There are many admirable and inspiring things in Dr Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech delivered on the steps of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial in Washington but one of those is his total grasp of urgency of a solution NOW. Not next generation, next year – NOW!
“We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality,” said King.
“ … This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. …. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.” Argued King in total contrast to many of Africa’s failed leaders who have argued that the fight for freedom, justice and human dignity is “not an event but a process” to justify their failure to deliver.
Dictators like Mugabe have turned from being champions of justice and freedom to the worst violators human rights and freedoms. They have tramped on these freedoms and rights because only the capitalists and their petty bourgeois friends are concerned and benefit from these rights. They are serving the masses whose concerns are putting food on their table and a roof over their heads. This is false choice these tyrants present because political and economic rights are not mutually exclusive. Indeed one can even say deny a person their political rights and everything else they have is yours to do as you please including their very life!
The other great thing about Dr King was his vision; he skilfully guided the blacks away from hating those who hurt them.
“The marvellous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people,” advised Dr King, “for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.”
Tyrants like Mugabe have presented the evils whites racists inflicted on the blacks as not just as incurable and festering wounds but worse still that the whites are forever looking for every opportunity to inflict fresh wounds and therefore blacks must be on their guard at all times! Whatever he has done including the systematic denial of our people’s basic human rights and dignity it was for one principle purpose; to hit black at the whites and/or safe guard the independence and sovereignty of Zimbabwe. He has been quick to label his fellow black critics and opponents, white-man’s puppets, are thus has had no qualms them their human rights including the right to life!
Tyrants like Mugabe have hidden their continued human rights violation of millions of our people behind the smoke screen of fighting and hurting the whites. We should have never allowed Mugabe to deny whites their right to own property because that was the slippery slope that led to blacks being their right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and ultimately to thousands losing their right to life.
Recently Mugabe has taken to blaming the whites for his failed economic policies and corrupt rule. The West has stopped the WB and IMF lending money to Zimbabwe, for example, as punishment for seizing land from the white farmers, he claims. He does not say that Zimbabwe is already up to her ears in debt to the two international institutions, amongst others; debts the country was failing to service. Mugabe is bitter the two would not give him the money regardless his failure to repay; no one would do that.
Dr King was right, the freedom of blacks is “inextricably bound” to the freedom of whites. Who have guessed that a black tyrant would drag the whole nation into the dark ages in the name of punishing the whites!
Friday, 24 June 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
White racists are creating black racists like Julius Malema and Robert Mugabe!
“The ANC and President Jacob Zuma’s reluctance to discipline ANC Youth League president Julius Malema has led to his recent comments and actions the past weekend, the Freedom Front Plus Youth said on Monday.”
That is a statement of fact and few people would disagree with that!“FF Plus youth leader Jan van Niekerk said Malema’s comments on nationalisation and that white capitalism was the enemy, would lead to race polarisation and economic instability in southern Africa.”
Is not just stating the obvious but worse still it is the proverbial pan calling the kettle black.
Of course Julius Malema is playing a race card when he says blacks should take away land from the white. But is Jan van Niekerk is playing the race card too by denying the apartheid ruled SA was racists and everything the regime did was deliberated and calculated to benefit the whites at the expense of the blacks.
Apartheid did put the whites at a great advantage economically, educationally, socially, etc. Now that SA has a black government it is perfectly natural that blacks should want the government to do something to uplift them. These are basic facts that can not be denied and should be acknowledged.
The torrent of comments from whites on this page and on many other occasions slamming down black leaders like Julius Malema are clearly in denial that the whites have had the leg up during the days of apartheid and/or that blacks have no legitimate right to seek the same advantages that whites now take for granted. Whatever their reason(s), these whites are being racists. And in my humble opinion it is these white racists who have created monsters like Malema and Mugabe and made it is ease for them to spread their gospel of hate.
White racists resisting any policy designed to redistribute the national wealth have only helped swell the numbers of blacks supporting such policies blindly.
Blacks and whites should condemn Malema’s threat to seize white owned farms and give them to blacks purely from an economic view point. The policy does not make economic sense. The nation’s continued prosperity can only be assured by increased productivity. And that means making maximum use of the nation’s material and human resources.
Land is a material resource that should be allocated to whoever, black or white, best able to use it. “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white; if it can catch mice (farm land efficiently) it is a good cat!” said Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader credited for setting China on the path of economic boom.
Those blacks keen to try their hand in farming should be encouraged by sending them to Agricultural Colleges. And when their come out of College, State Land should be made available for them to farm.
Malema’s policy is based on punishing the whites for all the years of apartheid and on greed. Just as happened in Zimbabwe the farms will be taken over by Malema and other party loyalists killing the country’s agricultural sector.
Mr Malema is a very rich man already and he would not deny that he used his political muscle to get his riches. One would have to be naïve to think that he would not use the same muscle to seize white owned farms, mines, etc.
South Africa should have a proper debate on the nationalisation of mines, forced seizure of white owned farms, etc. Julius Malema has stifled all meaningful debate by behaving like a play ground bully. Yes President Zuma and the other ANC leaders have been slow in reining Malema in and what goes round comes round, now Malema in bullying President Zuma!
That is a statement of fact and few people would disagree with that!“FF Plus youth leader Jan van Niekerk said Malema’s comments on nationalisation and that white capitalism was the enemy, would lead to race polarisation and economic instability in southern Africa.”
Is not just stating the obvious but worse still it is the proverbial pan calling the kettle black.
Of course Julius Malema is playing a race card when he says blacks should take away land from the white. But is Jan van Niekerk is playing the race card too by denying the apartheid ruled SA was racists and everything the regime did was deliberated and calculated to benefit the whites at the expense of the blacks.
Apartheid did put the whites at a great advantage economically, educationally, socially, etc. Now that SA has a black government it is perfectly natural that blacks should want the government to do something to uplift them. These are basic facts that can not be denied and should be acknowledged.
The torrent of comments from whites on this page and on many other occasions slamming down black leaders like Julius Malema are clearly in denial that the whites have had the leg up during the days of apartheid and/or that blacks have no legitimate right to seek the same advantages that whites now take for granted. Whatever their reason(s), these whites are being racists. And in my humble opinion it is these white racists who have created monsters like Malema and Mugabe and made it is ease for them to spread their gospel of hate.
White racists resisting any policy designed to redistribute the national wealth have only helped swell the numbers of blacks supporting such policies blindly.
Blacks and whites should condemn Malema’s threat to seize white owned farms and give them to blacks purely from an economic view point. The policy does not make economic sense. The nation’s continued prosperity can only be assured by increased productivity. And that means making maximum use of the nation’s material and human resources.
Land is a material resource that should be allocated to whoever, black or white, best able to use it. “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white; if it can catch mice (farm land efficiently) it is a good cat!” said Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader credited for setting China on the path of economic boom.
Those blacks keen to try their hand in farming should be encouraged by sending them to Agricultural Colleges. And when their come out of College, State Land should be made available for them to farm.
Malema’s policy is based on punishing the whites for all the years of apartheid and on greed. Just as happened in Zimbabwe the farms will be taken over by Malema and other party loyalists killing the country’s agricultural sector.
Mr Malema is a very rich man already and he would not deny that he used his political muscle to get his riches. One would have to be naïve to think that he would not use the same muscle to seize white owned farms, mines, etc.
South Africa should have a proper debate on the nationalisation of mines, forced seizure of white owned farms, etc. Julius Malema has stifled all meaningful debate by behaving like a play ground bully. Yes President Zuma and the other ANC leaders have been slow in reining Malema in and what goes round comes round, now Malema in bullying President Zuma!
COPAC inspire recipe of new constitution for Zimbabwe: glass of milk + 5 spoon sewage = glass of sewage!
Each time Tsvangirai has hit a brick wall in the GNU because Mugabe would not honour his GPA agreement he has asked SADC to intervene. Again and again SADC leaders have nothing more than slapped Mugabe on the wrist and every time Tsvangirai has gone over the moon with joy convinced SADC was this time firm and decisive. After the 11 June SADC meeting the regional leaders gave no firm roadmap on any of the teething Zimbabwe problems; the drafting of the new constitution is still bogged down, the political violence is getting worse, no meaningful media and security sector reforms have been carried out, etc. So what is it that Tsvangirai and his MDC supporters are crawling about?
Ever since the SADC meeting two weeks ago both Mugabe and Tsvangirai have competed with each claiming regional leaders supported their position with the MDC leader going to the extend of calling Mugabe a liar at an MDC rally.
“The problem in this country is that people like lies and don’t want to tell the truth. We were also there and can’t be lied to. It’s surprising that a grown up man lies about what happened but we will tell the truth,” Tsvangirai told his supporters. The truth is SADC leaders once again failed to address the core issues; and Tsvangirai said nothing about this failure.
The 11 June 2011 SADC meeting on Zimbabwe was billed as the meeting where President Zuma was going to tell off Mugabe and give a sense of direction and purpose in Zimbabwe political crisis. President Zuma “vachaudza Mugabe chinotadzisa imbwa keseka kunyenama ichigona” as we would say in Shona. None of these things happened!
It will soon be three years since the signing of the GPA and there is no clear date when the new constitution will be ready to be put to the people’s vote. It is almost certain; the new constitution will contain enough Zanu PF contaminants to make it unacceptable.
Mugabe will use his dictatorial powers to ensure there are clauses in the new constitution giving him dictatorial powers to negate all the other positive clauses contained in the rest of the new constitution thus making the whole document unacceptable. It is in his DNA as a dictator to do so.
MDC’s COPAC representative, Douglas Monzora has been arguing people not to reject the new constitution before they have seen the document. Zimbabweans have good reasons to prejudge it because
a) the constitution writing process has taken nearly twice as long already as the more than generous time of eighteen months by the GPA (to say nothing of the cost) and there is still no end date in sight. The nation suffered its worst economic melt down in 2008 and yet all economic recovery plans have been put on the backburner until the end of this GNU. Just how much longer is this nation supposed to wait?
b) Zanu PF thugs did hijack outreach meetings and so the data on which the new constitution will be based has been contaminated already. One has to be really naïve to believe the end product will not have the same contaminants.
c) MDC was warned against signing GPA because it was foolish to give Mugabe dictatorial powers and then hope he would not use them to disrupt attempts to bring about any meaningful democratic reforms. It is not surprising therefore that the drafting of the new constitution is proving to be a long drawn out process nor that Zanu PF thugs hijacked outreach programmes, etc. Mugabe is a dictator and he can not be expected to president over democratic change; he has his own agenda of resisting regime change at all cost.
MDC is facing the same stubborn resistance from Mugabe and Zanu PF in its efforts to reform the Media, Police, etc. as it is facing over the new constitution.
“We have a politicised military. They are everywhere, terrorising people. There has to be security sector reform, soldiers must stay in the barracks, police must stay in the barracks,” Minister Tendai Biti told the same rally.
PM Tsvangirai and Minister Biti should not be reminding us again what the outstanding GPA issues are but tell us the truth of how the party has failed to have these issues resolved nearly three years since the signing of the GPA.
Recipe of the COPAC inspired new constitution for Zimbabwe:
Glass of milk + 5 spoon of sewage = glass full of sewage
Zanu PF thugs successfully hijacked the outreach programmes to ensure the Cholera contaminated sewage is included in the recipe. MDC are fighting a rare-guard battle to ensure the spoonfuls of sewage are not increased. It is a matter of indifference as to how many spoonfuls of sewage will be added since the end product will not change – it will still be a glass full of sewage!
Ever since the SADC meeting two weeks ago both Mugabe and Tsvangirai have competed with each claiming regional leaders supported their position with the MDC leader going to the extend of calling Mugabe a liar at an MDC rally.
“The problem in this country is that people like lies and don’t want to tell the truth. We were also there and can’t be lied to. It’s surprising that a grown up man lies about what happened but we will tell the truth,” Tsvangirai told his supporters. The truth is SADC leaders once again failed to address the core issues; and Tsvangirai said nothing about this failure.
The 11 June 2011 SADC meeting on Zimbabwe was billed as the meeting where President Zuma was going to tell off Mugabe and give a sense of direction and purpose in Zimbabwe political crisis. President Zuma “vachaudza Mugabe chinotadzisa imbwa keseka kunyenama ichigona” as we would say in Shona. None of these things happened!
It will soon be three years since the signing of the GPA and there is no clear date when the new constitution will be ready to be put to the people’s vote. It is almost certain; the new constitution will contain enough Zanu PF contaminants to make it unacceptable.
Mugabe will use his dictatorial powers to ensure there are clauses in the new constitution giving him dictatorial powers to negate all the other positive clauses contained in the rest of the new constitution thus making the whole document unacceptable. It is in his DNA as a dictator to do so.
MDC’s COPAC representative, Douglas Monzora has been arguing people not to reject the new constitution before they have seen the document. Zimbabweans have good reasons to prejudge it because
a) the constitution writing process has taken nearly twice as long already as the more than generous time of eighteen months by the GPA (to say nothing of the cost) and there is still no end date in sight. The nation suffered its worst economic melt down in 2008 and yet all economic recovery plans have been put on the backburner until the end of this GNU. Just how much longer is this nation supposed to wait?
b) Zanu PF thugs did hijack outreach meetings and so the data on which the new constitution will be based has been contaminated already. One has to be really naïve to believe the end product will not have the same contaminants.
c) MDC was warned against signing GPA because it was foolish to give Mugabe dictatorial powers and then hope he would not use them to disrupt attempts to bring about any meaningful democratic reforms. It is not surprising therefore that the drafting of the new constitution is proving to be a long drawn out process nor that Zanu PF thugs hijacked outreach programmes, etc. Mugabe is a dictator and he can not be expected to president over democratic change; he has his own agenda of resisting regime change at all cost.
MDC is facing the same stubborn resistance from Mugabe and Zanu PF in its efforts to reform the Media, Police, etc. as it is facing over the new constitution.
“We have a politicised military. They are everywhere, terrorising people. There has to be security sector reform, soldiers must stay in the barracks, police must stay in the barracks,” Minister Tendai Biti told the same rally.
PM Tsvangirai and Minister Biti should not be reminding us again what the outstanding GPA issues are but tell us the truth of how the party has failed to have these issues resolved nearly three years since the signing of the GPA.
Recipe of the COPAC inspired new constitution for Zimbabwe:
Glass of milk + 5 spoon of sewage = glass full of sewage
Zanu PF thugs successfully hijacked the outreach programmes to ensure the Cholera contaminated sewage is included in the recipe. MDC are fighting a rare-guard battle to ensure the spoonfuls of sewage are not increased. It is a matter of indifference as to how many spoonfuls of sewage will be added since the end product will not change – it will still be a glass full of sewage!
Sunday, 19 June 2011
USA Ambassador say it is not enough to get rid of Mugabe we need to change "the whole system".
“We have problems in Zimbabwe that have developed over decades and how could someone in his right mind think that removing one individual, no matter how powerful, smart and handsome he is could solve the country’s problems,” said USA Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Ray.I say AMEN to that.
It is when you realise this that one also realises just how stupid Tsvangirai and MDC were in signing the power sharing agreement because the GPA did not even seek to have Mugabe replaced nor even reduce any of his dictatorial powers. And yet Tsvangirai convinced Mugabe had changed and the GNU would deliver democratic change and economic recovery. How naïve can one be! Of course none of these changes ever materialised and the West rightly refused to bankroll the pipe dream.
As if having had a corrupt and repressive dictatorship for three decades was not bad enough the country has just wasted three years following MDC’s madness of ending the dictatorship by “incremental changes” as Minister Tendai Biti would say when we need to bit the bullet and change the whole system.
“The problems here are too complex and what is needed is to change the whole system,” said Ambassador Ray.
Sadly no one in MDC is listening. It was hard enough to make Tsvangirai and his MDC friends listen when they were the opposition which was why Ambassador Ray’s predecessor said Tsvangirai was a “flawed and indecisive character”. Ever since Tsvangirai and his friends were sworn in as Prime Minister and Minister – empty positions with no real power and authority as it turned out – talking to MDC has been like talking to a brick wall. What Zimbabwe needs right now is leaders with a bit of common sense and would listen to good advice.
9999
After all the talk of President Zuma finally putting his foot down and force an election roadmap on Mugabe during the 11 June SADC meeting we can now say it was all hot air. All that has come out of the meeting is that the Zimbabwe parties to the GPA will continue to talk about talks!
88888
"We are giving you an alternative, expropriation of the land without compensation." Said the firebrand ANCYL President, Julius Malema, at the close of the congress that elected him for a second term.
I am a black Zimbabwean and like so many of my fellow country men and women applauded Mugabe's promise of mass prosperity through various black empowerment schemes including nationalisation of many key industries and taking away the white owned farms. Julius Malema has clearly learned a lot from Mugabe because he is now expounding the same rhetoric. Mugabe did not allow for any real national debate on any of his hare brain schemes and it is interesting to note that Malema is stampeding ANC into nationalising mines, etc.
Yes Mugabe and his cronies have become multi millionaires but at the expense of destroying the national economy, Zimbabwe’s economy shrunk by a staggering 84% in the six year period 2002 to 2008, and turned million of our people into abject poverty. The same will happen to SA if the country goes down the same path!
No nation has ever prospered by looting, that is a fact!
It is when you realise this that one also realises just how stupid Tsvangirai and MDC were in signing the power sharing agreement because the GPA did not even seek to have Mugabe replaced nor even reduce any of his dictatorial powers. And yet Tsvangirai convinced Mugabe had changed and the GNU would deliver democratic change and economic recovery. How naïve can one be! Of course none of these changes ever materialised and the West rightly refused to bankroll the pipe dream.
As if having had a corrupt and repressive dictatorship for three decades was not bad enough the country has just wasted three years following MDC’s madness of ending the dictatorship by “incremental changes” as Minister Tendai Biti would say when we need to bit the bullet and change the whole system.
“The problems here are too complex and what is needed is to change the whole system,” said Ambassador Ray.
Sadly no one in MDC is listening. It was hard enough to make Tsvangirai and his MDC friends listen when they were the opposition which was why Ambassador Ray’s predecessor said Tsvangirai was a “flawed and indecisive character”. Ever since Tsvangirai and his friends were sworn in as Prime Minister and Minister – empty positions with no real power and authority as it turned out – talking to MDC has been like talking to a brick wall. What Zimbabwe needs right now is leaders with a bit of common sense and would listen to good advice.
9999
After all the talk of President Zuma finally putting his foot down and force an election roadmap on Mugabe during the 11 June SADC meeting we can now say it was all hot air. All that has come out of the meeting is that the Zimbabwe parties to the GPA will continue to talk about talks!
88888
"We are giving you an alternative, expropriation of the land without compensation." Said the firebrand ANCYL President, Julius Malema, at the close of the congress that elected him for a second term.
I am a black Zimbabwean and like so many of my fellow country men and women applauded Mugabe's promise of mass prosperity through various black empowerment schemes including nationalisation of many key industries and taking away the white owned farms. Julius Malema has clearly learned a lot from Mugabe because he is now expounding the same rhetoric. Mugabe did not allow for any real national debate on any of his hare brain schemes and it is interesting to note that Malema is stampeding ANC into nationalising mines, etc.
Yes Mugabe and his cronies have become multi millionaires but at the expense of destroying the national economy, Zimbabwe’s economy shrunk by a staggering 84% in the six year period 2002 to 2008, and turned million of our people into abject poverty. The same will happen to SA if the country goes down the same path!
No nation has ever prospered by looting, that is a fact!
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Mudede says Zimbabwe's voters' roll is "perfect" although there are clearlt thousands dead still on the roll - some dead "voted" in 1995!
According to Zimbabwe’s voter roll there are 41 000 Zimbabweans over the age of 100 years four times the number of centenarians in Britain although the latter has more than twice Zimbabwe’s life expectancy and five time our population.
I wish the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) had dug deeper into Zimbabwe’s voting system because they would have uncovered a lot more dirty. In 1995 Ms Margret Dongo, an Independent candidate but former Zanu PF MP and CIO operative, challenged the result of the Harare South parliamentary election giving victory to her Zanu PF opponent. Ms Dongo produced sworn statements from people who had been bused from other constituencies by Zanu PF had voted in Harare South. A number of dead people were still on the voters’ roll and surprise, surprise some of the dead had “voted” too!
Before the Ms Dongo court challenge Registrar General Mudede would have no doubt boasted the Zimbabwe’s voters’ roll was “100% perfect”. In 1995 Mudede conceded there were irregularities in the initial 1995 Harare South elections. Ms Dongo won the rerun.
The Mugabe dictatorship is a big monster with long tentacles touching every corner of Zimbabwe society and it has corrupted everything that touched. It is not just the Police, Army, Judiciary, Media, the Reserve Bank and a few other more obvious institutions that require reforming in Zimbabwe; everything façade of Zimbabwe society need democratic reform.
Mudede is a very important part of the Zanu PF dictatorship and having a multitude of errors in the voters’ roll gives the regime countless ways to rig results. Of course the voters’ roll is perfect for Mugabe’s the sinister purposes!
Still the pressure for regime change has been mounting year after year; not even the creativity manipulation of the voter’ roll or the brutal intimidation of the voters could deliver a Mugabe victory in March 2008. Zimbabweans are more determined than ever, the coming elections will deliver a decisive victory for the people and the serious business of reforming the Police, the Army, Registrar General’s Office, etc can begin.
99999
@Madmom
We sometimes make the mistake of demanding democratic qualities from our leaders or more specifically national leaders when these same qualities are noticably lacking in the rest of our society. If there is no democratic debate in our schools, offices and homes how can we expect it in parliament?
I do not like to be criticised and I do like to "Lord" over everyone. But I admit I hate anyone "Lording" over me and I do reject the notion that I should not express my opinion on matters affecting my life - even if the said opinions should turn out to be wrong, I still believe it is my right to express them.
Societies that have encourage the free flow of information and ideas, debate and criticism have greatly benefited because the competition it created has force everyone to think through carefully before they spoke or acted. This has allowed few mistakes to be made and, when mistakes have been made, to learn from them and thus avoid repeating them. When there is no debate or competition half digested ideas are the steeple food. And when mistakes are made; autocratic system compound them by going into denial or finding a scapegoat for their failures.
Stifling criticism will benefit the individual but like it or not mankind is a social animal and no nation let alone individual can exist in total isolation and so, as a society, we have to agree on the rules to govern our interaction.
The problem is not so much that the Julius Malema and Robert Mugabe of our world do not know the basic human rights and freedoms which should be the entitlement of all citizens. That they do; they never tire to remind us how the white colonial regimes denied them and the blacks these rights. They problem is that now they are in a position of power and authority they see nothing wrong with denying everyone else these same rights.
They have managed to conned the black majority to go along with them by tell them a) that political rights like freedom of expression, the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life are not important. It is the economic rights they should be concerned about.
b) the mismanagement, corruption and ultimately the looting of the nation’s wealth and resources will benefit the poor when in reality it is the few who benefit at the expense of the majority.
“I have found the leaders and their adherents do not like criticism,” you said. I would agree with that too. Leaders like Mugabe wanted a one-party dictatorship and never made any bones about it. The same can be said about almost all the African leaders. Their followers were whipped into believing a one-party dictatorship will be best for them too. It is easy to see why they followed like sheep; the only political debate they knew and understood was that of dominate or be dominated; eat or be eaten!
Mugabe devoured the opposition and with all his critics silence he turned on all Zanu PF supporters who dared complain that his policies were hurting them! After thirty years of corruption and repression there no Zimbabweans, except the dictator’s cronies, who still believe the dictatorship was good.
Even latter African leaders like Morgan Tsvangirai and Museveni of Uganda who stood on a platform of democratic reform they too are as autocratic as the leaders they sought to replace. MDC is no more democratic than Zanu PF.
Given a chance the ordinary people will embrace democracy, like the sheep in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, they will agree with whoever happened to be speaking at the time at first but with time they will learn to distinguish rhetoric from fact. Left to their on devices leaders will never allow the electorate to criticise them The Arab Spirit has shown the rest of us how to break the vicious cycle of replacing one dictatorship with another.
I wish the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) had dug deeper into Zimbabwe’s voting system because they would have uncovered a lot more dirty. In 1995 Ms Margret Dongo, an Independent candidate but former Zanu PF MP and CIO operative, challenged the result of the Harare South parliamentary election giving victory to her Zanu PF opponent. Ms Dongo produced sworn statements from people who had been bused from other constituencies by Zanu PF had voted in Harare South. A number of dead people were still on the voters’ roll and surprise, surprise some of the dead had “voted” too!
Before the Ms Dongo court challenge Registrar General Mudede would have no doubt boasted the Zimbabwe’s voters’ roll was “100% perfect”. In 1995 Mudede conceded there were irregularities in the initial 1995 Harare South elections. Ms Dongo won the rerun.
The Mugabe dictatorship is a big monster with long tentacles touching every corner of Zimbabwe society and it has corrupted everything that touched. It is not just the Police, Army, Judiciary, Media, the Reserve Bank and a few other more obvious institutions that require reforming in Zimbabwe; everything façade of Zimbabwe society need democratic reform.
Mudede is a very important part of the Zanu PF dictatorship and having a multitude of errors in the voters’ roll gives the regime countless ways to rig results. Of course the voters’ roll is perfect for Mugabe’s the sinister purposes!
Still the pressure for regime change has been mounting year after year; not even the creativity manipulation of the voter’ roll or the brutal intimidation of the voters could deliver a Mugabe victory in March 2008. Zimbabweans are more determined than ever, the coming elections will deliver a decisive victory for the people and the serious business of reforming the Police, the Army, Registrar General’s Office, etc can begin.
99999
@Madmom
We sometimes make the mistake of demanding democratic qualities from our leaders or more specifically national leaders when these same qualities are noticably lacking in the rest of our society. If there is no democratic debate in our schools, offices and homes how can we expect it in parliament?
I do not like to be criticised and I do like to "Lord" over everyone. But I admit I hate anyone "Lording" over me and I do reject the notion that I should not express my opinion on matters affecting my life - even if the said opinions should turn out to be wrong, I still believe it is my right to express them.
Societies that have encourage the free flow of information and ideas, debate and criticism have greatly benefited because the competition it created has force everyone to think through carefully before they spoke or acted. This has allowed few mistakes to be made and, when mistakes have been made, to learn from them and thus avoid repeating them. When there is no debate or competition half digested ideas are the steeple food. And when mistakes are made; autocratic system compound them by going into denial or finding a scapegoat for their failures.
Stifling criticism will benefit the individual but like it or not mankind is a social animal and no nation let alone individual can exist in total isolation and so, as a society, we have to agree on the rules to govern our interaction.
The problem is not so much that the Julius Malema and Robert Mugabe of our world do not know the basic human rights and freedoms which should be the entitlement of all citizens. That they do; they never tire to remind us how the white colonial regimes denied them and the blacks these rights. They problem is that now they are in a position of power and authority they see nothing wrong with denying everyone else these same rights.
They have managed to conned the black majority to go along with them by tell them a) that political rights like freedom of expression, the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life are not important. It is the economic rights they should be concerned about.
b) the mismanagement, corruption and ultimately the looting of the nation’s wealth and resources will benefit the poor when in reality it is the few who benefit at the expense of the majority.
“I have found the leaders and their adherents do not like criticism,” you said. I would agree with that too. Leaders like Mugabe wanted a one-party dictatorship and never made any bones about it. The same can be said about almost all the African leaders. Their followers were whipped into believing a one-party dictatorship will be best for them too. It is easy to see why they followed like sheep; the only political debate they knew and understood was that of dominate or be dominated; eat or be eaten!
Mugabe devoured the opposition and with all his critics silence he turned on all Zanu PF supporters who dared complain that his policies were hurting them! After thirty years of corruption and repression there no Zimbabweans, except the dictator’s cronies, who still believe the dictatorship was good.
Even latter African leaders like Morgan Tsvangirai and Museveni of Uganda who stood on a platform of democratic reform they too are as autocratic as the leaders they sought to replace. MDC is no more democratic than Zanu PF.
Given a chance the ordinary people will embrace democracy, like the sheep in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, they will agree with whoever happened to be speaking at the time at first but with time they will learn to distinguish rhetoric from fact. Left to their on devices leaders will never allow the electorate to criticise them The Arab Spirit has shown the rest of us how to break the vicious cycle of replacing one dictatorship with another.
Friday, 17 June 2011
Minister Biti calls loan for CIO College "criminal" and still he approved it!
“Finance Minister Tendai Biti has described a US$98 million loan agreement between Zimbabwe and China to boost the military as “criminal”, despite penning his signature to the mortgage,” reported the Daily News.
If Tendai Biti really believed the Zino-Zim loan agreement to build a state-of-the-art College for the notorious CIO was criminal then why did he approve and sign it. I do not buy the Minister’s story that he was put under pressure to sign. Zimbabweans have heard similar feeble excuses before from the likes of Enos Nkala, Simba Makoni, Dumiso Dabegwa, etc. when they are asked why they did not do anything to stop Mugabe after all their years in power.
Minister Biti signed the “criminal” agreement because he did not want to lose his ministerial job and all the perks that go with it. The same can be said about Tsvangirai, the rest of the MDC leaders, NKala and the rest of Zanu PF leaders died and alive. What Minister Biti and all these politicians lack is principles. Mugabe knows that and has exploited that weakness; he knew if he gave any one of them a Mercedes Benz they will sell their own mothers for a song. And the tyrant was right!
This is not the first time Minister Biti has turned coats and shocked the nations. It is only a year or two ago that the Right Honourable Minister Biti was describing Mugabe as a "Victorian gentleman" who should be "knighted". A ruthless tyrant and murderer who has crashed the very soul of the nation and murdered hundreds of thousands of our people in cold blood a Victorian gentleman!?
Power is indeed a powerful hallucinogenic drug and taken by those with no backbone, no principles, and they sell their own mothers and be proud they had a mother to sell!
Zimbabwe is dying because it does not have principled men or women who will fight for freedom, rule of law, justice, human rights, etc today and not forget these values tomorrow when they are in positions of power and authority.
If Tendai Biti really believed the Zino-Zim loan agreement to build a state-of-the-art College for the notorious CIO was criminal then why did he approve and sign it. I do not buy the Minister’s story that he was put under pressure to sign. Zimbabweans have heard similar feeble excuses before from the likes of Enos Nkala, Simba Makoni, Dumiso Dabegwa, etc. when they are asked why they did not do anything to stop Mugabe after all their years in power.
Minister Biti signed the “criminal” agreement because he did not want to lose his ministerial job and all the perks that go with it. The same can be said about Tsvangirai, the rest of the MDC leaders, NKala and the rest of Zanu PF leaders died and alive. What Minister Biti and all these politicians lack is principles. Mugabe knows that and has exploited that weakness; he knew if he gave any one of them a Mercedes Benz they will sell their own mothers for a song. And the tyrant was right!
This is not the first time Minister Biti has turned coats and shocked the nations. It is only a year or two ago that the Right Honourable Minister Biti was describing Mugabe as a "Victorian gentleman" who should be "knighted". A ruthless tyrant and murderer who has crashed the very soul of the nation and murdered hundreds of thousands of our people in cold blood a Victorian gentleman!?
Power is indeed a powerful hallucinogenic drug and taken by those with no backbone, no principles, and they sell their own mothers and be proud they had a mother to sell!
Zimbabwe is dying because it does not have principled men or women who will fight for freedom, rule of law, justice, human rights, etc today and not forget these values tomorrow when they are in positions of power and authority.
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
MDC approve new US$1 billion CIO College to suppress freedom of expression!
Tsvangirai and his MDC friends have proven again and again that they are really not fit to govern Zimbabwe and their approval of the agreement with the Chinese to build a College to train CIOs in the art of eaves dropping on the private individuals’ mobile phone and e-mails and to jam private radio station transmissions is the one of the many MDC costly blunders.
Zimbabweans must be amount the most brainwashed people on earth already and MDC, of all people should understand that; unless of course the party’s promise to bring democratic change is just empty rhetoric.
The printing press is credited in being the first technical innovation to bring information, knowledge and ideas to the masses. It is the bedrock of the age of enlightenment. Those nations that embraced freedom of expression and the great opportunity technology provided to educate and enlighten their people progressed in leaps and bounces. New inventions of the telephone, radio, television, computers, internet, etc. have accelerated the flow of information and exchange of ideas and with it development.
Many nations had the great misfortune of having the ruling elite who saw an enlightened populous as a threat to their autocratic rule. These tyrants have used the printing press for their own darker and sinister purpose, to brainwash the populous with propaganda. The Mugabe dictatorship has maintained a strangle hold on the country’s print and electronic media and only undermining the people’s basic right to freedom of association and expression.
Tyrannical regimes have found it a lot more difficult to have the same strangle hold on the internet and mobile phone but where there is a sinister will there is a way. And the Chinese have found all manner of unscrupulous ways to monitor, disrupt and hack into their nationals’ and other nations’ internet and mobile phones traffic. The Zimbabwe government has just signed an agreement worth nearly US$1 billion for the Chinese to build and equip an Intelligence College to train Zimbabwe’s notorious CIO in the art of silencing all democratic voices and brainwashing the public.
Prime Minister Tsvangirai and his MDC party could and should have blocked this trade agreement. How could they agree to something that seeks to undermine further one of the key pillars of democracy – freedom of expression and association? MDC rubber stamped the agreement because “they are part of government and not the opposition”. What a feeble excuse!
MDC is a feeble political party with no political backbone and no solid principles. They will never deliver the democratic changes the nation is dying for!
The sum total of Tsvangirai’s GPA media reform was that the public media was to stop calling him a puppet! That was all he thought and cared about!
Tanonoka Joseph Whande is right in calling on calling on MDC members to replace Tsvangirai and his kitchen cabinet with some competent leaders.
Before independence Zimbabweans had their attention focused on ending colonial rule they did not think of the monster Mugabe who to take over from the white. Today we are concerned about getting rid of Mugabe we are once again ignoring the equally important matter of who will replace him. We can not afford to get rid of a dictator only to replace him with a “flawed and indecisive character” as former USA Ambassador Chris Dell so aptly said of Morgan Tsvangirai. We have to learn to joggle with two balls; we must!
Zimbabweans must be amount the most brainwashed people on earth already and MDC, of all people should understand that; unless of course the party’s promise to bring democratic change is just empty rhetoric.
The printing press is credited in being the first technical innovation to bring information, knowledge and ideas to the masses. It is the bedrock of the age of enlightenment. Those nations that embraced freedom of expression and the great opportunity technology provided to educate and enlighten their people progressed in leaps and bounces. New inventions of the telephone, radio, television, computers, internet, etc. have accelerated the flow of information and exchange of ideas and with it development.
Many nations had the great misfortune of having the ruling elite who saw an enlightened populous as a threat to their autocratic rule. These tyrants have used the printing press for their own darker and sinister purpose, to brainwash the populous with propaganda. The Mugabe dictatorship has maintained a strangle hold on the country’s print and electronic media and only undermining the people’s basic right to freedom of association and expression.
Tyrannical regimes have found it a lot more difficult to have the same strangle hold on the internet and mobile phone but where there is a sinister will there is a way. And the Chinese have found all manner of unscrupulous ways to monitor, disrupt and hack into their nationals’ and other nations’ internet and mobile phones traffic. The Zimbabwe government has just signed an agreement worth nearly US$1 billion for the Chinese to build and equip an Intelligence College to train Zimbabwe’s notorious CIO in the art of silencing all democratic voices and brainwashing the public.
Prime Minister Tsvangirai and his MDC party could and should have blocked this trade agreement. How could they agree to something that seeks to undermine further one of the key pillars of democracy – freedom of expression and association? MDC rubber stamped the agreement because “they are part of government and not the opposition”. What a feeble excuse!
MDC is a feeble political party with no political backbone and no solid principles. They will never deliver the democratic changes the nation is dying for!
The sum total of Tsvangirai’s GPA media reform was that the public media was to stop calling him a puppet! That was all he thought and cared about!
Tanonoka Joseph Whande is right in calling on calling on MDC members to replace Tsvangirai and his kitchen cabinet with some competent leaders.
Before independence Zimbabweans had their attention focused on ending colonial rule they did not think of the monster Mugabe who to take over from the white. Today we are concerned about getting rid of Mugabe we are once again ignoring the equally important matter of who will replace him. We can not afford to get rid of a dictator only to replace him with a “flawed and indecisive character” as former USA Ambassador Chris Dell so aptly said of Morgan Tsvangirai. We have to learn to joggle with two balls; we must!
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