Friday January 30 2009 is a sad day for Zimbabwe. For on this day Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai, capitulated and agreed to join Mugabe to form a Government of National Unity.
The BBC described the political union as “a marriage made in Hell!” And that is exactly what it is.
MDC won the majority seats in parliament in the March 2008 elections but in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe that counted for nothing. Mugabe has continued to run the show.
In the presidential race Tsvangirai had won the 29 March vote by 51% of the cast votes according to MDC. The Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) said he did beat Mugabe with but did not get the 50% plus one required to avoid a run-off. It took ZEC five weeks to announce this result; they need the time to “cook” the figures and the delay certainly worked to Mugabe’s advantage. MDC’s bungling did not help their own case; the party first claimed Tsvangirai had over 60% of the votes initially only to revise the figure downward not once but twice.
In the run-off Mugabe “declared war on the people”, as Tsvangirai rightly said. Zanu PF thugs backed by the Police and Army mounted a brutal and ruthless campaign of terror, rape and murder against all those known to have voted for MDC in March. At least half a million people were beaten raped and/or had their property destroyed. 200 (some belief ten times as many) people were murdered. Tsvangirai withdraw from the race and Mugabe went on to win the one horse-race and reclaimed his President of Zimbabwe price!
All the election observers including SADC and AU’s observers, known for being dumb, deaf, mute and blind, condemned the election as sham. So why would anyone want to join and form a unity government with a brute like that?
“I find it as difficult as the next person to even begin to trust these processes,” Roy Bennett, MDC’s National Treasurer explained soon after the party had announced its decision to join. “But there has to be a starting point of moving this forward on the basis that people are suffering and on the basis that SADC has guaranteed this process.”
Bennett was driven off his commercial farm in Eastern Zimbabwe and has been on the run from the Mugabe regime. He certainly should know better and not to trust Mugabe.
For Bennett to say he trusted Mugabe “on the basis that SADC has guaranteed this process” is laughable and should be dismissed with the contempt it rightly deserve. The power sharing agreement was signed five months ago and it has taken this long to be implemented because Mugabe wanted all power to himself in fragrant violation of the agreement.
MDC appealed to SADC in the hope they would force Mugabe to honour the initial agreement. Again and again SADC has done nothing; if anything they have turned the pressure on MDC to accept whatever Mugabe offered. It was SADC’s unfettered support of Mugabe that has given him the confidence to treat MDC and Tsvangirai throughout with nothing but contempt. Mugabe knows SADC’s guarantee is worthless and so does everyone else except MDC.
Bennett please educate me; what is it exactly has SADC guaranteed? What is it exactly do you expect SADC to do if Mugabe continues to act in total disregard to the word and spirit of the power sharing agreement? These are the questions MDC did not want asked because they all know deep in their heart that the honest answer to both these question has to be “Nothing!”
So Bennett please do not insult our intelligent with this nonsense of SADC guarantee, we have enough to endure without you spitting in our face!
So MDC went into this marriage end the people’s suffering; more nonsense!
The whole country has been brought to ruin causing untold hardships and deaths to our people because the many ugly faces within Zanu PF and PF Zapu all conspired to let Mugabe have his way. Knowing fully well that Mugabe was a ruthless and brutal tyrant hungry for power and would stop at nothing to get it.
Some day, soon I hope, these ugly faces will be called to account. No doubt they will say they were naïve to think by letting him have his way he would be content and allow the nation to live in peace and harmony. They will have to explain when was it exactly they realised they were naïve - three decades in a long time to be hoodwinked – and, more pointedly, what did they do to rein him in. Nothing, of course!
To understand why these ugly faces have done nothing to end Mugabe’s madness; one has to look at the privileged life they have enjoyed all these years. Mugabe has provided lavishly for the ruling elite onto having spending millions US$ buying new cars for them whilst hospitals and schools close for lack of funds and doctors and teachers are paid US$5 or less a month.
Say what else you chose about Mugabe but when it comes to paying for blind loyalty – “Vhara muromo” as we call it in Shona - you will be hard pushed to find a more generous dictator! Mrs Margret Dongo MP, a former Zanu PF ugly face herself, described the blind loyalty of her former colleagues as Mugabe’s concubines – “Vakadzi vaMugabe”. Mugabe has treated his Zanu PF politburo members, cabinet members and senior party member, parliamentarians, etc. as if they are all imbeciles – he treats lesser mortals no better than dogs. So everything considered Mrs Dongo was not wide off the mark! No doubt Mugabe beamed with egotistic pride when he heard about it!
Mugabe’s generosity to those privileged to be his ruling elite could not have gone unnoticed by Tsvangirai, Bennett and the rest of the MDC’s top leadership. Tsvangirai made up his mind to join the harem long before he even signed September 15 the power sharing agreement. All these months he has played hard ball in the hope that he would not be just another one of Mugabe’s concubines.
Mugabe refused to give an inch; after all he has other concubines to consider. So Tsvangirai has finally relented and he will soon settle down into his new role.
Tsvangirai was going to end the people’s suffering if the nation’s wealth now being spent lavishly of the ruling elite could be used to rebuild the country’s shattered health and education system. If key resources like land, now in the hands of Mugabe’s cronies, can be given to those who can put them into productive use. As just another concubine, he will not have the political power to force through any such changes.
Mugabe would certainly not want his political power base destroyed and that was why he did not want Tsvangirai to have any political power. In fact it is not just his political base Mugabe is concerned about; he has many, many skeletons a Tsvangirai with clout may divulge!
For five months Tsvangirai has loitered with intend at Hell’s gate. He has finally decided to go in and has dragged the whole nation with him. The violence against MDC supporters will stop but not against human rights activists or those critical of the new political dispensation.
Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leadership will start to enjoy the luxurous lives of the ruling elite, no expenses will be spared to make them welcome – there enough wealth for the ruling elite. As for the rest of us we will have to make do with the few crumbs we get as before. The next four years, the term of the GNU, will be a tough time for Zimbabwe – after all we are in hell!
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