MUGABE USES UN PLATFORM TO BELITTLE HIS CONTINUED UN HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

It is bad enough that bully should trade on someone’s bare toes but it is intolerable that the bully should trivialise the mental anguish and physical pain of their victim. Mugabe was in Copenhagen calling for the lifting of the targeted sanctions against him but would not even acknowledge the suffering his repressive rule has caused and continue to cause on the people of Zimbabwe – was the human rights violations which trigged the sanctions in the first place.

Here is a man whose thirty year reign of terror has left the entire Zimbabwe population in object poverty and despair. 90% of the people are out of work. Hospitals and schools are barely functioning. Up to 80% of the people are now depending on food aid – the nation used to grow enough to feed its own people and had plenty left over for export before Mugabe took over. The economic poverty has reached such level of depravity, it is killing people. Life expectancy has dropped from 65 years to 34 years in the thirty years of Mugabe’s rule.

Mugabe has also murdered tens of thousands of people to secure his iron grip on power. Last year Mugabe “declared war” on the people to force them to vote for him; over 400 people were murdered in cold blood.

The token punitive targeted sanctions by the West were in response to Mugabe’s continued failure to hold free and fair elections and other serious human rights violations. The West wanted to impose more far reaching sanctions but China and South Africa blocked their passage at the UN. A country like China with a very poor human rights record of its own would never support such UN disapproval that would set a precedence by which they too would be measured tomorrow. This, sadly, has left the UN totally ineffective when it comes to dealing member countries who flout the organisation’s own human rights values.

Mugabe has used the UN platform to complain about the token sanctions against him and his cronies. He never seems to get tired of this. This time it was at Climatic Conference in Copenhagen.

“Why is the guilty north not showing the same fundamentalist spirit it exhibits in our developing countries on human rights matters on this more menacing threat of climate change?” mourned Mugabe. “Where are its sanctions for eco-offenders?”

He did not say who exactly the eco-offenders are. But since the greenhouse gases started increasing significant at the start of the Industrial revolution it is logic to blame, if one has to use that word, all those who led and all those who have benefited from the revolution. So, according to Mugabe, there should be targeted sanctions against every industrialist and citizen from the all the developed countries.

Of course, Climate debate in Copenhagen is not anti-development, even his Chinese friends are very proud of their country’s rapid economic development of the last ten years or so. The debate is about how to reduce the greenhouse gases without affecting development. For the developing countries, the debate is about getting assistance from the rich to help them cope with the adverse economic condition brought about by climatic changes brought on by global warming. Of course Mugabe does not care about all that.

Mugabe is mourning the targeted sanctions are stopping him and his cronies from visiting the developed countries as often as they would like to spend Zimbabwe’s national wealth, stolen from the poor, on luxuries only a few in the developed countries can afford!

Thanks to the countless UN talk-shop, Mugabe and his cronies have been able to circumvent the travel ban and do their shopping almost every month. The West’s travel ban does not apply to UN related travel.

It is ironic that Mugabe should use a UN platform to talk so dismissively about his continued violation of the UN human rights violation, the very core values the organisation was supposedly founded to defend.

I am angry that the UN should afford a brutal dictator like Mugabe to opportunity to disrupt important world business again and again with his egotistic nonsense. My greatest fury however goes to Tsvangirai whose stupidity gave Mugabe the legitimacy without which he would never been invited to address such UN gatherings.

MUGABE LAMBAST THE WEST: ZIMBABWEANS HOWL - THEY ARE NOT YET SERIOUS ABOUT ENDING THE DICTATORSHIP!

Mugabe lambasts Britain and USA at his party congress and right on cue Mugabe loyalists applaud and his critics dismiss it all with the usual boos.

I take great comfort from all the anger and outrage from the many Zimbabweans out there. Here we are with the nation in serious economic trouble, man-made trouble I must add, and all Mugabe talks about is this imaginary threat from Britain and the USA. Of course Zimbabweans are right to be angry and outraged. Still, is this really all we CAN do?!

I grew up in the rural areas and our home was at the foot of a range of mountains with baboons, leopards and other wild animals. You could always tell when the leopard had struck and killed a baboon; the baboons would make a racket!

For the last ten years, at least, the overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans did not want Mugabe as Zimbabwe’s president. Yet he has carried on setting the national agenda regardless. Everyone was dying to know the outcome of the party talks on the outstanding issues but these had to be interrupted because Mugabe was holding his party congress. He gives his usual anti-west rhetoric and right on cue his supporters cheer and the rest of us boo. When the noise has dead down and in his own sweet time and his own sweet way, Mugabe will come back to the interparty talks. He will call the shoots and again one camp will cheer and the other boo but the bottom line is we will all go along with whatever he decides.

Are we really that helpless, we are the baboons who can not see the leopard in the dark and therefore are seating ducks? Is Mugabe really that powerful, he is the leopard with excellent night vision and pick and choose who his next victim is to be? The truth is we are helpless because we chose to be helpless. Mugabe is not as clever and canning as we make him to be.

Of course when we see the ease with which Mugabe has run rings round Morgan Tsvangirai he certainly appears to be as canning as a fox. As long as we allow Tsvangirai to determine our future for us then we can expect more of the same. When Tsvangirai announced the end of his “disengagement” with Mugabe he did not have the foggiest idea what he would do next if Mugabe refused to implement the outstanding issues.

Tsvangirai has committed himself to the inclusive government no matter what. To him “it is the only game in town”. Mugabe does not have to compromise on any important issues and has already shown that is exactly what he will do. Tsvangirai should have never made so many compromises at the very beginning, the fact of the matter is he did, and now finds himself in this impossible situation.

We can howl and bark, and remind Mugabe for the umpteenth time that it was he who lost the 2008 elections and therefore he should not have all these dictatorial powers. That would not change a thing – he HAS the dictatorial power, thanks to Tsvangirai’s blundering, and that is all that counts.
I think we should call for fresh elections. If we focus all our energy and not let ourselves be side tracked; Mugabe will have no choice but take us seriously. Mugabe and the whole world have never taken the ordinary Zimbabweans seriously because we have never been serious about finding our way out of this mess!

A WARM ZIMBABWE WELCOME TO U S AMBASSADOR RAY - JOIN THE GOOD FIGHT!

I would like to welcome the newly appointed United State of America Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Aaron Ray. I hope your tour of duty will be a pleasant and fulfilling one.
I wish you were coming to a Zimbabwe that was at least had an inkling of hope after three decades of mismanagement, rampant corruption and brutal political repression. Sadly that was not to be. The country had its best chance ever to end Mugabe’s tyrannical rule last year following the sham elections unfortunately the MDC led by Tsvangirai wasted that chance by entering into a power sharing agreement with the dictator. A power sharing agreement that gave Mugabe all the dictatorial powers.
You will hear endless stories of the parties negotiating on “outstanding issues”. These negotiations have been going on ever since the formation of the inclusive government ten months ago. The administration has done little else. What are the outstanding issues – they are the few concessions Mugabe had made but now would not implement.
The people are living in abject poverty and every day they face life threatening challenges and all the country’s leaders are doing is argue endlessly over trivial issues or else spent the little wealth the country has left. Mr Ambassador, you will soon understand why your successor, Ambassador James Mcghee was forced to take the regime head-on; Zimbabwe is a mad house.
In Mugabe you will find a ruthless dictator who is set in his way. All Mugabe cares about is making sure that his dictatorship survives. He and his cronies have had to steal from a helpless child to finance their luxurious life styles and they would hate to lose their loot. Many of them have committed some heinous crimes; Mugabe’s three decade iron grip on power has costed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. In Tsvangirai you will find an unbelievably naïve man who is certainly no match for the canning fox, Mugabe.
The ordinary Zimbabweans, those at the cutting edge of the country’s economic melt down and political repression, have suffered enough and need to see an end to this madness. The targeted sanctions have had to effect on Mugabe and his cronies. However, it is high time the screw is turned another full turn: the sanctions must be reviewed to include the next tier of Mugabe’s ruling elite and all their families.
Ambassador Ray, Zimbabweans are fighting for human dignity, for their very lives and those of their children. They certainly hope you WILL join them in this fight and not shy away.

Minister Biti predicts a stunted GPD growth rate for Zimbabwe: Demerara sugar to a slave!

A GDP growth rate of 3.7 to 4.7% for 2009 compared to -10.9% last year is certainly a great achievement. And if next year the country can achieve 7% growth then that is great. But before you open the champagne and start the celebrations; we must ask ourselves what GDP growth rates could we have achieved if Zimbabwe was firing on all cylinders? Minister Biti admitted that the mining sector had failed to perform. We all know Zimbabwe is exporting, mostly illegally of course, tonnes of diamonds every week. The forced villagers doing the dirty work are paid pittance, the smugglers and their handlers are paid US$ x by the foreigner dealers who are then paid 500 to 1000 times as much by those processing the diamonds. The Zimbabwe governments get nothing out of all this.

Minister Biti said nothing about agricultural sector’s performance but it is generally agreed that the continued farm invasions have completely disrupted farming. The country will have to spend millions buying food or else depend on Donors to feed the nation. Agriculture used to be the engine of Zimbabwe’s economy.

Minister Biti also admitted that the West have largely refused to give Zimbabwe any financial assistance. They told Tsvangirai to his face in June; not as long as Mugabe remains in charge. This GNU is nothing but a Mugabe dictatorship by another name only MDC pretends not to see it.

So if there rampant corruption in the Mining Sector stopped, the seized farms were taken away from Mugabe and his cronies and given to those able to put them back into full production and the West gave the financial assistance required to repair and or replace plant and equipment Zimbabwe would be enjoying GDP growth rates on 20% to 30%. China and India have been enjoying 10 to15% growth rates and they have had to build new factories, buy machinery, train the workers, etc. Zimbabwe has all the factories, machinery, skilled workers, etc.; all the country needed is political stability and a little financial help to kick start their production.

MDC will pretend the GNU is working and give the stunted GDP growth rates as proof. The truth is whatever economic growth they achieve; they know the country could have done even better if the country had a decisive and effective government.

On the political front this GNU will never deliver a new democratic constitution and there will never be free and fair elections not as long as Mugabe remains in charge. He will never allow that to happen. Last year he graphically showed the shocking and murderous lengths he was prepared to go to retain political power. Only the very naïve would expect him to just give up all his dictatorial powers now!

Tsvangirai, the blithering idiot, started by giving Mugabe all the dictatorial powers in the GPA and is now banking on slowly eroding these powers under Mugabe’s very nose! The reality on the ground is of course different. Mugabe the megalomania is in fact refusing to give up even the little power he had conceded to MDC in the GPA.

Zimbabweans are certainly beginning to question things and it will not be long before they realise that Tsvangirai is leading them up the garden path. The people have rejected Mugabe already and it is by hiding behind Tsvangirai that he continues to rule. The people soon reject Tsvangirai and Mugabe will go with him.

Zimbabwe will never ever realise its full economic potential until the country has leaders who are democratically accountable to the people. What Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti and Mugabe himself are hoping is that the improved (stunted and yet still improved compared to 2008) economic performance will make the people forget that they are still being denied their basic and fundamental rights and freedoms; freedom of expression, meaningful vote and even the right to life. This is the equivalent of the slave master offering the slave a packet of Demerara sugar and hope the slave will forget to demand his/her freedom and the dignity of being a free man!

Targeted sanctions must stay: Mugabe and his cronies will lose more than just their loot - off with their heads

Before the formation of the GNU the shops were empty and inflation was into 12 digit figures. MDC scrap the Z$ and thus putting Gideon Gono and his money printing business out of business and over night inflation disappeared like the mist in the morning sun. MDC lifted the price controls and food and other goods flooded back into the shop. These simple common sense changes changed things on the ground. Please note, ZDERA and all the other sanctions you and your master, Mugabe, never tire of blaming for Zimbabwe's economic problems were still there. Thus proving once again that Zimbabwe’s economic problems are a result of years of economic mismanagement and rampant corruption.

Mugabe and his cronies have disrupted Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector seizing every productive farm and then seating on the land. When they walked in, they saw the full grain barns and the healthy animals and thought all they had to do now was seat back and rack in the wealth. They never realised that they would have to work. As we say in Shona “Munda hauzvirimi!”

As much as 80% of the Zimbabwe population now rely on food aid. Before the farm seizure we produced enough to feed the nation with surplus for export. And you still believe it is the sanctions that have caused the food shortages?

The targeted sanctions were imposed on Mugabe and his ruling elite for one specific reason – the regime had failed to hold free and fair elections. The root cause of all Zimbabwe’s economic, social and political problems is Mugabe’s wanton denial of the Zimbabweans people their basic right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country. If the people had a free vote they would have booted this repressive regime a long time ago.

The political repression started a long time ago. In the mid 1980s Mugabe murdered 20 000 people to consolidate his grip on power. Last year he turned the whole nation up side down and murdered 400 just to ensure the people voted for him.

It is Mugabe who has caused untold suffering on the people and no amount of propaganda can ever change that.

Of course, Mugabe and his cronies are very lucky to have Tsvangirai as the main challenger; he is a very naïve blundering “dithering idiot” as Professor Jonathan Moyo rightly said. Let me rest assure you, Fungayi, not all Zimbabweans are dithering idiots; Mugabe and all his cronies will account for what they have done.

Gideon Gono will be foolish to think that the “good intention” clause in the RBZ amendment bill will protect him from prosecution. How can anyone classify such outrageous acts as spending millions of donor aid moneys, not government money but donors’, meant for AIDS victims on plasma TV and other luxuries good intentions?

In late 1945 Adolf Hitler and his murderous Nazi knew they days are numbered but since they really had no way they tried to put on a brave face. Mugabe and his cronies are in exactly the same situation. I assure Mugabe and those in the know hold any hope of ever seeing all the money frozen in Western Bank accounts. Some, like you Fungayi do – dream on. The reality is Mugabe and his cronies will take everything their looted taken away from them and all with innocent blood on their hands will hang! Personally, I would like to see hanging taken off Zimbabwe’s statute book – but not so fast, understand!

More nonsense from another Tsvangirai style analytical thinker.

Takarinda Gomo either you HAVE INSIDE information or you are dreaming! My bet is on the latter because only a naïve political dreamer would even suggest that Mugabe is “running out of tricks” on the basis of some flimsy statements, guise work and out right lies.

“Ever since Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai dropped the bombshell by partially withdrawing from engaging Zanu-PF, there has been political turbulence in Zimbabwe, which has now gathered momentum and has a life of its own” you say.

Well for a start the political situation in Zimbabwe is much more that a mere “turbulence”. It is a tragedy dating back to white colonial rule, the war of independence and Mugabe’s dictatorial rule after that. The more immediate tragedy started when Mugabe staged the sham election in June 2008 and Tsvangirai betrayed the people by entering into this stupid power sharing arrangement. Now that was a bombshell, alright.

When Tsvangirai announced his “disengagement” with Mugabe because the latter was a “dishonest partner” Tsvangirai was finally acknowledging something that was there all along but he had refused to see. That was a firecracker size bombshell and worse still by unilaterally ending the “disengagement” Tsvangirai walked away with the fuse!

You are talking of Mugabe being given an ultimatum to resolve the “outstanding issues”. Well that was what Tsvangirai said on his return from SADC Troika Summit in Maputo. A few days latter he himself said the datelines are “not cast in stone.” Professor Ncube of MDC-M said SADC never set any deadlines; he dismissed Tsvangirai’s initial statement as “posturing and grandstanding”! So Gomo, are you sure SADC did set deadlines for Mugabe or are you too posturing and grandstanding?

“The troika insisted that if Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations were failing to agree on the outstanding issues, then Zimbabwe should go for elections forthwith” you said. Where did that come from?
If there is one thing Tsvangirai, Mugabe and Mutambara and their respective parties agree on it is NOT to have fresh elections. Mutambara and most of his party members lost in March 2008 and their performance especially that of Mutambara himself since has been pathetic. The electorate would want MDC-M buried.

Mugabe would never ever win a free and fair elections; he would lose to a monkey that is how much the electorate hate him. He is a ruthless murder, for Christ sake!

In the past Zimbabweans have voted for Tsvangirai because they were desperate for change and not because they were bowled over by Tsvangirai as a leader. The people never thought he would be this incompetent; he has made some monumental blunders and stupid moves.

The Zanu PF and MDC “rascals”, as Tanonoka Joseph Whande called the party negotiators, may fight like cats but end of the day they all want to the GNU to survive for their own political survival. No doubt Tsvangirai will make further concession to Mugabe and the GNU will limp along much the same way as it has done ever since it formation ten months ago. Meanwhile the country continues to sink deeper and deeper into the economic and political hell-hole Mugabe dragged us into.

The most important thing to note is the resolution of all the “outstanding issues” one way or the other will not change a thing as far as the ordinary Zimbabweans are concerned. Firing Gono will not open the flood gates of foreign investors and Western donors, for example. Investors would still want to see property rights restored and the West still view the GNU as a Mugabe dictatorship by another name.

What good is it to us that President Zuma has appointed his “no nonsense” team to mediate in Zimbabwe when their brief is to get the trivial “outstanding issues” only resolves? President Zuma had his chance to stamp his own authority on the Zimbabwe crisis when he became President of SA and was chairman of SADC – he did not do so.

Takarinda Gomo, you claim everyone else’s “opinions are informed by emotion” whilst yours are presumably based on “analytical thinking”; you have only succeeded in proving the exact opposite. You must be one of Tsvangirai’s chief political advisors or would be advisor because this is the typical shallow and self-righteous nonsense MDC has been churning out for years!

UNTIL ZIMBABWE'S LEADERS TREAT EVERY ZIMBABWEAN WITH RESPECT FREEDOM AND JUSTICE WILL REMAIN A DISTANT DREAM!

Until every Zimbabwean is treated with respect and human dignity, especially by those in positions of power and authority, then Zimbabwe will never ever enjoy peace, justice, freedom or realise its full economic potential. After a generation of white oppression and abuse, the nation was we had three decades of more abuse and contemptuous treatment from Mugabe. Sadly Tsvangirai has only paid lip service to human rights; deep down he too he shown he too could not careless about the suffering and death of ordinary Zimbabweans.

In colonial Rhodesia, the whites were the first class citizens; they enjoyed all the human rights and freedoms, had the top jobs, etc. They were THE boss! The coloureds, Chinese, Indians and all the other minority races constituted the second class citizens; they had some rights and they were the boss-boys. The indigenous blacks constitute the third class; had no rights and at work did all the hard and physically demanding, dirty and dangerous jobs for the least remuneration.

Even when blacks had exactly the same qualifications and did exactly the same job as the whites, they where paid a fraction, five times less on average, of what the whites were paid. The white supremacists had a ready answer to that: whites lived in big houses which cost a lot more to build, furnish and run as contrast to the match-box houses blacks lived in. Whites needed a car; blacks walked. White folk had bacon, egg, toast and tea/coffer served in china-cups for breakfast whilst the blacks had maize meal porridge or tea served in a tin cup. The white supremacists would get hot in the collar about unreasonable and “cheeky” blacks.

What was so cheeky about a black person eating bacon! What was so unreasonable about asking for equal pay for equal work? What each individual did with their wage was their own business.

What white racism did was created a situation where blacks had to justify why they had to be treated fairly and accorded the human rights and freedoms the white took for granted.

White racism and bigotry was a lot easier to identify and deal with than the black on black discrimination and oppression. This took various form, for example, it grieved some blacks to have to work under a fellow black, even if the black candidate is better in every respect to the white candidate.

Generations of humiliation and being made to feel blacks are inferior to whites has left some blacks deeply scarred. And so to cope with their inferiority complex some blacks have adopted some bizarre methods of constantly having to “prove” to themselves and the world at large that they are not inferior. And what easier way of doing that then riding roughshod over those considered their inferiors and/or superiors.

Mugabe violent take over of white owned farms in Zimbabwe has to with pure greed as much as it has to do with hunger to be revenged on the whites. The price for his egotistic policies has been the total economic melt down of the Zimbabweans economy with the tragic human suffering. Instead of enhancing his image Mugabe is rightly regarded as a failed ruthless despot.

Mugabe has denied the people of Zimbabwe their basic rights and freedom because he really never believed they were human enough to be worthy of the same rights and freedoms enjoyed by most other human across the world. Last year Mugabe could not have given a more graphic illustration of the contempt with which he held the Zimbabwe people. He vowed that “only God” not the Zimbabwe electorate would force him out of office and adopted some of the most despicable electoral methods the world had ever seen to ensure his wish became a reality. Half a million Zimbabweans were intimidated, beaten, tortured, raped and/or had their property destroyed. Over 400 innocent lives were lost in the most horrific circumstances.

Mugabe failed to accord the Zimbabwean people even the most sacrosanct of all human rights – the right to life. As far as he was concerned Zimbabweans are an inferior people who do not deserve the same right to life as other humans; Zimbabwean lives are a dispensable.

After what Mugabe had done in 2008 no one in their right mind would have agreed to sweep all that aside, pretend it all never happened, and join hands with the dictator to form an inclusive government. No one, that is, except Tsvangirai who also believed that the Zimbabwean people are an inferior people who do not deserve to be treated with respect and human dignity. Whilst he has paid lip service to democracy and human rights when the chips are down; Tsvangirai showed he too has nothing but contempt for the suffering and deaths of Zimbabweans.

Some Zimbabweans are pleased that MDC managed to get food and other goods into the shops and overlook MDC’s graphic failures to bring meaningful change in other areas affecting their lives like employment creation and restoring the rule of law. It is understandable that they would do that; these are a people who have learnt to expect nothing but abuse from their leaders.

The greatest gift Zimbabweans would have really wanted from Tsvangirai is a reaffirmation that they, the people, have a right to a free vote and that the vote counts! All that they have suffered and sacrificed over the years, all the 400 lives lost last years would not have been for nothing.
If Tsvangirai really believes, which he clearly does, that the people of Zimbabwe would value the food in the shops over their desire to be treated with human dignity and respect then he is hopelessly wrong. And, which is more, he will never add up to much as a national leader!

demerara sugar is not sweeter than freedom

Demerara sugar is NOT sweeter than freedom!

After decades of anguish, humiliation and pain
After generations of forced hard labour for no pay
A few broke their chains, bolt and ran
They were hunted down like animals and some got away
Many lost a limb or worse their very lives.
Those who had lost all hope and resigned muttered away
Wha dey say dey say!
Demerara shuga ize suweta jan fredomu
Ah chanki four mee teei
Ah chanki four mee to chuuee
Demerara shuga suweti four suwa

When the hard labour and anguish was more than any could bear
The cry for freedom and liberty grew louder than the ear could bear
The slaves’ revolt was underway
Some had guns; some had machetes or whatever they found along the way
They all shouted with one accord for freedom
And silenced was the old foolishness of doom
Wha dey say dey say!
Demerara shuga ize suweta jan fredomu
Ah chanki four mee teei
Ah chanki four mee to chuuee
Demerara shuga suweti four suwa

Back in mother Africa were the slaves came from in chains
There was no happy ending to Colonial exploitation, oppression and pain
After the sweat and blood for freedom was shed black dictators were the new masters
The same oppressive laws stayed and in violence they hold masters
Their incompetence was only exceeded by their corruption and greed
Things are worse in independent Africa than in colonial days; that is agreed

So decades after independence the people are yet to taste peace and freedom
Africa’s dictators have destroyed everything dragging all into darkness and gloom
Each saviour, on tasting power, is transfigured into just another dictator in turn
They betray the cause and those who have suffered and, now in the grave turn
Some have pointed to the shops full of food where before the shelves were empty
Africa’s dictators reject call for good governance with oldie emptiness
Wha dey say dey say!
Demerara shuga ize suweta jan fredomu
Ah chanki four mee teei
Ah chanki four mee to chuuee
Demerara shuga suweti four suwa

Demerara sugar is not sweeter than freedom
I don’t care what the demagogues and dictators say!

ZIMBABWEANS' BLIND LOYALTY LANED THE NATION IN HELL-HOLE: AND FAILURE TO CHANGE IS KEEPING US THERE

The follow is my reply to a comment in The Zimbabwe Times to my last blog.

Nyoka: I presume if Mr Mukori stands as the opposition leader he is prescribing he will solve Zimbabwe’s problems. Its this kind of attitude which puts our country where it is today.
Answer: The political leaders I am advocating would restore the rule of law, ensure there is press freedom, reform the Police and free them to carry out their duty of keeping law and order, etc. These are political reforms that we should not be talking about today thirty years after independence. The only reason why we are still talking about these issues is because none of the current crop of political leaders has the political will to resolve them.

With all due respect it is the defeatist attitude of people like you, Nyoka, who believe that just because Mugabe has not solved these basic issues; no one else can. It is this attitude that has allowed a dictator like Mugabe to do as he pleased and thus dragging the whole nation into this hell hole.

Nyoka -It does not require a PhD to identify that Mugabe would never relinquish power at any cost. Even it meant him wiping out the whole nation he was prepared to do that for the sake of his hold to power.
Answer: Well there goes the defeatist in you “Mugabe would never relinquish power”! And what has been your response to that? For thirty years you have appeased Mugabe by letting him have his way. Mugabe has completed destroyed Zimbabwe; the schools and hospitals have closed, 90% are out of work, life expectancy has dropped from 65 years to 34 years and the dictator has murdered tens of thousands of Zimbabweans to consolidate his hold on power. Mugabe is already “wiping out the whole nation”! What else does Mugabe have to do for you to finally realise that this policy of appeasement is NOT working?

Mugabe is a mere mortal and he is not above the law. It is the people alone who should have the ultimate say on who is to rule Zimbabwe. And that is exactly what fresh elections will reaffirm!

Nyoka: It does not take a wise man to see that the so-called AU and SADC are toothless bulldogs as far as Zimbabwean problems and Mugabe, in particular, are concerned.
Answer: What President Khama is proposing here is the best and only viable option for Zimbabwe. Keep your eye on the ball.

Nyoka: You don’t need to get up from a slumber to note that at least the common individual can access basic commodities and food in shops which had become foreign to Zimbabweans before the GNU.
Answer: There is food in the shops, yes. But it is equally true that Zimbabwe is facing many other serious economic and political problems that the GNU has failed to address ten months after GNU was formed. The problems have remained as intractable as ever. Surely we must search for a solution able to keep the food in the shops and address the other problems too.

We must reject the usual Mugabe nonsense that economic gains would be lost if we asked for political rights as if these are somehow mutually exclusive. They are not and we must demand it all.

Nyoka: You don’t need to be clever to note that Tsvangirai was left with no choice other than to join the GNU when the rest of these so-called African whatevers had vowed to withdraw support for him if he shunned GNU.
Answer: You have said it yourself, above “AU and SADC are toothless bulldogs as far as Zimbabwean problems and Mugabe, in particular, are concerned”. Few people would dispute that and, indeed, Tsvangirai himself has complained about this on numerous occasions. So why is it that Tsvangirai was so easily cowered down by “toothless bulldogs”?

President Ian Khama and Prime Minister Raila Odinga of Kenya showed after the June 2008 sham elections that they had broken away from the rest of the toothless bulldogs. Why did Tsvangirai not team up with them? Well President Khama has clearly given Tsvangirai another chance to do the right thing, time will tell whether or not he will take the lifeline this time round.

Nyoka: It only requires one to be open minded and refrain from being bound by the spirit of blame apportionment which characterises most of the writers in diaspora who pontificate and expect other people to put things right for them so they can go back and reap what they did’nt sow.
Answer: Mugabe has denied most of us a meaningful say in the governance of the country because we did not make the same sacrifices he and his fellow Zanu PF leaders made in the liberation war. Using your logic of not allowing people to reap where they did not sow, Mugabe was right. The truth is the right to a democratic vote, the right to life, etc. these are all basic rights that everyone Zimbabweans must claim and enjoy as his or her birth right regardless of whether or not the made any contribution or sacrifice to a national cause. Our failure to make this clear to Mugabe was a very serious dereliction of our duty to fight for our basic rights whenever these are threatened or denied. And the whole nation has paid dearly for this.

We must all now fight for our basic rights and never again be found wanting in this. Those in the Diaspora have a greater opportunity to carry the fight better than the millions in the backwater in Zimbabwe. Please do not let the rural poor down!

People like Nyoka want to see a subservient people and are rummaging for excuses to stifle the open debate that sites like The Zimbabwe Times have afforded. The suggestion that only Zimbabweans still in Zimbabwe must take part is one of the most flimsy put forward; no doubt it will not be the last. We must dismiss this nonsense with the contempt it rightly deserves.

Nyoka: Please come up with ideas but dont blame Tsvangirai he is the messiah who brought food on the table for people in Zimbabwe. There are disadvantages in every move you make. If you observe Newton’s laws of motion, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So while Tsvangirai wants to solve the country’s problems, on the same breath and strength, Mugabe wants things to get worse.

SO NO BLAME APPORTIONMENT – COME UP WITH CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM!
Answer: President Khama in this case has come up with what I have already is the best and only viable solution. So why are you calling more “ideas”? You clearly do not agree with the solution and instead of presenting your reasons why the idea is not acceptable, you pretend no solution has been offered.

If Tsvangirai is indeed trying to solve the country’s problems and Mugabe is the one throwing the spanner in the works, as you claim; then holding fresh elections is the best way out. After the election Tsvangirai would have the mandate to implement his own policies without Mugabe ever interfering; problem solved.
ZIMBABWE IS IN THIS HELL-HOLE BECAUSE AS A PEOPLE WE HAVE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BE RULED BY FEAR OR TO HOLD BLIND LOYALTY. WE HAVE A SIMPLY CHOICE TO SNAP OUT OF THIS STUPOR OR ELSE STAY IN THE HOLE. PEOPLE LIKE YOU, NYOKA, HAVE SWITCHED YOUR BLIND LOYALTY FROM A DICTATOR TO A BLUNDERING AND INCOMPETENT LEADER AND BELIEVE YOU HAVE MADE A QUANTUM LEAP. HOW PATHETIC! REAL DEMOCRATIC CHANGE IS COMING TO ZIMBABWE WITH OR WITHOUT THE LIKES OF YOU, NYOKA, OR TSVANGIRAI!

BOTSWANA PRESIDENT KHAMA CALLS FOR FREE ELECTIONS IN ZIMBABWE: MUGABE AND TSVANGIRAI ARE EACH SWEATING!

Botswana’s President Ian Khama calls for fresh elections in Zimbabwe.

Tsvangirai has always claimed that AU and SADC leaders pressured him into the power sharing arrangement. President Khama of Botswana and Prime Minister Odinga of Kenya were forth right in their condemnation of Mugabe’s sham June 2008 elections. The two leaders would have supported calls for fresh elections.

The other African leaders realised that Mugabe had gone too far. Most of them had rigged elections in their time but none of them had ever done what Mugabe did in the 2008. Mugabe had crossed the Rubicon and was beyond the peril. Of course they still wanted to serve Mugabe from a fate they themselves feared awaited them if the Zimbabwean electorate were to win back their democratic vote. Zimbabwe would set a bad precedence, as far as them were concerned, and soon the whole continent would be swept by an unstoppable wave of citizens demanding the same right. So the rest of Africa’s dictators had no choice but try to save Mugabe and thus ultimately themselves by proposing, with a heavy heart, a power sharing arrangement. It was with a heavy heart because these leaders know Mugabe had gone too far and they would be skating on thin ice if they openly throw they lot with him. If Tsvangirai had stuck to his guns and demanded free and fair elections most of the AU and SADC leaders would have relented rather than fight a lost cause.

The AU and SADC leaders must have been greatly relieved when Tsvangirai accepted the power sharing arrangement. Of course the President Khama camp were disappointed.

If Tsvangirai was not sure of President Khama’s support for fresh election in June 2008 well he has heard it now from the horse’s mouth! In the face of the mountain of evidence that the NGU is NOT working; will Tsvangirai take this life line and finally walk out of the GNU and give Zimbabwe the chance to finally turn over a new leaf? Sadly, he is not going to do that.

Tsvangirai did not take the option of fresh election in June 2008 and will not consider it now for the same reason: he really fears that Mugabe would use the Police, the Army and his Zanu PF thugs to make the country ungovernable. That is why Tsvangirai believe Mugabe has to remain “a part of Zimbabwe’s solution”. Of course it is a nonsensical and historically untenable.

Mugabe has bankrupted the nation; the schools, hospitals, everything has collapsed and the people are destitute and without hope. As long as Mugabe remains in power the whole nation will have no hope so how can he still remain even a small part of the solution; he is the problem!

Whilst it is true Mugabe had made Zimbabwe ungovernable from April to June 2008 because he needed to beat the electorate into voting for him. As soon as the voting was over he had started to wind down his violent operations. It was unsustainable.

If Tsvangirai had called for fresh elections Mugabe would have used his henchmen and thugs against whom and to what purpose?

Zimbabwe is stuck in this ridiculous position of economic stagnation and political rot; we have a ruthless dictator ruining our lives just as he has done since 1980, except that we have to pretend that something has changed with GNU when deep in our hearts we know nothing has changed.

If there is going to be real change in Zimbabwe then we must replace Tsvangirai with who believes in real change.
President Khama is taking great risk by cutting through the nonsense from his fellow SADC leaders and says it as it is. Mugabe will be fuming with anger over this and who knows what the dictator will do next! The tragedy is President Khama will have taken all this risk for nothing, at least as long as Tsvangirai remains the main opposition leaders.

CORRUPT MUGABE CRONIES UNCOVERED - TIP OF ICEBERG: FIRE BREATHING MDC SET TO MELT ICEBERG!

Zimbabwe’s Auditor General submits a report to Parliament showing serious irregularities in public accounts in 2009. MDC Tapiwa Mashakada jumps on the bandwagon to share in the limelight.

This is indeed "the tip of the iceberg"; Tapiwa Mashakada is right there. During the 2008 elections Mugabe went around the country dishing out cars, computers, buses, farming equipment, etc. This was happening at a time when schools, hospitals and all the other key public services had collapsed for lack of funds. Where were the funds coming from to buy all these things?

There were many reports of twin-cab trucks driving around in Zimbabwe and some with no number plates. Where did these vehicles come from and what has since happened to them? Many of these where used in kidnapping and terrorising people.

I am convinced Mugabe and his cronies were involved in a multi-billion dollar racket in which they bought foreign currency from Gono using the worthless Z$. Most of the loot was squandered on luxuries and the high life and some banked outside Zimbabwe. I believe this will be the iceberg that would sink the Titanic!

Sadly MDC has really been slow off the mark; after a year, most of the trails in most of these corruption cases will have gone cold. What has Mashakada been doing all these months? Typical of MDC officials they spent months napping, wake up with a start and shout and rant to give the impression they have been working hard.

The real heroine here is the Auditor General, Mai Chari; Mashakada is only stepping in to share the limelight. If MDC had been more robust how much more corruption would have been uncovered and the loot recovered?

People like Gideon Gono are flouting their loot and, worse still, they are now using it to fight against any meaningful change. It was Gono’s paper that printed Professor Jonathan Moyo’s recent two page tripe. On Gono’s farm everything is computerised down to chicken droppings! The best chicken farm in Africa, my foot! What I want to know is where he got all that money to waste, when thousands were dying from Cholera because there was no money to buy water treatment plant and chemicals!

So Mashakada is “breathing fire and brimstone” looking for an iceberg in tropical waters and not heard of global warming! The sheer incompetence of MDC officials’ sheer incompetence never seizes to amaze me.
We voted for MDC in 2008 because we were desperate and now we are deeply regretting it. Poor, poor Zimbabwe; there seem to be no end to the torment and suffering!

TSVANGIRAI, THE BUFFOON, UNDERMINES SADC'S ULTIMATUM TO MUGABE!

Some one has come up with a plausible explanation why Tsvangirai called off the boycott; so that SADC can see him as the one cooperating with SADC and thus win himself some brownie points. That is exactly the kind of thing Tsvangirai would do!

It was SADC who pressured Tsvangirai to enter this power sharing nonsense to get Mugabe off the hook following the sham June 2008 elections. Tsvangirai foolishly agreed; he did not have to, but he did. When Mugabe played hard ball in the power sharing negotiations and he turned to SADC to pressure the dictator to be reasonable, SADC did not want to know. This has happened again and again and Tsvangirai has publicly accused SADC of failing to be impartial and fair, especially SADC’s chief mediator former SA President Thembo Mbeki who MDC called repeatedly to be removed.

A reasonable man would have expected MDC to remind SADC of the numerous occasions it had taken the initiative only to be kicked in the teeth by Mugabe and SADC stood by. This time MDC would demand SADC should pressure Mugabe and prove the organisation can be impartial, fair and has teeth. A reasonable man, but that does not include Tsvangirai.

In his eagerness to earn brownies points from SADC Tsvangirai has in fact undermined SADC.

Botswana’s President Ian Khama took a principled stand and took the lead in declaring Mugabe illegitimate after the June 2008 sham election. He stuck his head above the parapet and he would most certainly have supported Tsvangirai’s call for fresh elections - but of course, President Khama could not call for fresh elections himself. Someday history will know President Khama’s disappointment and frustration when Tsvangirai agreed to share power with Mugabe and thus get the dictator off the hook. This was not the last time Tsvangirai’s sheer stupidity was to drive SADC leaders up the creek!

In Maputo SADC gave Mugabe 15 days to implement the outstanding issues. For once SADC was being firm and decisive against Mugabe. What does Tsvangirai do: he calls off his own boycott and, worse still, he gave Mugabe 30 days in contrast to the 15 days SADC had demanded of Mugabe! Of course Mugabe will now want to defy SADC by do nothing in the 15 day and SADC is powerless to do anything without appearing to be bossy.

Tsvangirai begged SADC to interfere in Zimbabwe’s political crisis he himself had trigged. When SADC finally acted – guess what, it is none than Tsvangirai himself who undermines SADC’s instructions to Mugabe. How exasperating! In a way, SADC’s dismissive treatment of Tsvangirai is completely justified; how else can any one treat such a buffoon!

TSVANGIRAI CALLS OFF BOYCOTT ALTHOUGH MUGABE HAS DONE NOTHING

Tsvangirai announced in Maputo that he will call off MDC’s boycott of the inclusive government.

Here we go again! Tsvangirai said he disengaged with Mugabe because the later was a "dishonest partner". So was it the fresh sea breeze in Maputo that suddenly transformed Mugabe into an honest partner?

MDC said it would boycott the inclusive government until Mugabe implemented all the out standing issues. Mugabe has not implemented a single one of the issues and Tsvangirai calls off the boycott. It is not as if Mugabe is being rushed off his feet, the dictator has already had nine months to fire Gono and now Tsvangirai gives him another month to do it. But Tsvangirai is being true to form; he has issued threats and deadlines before only to ignore them himself!

Zimbabwe has teething economic and political problems that have required urgent attention but have been ignored for nearly a year now. The West still see this GNU as a Mugabe dictatorship in all but name which is why the administration has not received a penny in direct financial aid. On the political front there is still widespread lawlessness, for example.

Tsvangirai had a real chance to end Mugabe's reign of terror and ruin last year after the sham June elections. Sadly, Tsvangirai did not seize that opportunity. After that, Tsvangirai has been a lose cannon latching from one thing to another toying with the nation's hopes and dreams.
This GNU will never bring a just, democratic and prosperous Zimbabwe we have all been waiting for all these decades. Zimbabwe’s match to democratic change took a serious knock when Tsvangirai signed the GPA. The important question is how long will this nation take to recover from the knock?

SADC MEET TO RSOLVE ZIMBABWE'S TRIVIAL ISSUES AND NEGLECTING THE IMPORTANT ONES!

SADC troika summit on Zimbabwe scheduled for Thursday in the Mozambican capital, Maputo.

The trouble with the present political crisis is that it is over issues like the firing of RBZ governor Gideon Gono, the swearing in of Roy Bennett, etc; matters that will at best have only a marginal effect on the ordinary citizen. Ok Mugabe will climb down and fire Gono and swear in Bennett so what?

The chances are Mugabe will appoint another Mugabe loyalist to replace Gono. Gono himself will probably continue to run the key accounts although be it remotely. As for Bennett, he will be just another MDC Minister, hopeful, a shed better than Home Affairs Minister Mutsekwa who may just as well be a Zanu PF Minister.

The political crisis should have been over the really big issues affecting all Zimbabweans like ending the state of lawlessness and the culture of impunity by arresting and punishing all those responsible for the violence and murders. Tsvangirai’s answer to Mugabe’s failure to end Zanu PF’s struggle hold on the public media and create a truly free and independent media was to launch his own MDC newspaper!

It took nine months of MDC grooving before Mugabe followed by weeks of sulking to get Mugabe to finally fire a few Mugabe loyalists. How much longer will the nation have to wait for the day when the electorate will exercise their basic right to vote for whoever the please without fearing for one’s very life?

Zimbabweans have waited for over three decades now for the restoration of their basic and fundamental human rights and freedoms. Rights denied them by Mugabe. Whatever Tsvangirai comes back from the SADC meeting on Thursday with; if it does not guarantee the rights and freedoms of every Zimbabweans with immediate effect then it is simply not good enough. Zimbabweans have waited for their human dignity for thirty years now; they should not have to wait another day. If there was political will these rights and freedoms can be guaranteed at no significant cost in terms of money or time.

If there was ever a time when Zimbabweans should stand up and be counted; there will not the a better time than right now!

ZIMBABWE'S INCLUSIVE GOVERNMENT IS NOT WORKING AND NEVER WILL: THERE SHOULD BE FRESH FREE ELECTIONS.

"We have to find solutions to have the inclusive government working again,” Tsvangirai said!

God help us! I really do not think Tsvangirai will ever learn. It is not a matter of getting the inclusive government working AGAIN. It has never worked. He was the one who said it was working, when he knew it was not.

The inclusive government will be considered “working”:
- if it restores law and order throughout the country and those responsible for serious human rights violations are arrested and brought before the courts of law.
- if all repressive laws and practices are removed so the there is freedom of expression and association and a truly free press
- if it stopped all farm invasions, carried out the promised land audit without further ado and take away the farms from those with more than one farm.
- if the writing of the new constitution is put back on track and the process accelerated so delivery the new constitution and the holding of fresh free and fair elections in original time-table of18 to 24 months. There are many substantive issues that only a properly constituted government can address and this GNU hybrid has shied away from.

These are the important issues the GNU’s performance will be judge. The firing of RBZ governor and AG, the swearing in of Roy Bennett, the lifting of targeted sanctions, etc; these are peripheral issues. They are important to the concerned individuals or the particular political party but there are of little importance to the nation.

There is no chance of ever getting this GNU to work; that is the harsh reality. To start with the GPA which Tsvangirai himself signed gave Mugabe all the executive powers – he is head of State, head of government and commander of Army and all other State Security Organs. Mugabe has the power to disrupt the GNU so that it does NOT deliver any of the four goals stated above. And that is exactly what he has done. Yes sometimes he has abused his position and was down right a “dishonest partner”, as Tsvangirai rightly said, is pursuit of his selfish goals. Mugabe has shown again and again that he is a ruthless and heartless dictator; surely no one expected him to behave honourably and honestly just because he too signed the GPA!

The end objective of GNU is to dismantle brick by brick Zanu PF’s repressive and corrupt political system and replace it with a free, democratic and prosperous one. Of course Mugabe and his cronies will have no role in the new political dispensation; indeed many of them will not only lose the wealth they looted but will face serious human rights violation charges. In short, Tsvangirai expects Mugabe to honestly preside over a process that will incriminate and punish his thugs and henchmen and end with him losing the very thing he has vowed he will not lose- political power. Not even a five year old would be that naïve to expect that from a village idiot!

Zimbabwe is caught up in this mess of the GPA and then the GNU because the nation had a tough question: what to do with a discredited dictator who has been rejected by the electorate but refuses to relinquish power? Those who got us into this mess and proposed the GPA’s answer was to appease the dictator and then over the two to three years life of the GNU erode all political power from under the dictator. Well that strategy has singularly failed!

Now, nine months later, Zimbabwe is back to where it was on 27 June 2008 facing the same question – be it with a sight change. What to do with a discredited dictator, who has been rejected by the electorate, accepts all the appeasements allowed him, but still would not relinquish his dictatorial powers?

The nation can go through the torturous process of parching up the GPA – give Mugabe more to appease him here and force him to give up something there. There is one thing we can be sure of however; Mugabe will never ever preside over any meaningful democratic reforms and regime change!

In June last year we failed to address the tough question: what to do with a discredited dictator who has been rejected by the electorate but refuses to relinquish power? The GPA was not an answer but a fudge. As a nation, we can continue to fudge it but that will not make the problem go away.

Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti and others have pointed out at the full shop shelves, the 3% GDP growth rate and all the other signs of economic recovery the country has enjoyed since the signing of the GPA and formation of the GNU. On the political front; although human rights violations and acts of lawlessness have continued, they were nothing compared to what happened in April to June 2008. These are very important and very significant gains; the nation has Tsvangirai and company to thank for that. However, we have to ask ourselves was this the best Zimbabwe could have done?

If we had stamped out the violent farm invasions, carried out the land audit and taken away the extra farms from those who have one that one farm and thus put these farms, many of which have been left fallow; this would have made a big impact on Zimbabwe’s food production and economic recovery. The GNU failed to do this.

It was universally acknowledge that foreign aid, particularly from the West, would be critical to Zimbabwe’s economic recovery. The West have stated in no uncertain terms that they would not give direct aid to Zimbabwe because they were not convinced that this GNU was anything else other than Mugabe’s dictatorship by another name. Tsvangirai himself, who had been for nine months pretended that the GNU was not a Mugabe dictatorship in all but name, finally admitted that it was indeed a dictatorship.

How much more would have been achieved if Zimbabwe’s government today had the total support and confidence of the international community?

Nine months since the formation of the GNU, unemployment still remains at 80 to 90%. Most of those employed work for government as teachers, medical staff, etc or they are involved in the buying and selling of goods. Very few people are involved in the production of raw materials or finished products – the sector generating national wealth.

Zimbabwe has been reduced into a nation of civil servants and shop keepers! Where is not for the millions of Diaspora dollars pouring into the country, things would be a lot worse that there are already!

Yes not as many people have been arrested, tortured and/or murdered since the formation of the GNU compared to the period before the GNU. But as soon as Mugabe feels an pressure to implement meaningful democratic reforms he has responded by stepping up the arrests, tortures, etc.

The GNU is not going to deliver on most, if not all, the political reforms it promised. Mugabe has kicked the media reforms into the tall grass. He has made his position very clear on the writing of the new constitution – either we accept his Kariba draft or we get nothing. See the list of ifs list above for what this GNU should have done but have not.

The fundamental weakness with the GPA was offered the answer to what to do with a dictator who refuses to relinquish power by offering to appease him. The GPA did not offer Mugabe a golden handshake; which would have been unacceptable, rewarding him for all the years of repression and corruption. The other option was to let Mugabe to remain president but with no executive power. He did not accept that because there was no guarantee he would not be prosecuted for all the crimes he committed whilst in power. The solution he demanded was that he remained president with all the dictatorial powers.

The GPA endorsed Mugabe’s position that he was would NOT be democratically accountable to the Zimbabwe electorate.

The question we must now answer is: was the price of having food in the shops a fair price for the nation to pay for losing our fundamental and basic right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country? Tsvangirai, Biti and the rest told us it was.

The question any level headed individual should have asked themselves before signing the GPA, which millions of others have asked themselves throughout history, is: if we give up the right to hold a leader to account what recourse will there be for us if the leader fails to serve our interest.

The GNU will never work because if gives all political power to a dictator and leave us, the people, completely at his mercy.

There is no point in tinkering with the GPA by taking something from here and giving something there; the only change that really matters is that Mugabe must be held accountable to the people and what better way than by having a free and fair election.

The GNU has failed and must now be set aside. People must now concentrate on internationally supervised fresh elections; that was the best and only solution to Zimbabwe’s political crisis in June 2008 and still remains the only solution now! We must have our democratic right to a meaningful vote restored and not be short changed again.

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess - which has caused tragic human suffering and costed hundred of thousands of human lives – because the nation accepted the falsehood that we can still do well even if we have been systematically denied our basic and fundamental political rights. Time for puss-footing is over; it is now time to address the nation’s problems head on and with iron resolve. It was Tsvangirai who led the nation down this garden path of the GNU; he must now do the honourable thing and resign! As for Mugabe and his cronies, all they looted from the people must be recovered and that responsible for the regime’s many serious crimes, they must for once feel the full weight of the law.

MUGABE LOYALISTS PUSHING THE DICTATOR TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF MDC "DISENGAGEMENT" TO CONSOLIDATE ZANU PF POWER.

Mugabe loyalists are calling for Mugabe to appoint acting ministers to replace MDC ministers who are boycotting cabinet meetings following MDC decision to “disengage” with Mugabe.

Typical of Zanu PF, they are always looking for someone else to blame for their own failures. Mugabe and his cronies have seized for themselves the country's commercial farms and agricultural production has fallen from the height where the nation produced enough food for the nation with surplus for export to the sorry situation today where 80% of our people are dependent on food aid.

The continued farm invasions by Mugabe loyalists have done more harm to Zimbabwe's agricultural recovery prospects than MDC ministers' boycott of Cabinet Meetings could do in a hundred years! Zimbabwe’s economy is in total melt down right now and yet the country has always had a bloated government and this GNU is three times as big as it needed to be!

No Mugabe loyalists see the MDC boycott as an opportunity for their party to seize back all the ministries Zanu PF had lost to MDC. The statements are to test the public reaction. Make no mistake, Mugabe has his list of new ministers ready and it will not take months to have them sworn in either!

Not that MDC ministers have made any difference since their joining Mugabe to form the GNU. Mugabe has not allowed any of them to be effective in their various portfolios; it has been nine months of sheer frustration. Indeed the present boycott is the frustration boiling over.

Everyone warned Tsvangirai and his MDC colleagues that the GPA gave Mugabe too much power and therefore the proposed power sharing would not work. But, of course, Tsvangirai turned a deaf ear to all.

After nine months of being send from pillar to post by Mugabe over trivial matters, the so called outstanding issues, Tsvangirai finally got the message. But instead of having a clean break and walkout of the GNU, thus trigger fresh elections; Tsvangirai settled for the half-way house, remain in the GNU but boycott Cabinet meetings.

Of course Mugabe does not want fresh elections – he would be foolish to repeat the sham elections of 27 June 2008 so soon. Appointing acting Zanu PF ministers would suit him just fine; he will have a Zanu PF government without having had to face the electorate! Even if MDC should finally walkout, Mugabe will certainly be better off facing the electorate with his party in total control of every lever of power.

Tsvangirai’s dithering has again given Mugabe the advantage.

Zimbabwe has no hope of getting out of this mess as long as Mugabe remains in power and Tsvangirai will never ever get Mugabe out of power because Mugabe is too canning for someone as naïve and slow as Tsvangirai!

PROFESSOR MOYO HAS ZIMBABWEANS CHASING A RED HERRING; INSTEAD OF REGIME CHANGE!

Professor Jonathan Moyo has taken up the challenge of making sure Roy Bennett is on Zimbabwe’s national agenda and nothing else. He has called Tsvangirai’s nomination of Bennett treacherous.

“If by dint of fortune the Prime Minister manages to bring pressure to bear and Bennett is sworn-in, King Mzilikazi, Lobengula along with Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi and other fallen heroes of the Chimurenga (Liberation Struggle) would turn in their graves and inspire surviving comrades of the revolution and their offspring to set this whole country on fire,” the sabre-rattling Zanu-PF propagandist warned.

As far as the Professor is concerned Bennett “who fought and massacred our liberation forces”. Being a white Rhodesian, Bennett would have fought on Ian Smith’s side during the war of independence. Almost every able bodied white Rhodesian did; including the many whites who, after independence, have served in Mugabe’s government, including at ministerial level.

Mugabe got international praise for his willingness to let bygone be bygones and policies promoting racial harmony. Mugabe has shown he would work with anybody even those whites whose racial credentials are dubious to say the least. Mugabe has managed very close ties with people like Tiny Rowland and other Corporate big shots, for example, who continuing to do business with the white regime in violation of the imposed international sanctions. For years Tiny Rowland was one of the greatest financial backers of Mugabe and Zanu PF – say no more!

When Mugabe’s political popularity started to wane because his regime was incompetent and corrupt he has always rummaged around for scapegoat. He has found blaming the whites the easiest one of all – the whites had a history of being oppressive and they blamed him for ending their domination and exploitation of the blacks; plenty of raw data to work on.

In 2000, with the Zimbabwe economy in trouble and his political power under threat; Mugabe picked on the white farmers. He needed their farms to plicate with wasteful loyalists to buy their continued support. The move destroyed the country’s agricultural sector and thus accelerated the economic melt down. He knew this would happen and had a ready made explanation for it “he was being punished by the West for taking land off the white!” Of course that is nonsense, but that is beside the point. The point, as far as he is concerned, was the story was plausible and that was all that mattered.

From 2000 onward Zimbabwe’s economy dropped like a stone with heart breaking consequences to the people. Last year Mugabe had one of the most blatant violent elections in human history and through it all Mugabe has somehow managed to play his race card and get away with it.

So when Mugabe started to focus on Roy Bennett it was clear the dictator wanted to take the heat off failed GNU and his role in that. Tsvangirai should have seen this one coming but sadly he did not.

In his recent article in the Gideon Gono owned paper the Financial Gazette Professor Moyo compare appointing Roy Bennett to “having a former NAZI infantryman serving as a deputy Minister of Justice in Israel today”.

It is not at all surprised that Professor Moyo and Minister Chinamasa- no doubt with the tacit approval of Mugabe himself - “instigated the arrest of Bennett last week Wednesday”, The Zimbabwe Times suggested. Mugabe’s sycophants and propagandists will do their best to steer up racial hate until the whole country can talk of nothing else.

Of course MDC had many good reasons to break away from the GNU but the only reason Mugabe will want everyone to talk about is that he refused to swear in Roy Bennett because is of the latter’s white racist threats.

Tsvangirai and MDC bungled this one and now the whole nation will pay dearly for it! As one would say in Shona; “Uku ndiko kunonzi kurumwa nechokuchera!”

Within hours The Zimbabwe Times website has had pages of insulting comments against Professor Moyo! Whilst Zimbabweans have over indulged themselves finding the most insulting words and venting their outrage at Moyo; the fact of the matter is they have forgotten about the GNU and all the economic and political problems Zimbabwe is facing. And that is exactly what Mugabe wanted!

Some Zimbabweans have asked for Professor Moyo to resign his parliamentary seat now that he is a Zanu PF MP and not an independent member. Even if Moyo was to lose the seat in a by-election Mugabe will have a cushy job for him. Patrick Chinamasa lost in last year’s parliamentary elections and Mugabe still appointed him Minister.

Like it or not Professor Jonathan Moyo is worth more than his own weight in gold to Mugabe.

Mugabe and Professor Moyo have not only outwitted Tsvangirai but us too. We must snap out of this insulting Moyo competition and think of ways we can bring about regime change in Zimbabwe, for example!

TSVANGIRAI MADE A SERIOUS BLUNDER IN TRUSTING A DISHONEST MUGABE: HE MUST NOW RESIGN.

Listen to Deputy Prime Minister, Mutambara, rambling on S W Radio Africa and immediately one can see why Zimbabwe is in deep, deep trouble. Mugabe landed us in this mess but we can not be serious to expect the likes of Mutambara to dig us out on the mess. How did we pick such an empty head to hold such a top position?

As if having Mutambara for Deputy PM was not bad enough, we have Tsvangirai as Prime Minister!

After the March 2008 elections Tsvangirai went on a diplomatic offensive, when he should have been mobilising his supporters to stop Mugabe rigging of the election results. He wanted SADC to stop Mugabe and, of course, they did not do any such thing. This time he is off on yet another diplomatic offensive to get SADC Heads of State to pressure Mugabe to honour the GPA. A few weeks ago Tsvangirai was in Congo to pressure SADC Heads to do the same thing he wants them to do. In Congo SADC Heads ignored him completely. The chances are, they will do the same yet again.

Tsvangirai made the initial very serious political blunder by signing the GPA and joining Mugabe in forming the GNU. He has finally admitted that and walkout accusing Mugabe of being a “dishonest and unreliable partner.” But this was such a serious and costly blunder the only honourable thing for Tsvangirai those close to him to do now is resign from MDC.

Of course, Tsvangirai would never resign. Resign is as strange and alien to Tsvangirai just as regime change in to Mugabe. These words send the jitters to African leaders, even those supposedly standing on a democratic change platform, like Tsvangirai!

TSVANGIRAI "DISENGAGES" WITH MUGABE OVER BENNETT: FALLING INTO MUGABE'S RACE TRAP!

Mugabe sends MDC’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture to jail and Tsvangirai reacts- he “disengages” with the Mugabe from the GNU.

Mugabe is a master strategist and he set a trap for Tsvangirai and the later walked straight into it!

Mugabe picked on Roy Bennett because he is white. Mugabe has played the race card again and again and it has served him well every time. For the last ten years; talk about Zimbabwe and nine times out ten you end up talking about the white farm invasions. Try as you will to talk about the disruption the invasion have caused or the many farms now fallow; the discussion will gravitate back to addressing the historic injustice created by the white colonialists, which is exactly what Mugabe would want to hear. Zimbabwe’s economy has completely collapsed and Mugabe has committed some shocking human rights violations and all these matters have played second fiddle to the farm invasions. All these has happen not by accident; they were all carefully choreographed!

Mugabe must have been pleasantly surprised when MDC signed the GPA. OK he had out manoeuvred them on countless occasions in the past still even he must have been surprised that they would be that to stupid to sign such a one-side agreement and even to trust him to honour even the marginal concessions he had made. In the last eight months Mugabe has again and again violated the word and spirit of the GPA by appointing the likes of Gideon Gono without consulting the other partners in the GPA and then refusing to point blank to replace Gono. Tsvangirai threatened to walkout of the GNU but never did.

If Tsvangirai had stuck to his guns and actually walkout of the GNU, I bet Mugabe would have relented and fired Gideon Gono, Tomani and any of the so called outstanding issues. Mugabe is not stupid, he did not want the GNU to fail and be fingered for it. However, when it came to Roy Bennett; that was a different matter.

Roy Bennett presented Mugabe with the opportunity to play his race game. Mr Bennett is accused of having weapons of war and thus of threatening peace and Zimbabwe’s sovereignty. The fact that Bennett is white, the links to Mugabe’s mimesis, “the white imperialists”, is not that tenuous. Mugabe has stubbornly refused to swear in Mr Bennett as the MDC’s deputy Minister of Agriculture. Mugabe has done nothing for eight months now hoping MDC would walkout of the GNU over this one. When nothing happened, Mugabe provoked MDC further by having Bennett thrown in jail and finally Tsvangirai swallowed the hook.

Mugabe is well aware that if the GNU collapses, his own legitimacy will once again be called into question. His legitimacy was first questioned after the sham 27 June 2008 presidential run-off because he had failed to hold free and fair elections. His legitimacy is totally dependent on the GNU but not now. If MDC walkout, Mugabe would want to continue to rule the country as if nothing has changed. If anyone should dare question his legitimacy he will claim they are seeking to punish him because he stood up to a white imperialist. Just as he blame Zimbabwe’s economic collapse on the white imperialists “punishing him for redressing the injustice of historic land distribution.”

Tsvangirai should have never agreed to share power with Mugabe particularly after the serious human rights violation leading up to the 27 June 2008 vote. Surprise, surprise, Tsvangirai swept all that aside and joined Mugabe to form the GNU. Many innocent Zimbabweans have been arrested and some have been murdered including MDC members since the formation of the GNU. MDC has never taken any firm actions to get Mugabe to stop. And so for MDC to finally take action over the arrest of one white person who smack on racism; that MDC values the comfort of one white person over the lives of hundreds of blacks!

Mugabe has always accused Tsvangirai of being a puppet of the West and, make no mistake about it, Mugabe will claim Tsvangirai acted in this case not of his own convolution – his white masters pulled the strings!

Tsvangirai called his MDC colleagues and their agreed to “disengage with Zanu PF” – one assumes that is a half-way house to walking out of the GNU. What matters is MDC have swallowed the hook; that is exactly what Mugabe wanted them to do. He will always blame MDC for walking the GNU over the Bennett case whatever happens. It is a great pity that Tsvangirai and MDC always move before engaging their brain!

MUGABE WELCOMES MOYO BACK INTO ZANUPF: THE TWO TOGATHER CAN ONLY MEAN A GRIM FUTURE FOR ZIMBABWEANS!

What Prof Moyo pull-off in 2000 for Mugabe and Zanu PF was special, no one else in Zanu PF would have done that. Mugabe, of all people, knows that. And it is for that reason that Prof Moyo was welcomed back by Zanu PF.

Moyo must have considered the option of joining MDC when he was kicked out of Zanu PF in 2005, particularly following the humiliating way Mugabe treated him. According to Mugabe, Moyo had cried, begging him for mercy. “Ezinyembezi sivili!” (Cried, tears!) the dictator claimed. Of course Tsvangirai would have welcomed him with open arms.

MDC did not have a candidate in Professor Moyo’s constituency during last year’s election. MDC claims this was deliberate to give the Professor a clear run. The Professor did win the seat but claim the move nearly costed him the seat because most of the votes that would have gone to MDC-T went to his main challenger instead.

Professor Moyo talked much about the “third way” and Dr Simba Makoni before the later launched “Dawn/Mavambo”. But when the project (it was not a political party because some of its key supporters still retained their Zanu PF membership) fall flat on its face that left Moyo with two choices rejoin Zanu PF or join MDC. In fact I do not believe the Professor ever agonised over that.

After Tsvangirai signed the GPA giving Mugabe all the dictatorial powers Professor Moyo had no choice but to swallow his pride and beg Mugabe and rejoin Zanu PF. Moyo is after political power and influence and one does not have to be particularly clever to see Mugabe had all the power and Tsvangirai had none. Professor Moyo has called MDC leaders “blithering idiots!” which, like it or not, is completely off the mark!

Tsvangirai signed the GPA and joined Mugabe to form GNU against all the advice from within Zimbabwe and outside. For the last six months Mugabe did not need Professor Moyo, he had Tsvangirai; selling the GNU as an irreversible democratic change- even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary! It was Tsvangirai and other MDC leaders like Tendai Biti’s pompous arrogance, as if they knew something that the rest of us, ordinary mortals, could never even begin to comprehend!

Ever since the humiliating dismissal of MDC by SADC Head of State; they did not even grant Tsvangirai the courtesy to put his case why he was unhappy with the power sharing arrangements with Mugabe. Just as well Tsvangirai and others in MDC are “blithering idiots” anyone else would hang their heads in shame after all the humble pie Mugabe has made them eat!

For the last few weeks Mugabe has scored one political victory after another. SADC endorsed his position and dismissed Tsvangirai’s weaning with total contempt. He had his moment of glory at the UN; after the sham 27 June 2008 elections none of the Western leader thought they would ever have to listen to his rumbling nonsense. It gave Mugabe unparalleled pleasure to defy them once again. The USAID has just given US$ 20 million to support Zimbabwe’s farmers. Guess what, he and his cronies will be the main beneficiaries, they now constitute 90% of Zimbabwe’s farmers thanks to his aggressive land programme.

All the hullaballo nonsense about Nestle stopping buying milk from Gushungo Dairy Estate is nothing but hot air. Every Zimbabwean company that uses raw agricultural materials is buying them from a farm owned by Mugabe, his wife or his cronies. The later own 90% of Zimbabwe’s farms; that is a fact! Come 5 October, Nestle will be buying Gushungo Dairy milk be it through a third party – Dairy Marketing Board. So what was all the fuss about!

Any one who thinks Professor Moyo has gone past ‘best-by date’ is wrong. He is still capable of a lot of mischief and that is way a ruthless dictator like Mugabe wants a mischievous man like him his side. And together the future looks grim for all Zimbabweans!

Grace Mugabe dairy farm selling milk to Nestle: Mugabe destroyed so many productive farms to create a tiny few!

Grace Mugabe is the owner of a Dairy Farm supplying a million litres of milk to Nestle, the Swiss Food Giant.

Mugabe destroyed one of the most productive farming sectors in the world to create one that has been a total failure. Zimbabwe has gone from a net exporter of food and earning billions of dollars in foreign currency from the sell of products like tobacco before Mugabe's land redistribution programme to a point where 80% of our people are dependent on food aid and agricultural production has dropped to a tiny fraction of its original level.

The nation has heard of these few "success stories" of Grace Mugabe dairy farm and Gideon Gono’s chicken farm but before we swallow this story we must ask two things:
1) How much of their new wealth is going to the national coffers? I would not be surprised that these new owners are not only paying their workers poor wages but they are paying only a fraction of the tax due compared to the original owners of these farms.
2) How much has these new farm owners received in direct and indirect aid? People like Grace and Gideon no doubt had unlimited support; everything their touched had to turn into gold. They received all the funding they asked for even to the point of taking the funds away from critical national institutions like schools and hospitals!

Nestle continued to do business with people like Grace Mugabe knowing fully well what these individuals stand for. If this was happening in Europe or North America, Nestle would have rather closed down than be guilty of propping up such a repressive regime. Nestle is not alone in this, a few months the same thing was being about Barclays Banks.

As a nation we have to investigate the business dealing of Mugabe and all his cronies. People like Gono will use no doubt use their ill got wealth to maintain the status quo; that can not be allowed.

We have also to investigate the role of the many individuals and companies who propped the regime up. As long as they made fat profit, they did not care. These ill got profits must be shared by the many Zimbabweans whose lives have been totally destroyed by this unholy cooperation.

CNN ALLOW MUGABE TO MAKE LAND GRAB A RACE ISSUE: IT IS NOT THAT!

The CNN reporter was drawn into seeing the land issue into blacks against whites which is exactly which is exactly what Mugabe wants the whole world to do. It is not that at all!

The original land reform programme which the British agreed to fund during the Lancaster Talks was aimed at buying off some of the commercial farms and settling Zimbabwe’s peasants who constitute 60% or so of the country’s 13 million. In the first 20 years of the country’s independence a small fraction of the landless peasants were actually resettled. Mugabe and his cronies kept for themselves some of the farms meant for resettlement.

When Mugabe lost the 2000 constitutional referendum he wanted the land issue to be the only issue in the country. Zimbabweans had other important issues they wanted addressed; the country’s economy was already in decline, corruption and mismanagement were by then deeply entrenched, and on the political front the dictator had become increasingly repressive as he felt his popularity slipping. So to take attention away from all these other pressing issues Mugabe instigated the lawless and the senseless violence that have become the hallmark of the white farm invasion.

All of the white farms seized since 2000 have been given away to Mugabe’s cronies and the ruling elite and a few are occupied by the party’s thugs who spearheaded the seizures. The landless peasants, who were supposed to be the beneficiaries, have been forgotten.

Zimbabwe’s economy was heavily dependent of the foreign currency and raw materials produced by the country’s agricultural sector. Mugabe’s orchestrated seizure of commercial farms destroyed this sector precipitating the country’s economic melt down.

The country’s food production also suffered because the Mugabe cronies failed to maintain the farms’ high agricultural production. Last year 80% of our people needed imported food aid, sad for a country that used to self sufficient in food with enough excess to sell to other countries in the region.

On the political front Mugabe has successfully used the farm invasion as the smoke screen to hide his intentions of denying the people a meaningful say in the governance of the country. He still maintains it is the West that is seeking regime change in Zimbabwe, “they are punishing him for taking land away from the whites and giving it back to the blacks”, he claims. He has conveniently forgotten the reign of terror he unleashed on the people and the hundreds of innocent people he murdered last year to force the electorate to vote for him.

Mugabe’s on going white farm invasion is not settling white colonial injustices; that are only a cover. The dictator is using the farm invasions to hide the violent repression of the Zimbabwe populous to consolidate his iron grip on power. He is using the seized farms to reward all those who have remained loyal to his dictatorial rule.

“Zimbabwe belongs to Zimbabweans, pure and simple.” Mugabe said. In his Zimbabwe, the country belongs to him and his cronies; the rest of the people, black and white, count for nothing!

TSVANGIRAI TO REMAIN IN THE GNU: SEEKING TO HIDE BEHIND FUDGED PEOPLE'S WISH.

The pressure is mounting on whether or not Tsvangirai and his MDC party should walkout of the GNU.

When ever Tsvangirai has to face a tough decision in which some of the more logical MDC leaders opposed him, he has always suggested that the party "will consult and listen to the people". The party will then go on to hold a number of public meetings addressed by the party leadership. Only a few party members will get a chance to speak. No doubt, some will say this and others will say that and the third group will say something completely difference which is neither this nor that. And so the party leadership will be left to pick and choose what the people actually said!

There are good political reasons why MDC should walk out of this GNU; for a start the power sharing has been a complete failure given Mugabe has all his dictatorial powers and he has continued to flex his muscles. There a equally good economic reasons for walking out. The economic recover, which is the acid test, will never occur; because no one is going to bank roll this dictatorship. The only reason why Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders would want to stay is for selfish gain. They are enjoying the social and economic benefits of being Prime Minister, etc.

Mugabe has already started beating the war drum; there will be no free and fair elections and MDC will be routed! So MDC leaders know they will once again be a nobody after the next elections.

Mutambara too knows his chance of winning come the next elections is zero and that is why he has been pushing for the GNU to last as long as possible. He too would like to hang on to his Deputy Prime Minister post as long as possible. At least he is honest and up front about it. The same can not be said about Tsvangirai and his MDC friends; they want to stay in the GNU but would like to hide behind some fudged people’s wish.

Some of the most heinous crimes against the people in this life are often committed in the name of the people. Tsvangirai never consulted the people before he joined Mugabe to form this GNU. He is going through the same meaningless motion of consulting the people to stay in. Whatever he does, staying in is clearly worse, the damage he has done in joining the GNU has been immeasurable.
Be joining Mugabe to form this GNU Tsvangirai endorsed Mugabe’s position that Mugabe alone will decide who rules Zimbabwe. The only election result Mugabe will accept is one that endorses his dictatorial position. Tsvangirai had no right to make such a outrageous and far reaching decision. It was a serious betrayal of the people’s trust and fundamental right.

Professor Jonathan Moyo, the venomous viper, calls Tsvangirai a "blithering fool"; the viper is right!

Professor Jonathan Moyo calls Tsvangirai and MDC “blithering fools”.

Professor Jonathan Moyo will rank second after Mugabe himself in the role he played in building up and keeping this ruinous and repressive Mugabe dictatorship in power. For someone who was Minister, highest office he ever occupied, for a handful of years compared to three decades for many in Zanu PF; that speaks volumes of the potency of this venomous viper!

Professor Moyo masterminded Mugabe’s miraculous revival after the losing the 2000 constitutional referendum and facing the same electorate again a few months later in the parliamentary elections. He has boasted of this himself. The strategy was simple enough – force everyone to focus on the land issue and nothing else. Indeed for all its multitude of economic and political problems Zimbabwe has nothing else on the national agenda but land.

The violence and lawlessness that has accompanied the seizure of white farms was a deliberate and calculated ploy to draw attention to the white farms and away from Mugabe’s catalogue failures and repression. Whilst violence was reportedly directed at the white farmers in practise to country wide directed at Mugabe’s political opponents and their supporters.

Mugabe’s cronies took full advantage of the chaotic situation by taking over the seized farms. Mugabe was running out of wealth to bribe his cronies and so he was helpless to stop them.

The economic and physical consequences of Zimbabwe’s violent farm seizure have been devastating for the white farmer owners and the hundreds of thousands farmer workers. And for the nation as a whole, this was the single act that precipitated the country’s total economic melt down.

Tsvangirai and his “party of excellence” has completely failed to put any other issue on the national agenda in their tens years as the country’s main political opposition with a significant number of MPs in 2000 to 2005 and now with half as many Ministers and Prime Ministers as Zanu PF! Of course it is not because there is a shortage of issues for Tsvangirai to pick from; the situation is even worse now than it was ten years ago.
Many Zimbabweans consider Professor Moyo a venomous viper who would sell his own mother for a price and be proud he had a mother to sell. Still, when he called Tsvangirai and company “blithering fools”; like it or not the viper is right!

EU delegate welcomed by Mugabe; but are a curse to Zimbabwe's regime change agenda!

Mugabe welcomes a high ranking EU delegation with “open arms” to mark the thawing relationship between the dictator and the Union.

The West imposed targeted sanction of Mugabe in 2002 following his failure to hold free and fair elections and thus afford the Zimbabwean electorate a meaningful say in the governance of the country. Last year’s run-off presidential elections were even worse, Mugabe “declared war” on the people, as Tsvangirai so aptly put it.

When Mugabe dangled the carrot of the premiership to Tsvangirai, the later immediately forgot all hundreds of innocent blood the dictator had just shed and joined him to form the GNU. Indeed the political violence has never really stop and on Saturday Mugabe was telling his party’s Youth League those who had dare to vote against him last year had sold out. They should not allow that to ever happen again in future.

One of the key tasks for this GNU is to produce a new constitution in 18 to 24 months. The nation is then set to hold fresh election. Mugabe has already started denouncing his critics and opponents as anti-Zimbabweans the next election is set to be as violent and bloody as past election. Tsvangirai, blinded by all the trimmings of office, has himself refused to acknowledge Mugabe is the same ruthless dictator has always been; being in the GNU has not changed him in any way.

In June Mugabe sent Tsvangirai on a diplomatic charm offensive to the West to get sanctions lifted West financial aid renewed. Much to the annoyance of most Zimbabweans, particularly those at the cutting edge of Mugabe’s continued repression and misrule, Tsvangirai told the world Mugabe had changed and Zimbabwe was on an “irreversible” democratic path.

All the Western government dismissed Tsvangirai’s optimism with the contempt it rightly deserved and sent him back empty handed. All that is except European Union, they seemed impressed by the GNU and were ready to work with Mugabe.

On Saturday 12 September a high powered EU delegation led by EU Aid and Development Commissioner Karel De Gucht visited Zimbabwe and met the dictator Mugabe himself. It is a very significant diplomatic victory for the ruthless dictator Mugabe. He welcomed the delegation “with open arms”!

When Mugabe was asked after his meeting with the EU delegates whether he consider stepping down he laughed and answered “You are asking a regime change question. I am still young.”

This was a laughing matter to the dictator; he has vowed that only God will remove him from office. But to the Zimbabweans this is no laughing matter.

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess because the people could NOT achieve regime change even when there was overwhelming evidence that Mugabe’s regime was incompetent, corrupt and repressive. For three decade Mugabe’s message to the Zimbabwe electorate was that they could vote for whomever the pleased as long as he alone emerges the winner; Henry Ford style. Of course it is the people who have should have the final say expressed through free and fair election on who should rule. Until this anomaly is dealt with the country will remain in this hell-hole.

So good governance and regime change remains top on the Zimbabwe national agenda.

The only reason EU Commissioner Gucht should be doing in Zimbabwe right now is to ensure the hang-man's noose seats snugly round the dictator’s neck. The targeted sanctions should be extended beyond the mere 203 individuals and 40 companies, for example, to include the next tier of the Zanu PF leadership and all their children and dependents.

Instead, the EU is welcoming Mugabe back into the community of nations, lift the sanctions and renew financial aid to the dictator. The EU is sweeping all the human rights violation and murders Mugabe has committed under the carpet. And worse still, the EU endorsing the dictator’s position that he alone - and not the Zimbabwean electorate - should continue to decide who rules the country.

The right to have a meaningful say in the governance of one’s country is a basic and fundamental human right. It is bad enough that one has to remind dictators like Mugabe of that; it is heartbreaking that one to do the same with EU leaders too. The truth even powerful democratic institutions like EU are still led by white racists who deep down do NOT accept that blacks are really fully subscribed members of the human race and therefore do not have to be accorded the same human rights and dignities accorded to whites.

The EU can renew their past practise of propping up Mugabe; this GNU is nothing but a Mugabe dictatorship in everything but name. This will save to dilute the strong message the West was sending to the dictator and will, no doubt, help Mugabe to extend his ruinous rule of Zimbabwe. Still, regime change and good governance will remain firmly on the national agenda – this is one issue this nation must now resolve once and for all. Regime change is a now a matter of national survival, Mugabe can delude himself in thinking only God can remove his repressive regime!

MUGABE PREPARES HIS THUGS FOR FRESH ELECTIONS: ZIMBABWEANS ARE CAUGHT BETWEEN THE CRASHING JAWS OF A CROCODILE!

Zimbabwe is caught up in the crashing jaws of a crocodile; Mugabe and Tsvangirai which one of them is the upper and lower jaw is a matter of indifference!

With Mugabe the nation knows what he is – a single minded and ruthless dictator whose care is to hang on to political power at ALL cost. His weapon of choice in his fight to remain in power is brute force, he has again and again deployed his party thugs bolstered by heavily politicised and corrupt Police Force, CIO, Army and other state security organs to terrorised and even murder innocent Zimbabweans to secure his election victory. He even boost of having “degrees in violence” and proud of it!

On Friday Mugabe addressed his Zanu PF Youth League; he IS once again on a war-footing.

Mugabe has accepted that once a new constitution is agreed this GNU would have no plausible excuse for not holding fresh election. Of course there some individuals who fearing they would lose have been pushing for the GNU to last five years. Their only hope of seeing that happen is by making sure there in no new constitution at the end of the proposed 18 to 24 months! The counter argument is that there should still be fresh elections with or without a new constitution.

If the GNU failed to produce the new constitution, one of its principle tasks, in the stipulated period; why should the nation extend its tenure? What are the chances that the GNU will produce a new constitution after five years? At present the process has stalled supposedly because there is money. Not that much had been achieved with the millions already spent; the whole process had become a farce as Zanu PF supporters had disrupted all proceedings. At the end of five years of this GNU nation will have to hold election under the current constitution or worse still an equally repressive new constitution. The later is worse because after spending millions of dollars and of man-years in producing the new constitution the nation can ill afford to revisit the same issue again. So is this GNU should fail to produce a new constitution the nation should cut its loss and hold fresh elections and move on!

Mugabe being the shrewd politician that he is realises that and so is already preparing for elections in 18 to 24 months. And his message to his militant Zanu PF Youth League supporters was a call to arms – a chilling to the rest Zimbabwean:

He will reject a new constitution which was not anchored on the Kariba Draft Constitution. The Kariba draft gives Mugabe the same dictatorial powers. So the only new constitution acceptable to Mugabe is one that will restate his dictatorial powers!
The seizure of white owned commercial farms would continue and those who continue to resist will not only have the usual thugs to content with but be dragged before the courts.

“There is no reversal of our sovereignty. We don’t want outsiders to interfere with our system. Our stand with regards to interference is the same. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans.” He said. It is him and his cronies who are benefiting from all these seizures at a huge cost to the majority of the people. Are we not Zimbabweans too!

He considers all Zimbabweans who did not vote for him last year as “sell- outs”!

“When you vote against a revolutionary party, a Chimurenga party, you are becoming a counter-revolutionary,” he said. “You are voting against yourself. You are voting against your right to the ownership of your land. Kutengesa kwakaitwa gore rakapera hatidi kukuona (Let there be no selling out as happened last year)”.

The right to have a meaningful say in the governance of one’s country constitute the very soul and body of a free society in which the human dignity of each member is respected. As a people we have to reject this abomination by Mugabe in which those who exercise this fundamental right are labelled sell-outs to be hunted down and murdered in cold blood!

Tsvangirai and MDC, for all their posturing as the champions of democratic change in Zimbabwe have failed to deal with Mugabe’s repeated violation of the people’s basic human rights violations head-on. Tsvangirai has dealt with these issues as if they were difference in policy the same way economists have differed on the best solution out of the current economic recession.

Last year Mugabe carried out one of the most outrageous acts of election violence and murder ever seen in human history. Not even the placid AU Election Monitoring Team could give the sham their stamp of approval. What Tsvangirai and MDC did by signing a power sharing agreement with Mugabe is sweep all Mugabe had done under the carpet as if nothing mattered.

Well Mugabe is shaking the Zanu PF hornet nest; Zimbabwe must now brace itself for yet another violent and murderous election! No effort was made by Tsvangirai to confront last year’s political violence head-on and now the nation must relive the same horrors all over again.

Whilst Mugabe is preparing his murderous thugs for deploy, MDC is meeting in Bulawayo to ‘Celebrating a Decade of Courage, Conviction and Leadership.’ What leadership?!

Here is a party whose leaders have become Mugabe’s cheer-leaders, especially in the West, singing the praise of the dictator at every opportunity. They entered into this GNU convinced SADC and AU guarantees count for something. Last week SADC rebuffed MDC’s calls to force Mugabe to honour his side of the agreement.

MDC has betrayed the cause of democratic change they claim to stand for. The party, especially Tsvangirai himself, has displayed a shocking level of incompetency and naivety, in total contrast to the party’s claims of being a party “of excellence!”

What MDC needs, desperately, is a totally overhaul of its leaders. Instead, there is talk of Tsvangirai extending his leadership of the party at the end of his two five year teams ending in 2011.

Mugabe is just using MDC to give his continued brutal dictatorial rule of Zimbabwe some semblance of being democracy. But as far as the ordinary Zimbabweans are concerned nothing, absolutely nothing has changed; their suffering continues and their very lives remain at the total mercy of Mugabe. Tsvangirai and MDC are nothing more than the lower jaw – a distasteful role Tsvangirai show have never accepted and has no excuse to continue to play - against which Mugabe can crash his victims!