PM Tsvangirai was jeered into silence by Zimbabweans in exile.
“What is our message to Zimbabweans in the Diaspora,” the PM had started. “Let me state it here and I will state it boldly: ZIMBABWEANS MUST COME HOME!”
Whatever he had to say after that he did not say, his audience composed of mainly Zimbabweans in exile booed and jeered.
“Chinga maitiro!” (Change you ways!” the crowd chanted. Tsvangirai greeted this with a smug smile of total bemusement.
Ever since Tsvangirai signed the GPA in September 2008 and then joined Mugabe to form the GNU the ordinary Zimbabwe has again and again expressed their disappointment with where Tsvangirai and MDC were going. For five months now this GNU has failed to bring about the democratic reforms MDC had promised. Even those Zimbabweans who had given Tsvangirai the benefit of the doubt and had expected change, really change, when Tsvangirai was sworn in as PM and many MDC leaders took up ministerial position have finally lost patience.
Mugabe was given excessive power in the GPA and has gone on to abuse them since the formation of the inclusive government. Zimbabwe is still under the same dark cloud of oppression as before. Nothing has changed.
Zimbabweans have been calling Tsvangirai to acknowledge this and change his own tactics. His current approach of giving total support of Mugabe and turn a blind eye to the reality on the ground has only served to embolden Mugabe and his cronies who have continued to violet the GPA and do as they pleased. Zimbabweans want Tsvangirai and MDC to change and hence the chant “Chinga maitiro!”
Tsvangirai tried to silence the crowd. The smug was soon replaced with flashes of annoyance. “You better listen to me!” Tsvangirai shouted.
It was clear then that Tsvangirai had lost it; the crowd was not going to listen to him. “Mugabe must go!” they chanted. It took a few minutes before it dawned on Tsvangirai that he too must go, the audience would not want to hear another word from him.
Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess today because back in 1980 Mugabe had this “Mister Know It All” attitude in which us the people were assigned economic roles and were expected to play our part no questioned asked. We were denied all the basic rights and freedoms.
Tsvangirai and his friends at MDC expected the people to give the same reverence to them as they did not Mugabe and Zanu PF 30 years ago. Tsvangirai and company expected people to do as they are told and no questions asked. The Zimbabwean crowd in London represented a representative sample of the Zimbabwean people inside and outside Zimbabwe. The message from the Zimbabweans to Tsvangirai and his MDC friends is a simple one: “WE WANT MEANINGFUL DEMOCRATIC REFORMS IN ZIMBABWE.” And since it has proved impossible to achieve that with Mugabe still in power, then clearly: “MUGABE MUST GO!”Gone are the days when leaders would ride rough shod over the people. Zimbabweans are not contend with you empty promises of democratic reforms; they want these rights delivered up front. PM Tsvangirai, it is you who had better listen!
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