It was disappointing to hear co-Home Affairs Minister, Giles Mutsekwa talk endless about how MDC is making progress in bringing democratic change to Zimbabwe when facts point to the exact opposite. The Mugabe dictatorship is stronger than ever.
The Police Force is a key supporting pillar of any community equal in importance to the executive branch, the legislature, the judiciary and media. The Zimbabwe Republic Police as it is presently constituted was clearly designed to serve the Mugabe dictatorship and it is naïve to urge that it can still be made to serve the democratic Zimbabwe we are all seeking. In a democracy there is the clear blue water separating the Police from political interference from the executive and all the other branches of government. There are checks and balances on each branch to ensure none becomes a law unto itself. None of these things exist in Zimbabwe.
Minister Mutsekwa admitted that the State President and the Attorney General can “give directives verbal or otherwise” on anything. He also admitted, not that it was anything new, that the Police Force is highly politicised. Hence we end up with a Police Force that has not only routinely turned a blind-eye to politically motivated lawlessness and thuggery by the ruling party’s militia but in 2008 the ZRP (CIO, the Army and all the other State security organs) crossed the red-line by masterminding and playing a pivotal role in the political violence and murders.
At the end of the Zanu PF party Congress in 2009 Mugabe have the ZRP and all the other State Security Organs reaffirm their commitment Zanu PF‘s continued rule. All evidence on the ground point to one thing; the ZRP is geared to support a Zanu PF dictatorship, now more than ever before.
“Transforming a security force, takes a lot of time,” is Minister Mutsekwa’s excuse for his failure to bring about any meaningful reforms of the ZRP after nearly two years of the GNU. “It is a process.” This is the equivalent of the ANC government of President Nelson Mandela carrying over SA’s Police Force with its racist apartheid mentality complete with the notorious pass laws. SA racist Police Force seized to function the day SA had majority rule, it was not a process but an event, because the white regime it served seized to be. On the other hand, in Zimbabwe, the Mugabe dictatorship is very much alive and calls all the shots. As Minister Mutsekwa admitted, the ZRP is controlled and answerable one man Mugabe.
According to Minister Mutsekwa the fact that MDC leaders have been able to make “conduct” with Zimbabwe’s security forces given the hostility of the later was an “achievement” in itself. The hostility of the security chiefs was nothing but a manifestation a ruling elite intoxicated by power and wealth dolled out by the dictator and blind to the national tragic consequences of the dictatorship. The behaviour of the security chiefs must be condemned in no uncertain terms not rewarded with platitudes.
The trouble with Minister Mutsekwa and his fellow MDC leaders is that now that they are in power and is enjoying it, they no longer care about the rest of us or the promise they made to bring democratic change to Zimbabwe. Admittedly many of them are really naïve, they do not have the foggiest what is going on and are no match for a canning fox like Robert Mugabe.
Whilst one has to accept that the ruthless dictatorship of Mugabe has not only destroyed the nation’s economy but more pointedly it destroyed the nation’s body politics. Mugabe poisoned the soil making it impossible for quality leaders to emerge. MDC will go down in history as one of the most incompetent political parties in human history. MDC was hardly the party the nation wanted at the best of time much less when we are in deep, deep trouble. Still beggars can not be choosers.
Granted MDC are a hopelessly incompetent lot and one has to forgive them for wasting a golden opportunity to end Mugabe’s reign of terror by getting him off the hook, for failing to put the Zimbabwe economy back on a firm recovery path, etc., etc. The one thing MDC can not and should not be forgiven for is if Zimbabwe should be plunged into another violent election. This is the one thing that would make the great sacrifices Zimbabweans have made over the years bearable. It is something MDC promised and was well within their reach. The only reason they can fail their mind numbing incompetency and greed - it will be impossible to forgive them for that!
11 comments:
@Dread Dread6
You are desperate for some kind of reassurance that what you did in Gukurahundi will be forgiven and forgotten. This will never happen for four basic reasons:
1) the number murdered was too large to be ignore
2) Typical of a ruthless tyrant the political motivated vote rigging, beating and murders did not stop with the capitulation of PF Zapu. Zimbabweans have never had free and fair elections in the 30 years of independence and Mugabe rule. Mugabe has stepped up the violence to bolster his plummeting popularity.
3) Mugabe is the perpetrator of these heinous crimes; he can not also be the judge and executioner.
4) The failure to punish the Gukurahundi murders has established a terrible precedence where those responsible for politically motivated crime or are in positions of power now believe they are above the law. No one, not even the State President is above the law; particularly when he is the one instigating the lawlessness for selfish political gain.
You compared the political violence in Kenya in 2007 to that in Zimbabwe in 2008. The two are totally different. In Kenya both sides were responsible for the violence and the Police stepped in to stop the fighting. In Zimbabwe at least 95% of the violence can be attributed to Zanu PF supporters and the Police, CIO, Army and other State Security Agents did not only fail to stop the violence but they actually played a major role in the beating and murder of MDC supporters.
There will be a high powered public inquiry into the partisan bias of Zimbabwe’s Security Organs. It will be better for a Police Officer to lose his or her job because they would not carryout an order to abuse an innocent civilian than to carryout the order. Any Officer found guilty of betraying public trust will lose more than their job.
So Dread Dread6 and all your dreaded fiends; the day you have dreaded all your life, the day of reckoning, is fast approaching. Watch out!
@ David Hurst
You did hit the nail on the head indeed I would even go on to say that the three Zimbabweans in denial on this forum are only the ears of the hippo the rest of the beast in under the muddy waters. If you want to see the head, read the Herald or listen to Zimbabwe's radio on TV.
There other thing I find really disappointing is that there are at least 3 million Zimbabweans in SA alone. The majority of them ran away from the nightmare back home and at least 50% have access to the internet. You would think they will be interested in what is going on back home and would be challenging the dictator's spin doctors. Surprise, surprise it is outsiders like you David who are doing that.
Zimbabwe is in a hopeless state because we the people lost hope a long, long time ago. We dreamt of a land flowing with milk and honey but at the first challenge we throw in the towel and wanted to turn back to servitude and slavery.
Zimbabwe is a nation dominated by those in denial ruling an even bigger camp of those who have lost hope and that is why the country has sunk to such nauseating depth of depravity and despair!
“Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called Zimbabwe a "tragedy still waiting to be resolved." Mr. Carter welcomed recent calls from two of the three parties to the unity government for elections to resolve the current impasse. But he said a number of measures remain to be taken to ensure such an election will be a successful one” reported VOA.
I commend the Group of Elders for their commitment to finding a lasting solution to Zimbabwe. Yes it would be great to have a free press, a new democratic constitution, an end to political violence and a host of other things before the next elections. The reality is none of these things will happen as long as Mugabe remains in power.
We should just bite the bullet, do our best to ensure a free vote, and hold elections as soon as possible.
How independent are these new newspaper given that the ZMC is there to rein them in at the drop of a hat?
How long are we going to wait for the repressive media laws to be scrapped?
Mugabe has the monopoly of the country's public media; when are these going to be opened up to serve us all?
How long are we going to wait for independent radio and TV licences to be finally issued and similar reforms to end Mugabe's monopoly of the air waves?
There is talk of elections next year; my guess is now of these changes will happen before the elections. In other words Zimbabweans will be expected to vote when they are as ill informed as they have always been. The country is desperate for quality leaders and we deny the electorate to only viable means open to them to separate the quality from the riff-raff!
The four new independent papers will reach a few Zimbabweans whilst the masses, povo, will remain untouched.
SA High Court orders the office of President Zuma to realise the 2002 Zimbabwe presidential election report. The Mail and Guardian newspaper had requested and President Zuma had refused to have the report released.
SA is the one country, besides Zimbabwe itself, which has paid dearly for the political and economic chaos in Zimbabwe. If the SA government has used the report, it would not make sense if it did otherwise, then why does the presidency resisting calls to realise the report and thus confirm its policy position is indeed based on the true facts on the ground in Zimbabwe.
It is not going to help SA one bit to continue down this erroneous path of propping up Zimbabwe’s ruthless dictator. SA has had one big advantage that Zimbabwe never had, a free press and all the other democratic institutions. This High Court ruling is democracy at work; it is forcing the SA government to change. Two cheers for democracy!
The next report the SA government must now realise is Zimbabwe’s 2008 Election Report. The truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth was bound to come out sooner or latter. The SA government has nothing to be ashamed of; it played no part in Mugabe’s vote rigging and mindless violence. There is shame, however, in trying to hide the truth of what Mugabe did.
@ Zodwa Sibanda
If the truth be told, and it must, Zimbabwe’s lawless land reform programme was about harassing 4 000 white commercial farmers take away all their productive farms, animals and equipment and give it to the country’s ruling elite. The same people who had looted the country’s public sector and everything else they could lay their hands on. The white farms were targeted because there was nothing else for the ruling elite to loot.
But like everything else these men and women have looted, they failed to maintain productivity of the seized farms. “Munda hazvirimi!” as my late mother would say. (The farm does not farm itself!)
The ruling elite are now holding this critical resource and holding the nation to ransom. Before 2008 these “good for nothing” farmers have received billions of dollars of direct and indirect subsidies from the likes of Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono in tractors, fuel, etc. supposedly to encourage farming. Last year the US government gave US$20 million for the same thing. Before all this madness farmers contributed billions of dollars to national GDP and now the nation pays more to farmers than they produce at the end of the day! Is it any wonder the ruling elite have been fighting like vultures over a carcass to get more farmers for themselves.
Zimbabwe’s economic recovery is dependent on getting our farms back into full production again. It is therefore imperative that the farms are taken away from these greed and lazy individuals and given to those best able to farm.
There is another reason why Zimbabwe’s chaotic land reform MUST be revisited: Mugabe and his cronies benefited from the violent and chaos land reform but they must not be allowed to keep their loot too; that would be double dipping!
Mugabe and his cronies have worse things to worry about than losing the looted farms; they are guilty of gross human rights violations and there is a hangman’s noose for that!
Zodwa, people like you will only see the white farmers’ element in Zimbabwe’s land reform; which is of course what Mugabe and his cronies would want all to see. The reforms have pushed the Zimbabwe’s economy into total melt down throwing millions of Zimbabweans into abject poverty - that is the main issue here. The main focus is therefore to get the farms back into production a.s.a.p. if that means getting the white farmers back on the land then so be it!
@ Mariko
One of the most amazing thing about the slave trade is that it was blacks who hunted their fellow blacks like animals and sold them to the white slave dealers for beads and pieces of calico. It is this cold indifference to the suffering of our own that has held Africa back.
For thirty years Mugabe has ridden rough shod over the Zimbabwean masses murdered thousands for no other reason than they dared exercise their democratic right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country. There are millions of blacks out there who refuse to see Mugabe for the tyrant he is. The cold indifference of Mugabe, his cronies and his acolytes like Dread Dread6 make me despair.
I have often wondered how many black slave traders found themselves being sold as slaves. No doubt they cried in anguish but, of course, it was too late. People like Dread Dread6 may have their wish to have a tyrant like Mugabe ruling them. History has the habit to repeating itself especially when people will not learn from the past.
@Gordon
There are many black farmers who have lost their farms in the ongoing chaos in Zimbabwe because they are not Mugabe loyalists. Zodwa's statement "we are not going back to white farming", is just another piece of Mugabe rhetorical nonsense. There is no such thing as "white farming"!
Mugabe and his cronies are desperate to hold on to their loot - most of them will be as poor as a church mouse if they have to earn a honest day's living because their are lazy and stupid. They best reason why they should be allowed to hang on to their loot is that they alone can be trusted to ensure the farms remain in blacks' hands. Of course the nation is not concerned about that; what the nation is concerned about is that this key resource is used productively and for the good of all! And, as I said above, to allow these thugs to keep their loot would be to allow them to have a double dip!
@Dread Dread6
“If ever there is a family squabble problem in Zimbabwe the world expect Zimbabweans will be up to the task of solving it,” you say. Well we have all heard that one before: “Crises, what crises?” said S A former President Thembo Mbeki at the very time when Mugabe was in full stride of his campaign violent redistribution against ordinary Zimbabweans for voting against him in the March 2008 election. South Africa had world wide support in its fight to end apartheid it is amazing how so many South Africans have not only forgotten that but are demanding that nations under tyrant should solve their problem alone.
Apartheid SA had international sanctions imposed on the repressive regime – nothing compared to the targeted sanction imposed on Mugabe and his cronies – it would be naïve to think that no black SA were not affected. And yet every black SA worth his salt wanted the international sanctions to continue because they knew the sanctions were hurting the repressive regime more than it was hurting them! Targeted sanctions have not stopped Mugabe and the ruling elite sending their children to Hong Kong, USA, UK, SA, etc. and the Zimbabwean taxpayer is paying US$1 000 for every US$1 spend on the student at Chinhoyi University! Lifting the targeted sanctions will only allow Mugabe and his cronies to spend even more tax dollars on themselves!
Of all the permanent UN Security Council members, China has the worse record in propping under dictators the world over. Frankly I do not expect you, Dread Dread6, to even begin to understand the complexities of international affairs; not with that pea-size brain of yours!
South Africa had a really chance to play a constructive role in ending the tragic situation in Zimbabwe for the good of Zimbabwe, SADC and SA itself. Sadly SA has been found wanting!
There are those who are questioning the authenticity of Global Witness's report and see Western conspiracy to discredited Zimbabwe. If Mugabe has nothing to hid in Marange and Chiadzwa then he should not stop independent inspectors. Zimbabwe's own MPs on the mining committee were stopped from inspecting these diamond fields!
Mugabe has a terrible track record when it comes to looting - Zimbabwe is on its economic knees because of that. It is no secrete that he and his cronies looted the Reserve Bank, the country's once productive farms and everything of value. They are running out of things to loot and have now turned on privately owned companies and there is a gold-rush for diamonds. A few weeks ago the Zimbabwe Republic Police was reportedly granted a diamond mining concession.
Mugabe's track record on the use of violence is well known too. "I have degrees in violence," Mugabe himself boasted.
One does not have to be a rocket scientist to add the two, diamonds and violence, to get bloody diamonds. Someday one must revisit dodgy organisation like the KP and demand accountability; what is the point of having such organisation if they can not prevent the very thing they were set up to stop!
*****
Bairkus
You know what, you are right; Zimbabwe could well descend into a worse chaotic situation than we see now. We have a deep rooted dictatorship, uprooting it is certainly not going to be a walk in the park. With wishy-washy leaders like Tsvangirai this is almost certain to happen. As Philip rightly pointed out, Tsvangirai has been too soft with the dictator and his cronies, they now believe are they are indeed above the law and there is nothing wrong with that!
Thank God, Tsvangirai has been totally discredited - Mugabe has done that thoroughly - he will have no say in charting Zimbabwe's destiny. He is dismissed with contempt by Mugabe and the nation at large.
A new more focus group of Zimbabweans is emerging and with one simple demand; an end to tyranny. There is clearly no room for appeasement or compromising with evil in their demand.
My hope is the dictatorship will end before "His Excellency dies", which is your wish Bairkus, so he can face the music. Mugabe must account for all the innocent Zimbabwean blood he spilt!
Bona Mugabe has been in the Far East these last 8 years, at one point staying in a US$5 m apartment; how much did that cost? Mugabe was in the Far East 8 times last year alone at the cost of US$3m a trip. Meanwhile povo's children get a misery US$5 per year per child.
On the political front Mugabe murdered 20 000 in the mid 1980 alone to establish this de facto one-party dictatorship.
What will it take to open your eyes and see Mugabe for the heartless tyrant he is? I have read stuff from some of Mugabe's best; one can tell they did not believe a word the said. They were saying it because they were paid to say it! In your case you actually believe this nonsense; you are that blind and stupid.
The good Lord made you and gave you the greatest gift of all – a discerning so you can judge right from wrong. You have effectively taken out that brain and filled your head with S****T! And the good Lord still loves you. At is moments like this that I really feel like Job; yes, "Blessed is the name Lord!"
&&&&&&&
You do seem to get it, do you? It is not the white who want Mugabe arrested it is the relative of over 20 000 black Zimbabweans he murdered and the millions of black Zimbabweans now living in abject poverty because of his corruption and looting. You are right, there are Nazis who are still being hunted down for their war crimes of 60 years ago. Mugabe and his cronies better remember that! Unfortunately for them, the world is a much smaller place and they are not that smart; they will all be netted in 6 years or less!
So you think you can avoid arrest by demanding to see the white Rhodesians arrested first? You are really stupid!
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