men and women or else the nation’s future is hell! Mugabe and Tsvangirai are set to take this country deeper and deeper into the annals of hell.

MDC leaders have been invited to eat with their Zanu PF counter parts at the high table. Many MDC leaders have become indistinguishable from Zanu PF members when it comes to their support of this Mugabe dictatorship. All those who do not agree with the dead end route MDC has taken have to break clean in the next few weeks or they will all be painted with the same brush.

Zimbabweans have never been this angry with their leaders and that, I believe, is the first solid proof that they have come of age, they are a much more enlightened electorate; they are a discerning voters who can distinguish quality leaders from the spineless goat-herders.

Saturday 20 June 2009

PM TSVANGIRAI BOOED AND JEERED "CHANGE" BY ZIMBABWEANS: DOUBT IF HE GOT THE MESSAGE!

PM Tsvangirai was jeered into silence by Zimbabweans in exile.

“What is our message to Zimbabweans in the Diaspora,” the PM had started. “Let me state it here and I will state it boldly: ZIMBABWEANS MUST COME HOME!”

Whatever he had to say after that he did not say, his audience composed of mainly Zimbabweans in exile booed and jeered.

“Chinga maitiro!” (Change you ways!” the crowd chanted. Tsvangirai greeted this with a smug smile of total bemusement.

Ever since Tsvangirai signed the GPA in September 2008 and then joined Mugabe to form the GNU the ordinary Zimbabwe has again and again expressed their disappointment with where Tsvangirai and MDC were going. For five months now this GNU has failed to bring about the democratic reforms MDC had promised. Even those Zimbabweans who had given Tsvangirai the benefit of the doubt and had expected change, really change, when Tsvangirai was sworn in as PM and many MDC leaders took up ministerial position have finally lost patience.

Mugabe was given excessive power in the GPA and has gone on to abuse them since the formation of the inclusive government. Zimbabwe is still under the same dark cloud of oppression as before. Nothing has changed.

Zimbabweans have been calling Tsvangirai to acknowledge this and change his own tactics. His current approach of giving total support of Mugabe and turn a blind eye to the reality on the ground has only served to embolden Mugabe and his cronies who have continued to violet the GPA and do as they pleased. Zimbabweans want Tsvangirai and MDC to change and hence the chant “Chinga maitiro!”

Tsvangirai tried to silence the crowd. The smug was soon replaced with flashes of annoyance. “You better listen to me!” Tsvangirai shouted.

It was clear then that Tsvangirai had lost it; the crowd was not going to listen to him. “Mugabe must go!” they chanted. It took a few minutes before it dawned on Tsvangirai that he too must go, the audience would not want to hear another word from him.

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess today because back in 1980 Mugabe had this “Mister Know It All” attitude in which us the people were assigned economic roles and were expected to play our part no questioned asked. We were denied all the basic rights and freedoms.

Tsvangirai and his friends at MDC expected the people to give the same reverence to them as they did not Mugabe and Zanu PF 30 years ago. Tsvangirai and company expected people to do as they are told and no questions asked. The Zimbabwean crowd in London represented a representative sample of the Zimbabwean people inside and outside Zimbabwe. The message from the Zimbabweans to Tsvangirai and his MDC friends is a simple one: “WE WANT MEANINGFUL DEMOCRATIC REFORMS IN ZIMBABWE.” And since it has proved impossible to achieve that with Mugabe still in power, then clearly: “MUGABE MUST GO!”Gone are the days when leaders would ride rough shod over the people. Zimbabweans are not contend with you empty promises of democratic reforms; they want these rights delivered up front. PM Tsvangirai, it is you who had better listen!

BRITISH TO REWARD ZIMBABWE'S GNU FOR DOING NOTHING: IRON LADY WOULD HAVE NEVER DONE ANY SUCH NONSENSE!

So the British government has decided to “support Zimbabwe’s inclusive government”!? In a few days, we will know how much the British will put into Tsvangirai’s begging bowl. So far only the European Union had put US$ 42 million “for budgetary support” in the bowl. Everyone else, the Americans, Germans, Norwegians, etc. had pointedly refused to even put a token amount in the bowl – “yamatanda nyadzi” as we say in Shona. “Not until there are meaningful democratic reforms in Zimbabwe,” they told Tsvangirai.

The democratic reforms we Zimbabweans are dying for and the West is calling for is freedom of expression, end to intimidation and lawlessness by Zanu PF thugs and, worse still, by State Security Agents, etc. These reforms do not cost the GNU a penny and should have taken a matter of days – the time required to repeal the repressive laws, etc. The GNU is now five months old and yet these simple changes have not been carried out.

This GNU must be judged and rewarded on the basis of what it has achieved and not what it says it “will” do. It has had five months in which to act. Yes there are reformers within the GNU but more importantly there those who do not want change; they want the dictatorship and all it stands for to remain. Like it or not those who do not want change are the ones calling the shots in the GNU.

“The reformers who have faced torture and death in pursuit of democracy have chosen to make this government work. We must find ways to support them,” argued junior foreign minister Mark Malloch-Brown. Nonsense!

The British government has repeatedly decried the lack of meaningful reform and blamed Mugabe and his cronies for it. Minister Malloch-Brown himself acknowledged Mugabe is still a problem; he talked of “strong doubts about Mr Mugabe”.

All money donated as humanitarian aid is not really beyond the GNU’s reach; the administration has already said it will appropriate such funds in what Deputy PM Mutambara called “humanitarian plus”. At least there is an attempt to ring-fence humanitarian aid; there is no such thing with government to government aid. All money thrown in the begging-bowl is as good as thrown a black-hole!

The British can put whatever spin they wish on their planned “support” of Zimbabwe’s GNU; the bottom line is the money will be used by Mugabe and his cronies to consolidate their hold on power. The British will be rewarding the hardliners for standing firm and not giving one inch to those calling for democratic reforms.

I expected the French, whom Tsvangirai is yet to visit, not the British to break rank with the rest of the West one such a fundamental point as basic human rights and freedoms. It is times like this that one wishes the Iron Lady or Winston Churchill was still in 10 Downing Street; there would be no such wish-wash nonsense from the British!

Friday 19 June 2009

TSVANGIRAI'S COWARDLY WARNING OF DIRE CONSEQUENCES IF THE GNU IS NOT FUNDED WILL EMBOLDEN MUGABE AND THE CABAL TO USE VIOLNCE!

Mariko, in the last article you wrote “There is a real danger of Zimbabwe breaking up into warring factions as has happened in other countries like Somalia. You must be worried about that surely!”

I assume that you were specifically referring to my statement “Tendai Biti and Tsvangirai both have tried the “GNU is the only game-in town, support it or Zimbabwe is doomed!” argument.”

The West and anybody else out there should judge for themselves whether or not this Government National Unity has carried out the promised democratic reforms with the energy and commitment expected of it to warrant the lifting of the targeted sanction and renewal of aid. They should be allowed to make that judgement call without undue pressure of dire consequences that may or may not happen if they decode one way or the other.

Any of those within Zanu PF to make such threats is unacceptable. That is black mail pure and simple. That these threats should be made by those within the country’s Police, Army and other State Security Organs is high treason and should be investigated with the diligence and urgency it rightly deserves.

The policy of appeasement has never worked because one is not dealing with rational individuals with any sense of fair play and decency. Given in to their demands today and tomorrow they will come up with even more demands.

The individuals who have driven Zimbabwe into the gutter today are the same individual who in the past threatened to turn the country into a blood bath if their hold on power was threatened. Being in power has allowed Mugabe and his cronies to loot unchecked, forcing school and hospitals to close for lack of funding whilst they used the money to buy cars and other luxuries. In the last ten years they have carved the nation farms amongst causing such disruption to the country’s food production 80% of our people are now dependent on food aid!

Mugabe and his cronies have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people in their three decades in power to prove their blackmail was not an empty threat. And the people for their part gave in to Mugabe and his cronies and they in the end lost everything; Mugabe, oblivious of the people’s suffering and despair, demands have become more and more ridiculous.

Anyone who claims to represent the ordinary people in Zimbabwe must be acutely aware of this vicious circle of appeasement the nation is caught up in. They should know the solution is not to try to appease the cabal but to break the cycle by standing up to the cabal!

What people like Tsvangirai and Tendai Biti are doing is blackmail the West on behave of the cabal. Even if the West was foolish to fall for that they too will be forced to rethink. The cabal’s modest appetite in 1980 has grown in leaps and bounce over the years, it is now humongous. Back in 1980 Mugabe and any of his cronies would have been contend to with a US$50 000 - house. Today Mugabe owns a mansion worth US$6 million, his daughter rents a US$5 million apartment, he has farms valued in millions of dollars each, no doubt he has millions of dollars starched away somewhere. His wife, Grace, has farms, houses, money in foreign accounts, etc. all valued in hundreds of millions of dollars. Whatever the West throws in Tsvangirai’s begging bowl will disappear in a flash.

Thank God the West is sending Tsvangirai back home empty handed!
The second reason why we need to break this vicious circle that nation’s economic recovery is totally dependent on us wrestling the land and other important resources looted by the cabal over the years and put them back into productive use. In other words we should not be seeking just to end this policy of appeasement but to reverse it. It is pay back time; Mugabe and his cronies must give back to the poor what they looted and account for all the suffering and murder of innocent lives!

So to answer you question Mariko whether or not are not I am concerned that Zimbabwe might suffer the same blood shed it suffered last year or worse. I am concerned. These fears are real today because thirty years of appeasing Mugabe and his henchmen has emboldened them. The people of Zimbabwe have paid dearly for the thirty years of pursuing the erroneous policy of appeasement. The Mugabe dictatorship has taken away their livelihoods and them destitute and yet the cabal demands more. What the cabal is asking for now is the people’s very soul and it is used to getting whatever it wants and will not be denied. For the people they will lose their humanity if they give up their soul; this is something well worth fighting for.

If the cabal start a fight then the people will have no choice but fight the good fight. The cabal must however know that this is a fight they will not win and whose consequences they will have to account for.

People like Tsvangirai and Biti, who are actively promoting the discredited policy of appeasement and selling cosmetic change in the regime as the democratic change the people are seeking; are doing so to win favours with the dictator. They are no different from the old guard within Zanu PF itself who have too have sold their soul to the dictatorship.

Claims that Tsvangirai, Biti and many others in the MDC are somehow different from the Zanu PF old guard because of what they have suffered under Mugabe is more no valid that Mugabe’s own liberation struggle credentials. Whilst it right and proper that those who suffer and risk their very lives fighting for a common cause are honoured as heroes par excellence. It must be stated that no amount of heroic can ever justify taking away the basic human rights and freedom of another!
What we are grappling with in Zimbabwe today is a great human tragedy perpetrated by men and women who were yesteryear’s liberators. In condemning the new oppressors we must too deal with those hunting with the hounds and running with the hare!

Thursday 18 June 2009

US AMBASSADOR MCGEE'S PARTING SHOT TO ZIMBABWE'S GNU - SANCTION WILL STAY: GOD BLESS YOU AMBASSADOR AND BON VOYAGE!

US Ambassador Jim McGee has once again put his finger on the real reason why the GNU has achieved very little for all its bloated size and nearly five months in office – there is “no political will” to do anything. “Zanu-PF still has the ability to say ‘we will do what we want’, and there’s nothing the MDC can do about it,” the Ambassador said. And MDC on the other hand does not “have enough clout in government to push for more reforms”.

The Ambassador reiterated America’s position – targeted sanctions will remain and America will not give any financial assistance to the Zimbabwe government until there is progress in democratic reforms. The good Ambassador is only restating what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama said to PM Tsvangirai to his face. They were all repeating what America has been saying all along.

A “full term” report of what PM Tsvangirai’s three-week trip “to re-engage” the West did or did not achieve. Consider this to be a “half term” report. The Americans told Tsvangirai what they have been saying all along. PM Tsvangirai’s trip to America achieved absolutely nothing; it was a complete waste of time and resources!

Ambassador McGee would be living Zimbabwe soon at the end of his tour of duty. The good Ambassador was in a unique position: he had the courage to tell Mugabe he is a dictator. The Ambassador refused to be cowed down by the dictator’s abrasive tactics; the Ambassador was held up at a road block for many hours on one occasion and has been belittled in the government controlled media. The regime would have loved to label him a white racist but since the Ambassador has some black blood in his veins that would have never work.

Ambassador McGee would have loved to have had a sworn enemy in Mugabe and a great friend in Tsvangirai. Sadly it was not to be the later has no political clout. The Ambassador could not hide his exasperation when Tsvangirai signed the GPA and joined Mugabe in this GNU. At the time, he said the agreement as having holes so big one could drive truck through. History has proven him right!

Pleasant trip, Ambassador McGee! You were disappointed by Zimbabwe’s leaders; but so is every Zimbabwean whose life these men and women have turned into a living nightmare and many others have lost their lives unnecessarily. You should be glad, Mr Ambassador, you made millions of friends is us, the ordinary Zimbabweans. You are our hero. We are sad to see you go, you were our voice. From the bottom our hearts we wish you a pleasant trip and God bless!

Tuesday 16 June 2009

WEST SEND TSVANGIRAI EMPTY HANDED: TO THING AGAIN ABOUT THE GPA AND TO FACE THE TYRANT MUGABE!

Prime Minister Tsvangirai is now in Sweden. He has just left Germany Chancellor Merkel did NOT give Tsvangirai anything. He has already been to Netherlands and USA; and none of these countries have given the PM anything to show for all his singing, dancing and smiling from ear to ear he has been doing. Anything these leaders have given they made sure it was not put in his bowl; they did not trust this GNU with a penny of their money.

Tsvangirai set off a week ago with a PM seize begging bowl and an ego to match. He does not even have a penny to rattle the bowl with.

Ordinary Zimbabweans have said again and again that the GPA was unworkable and Tsvangirai in his infinite wisdom said it was "imperfect but workable". Ever since Tsvangirai, Biti and the other MDC leaders became PM, Ministers, etc. they have behaved as if they "know best" and the rest of us are fools. (Much the same way Mugabe has treated us for the last thirty years!)

Tsvangirai went to Europe and America confident he will sell this whitewashed dictatorship as a transitional democracy to be “rewarded and not punished”. We were lectured about it being it a “process and not an event”. Although after four months in government the GNU had absolutely no democratic change to show the process was working.

Tendai Biti and Tsvangirai both tried the “GNU is the only game-in town, support it or Zimbabwe is doomed!” argument. That had the “I am the Supreme Leader, without me the whole world stop spinning!” overtones of a tyrant. It was laughable, coming as it did in from a tyrant who had failed in such a spectacular fashion.

Mugabe may have bullied MDC into accepting the GPA but did Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti and even more so Mutambara have to embrace the arrangement with such passion and enthusiasm? Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders have tried to sell the world the strange idea of a democracy headed by a dictator. No one in there right sense would buy such nonsense.

Tsvangirai set out on this tour to the West confident of his democratic credentials; he expected all Western leaders to bow down to him in reverence. What Tsvangirai did not realise was that when he joined Mugabe’s dictatorship lost all his democratic values and worn the dictator coat-of-arms!

The humiliation of being send back home empty handed and having been “exposed” as nothing more than the tyrant’s errand boy will, hopeful, force Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders to see the GPA for what it is: a pathetic attempt to repackage the dictatorship and pass for a democracy.

Saturday 13 June 2009

TSVANGIRAI EXPECT REWARD FOR "RE ENGAGING" THE WEST: HE IS TOLD TO F - OFF!

The one characteristic feature of the Mugabe regime was that it stopped listening a long time ago. The regime came to the conclusion that as long as they have all the political power they do not have to listen to anybody. Ordinary Zimbabweans were totally ignored and have never had a voice and when it came to elections, the once in five years chance when the ordinary citizen had the thick end of the whip, the regime used all manner of dirty tricks to deny the people a meaning vote. Mugabe has bullied and bamboozled his fellow Africa leaders; many of them did not have any A+ report in good governance themselves and so he told them in no uncertain terms they should no comment on his F- report!

As for the West; Mugabe has silenced them by focusing on their dark colonial past of exploitation and oppression and refuse to talk about the even darker present of mismanagement, corruption and brutal repression. Most people have attributed Zimbabwe’s economic melt down to Mugabe’s misrule; the regime claims it was the targeted sanctions that did the damage. The fact that the country’s economy had already taken a nose dive before the targeted sanctions were imposed and all the other supporting evidence are all irrelevant as far as regime is concerned.

It is one thing posturing and shouting abuse to everyone when you are on your feet; things are different when you are grooving in the gutter! From 2000 to 2008 ordinary Zimbabweans had faced unbelievable hardship as resulting from the worsening economic situation. Of course Mugabe was concerned that his teams of thugs may be overwhelmed by the growing public anger. He had the resources to placate the thugs and to bride the ruling elite to buy their continued support of his dictatorship. To win the 2008 elections, the regime has had to pull all the stops leaving it stone-broke! For the first time the party thugs and the ruling elite are now beginning to suffer the hardships of the economic melt down.

Mugabe knows he has to do something to at least ease the suffering of his thugs and cronies; he will not last a day in State House if they deserted him. Mugabe has been forced to listen. For the first time he is listening; he send Tsvangirai and his entourage to do just that – listen.

In his morbid mind Mugabe really expected to be rewarded for listening. “We are moving into a new phase, and that’s what needs to be rewarded rather than punished,” said Mugabe’s errand boy, PM Tsvangirai.

Now that Mugabe is listening, the West gave him an answer: the US would give Zimbabwe financial assistance if “certain benchmark” in democratic reforms are met, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told Tsvangirai. This is the same message the West has been saying for donkey years, it just that Mugabe was not listening.

Tsvangirai has absolutely nothing to prove the regime is actually “moving into a new phase” other than that it is now listening. The dictator still has his fist clinched, his thugs continue to on their war-footing marauding and terrorising people, the Police and Army continue to behave as if they are his own private militia, etc. This GNU has not made any concerted effort to meet any of the good governance bench marks!

If Mugabe and Tsvangirai expect to be rewarded just “for listening” although they have done nothing, then they need a wake-up call. Rewarded for the years of not listening?!

The West has rightly told him in the nicest diplomatic language possible to f-off. Who would pay good money for that!

It has taken three decade, economic melt down, tragic human suffering and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives to get Mugabe to listen. The dictator wants this to be a distinct phase in its own right – the period when his regime seeks re-engagement with the West; he listens and is rewarded handsomely for doing nothing else. The regime is not even prepared to say how long this phase will last; to them everything is a “process and not an event”. If the regime is rewarded for the three decades of mismanagement, corruption, brutal repression and not listening then we can be sure of one thing this phase will last for decades.

Will Zimbabwe ever get to the point when all the democratic benchmarks are met? At this rate, never!

The democratic right to have a meaningful say in the country’s governance, a free press and freedom of expression, rule of law, the right to life, etc. these are things Mugabe should have delivered the day Zimbabwe gained its independence, 18 April 1980. So for thirty years the people have waited for these basic rights. This GNU should have put right this historic injustice on 13 February 2009, but they too have been dilly-dallying and pussy-footing about it!

The people of Zimbabwe have waited too long for their basic human rights and will not wait another day. Now that the financial crisis has forced the dictator Mugabe, to listen then nothing should be done to ease the crisis until he actually carries out the democratic reforms. Of course he is worried that democratic reforms would spell an end to his dictatorship; the price Zimbabwe has had to pay for this dictatorship over the last three decades is totally unacceptable. And for what; to gratify the bloated ego of one individual and his cabal!
The only acceptable democratic reform bench mark to trigger the lifting of the targeted sanctions and the resumption of aid is regime change! As long as Mugabe remains a dictator he will resist all reforms. Change, real change, will only come when he is forced out of office. Mugabe must go; and go he will!

Wednesday 10 June 2009

TSVANGIRAI WILL NEVER EVER UNDERSTAND THE LINKAGE BETWEEN GOOD GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC PROSPERITY: MORE REASON THE WEST MUST SEND HIM EMPTY HANDED!

One of the troubles with having a simpleton like Tsvangirai in a position of power and authority is the real danger of getting stuck. Tsvangirai is like a hare caught in the full beam of a car and is transfixed on the spot and since he IS the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe the whole nation is stuck with him.
God knows how many times the whole nation, the whole world has gone through this point that there is need for meaningful democratic reform in Zimbabwe before the targeted economic sanctions can be lifted and full aid restore. But with a simpleton like Tsvangirai, it all goes in one ear and out the other.

Someone told him of the distinction between a process and an event and for some strange reason that did stick. I have lost count of the times Tsvangirai or one of his fellow MDC leaders have used that phase to justify they failures. Why should the scrapping of repressive press laws or the ending of the current lawlessness be a process and not a decisive event? Even if one was to accept that a feeble partner like MDC is completely incapable of making decisive moves; there is no evidence that this “process” has began! All the evidence points to one thing – that ever the nation had under Mugabe has not changed. Indeed Mugabe has been going to great length to underline that very point!

Lately Tsvangirai has started talking of Zimbabwe’s “irreversible” democratic changes. These democratic changes are fictitious, they invisible to everyone else except Tsvangirai. Of course it is nonsense to speak of something that has not happened as being “irreversible”.

“If this government were to collapse because it had failed to raise sufficient resources … what is there to replace it, and what would be the future of Zimbabwe?” Tsvangirai asked of the West. One cringes to hear that!

Zimbabwe is the hell-hole now not because the country did not have “sufficient resources”! Indeed Zimbabwe could do infinitely better than it is, even with the current economic melt down, if the country stopped the criminal waste of its material and human resources. End the seizure of farms and give the seized farms laid to waste to those who will put them back into productive use, for example, and nation will never again have to rely on food aid.

Zimbabwe is in this economic and political hell-hole because of three decades of mismanagement, corruption and political repression. The country must serious address these short coming first if it is ever to get out of the hole. Tsvangirai, like Mugabe, is obsessed about getting the targeted sanction lifted and new foreign aid flowing. As long as the mismanagement, corruption and political repression remain then Zimbabwe will never realise its full economic and political potential. Mugabe and the ruling elite will benefit but not the ordinary people.

Tsvangirai real has a serious problem understanding that meaningful democratic reforms are necessary for Zimbabwe to have any hope of a economic recovery and a life with dignity for its people. As far as he is concerned, Zimbabwe’s future is assured if he can bring back from his begging tour bags and bags of cash. He can not think of anything else. The West and everyone else have tried to explain this but failed.

“What is there to replace it (GNU)?” Tsvangirai asked. Tsvangirai is getting just as big-headed and pig-headed as Mugabe himself. For years Mugabe had created a political system in much there was no alternative leadership other than Zanu PF. Tsvangirai now believes Zimbabwe is stuck with the GNU. Nonsense!

If this GNU fails to raise the foreign aid, which it is, then it will collapse just as surely as Mugabe’s dictatorship was bound to if Tsvangirai had not propped it up. Zimbabwe will have a more competent government led by men and women with more common sense than the likes of Tsvangirai. A government that will address Zimbabwe’s teething problems head-on and one the West can trust with their money.

Tuesday 9 June 2009

POWER IS A HALLUCINOGENIC DRUG: MINISTER TENDAI BITI, DRUNK, CALLS MUGABE A "VICTORIAN GENTLEMAN"!

In the Movie “Ransom” the main character acted by Mel Gibson repeatedly gives the two fingers to the “bad guy” even when the later has a gun pointing at his head! To me that was a measure of real character. The average person out there, myself included, would have given the “bad guy” whatever he asked for and, no doubt, shot immediately thereafter! Many of know that the “bad guy” would almost all ways “waste” you as soon as he/she gets what they were after.

We all know Robert Mugabe is a “bad guy” – so bad that Hell itself would probably want to spit him out – and Finance Minister Tendai Biti, of all people, should know that. Mugabe must have had a 300 mm Cannon of Minister Biti to go over the top in his praise of the dictator.

“When you meet him,” Biti told an interviewer, “it’s hard to believe that this is the man the MDC has been fighting for so long, with his beautiful British manners, just like a Victorian gentleman.

“He deserves a knighthood,” Biti concluded.

I was speechless after reading that. One requires a double take and still one can not believe. Not only has MDC fought Mugabe in the past, they are still fighting the dictator to this day. If MDC thought after signing the GPA and the formation of the GNU they will work with Mugabe as an equal partner; the reality of the last three months should have dispelled that foolish motion. Mugabe has been as arrogant and belligerent as ever.

For a nation desperate to move out of this hell-hole Mugabe landed us, the lack of real progress has been most frustrating. One would have thought MDC is equally frustrated, particularly someone like Minister Biti.

It is tempting to think that Minister Biti was being sarcastic or was trying to charm the dictator using flattery. The Minister should have known better, flattery does not work with Mugabe. It was the Knighthood from the British and all the other honours showered on him that made the moron so big-head; he thinks he is special. In any case everything that MDC has done to date (forget the empty posturing) shows everyone in MDC worships Mugabe – out of fear or heart felt regard (which presumably Minister Biti was showing) or both.

Minister Biti is not the only MDC leader who has been singing Mugabe’s praise, even in the face of overwhelming evidence pointing to the contrary. PM Morgan Tsvangirai himself never tires of that. Even when Mugabe has just kicked him in the teeth he still stood up and said “the period of acrimony is over”.

Mugabe did not have a 300 mm Cannon pointing at Minister Biti, PM Tsvangirai and all the other MDC leaders to force them to sign his praise. He gave the MDC members something more potent- power. Power is the strongest hallucinogenic drug known to man. By virtue of their position as Finance Minister and Prime Minister, Tendai Biti and Morgan Tsvangirai, were now members of the select few allowed to drink “power”. To be drinking it in the company of President Robert Mugabe – the very fact that he is a ruthless dictator has had no effect, they simply worship him – has them hallucinating.

If some one has a gun to you head, I do not expect our political leaders to show the strength of character like the Mel Gibson character. I expect them to turn yellow like you and me. However, I expect any leader, especially national leaders not to lose their head the first time they taste power. Zimbabwe is in the pickle because when Mugabe tasted power in 1980, he loved it so much he immediately abandoned all the values and principles of freedom, liberty and human dignity the nation had fought for in pursuit of power. Indeed Mugabe is so drunk with this hallucinogenic drug he has dragged the country into the worst economic mess in human history and murdered hundred of thousands of innocent lives in pursuit of power and, here is the thing, he does not believe he has done anything wrong.

Now after three month in power people like Minister Biti are themselves seeing Mugabe as a “Victorian gentleman!” who should be knighted!
Power should come with a health warning “Not to be taken by those with a soft head and prone to hallucinating. People like Robert Mugabe, Tendai Biti, Morgan Tsvangirai, etc. It will blind and nabs the mind to reality and in extreme cases turn one into a heartless dictators!”

Sunday 7 June 2009

MUGABE'S ERRAND BOY, PM TSVANGIRAI, WILL NOT RETURN EMPTY HANDED: THE FRENCH WILL BREAK RANK WITH REST FOR THEIR OWN EGOTISTIC REASONS.

(In my last submission I expressed my wish that PM Tsvangirai would return from his three week tour of Europe and America, empty handed. Mariko Jones asked if I was not being to hash with the PM particularly if our difference should be a matter of Tsvangirai picking the high road and me picking the low road. Mariko also questioned the chance the PM would indeed return empty handed. See mynews24.com/ZimbabweLight This is my reply, to Mariko.)

Mariko my boy, if it was a matter of Tsvangirai chose the one route and I the other then I would willing defer to Tsvangirai. “All roads lead to Johannesburg,” as Alan Patten would say. Unfortunately in this case the difference between what Tsvangirai has chosen and what I say is the right course is more than one being more difficult and even dangerous, the straight and narrow vs. the ease and broad. The difference is more basic but as simple as one route will get you to Johannesburg whilst the other will get you to Hell.

What people like Robert Mugabe have failed to understand is that the basic and fundamental rights of the individual - the right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country, freedom of expression and the right to life itself, etc. – are so basic and fundamental no nation can have freedom, peace, justice and prosperity without them. In 1948 UN adopted these rights and freedoms and called them the universal and indivisible. People like Robert Mugabe have tried to make them divisible. Whilst Mugabe wanted these rights from for himself and those in his inner circle he systematically denied them to the rest of the people.

Mugabe’s has clung to his liberation war hero record like a binnacle to a whale. His argument was simple enough: “I am a liberation war hero; I put my very life on the line to end white racism and oppression of myself and all Zimbabweans. It is therefore preposterous to suggest that I would then turn round and oppress these same people after independence. Look at my liberation war record! Look at the sacrifices I made for Zimbabwe’s independence!”

What Mugabe is doing is one of the simplest tricks in the magician’s book of tricks. Make a simple statement which everyone agrees with then change one subtle point and demand of the audience to come to the same conclusion. If Mugabe was the people’s champion for human rights and dignity before independence when he himself was not in power and was one of the powerless. Is it possible he would continue to fight for human rights and dignity after independence when he is power? The answer is yes, that is possible. It is also possible that once in power he who seek to keep the people powerless and be as repressive as the white racist regime he replaced. Indeed that is exactly what Mugabe has done.

It is nonsense that Mugabe’s post independence performance must only be seen is the heroic light of his pre-independence contribution. The two events are independent and distinct in time just as much as what he could and could not do before and after independence changed.

African leaders have gone to great lengths to drill into the continent’s populous that whatever their failings, whatever bad things they have done, it is nothing compared to what the white colonialists did to Africa. Mugabe is one of those leaders who have played this race card for all its worth. Mugabe reminded his critics of the horrors of colonial rule and would ask the whites why they did not end colonial rule. If the critic is black, then as far as Mugabe is concerned the individual is nothing more a brainwashed Uncle Tom!

The right critics should never give in to people like Mugabe’s dirty tactics and name calling. They should have the courage to compare the white colonial regimes to the black regimes that followed. The truth is leaders like Mugabe has done worse than the colonial governments he replaced, politically and economically. The critics must also have the courage to compare the black regime’s performance to what the nation is capable of.

An argument should stand or fall on the strength or weakness of what was said and not judged on the basis who said it nor what they said or did not say in the past!

The respect of the individual’s basic and fundamental rights and freedom as the foundation of freedom, justice and good governance is as universally applicable as Charles Dawn’s theory of evolution, Galileo laws governing the motions of planets or Sir Isaac Newton’s gravitational laws. Dictators like Mugabe have tried to convince us that Zimbabwe can still have freedom, human dignity, etc. without a repressive regime like his. We should dismiss that as the nonsense it clearly is, just as we would dismiss as nonsense if someone was to argue that everything in our solar system revolves round the earth.

Tsvangirai is putting all his effort to make the GNU work; but there is one lead balloon that will never ever fly. The GNU failed to address the fundamental issue ending the dictatorship; Mugabe has the same dictatorial powers as he did before. Tsvangirai and MDC can redouble their efforts the fact of the matter is Zimbabwe will never be a peaceful and prosperous nation as long as one sector of society remain a law onto themselves. Lead balloon do not fly; that is a mathematical certainty, there is no if or may be about it.

After what Robert Mugabe and his cabal did last year to win the presidential run-off, it begs belief that anyone should think a brutal regime like that can somehow be rehabilitated, much less by appeasing them!

Mariko, my boy; there was nothing exceptional that the GNU did to deserve praise. There is food in the shops today compared to a year ago because the GNU ended the stupid price controls introduced by the Mugabe cabal. As I said the price control was stupid, ending the stupid policy is not even worth noted as common sense.

One of the things that have dogged Mugabe’s thirty years in power is the temptation to increase the size of the public sector, government and government owned / controlled companies like NRZ and ZESA to accommodated party loyalists. These have become such a burden to nation, the weighed the nation down. This GNU did not have the common sense to reduce this milestone round the nation’s neck. The GNU is even more bloated than any of Mugabe’s past administrations! There were many other decisions by the GNU that defy logic.

Yes there has been a significant drop in lawlessness since the MDC joined Mugabe to form the GNU. And yet Mugabe’s cabal have still continued to carry out acts of intimidation and lawlessness- enough to remind the nation that they can turn this up if they so wished. Even if the lawlessness stopped, that would still not be good enough. The only sure way Zimbabwe will know that the politically motivated violence and lawlessness that have become part and parcel of our lives have been stopped for good is if those responsible for these heinous acts in the past are punished!

There have been reports that it is the French Government that is sponsoring Tsvangirai’ s three week tour of Europe and America. If that is indeed the case, clearly the French would not invite Tsvangirai and then refuse an entry visa to any member of his entourage. They would not want to send him empty handed either.

So the French have broken rank with the rest of the West. It is a slippery slope the French have taken, very soon the targeted sanction would be lifted and financial aid to the GNU renewed even if there is all the evidence that it is nothing but the old Mugabe dictatorship in very other respect except name.

There are two reasons the French have taken this route; one because they are believe the Zimbabwe government will not be any better than it is right now – corrupt, incompetent and repressive as it still is. This is the same racist and patronising arrogance that Africa has been fighting against for centuries. The battle is yet to be won.

The second reason the French have pick this route is historic. Ever since the end of the Second World War, successive French governments have been so desperate to return pre-war international-player position they have done some really stupid things. The French government’s role in the Great Lakes region and the blood bath in Rwanda is one such example. The French would love to meddle in Zimbabwe’s affairs for the added reason that this would annoy their old rivalry, the British.

There is nothing a small country like Zimbabwe can do to stop the French undermining all that has been achieved so far to pressure Mugabe to accept real and meaningful democratic change. When the dictator was cornered and had no options left; it is sadly the French should throw him a life-line! Of course all the suffering Zimbabweans have faced and the many lives lost would now have been for nothing! All we can do now is hope and pray that the rest of the West do not follow the French’s selfish example!

Saturday 6 June 2009

TSVANGIRAI - MUGABE'S ERRAND BOY - ON 3 WEEK BEGGING TRIP: FOR THE GOOD OF ZIMBABWE HOPE WEST SEND HIM BACK EMPTY HANDED!

Starting today 6 June 2009, Zimbabwe PM Morgan Tsvangirai has started on a three week long tour of Europe and North America. He is on a diplomatic offensive to get the West to give financial aid to Zimbabwe and to lift the targeted economic sanctions. Forget the fancy title, Tsvangirai is Mugabe’s errand boy and I hope he comes back empty handed.

Tsvangirai is behaving like a lazy but stubborn school boy who would not do his home-work and yet insist he should get the reward he was promised if he DID do his home-work.

The West has said again and again that they will not give financial assistance to a white-washed Mugabe regime. All the evidence at the time of signing the GPA and ever since the formation of the GNU has pointed to one conclusion: that Mugabe is calling all the shots and he rules Zimbabwe much as in the past- with an iron fist! And that Tsvangirai and MDC are nothing more than Mugabe’s errand boys!

If Tsvangirai and MDC were in charge then one would have seen some progress in getting those responsible for the serious human rights violations and murders last year arrested and punished. The land issue is another one that required urgent attention and resolution. MDC had promised to carryout a land audit and the party had said the regime would take away the additional farms from those who had more than the stipulated one-farm per individual. After three months one would expect the country to now have restored the rule of law. Sadly none of these issues and many others have not been addressed.

Robert Mugabe has just said he will not allow Gideon Gono to be replaced at the RBZ, no doubt Tomana will stay as AG, the show trials of the MDC supporters and human rights activists have been set, farm invasions have continued with the active support of the state security agents, etc. All these serve to underline that Mugabe is firmly in control. So for Tsvangirai to be visiting the West with all this chaos on the ground will only serve to confirm that he is Mugabe’s errand boy.

It was the economic melt down and the targeted economic sanctions that forced Mugabe and his cabal to accept Tsvangirai and MDC as junior partners in this GNU. But before the ink on the GPA was dry Mugabe was showing his belligerent self. Tsvangirai should have taken a firm stand against the dictator and demanded that he honoured the word and spirit of the agreement. Sadly Tsvangirai did no such thing land the nation in the present position where the dictator once again believes he can do as he pleases.

The Western leaders have agreed to meet Tsvangirai and his entourage on this three week globe-trotting exercise. They must accord the Zimbabwean PM and his team all the hospitality; take then to all the tourist attractions and feed them. However, at the end of the day West must tell this “errand boy” they want to see meaningful change in Zimbabwe and send him and his fellow travellers back empty handed!

The West’s task is not to throw more good money after bad by propping up Mugabe. The GNU as it is presently constituted is nothing but a Mugabe dictatorship with an MDC front. For the long suffering people of Zimbabwe it is tempting to say the West should give in and let Mugabe do as he pleases. What the people’s hope is that with MDC as the junior partner there will be a bit more falling off the dictator’ table for them.

The people should thus give up hope of full democratic change, of restoration of justice and rule of law and of solid economic recovery. That the nation should accept living under the shadow of fear, corruption and all the misery the dictatorship stand for.

Fellow Zimbabweans we have come a long way, the road has been rough and the load heavy. For three decades, we have appeased Mugabe and let him do as he pleased and he did. With each year he has stayed in power he has made our lives more and more difficult not less. Tsvangirai has not reduced Mugabe’s dictatorial powers in any way. This GNU seeks to extend Mugabe’s rule not to end it. Tsvangirai and his MDC friends been welcome at Mugabe’s high table and they will do nothing to risk their position.

On the other hand, we the people have nothing to gain from this GNU but everything to lose from its continued existence - our democratic right to a fair share in the country’s wealth and a life with dignity. Tsvangirai chose to be Mugabe’s errand boy, he betrayed us in joining Mugabe’s brutal dictatorship. We must not fellow him down this road to hell.
As long as the West do not fail us and prop up this Mugabe dictatorship masquerading as GNU the dictatorship will fail. It has stolen everything worth stealing and sold everything worth selling, it is broke. If Tsvangirai comes back empty handed like Tendai Biti before him; Mugabe will be forced to accept regime change this time!

Thursday 4 June 2009

GONO OWNER OF BEST CHICKEN FARM IN AFRICA: ZIMBABWE'S POOR PAID FOR THE FARM!

Gono, like so many others in Mugabe’s inner circle, owns a farm. “We now have the biggest chicken hatching project in Africa, and we are the only black farmers doing that,” said Gono.

A few months ago, the UK Observer Newspaper reported of a foreign currency scam in Zimbabwe. All foreign currency coming into the country was sold to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe at the official exchange rate. The Bank then sold the forex to the ruling elite and the selected few at the official exchange rate and they in turn sold it on the black market at the black market rate. The difference between the official rate and the black market rate at the time was a staggering 800%.

Some lucky, lucky people made pots and pots for money! At the time, someone told of a Zimbabwean student studying in UK who brought back from Zimbabwe £45 000.00 cash. The student was the son of junior government official!

Ever since the Zimbabwe economy took a nose dive in 2000, more and more Zimbabweans were forced to depend of Diaspora- dollar just to buy the basics of life. It was this dollar the RBZ targeted; robbing the poorest of the poor.

The RBZ did not have to do much other than print money and the bank’s printer was working a three shift. Inflation meant nothing to the regime’s rich, the RBZ printed money with more and more zeros. The rich benefited from the runaway inflation in that the difference between the official rate and the black market rate soared. Again it was the ordinary people who lost out; they found themselves holding on to worthless money.

Gideon Gono as the Governor of the RBZ he controlled the whole scam. Millions of dollars have disappeared from individual and companies’ RBZ account. It is not inconceivable that the Governor helped himself to just $1.25 million at 800% mark-up he was a billionaire overnight! So why should anyone be surprised to hear the RBZ governor boost of having the best chicken farm in Africa. The farm is 10 km long!

Gono help many, many others make pots and pots of money. Of course none of these individuals would hear of Gono losing his job. Gono himself would not want to lose his position as governor; he could run his multi-billion dollar Farm and God-knows what other multi-billion dollar ventures he has besides. He wants to remain governor because the bank is the only source of ease money.

Gono’s investment ventures are booming with the smaller Zanu PF fries’ farms are going to waste not because the later do not have “farming in their genes” as Gono would have us believe. Gono has poured millions into his chicken farm; to him money has never been an issue. But if he lost his job at the RBZ, things might be different!

Mugabe’s dictatorship created two worlds; one for the ruling elite who lived in total luxury and a few of them have become filth rich. The second world was for the ordinary Zimbabweans, constituting 90% of the population, who were forced into a life of abject poverty and unimaginable despair.
It is great to see a fellow man prosper but not people like Gono. He, like all the new rich created by the Mugabe dictatorship, made fortunes by riding rough shod over the poor. That is the kind of greed and heartlessness that must be condemned.

Monday 1 June 2009

Economist Bloch call Gono a genius: call Mugabe a great statesman - why not!

I have read Zimbabwe Economist, Eric Bloch's columns many, many times in Zimbabwe's independent press. I have to say, often I was no wiser after reading them than before. His theories / explanations / comments / etc went way over my head. This time however, HE is way out of his depth; to call Gideon Gono a genius is tantamount to calling Adolf Hitler or Robert Mugabe a great statesman!

Gono, Hitler and Mugabe have done a lot of things and their words and actions have affected millions of people. Their names will be remember in history for a millennium and beyond together with those of other historic figures like US President Abraham Lincoln, Sir Isaac Newton, Mahatma Gandhi of India and Mother Teresa. The later group are famous whilst Gono and co. are notorious. Sir Isaac Newton is a genius because he was able to explain things that had puzzled mankind for generations. What exactly has Gono done to deserve to be called genius? I am not an economist, but this time, Mr Bloch; you will have my undivided attention.
Mr Bloch must explain how Gono’s “nefarious” activities like printing Z$ and thus fuelling Zimbabwe’s hyper inflation, taking the country’s resources from critical areas like health, education and food relief and channelling them into buying Mercedes Benz for the ruling elite and funding Zanu PF’s thugs who terrorising and murdered innocent people fit in with being a genius. It is not enough to say Gono was forced to do these things.

“Gono is being condemned for the wrong reasons because whatever he did under the Zanu-PF government, he was being forced to do,” said Mr Bloch. One will have to be very naïve to believe that nonsense.

What ever Gideon Gono has done, he was well rewarded for it. As Governor of RBZ, Gono was a de facto member of the Joint Operation Command (JOC) – the supreme decision-making body of the Mugabe dictatorship. JOC members wielded a lot of power and influence and everything and everyone they touched turned into gold!

Gono, like all the other members of JOC, earned his JOC badge because he showed initiative – the regime would have never cleaned clients’ RBZ foreign currency bank accounts with such efficiency without Gono’s active help, for example - and showed the willingness to go the extra mile in serving the dictatorship.

When Gono was asked to explain his past his defence was he was following parliament and Mugabe's orders. Right, we are back to the Nazi killers' infamous "we were following orders!” People should not be surprised to find that Gideon Gono played an active roll in the writing of the RBZ Act, just to cover his own backside!

It is one thing for Mr Eric Bloch to call the disgraced RBZ Governor a “genius” because he was “impressed” by all the dirty economic tricks the Governor devised and how he tried to cleverly covered his tracks. Mr Bloch did not feel the adverse effects of the economic melt down and the political repression Gono’s dirty tricks caused. Millions of Zimbabweans did and find it insulting that someone would call the person clearly with no professional principles, who sold his own mother for a price and was proud he had a mother to sell and who caused them so much grief a genius. It is no exaggeration to say, it will take at least two generations and a lot of hard work and sacrifice for the Zimbabwe economy to recover to what it was in 2003 when Gono was appointed Governor. Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess, not because the country was being run by idiots; Mugabe’s successive governments have some on the well educated men and women, expects in their own field of expertise! The country is in a mess because these men and women did not have the professional principles, the moral compass and the common sense to say no to Mugabe’s corrupting influences. Gideon Gono, like many others in JOC and Mugabe’s ruling elite, is accused of abusing his power and corruption and will be rightly condemned! Mr Bloch, Gono is not being assessed for his knowledge of Keynesian Economics, etc. just as the Nuremberg Nazi criminals were not on trial for their shooting skills!