The four young thugs including the Zanu PF Governor Machaya’s son who murdered Moses Chokuda in August 2009 have finally been convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison. The crime was committed at the time when political violence in Gokwe and the rest of Zimbabwe was the order of the day. The victim was a know opposition supporter a “crime” in Zimbabwe for which many have been and continue to be summarily beaten, raped and murdered. And the Zanu PF thugs who commit these extra judiciary crimes are never arrested.
The Chokuda family refused to bury their murdered relative and for the last two years his body has remain in the Hospital Mortuary; it was that single act that has kept this case alive!
ZANU-PF Parliamentary Whip Joram Gumbo said the tough prison sentences prove the judiciary does not favor ZANU-PF and that all perpetrators of violence are brought to justice and punished. Over 500 innocent Zimbabweans were murdered and hundreds of thousands were raped in 2008 alone and yet those responsible have not been arrested.
The ZRP Officers have a lot to answer for why the thugs who have terrorised the nation are not arrested. It will not be enough to say they were under strict orders not to arrest Zanu PF loyalists; even if they produced dated and signed orders as proof, the fact still remains that the orders were clearly illegal since they flew in the face of everything the public policing are about.
In the past Mugabe has always stepped in and granted the presidential pardon the rare party loyalists arrested and convicted in the courts, regardless of how heinous the crime happened to be. Mugabe was sending a message to all that Zanu PF thugs were above the law! Mugabe did not dare, as yet, step in and pardon the young Machaya and his three fellow convicted murders. The Chokuda family have yet to bury their relative and they want the families of the murderers to apologise and compensate them in accordance with African traditional culture! Until that happen, the convicted murderers will languish in Zimbabwe’s hell-on-earth (because of the living conditions) jails; much to the anger and exasperation of Mugabe.
What this case has done is challenge the very foundation on which this Mugabe and Zanu PF dictatorship stand. That is, that the dictator and his thugs are above the law and that those who dare challenge his authority will be severely punished. The Chokuda family refused to have the murder of their son dismissed as nothing more than a squashed ant. The young man’s life and their suffering at his brutal killing matter not at all. It took two years for the autocratic regime to finally realise that this was one political murder they can not bury and forget. Not even Mugabe himself can use his presidential powers to whitewash the grave injustice of cold blooded murder!
Governor Machaya’s son and his fellow murderers are not above the law and they are paying for their heinous crime. That should send a cold chill down the spine of all Zanu PF thugs with any common sense.
Ending this absurd notion that Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs are above the law has, without doubt, been the Holy Grail which would end Zimbabwe’s culture of political violence. Tsvangirai, for all his egotistic claims of being a “visionary” leader leading a party “of excellence”, had singularly failed to find an answer. Indeed Tsvangirai’s political blundering has allowed Mugabe to re-organise his terror machine and secure a war-chest to funds its murderous activities; the threat of even worse political violence hangs over the nation.
It took the courage and self sacrifice of a simple fruit-seller in Tunisia to start the Arab Spring has toppled one Arab dictator after another. Even Mugabe’s old friend Gaddafi has been swept away. What the Chokuda family have done could well be the butterfly wing beat in Gokwe that turned into the political hurricane to blow away the murderous dictator and their thugs out of State House, parliament and every village in Zimbabwe!
4 comments:
Over 700 firms have failed to meet the deadline to submit proposals to sell 51% of their stake holding to black Zimbabweans in compliance of the country’s Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Act. So far the government has done nothing to force these firms to comply.
Mugabe needs fresh loot to offer his cronies and, with no white owned farms left, white owned businesses are next. The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic melt was the looting of the farms, Mugabe knows that. He also knows that looting the businesses that survived the melt down will make the bad economic situation even worse. All he cares about is retaining power by all means necessary. As the next election date looms, Mugabe will be ratcheting the pressure on the white business owners!
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai dismiss as “gossip” criticism of his leadership by four of his MDC-T leaders according to the WikiLeaks. What Africa needs is principled leaders.
Tsvangirai is incompetent, that is a given - his blunders speak volumes. Tendai Biti, Nelson Chamisa, Obert Gutu and Roy Bannet were stating the obvious but as long as their own positions were assured they have gone along with him regardless the tragic consequences! There are no different from all the Zanu PF leaders like Simba Makoni, Jonathan Moyo, Dumiso Dabagwa, etc; they knew Mugabe was a tyrant but have done nothing because their leadership positions were secure. None of these individuals can ever be trusted to rule the country – we need principled leaders for that!
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"The US is concerned about persistent reports of harassment, targeting, and heavy handed tactics used by police officers in arresting civil society activists," the US embassy said in a statement.
Has America been reduced to issuing statements of condemnations and nothing more? Surely they could at least slap the target sanctions on a few more Zanu PF leaders. Target sanctions were a token wrist slap in the first place and should have been revised by now.
This President Obama administration has really done nothing significant for sub-Sahara Africa. Nothing!
As a black African, I have to say that I am disappointed by President Obama; Africa expected a lot from him but sadly he has made no difference.
The only thing certain about Zimbabwe’s chaotic political and economic situation is that it will get worse, a lot worse. The disappointing thing is there is no reason why that should be the case if only Tsvangirai and MDC would for once exert themselves!
Anne Fruehauf, you are absolutely right, the indigenization law “is weak, riddled with loopholes, and probably unconstitutional.” Tsvangirai has the majority in current parliament the obvious question then is why has MDC failed to stop Zanu PF from implementing this law? Indeed it is some of the Zanu PF Ministers who are reining in the shameless Minister Karukuwere.
On the political front the scourge of political violence once again hangs over the nation like the Sword of Damocles. The count of broken heads and limbs and body bags during the next elections, the violence has already started even though the starting gun has not been fired, is certain to exceed that of 2008. Ending political violence has been the single most important political task on the national agenda for the last thirty years. In 2008, for the first time in thirty years, Zanu PF lost its parliamentary majority and everyone expected the MDC controlled parliament to end.
The only thing certain about Zimbabwe’s chaotic political and economic situation is that it will get worse, a lot worse. The disappointing thing is there is no reason why that should be the case if only Tsvangirai and MDC would for once exert themselves!
Anne Fruehauf, you are absolutely right, the indigenization law “is weak, riddled with loopholes, and probably unconstitutional.” Tsvangirai has the majority in current parliament the obvious question then is why has MDC failed to stop Zanu PF from implementing this law? Indeed it is some of the Zanu PF Ministers who are reining in the shameless Minister Karukuwere.
On the political front the scourge of political violence once again hangs over the nation like the Sword of Damocles. The count of broken heads and limbs and body bags during the next elections, the violence has already started even though the starting gun has not been fired, is certain to exceed that of 2008. Ending political violence has been the single most important political task on the national agenda for the last thirty years. In 2008, for the first time in thirty years, Zanu PF lost its parliamentary majority and everyone expected the MDC controlled parliament to end the partisan Policing by ZRP and other State Security Agencies which is the key to ending political violence. But once again MDC has done nothing!
Zimbabwe still remains a parliamentary democracy; even with all his tinkering with the constitution, Mugabe has failed to change this fundamental political change. Parliament has the power and authority to rein in Mugabe’s tyrannical rule and restore the rule of law in Zimbabwe. It is only Tsvangirai and MDC’s mind boggling incompetency that has turned this crisis into a nightmare!
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