There is no method in Tsvangirai’s madness; it is simply madness, period.
Tsvangirai is without doubt one of the most feeble-minded political leaders in history, definitely the wrong man to deal with a sly and ruthless canning fox like Mugabe. It takes forever for Tsvangirai to have an inkling of what Mugabe is up to and by then Mugabe has vanished and committed a dozen more acts of mischief.
Tsvangirai did Mugabe a great favour in agreeing to the Government of National Unity (GNU); the later was in deep trouble after the sham 27 June 2008 presidential run-off elections. So it should have been Mugabe begging Tsvangirai but alas it was the other way round. The GNU has achieved very little because, once again, Mugabe would not honour what the parties had agreed. And it is Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders who are doing everything to make the GNU work – no surprise there!
Tsvangirai told a weekend MDC rally in Zimbabwe that the GNU is irreversible. “There’s no reverse on the inclusive government” he told his listeners. “There’s nothing Mugabe does without me approving and there is nothing I do without him approving,” he added in what most people considered a moment of madness.
Tsvangirai is sold to the idea that it would be a complete disaster for Zimbabwe is the inclusive government show collapse. People like Finance Minister Tendai Biti and Commerce Minister Welshman Ncube talked of “dire consequences” if the GNU collapsed. University of Zimbabwe Professor John Makumbe talked of Zimbabwe going back to 2000 if that was to happen. To them, the GNU must be made to work.
Tsvangirai and others believe there “hardliners” in Zanu PF, composed of Security Chiefs, RBZ governor Gideon Gono and a few others, who are totally opposed to the GNU and would like to see it fail. It is simple to see why members of the Joint Operations Command (JOC) would want to see the inclusive government died and buried. JOC wielded a lot of political power; parliament and cabinet were there just for show, they deferred to JOC for all important decisions. The GNU if it worked was always going to restore political power back to parliament and cabinet. Of course JOC was bound to recent that.
People like Chihuri have public stated that he would never salute Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and so far has staunchly avoided having to do that. Of course, that explained why Tsvangirai and an MDC leaders could not be President nor Vice President and so the PM and DPM positions were created to avoid this potentially embarrassing situation for the Security Chiefs. Of course JOC members see Tsvangirai and others in MDC as political upstarts.
Tsvangirai and his supporters believe Mugabe would like the GNU to work but is being the other way by those who want it to fail. Tsvangirai and others believe by working hard in support of the GNU they will drive a wedge between Mugabe and JOC. Neither Tsvangirai nor anybody else has any concrete evidence to back their basic assumption that Mugabe would indeed like the inclusive to succeed. All they have to go by is circumstantial evidence: Mugabe signed the agreement so he must be committed to it and secondly there is nothing to link Mugabe to the repeated acts of lawlessness and therefore he has nothing to do with them. It takes a giant leap of faith to believe that nonsense.
It was Mugabe who carefully selected each and every member of JOC. Air Marshal Perence Shiri was the man who spear headed the Matebeleland massacres paving the way for Mugabe to finally create a de facto one-party state. Gideon Gono bankrolled Mugabe’s political machine. He recently said that he expropriated foreign currency from foreign aid donor accounts to buy food for the starving people. Yah, right! Last year, whilst millions of our people faced starvation – the regime even stopped donors giving people food, medicines, etc. – Mugabe was giving away buses and tractors to rural party faithful and Mercedes Benz and Plasma TV to Judges.
Zimhondi, the Director of Prisons, has some serious explanation to do. Is it possible that the things shown on “Hell Hole” ever happened in Zimbabwe? If so, when did he know about it and what did he do to stop the tragic suffering?
Police Commissioner, Chihuri owes the nation an explanation why his Officers are shooting defenceless farm workers and harassing innocent people?
People have talked of Mugabe going to The Hague if he should ever lose the presidency. Well, most members of JOC will go down with him for all of them have blood of innocent Zimbabweans on their hands.
Mugabe is part and parcel of JOC, if one member falls out of grace rest will follow. When Gideon Gono was put under pressure he did not hesitate to say he took his orders from Mugabe himself. The buck will always stop with Mugabe.
Anyone who believes they could drive a wedge between Mugabe and the rest of the JOC members is day-dreaming. JOC is Mugabe and Mugabe is JOC, the two are inseparable.
Yes Mugabe would damp his fellow travellers in JOC, leave them to face the music on their own, if he could count on Tsvangirai and MDC to guarantee he himself will never be called to account for his past. He knows Tsvangirai too well for that; he has wrapped Tsvangirai round his little finger so many times. Tsvangirai would give in to the international pressure at the drop of a hat!
Mugabe may be a ruthless dictator whose political options are fast disappearing still he would have to be crazy to throw his lot with someone as feeble as Tsvangirai.
Whilst it is true that neither Mugabe nor anyone in JOC ever wanted this inclusive government – even with it very limited political powers. They were all forced to accept this by the country’s economic melt down. Tsvangirai’s principle task was to get the targeted sanctions lifted and the international aid flowing again. Of course, Mugabe had hoped Tsvangirai and MDC would do this without him and JOC ever loosening his iron grip on power. The international community would not be fooled, they were not as gullible as Tsvangirai, they have stood firm and demanded real political change before they do any of these things.
Mugabe and JOC have given up as much political power as they can, they fear that if they give up any more ground they will not be able to roll back the changes that may follow. Mugabe has assured his supporters that the party should regroup and fight back.
There has been some economic recovery already; there is now food in the country’s shops! Mugabe and JOC are not going to seat tight. Tsvangirai and MDC have now a simple choice they can walk out of the inclusive government- Mugabe is hoping that will never happen. Mugabe would not want to face fresh elections so soon after the sham June 2008.
All the GNU is doing is giving Mugabe’s breathing space and time to regroup. So the nation will be a mediocre inclusive government followed by the near certainty of Zanu PF election “victory” and years of the same incompetent, corrupt and repressive dictatorial rule! This is the irreversible path Tsvangirai is taking Zimbabwe and the nation will have to be crazy to go along. We will be better off letting this totally ineffective GNU collapse and have take our chance with fresh elections now!
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