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!
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