To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
I have evoked this prayer, not because I am religious, but because
it encapsulated beautifully the three things I want to talk about today;
change, courage and wisdom.
The upcoming referendum is the very last chance for Zimbabweans to
achieve the democratic change that would propel us out of the desert of
despair, dictatorship, into the green valleys of hope, democratic rule.
Zimbabwe is a de facto Zanu PF dictatorship and all political
opposition has been routinely and ruthless silenced. The 2008 presidential run-off
elections showed just how brutal the dictatorship could be when over a million
Zimbabweans were internally displaced, hundreds of thousands were beaten and/or
raped and over 500 were murdered.
The whole world was shocked by the wanton violence of 2008 and
SADC instructed Zimbabwe GNU to implement a raft of democratic reforms whose
end product was very clear and explicit: to deliver free and fair election and
to stop the repeat of 2008 violence.
None, not ever one, of the reforms were implemented because Mugabe
refused and MDC were too incompetent to force the issue. Although everyone
could see there had been no change, still the people had accepted the hollow
assurance from PM Tsvangirai that the coming elections would be free and fair
and not a repeat of the 2008.
The nation’s false sense of security was shuttered on Saturday 23
February 2013 when a 12 year old boy, Christpower Simbarashe Maisiri, the son
of a MDC official in Headlands, was burnt to death after the hut the boy was
sleeping in was deliberately torched by known Zanu PF thugs. PM Tsvangirai and
his fellow MDC friends went into overdrive revising their lies that the nation
was heading for peaceful elections to acknowledging that the Zanu PF
dictatorship was indeed alive and very dangerous!
"This election is going to be bloodier than 2008"
admitted the MDC Home Affairs Minister, Theresa Makone on S W Radio Africa Hot
Seat programme. Well that speaks volumes! This is an admission that the party’s
hair cut changes in the Copac constitution will not bring free and fair
elections – free of violence.
MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti said the party was sending a
dossier to SADC giving details of the intimidations, harassment, beating and
even murders. This the first time the party has ever spoken of this dossier!
A high power MDC delegation was sent off to SADC “to discuss among
other things, the need for SADC to deliver a free and fair election,” a report
on MDC party website read. This is a knee-jerk MDC response; they not only run
to SADC but, worse still, they blame the regional body for the party’s own
breath taking incompetence. It is not for SADC to “deliver free and fair
elections” but for MDC to implement the reforms by seeing to it that the
required laws are passed in parliament. MDC had the parliamentary majority so
this should have been a breeze.
SADC have told P M Tsvangirai again and again, implement the
agreed GPA reforms – follow the GPA roadmap – follow the yellow brick road. No
doubt SADC will tell this high powered MDC delegation exactly the same thing -
implement the agreed GPA reforms!
It was not until Christpower’s murder MDC had maintained that the
party would not brook boycotting the elections. On 31 January 2013 following a
high level MDC party retreat in Inyanga Nelson Chamisa the party’s National
Organising Secretary "The people of Zimbabwe have embraced the MDC and
have placed their hope in the party; hence, whatever the magnitude of the
persecution from which ever quarter, the people will vote in their numbers for
a new beginning and real transformation which will be brought about by the MDC
government."
If we remove the political rhetoric and the pseudo machismo – we
all know when the going gets tough Tsvangirai will once again have his mad dash
for the Netherlands Embassy and the rest of the MDC leaders will disappear like
mist in the morning African sun – we will have the chilling message: MDC will
drag the nation through another election regardless the cost in broken limbs
and lost lives.
After Christpower was murdered, MDC resubmitted the party’s old
Conditions for a Sustainable Election in Zimbabwe (COSEZ), which include
demands for a free media and the implementation of the reforms to dismantle the
Mugabe dictatorships. And renewed the threat too; the party will not
participate in any election unless the conditions are met.
Meanwhile on Saturday 2 March 2013 PM Tsvangirai was in Gweru for
the launch of the “Yes” campaign on the referendum.
Let me help you unpack this MDC mess. Whilst MDC accepts that it
is impossible to deliver free and fair elections without implementing the
reforms, hence the resubmitted COSEZ, what the party fails to grasp is the
reality that this Copac constitution is accepted in the referendum then the
door to implementing reforms will be shut. It is nonsense to talk of amending a
constitution that the populous has just adopted particularly when those
amendments are the very reforms Mugabe has resisted all these last five years!
If the truth be told, and it must be told, MDC are quietly reverting
to their chilling position; they will drag the nation through another election
regardless the cost in broken limbs and lost lives!
I was watching a wildlife
documentary about wildebeest migrating in search of good grazing. They had to
cross this flooded river and the point they happened to arrive at had steep
banks, 30 feet drop. The more savvy zebra would look for a safer crossing point
and if the river is flooded they would wait 3 or 5 days if necessary. Not so
with the wildebeest; it was tails up and jump. Many broke their legs, many were
swept away by the strong fast flowing flood and drowned and those that made it
across had the impossible task of climbing the steep and slippery bank on the
other side. What a carnage!
Zimbabwe’s 2008 chaotic and violent elections were carnage!
By failing to have the reforms implemented the country’s political
leaders had let the nation down. After five years of bickering amongst
themselves and wasting billions of dollars the GNU had brought the nation back
to the same political situation as in 2008, the same dangerous river crossing
point!
The referendum is giving the people their chance to decide whether
the critical reforms implemented. The need for the implementing the reforms has
not vanished, the reality of the repeat of the violence is still there and just
because the GNU failed to implement them does not mean no one else can.
A “YES” vote in the referendum means people do not want the
reforms and accept the politicians’ failure; it is yes to the violence; it is
tails up and jump! There will be another carnage, a repeat of 2008 or worse!
A “NO” vote be a demand for the reforms to be implemented, a
demand for a safer crossing point. Surely this is the common sense position.
Tsvangirai is the madman Chandagwinyira who will seat before a
blazing camp fire on a roasting hot day because that is what he has set his
mind to do. The truth only Mugabe has everything to gain from passing of this Copac
constitution his dictatorial powers confirmed in the constitution. Tsvangirai
will gain nothing from it and the people will lose everything. The only reason
Tsvangirai is out there campaign for a yes vote is because he will not listen
to reason. If the people, mainly out of ignorance, are foolish enough to follow
Chandagwinyira then they will pay dearly for their folly!
If this Copac constitution is adopted then this will constitute
the crossing point for the nation for decades to come; Zimbabwe’s elections
will be a chaotic and violence affair, a carnage, for years to come. Frankly
the world is fed up with Zimbabwe’s failure to sort out its political problems,
the sanctions will be lifted regardless of the level of violence and we will be
on our own.
This is the list of those who attended Christpower’ funeral: Prime
Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe, The Right Honourable Morgan Richard
Tsvangirai and his good wife, Mai Elizabeth Tsvangirai; the Right Honourable
Deputy Prime Minister, Thokozani Khupe; “x” number of Ministers; ”y” MPs and
“z” hundreds of thousands of ordinary Zimbabweans. A great tribune indeed given
he was only 12 years old.
When all is said and done what will be remember for generations to
come is that Christpower died because the very politicians who buried him failed
to implement the necessary reforms.
The greatest tribute the
nation can pay to Christpower, in my humble opinion, would be if by his
gruesome death the nation was shocked into realizing the urgent need to address
this Zanu PF culture of violence decisive once and once for all and thus vote
NO in the referendum. Let the name of Christpower Simbareshe Maisiri be entered
in the annals of history as the last victim of Zanu PF wanton political
violence! That will be some small recompense for this innocent life so
ruthlessly and brutally cut short!
8 comments:
Mumbengegwi said Western observers would not be welcome because of the targeted sanctions the EU and US imposed on Robert Mugabe and his cronies.
Yes of course, we all know the real reason why Mugabe cannot afford to have an serious observers on the ground and see how Mugabe and Zanu PF is riding rough shod over the people!
High Court Judge Joseph Raulinga last month ruled that there was enough information to cast doubts on the legality of that poll, and ordered the President to hand it over within ten days.
But according to Mail & Guardian Editor Nic Dawes, the Presidency has again stated its intention to appeal the decision meaning the report will remain secret for now.
This can not go on forever
Of course Chimbwido, it is the MDC supporters, critics of the dictatorship and the ordinary Zimbabweans the real victims of all the corruption and brutal oppression who are causing all the violence and lawlessness and by some strange quark the same people causing the violence and lawlessness are also the victim of the same violence and lawlessness.
In Zimbabwe the murderers are the murdered!
Zimbabweans have been denied their basic rights all these last 33 years including their right to free and fair elections and the right to life itself. Of course we should not look to the very people denying them these rights to admit these things are happening much less how to end this injustice! Your voice Chimbwido like that of the tyrant Mugabe himself is like the howling of a mad dog it is full of noise but no sense.
Just because Mugabe was able to hoodwink Tsvangirai and MDC and not implement the reforms; it will only be a matter of time before it dawns on the nation that the reforms are the only way forward, he will not hoodwink anyone then.
This Mugabe and Zanu PF dictatorship is doomed, mark my word!
Nelson Chamisa, the MDC-T organising secretary, said the re-emergence of violence could discredit the upcoming polls.
“This is how it began in 2008. We are seeing the genesis for another season of violence, a winter of suffering. This will discredit any plebiscite in this country; the credibility of the forthcoming elections will be called into question,” he said. Yes a season MDC has done nothing to stop happening!
MDC was being naive to think there can be free and fair elections in Zimbabwe without implementing the democratic reforms design to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship brick by brick. If the nation is dragged into another blood election then MDC must know they too will be held accountable for all the broken limbs and the body bags because the party is right now campaigning for a yes vote in the referendum knowing that a no vote will save the nation from a repeat of the 2008 madness!
MDC must stand up now and tell the nation the truth that they must vote no; the clock is ticking!
Kusaziva kufa! Ignorance is death!
Last week MDC resubmitted their conditions the party said must be met or they will boycott the elections. The conditions included reforms to create a free media and to end partisan policing. These are things that the Copac constitution will not deliver. And now a week later Tsvangirai is once again telling the people the Copac rubbish alone will deliver those conditions necessary for free and fair elections and they should vote yes in the referendum.
The reality is this Copac rubbish will not end Mugabe's dictatorial powers only implementing the reforms will do that. But by voting yes the people will shut the door to all reforms. Mugabe will wave at the people the Copac constitution and will not brook any amendments!
"We must all go out and vote yes for the draft constitution so that we move the reform process forward. It is important for our nation," Tsvangirai told MDC supporters on Wednesday night.
This is a nightmare; the people are walking straight into a Mugabe trap and who is leading them none other than Tsvangirai himself!
People like Pasirayi must explain what exactly they want or expect SADC to do instead of just making sweeping statements like President Zuma "need to play a more active and intervention role in Zimbabwe". Pasirayi has already acknowledged that the reforms should have been implemented and it is MDC, not SADC, who should have had the reforms implemented.
Many of Zimbabwe's NGOs have been too close to MDC and they have refrained from saying anything critical of PM Tsvangirai and MDC. What these NGO must now realize is that they cannot seat on the fence on this issue. If they believe the reforms are necessary to stop the repeat of the 2008 violence then they must say so and tell the people to vote no before it is too late! Hiding behind SADC or President Zuma intervening will no cut the ice. They do not want to come out in the open and say the people must vote no but expect President Zuma to do so?
SADC showed us the roadmap, implement the reforms. Now it is up to us Zimbabweans to implement the reforms or not. President Zuma or SADC will NOT intervene or tell us how we should vote!
@ Yepec
Mugabe did not veto power on the implementation of the reforms. If MDC had proposed reforms in pursuance of the implementation of the reforms and Mugabe refused to sign the proposals into law then MDC had the opportunity to ask SADC to assist in making sure that the reforms were implemented.
What proposals has MDC produced and Mugabe refused to sign? None, not even one! And the reason why that is so is incompetence on the part of MDC.
What MDC are doing here is putting the cart before the horse. Having failed to implement the reforms necessary to ensure free and fair elections – free of violence, forget all the other niceties like free media, a clean voters’ roll, etc.; MDC have then decided to go into elections, knowing Zanu PF will have a free hand in using all the usual dirty tricks including violence, hoping that MDC will still win and then they can revisit the reforms. There are three basic weaknesses with this strategy:
1) The nation will have the repeat of the 2008 violence; no one should have to risk life and limb to exercise their basic right to vote
2) Even if MDC was to win, which is a big IF, Zanu PF will have greater political influence than they deserve because they used the dirty tricks and this undemocratic element will determine what the new government can and cannot do. If one was to say in the GNU we had half a glass of milk (MDC) and half sewage (ZANU PF) the end product was a glass of sewage (which is way the GNU was totally dysfunctional). What will emerge after these elections will be, at best, a full glass of milk plus a teaspoon full of sewage and the end product is still a glass of sewage.
3) The Copac constitution is no different from the African Charter; it lists all the rights and freedoms but grants those in power to take them all away in the name of maintaining law and order.
We have a dictatorship already on the ground, hence the need for implementing the reforms; this Copac constitution pretence that we do not, had to because Mugabe refused to implement the reforms. And so the GNU partners in crime painted the dictator’s creed with democracy paint. It is no more than a whitewashed tomb, all the rottenness and foulness of the dictatorship is still there and it is already coming out. Before the nation has voted in the referendum, it is already clear the Police, the Judiciary, the thugs, all the ingredients for a repeat of 2008 are there. As soon as Mugabe has the yes vote safely in the bag the true nature of the dictatorship will emerge behind the whitewash.
The nation will be stuck with this Copac constitution which will never deliver the people’s basic rights and freedoms for decades to come.
I do not expect you Yepec nor Tsvangirai to understand this; your intellect is just too dull for that! The real tragedy is that the nation’s destiny should be in the hands of such a man as Tsvangirai but there we are. Life is full of surprises, in this case a nightmare surprise!
Biti reportedly told the South Africans that although the country was ready for the referendum, the time was not right for fresh elections because of a “deteriorating security situation”.
Well MDC and the nation at large should know that a yes vote in the referendum is not just an approval of the Copac constitution itself but the starting gun for the election process. Neither the Copac constitution calls for any reforms to be implemented nor is the yes vote a qualified “on condition that reforms are implemented” one. Mugabe is not going to brook implementing any reforms after the referendum or delays in holding the elections. SADC or SA cannot and will not interfere at that point
The only way Zimbabweans can avoid being dragged into yet another violent election process now is if the no vote win the day in the referendum!
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