Why Zimbabwe's 32 years of independence was doomed to be a nightmare!

Today, 18 April 2012, it is 32 years since Zimbabwe’s independence. It is disappointing to acknowledge that life under Ian Smith was infinitely better than that under Robert Mugabe. Life expectancy, the ultimate qualitative and quantitative standard of life test, before independence in 1980 had soared to 68 years and today has dropped to 34 years.

We have certainly come a very long way in 32 years and, more significantly, in the wrong direction too!

What would you do if a madman was to bust into this room wielding a large stick in his hand? So runs the hypothetical question. Knock him down first and pity him afterwards; is the accepted answer. In life, things are not always that simple and clear cut, of course.

Before independence, the white regime was the madman to be disarmed of the large stick. The whites had denied the black majority a meaningful say in the governance of the country. Deny someone a vote and you may just as well call them an animal because you have stripped them of the very essence of what it means to be human. Those with no vote will soon find they have no voice, are cheated of their fair share the wealth, have no equal protection under the law, have no hope and ultimately have no rights including the right to life itself. It was right and logical that blacks should seek to end the injustice of white supremacy.

The blacks knocked the stuffing out of the white racists alright, unfortunately the same guns were used to knock the stuffing out the masses and deny them the freedom and liberty they were seeking. Mugabe and his fellow black nations championed the fight to end white oppression and exploitation, they suffered these injustices like the rest of us; still they had their own agenda.

Mugabe and his fellow black nationalists wanted the stick taken away from the whites but only so that they can use it themselves. They wanted absolute power for themselves and would have declared Zimbabwe a one-party state from the word go. Still they subverted the country’s democratic constitution and institutions to create a de facto one-party state. In the beginning Mugabe never tired of telling the nation that his rule would bring mass economic prosperity, “gutsa ruzhinji”. Even when it became self evident that Mugabe rule was disastrous for the nation; Mugabe still continued to deny the electorate a meaningful say in who ruled the country.

Mugabe and Zanu PF have cheated, rigged and have used all forms violence against their opponents and the people to return political power. Whilst Mugabe and Zanu Pf have accepted the need for holding period elections they have stubbornly rejected that such elections could result in regime change.

In 1980 Zimbabweans traded in one stick wielding madman for another. Mugabe was to deny Zimbabweans a meaningful say in the governance of country just as Smith before him had done. In Rhodesia blacks did not have a vote, period. In Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, we had a vote but the only vote that counted was a Zanu PF vote!

In March 2008 Zimbabwean mustered enough political muscle to knock the stuffing out of Mugabe. Mugabe visited on the nation the worst election violence in his effort to win the presidential run-off he had crafted after losing the first round. The international community was so outrage by the sham election they refused to recognise Mugabe as the legitimately elected president of Zimbabwe. It was Tsvangirai who got Mugabe off the hook by agreeing forming the unity government with the tyrant in which the dictator returned all his tyrannical powers including the power to continue to deny the people a meaningful say in the governance of the country.

After all the gross human right violations and abuse of power by Mugabe over the years and in the last few weeks it was simply mind boggling why Tsvangirai agreed to let Mugabe have his tyrannical powers. Mugabe offered Tsvangirai and his MDC friends something they simply could not refuse – power and the economic luxuries that go with it. Mugabe offered his Zanu PF friends the same ministerial posts, Mercedes Benz and they readily betrayed their pre-independence liberation zeal to the point of murdering tens of thousands of innocent civilians to keep Mugabe in power. The MDC leaders are only being asked to betraying the common cause and turn a blind eye or at best pay lip service to all the beatings, rapes and murders of their own supporters and the public.

Zimbabweans paid a heavy price, over 300 000 died plus, to end white oppression only to have a tyrant in power. In 2008 alone the nation 500 died to end Mugabe’s rule only for Tsvangirai to bring him back into State House through the back door. The 32 years of black rule has been a total disaster for Zimbabwe. Whilst the urgent need to end the years of corruption and political oppression and thus get the nation out of this hell-hole is self evident. After two costly false starts, Zimbabwe must pay attention on not just wrestling the stick of political power off the madman but even greater attention on what happens to the stick afterwards!

It’s time, people of China! It’s time.
The Square belongs to everyone.
With your own two feet
It’s time to head to the Square and make your choice.

It’s time, people of China! It’s time.
A song belongs to everyone.
From your own throat
It’s time to voice the song in your heart.

It’s time, people of China! It’s time.
China belongs to everyone.
Of your own will
It’s time to choose what China shall be.

Epic poem by Chinese Freedom Activist Zhu Yufu.

Many African dictators have relied on China for unfettered political support against criticism for their continued abuse of power and rampant corruption. In the last decade China has poured in billions of dollars to prop up the dictators in return for unfettered access to the continent's raw materials. The Chinese bought farms, mining interests, etc. - often for a song - after Mugabe's "Look East" calls a few years ago.

It is right that we, the oppressed masses, too should look east for inspiration to end oppression!

Mr Yufu gone seven years in jail for "inciting subversion of state power".

These on the know will tell you that China's Communist Party's vice grip on political power is wanning. Zanu PF and Mugabe's days in power are numbered too! Zimbabweans too will one day have a meaningful say in the governance of their country. They too will choose "what Zimbabwe shall be".

Zimbabwe is a nation ruled by fear - fear of political violence and it is on the increase!

Zimbabwe is a nation ruled by fear and the use of political violence has been Mugabe and Zanu PF's weapon of choice.

MP Harrison Mudzuri said the threats simply encourage the MDC-T and their supporters to make sure that there is no repeat of the violence that gripped the country after the MDC defeated ZANU PF in 2008. Just how will continued Zanu PF threats encourage MDC supporters to make sure there is NO violence? There is violence already and getting worse. It was in February, hardly two months ago, that MP Mudziri told the world of the gruesome murder of a Zaka East MDC supporter by Zanu PF thugs. They first cut off the supporter’s hands and then slit his throat like a chicken!

MDC have parliamentary majority and as many Ministers in Cabinet as Zanu PF and, best of all, have the moral high ground to end the violence and lawlessness and force through the democratic reforms. And yet for three years they have done nothing but make stupid statements. Meanwhile Mugabe has continued to ruthless crash all hope and the very lives out of Zimbabweans!

Mnangagwa and Chiwenga supported by Moyo square up in the fight of the titans!

The infighting in Zanu PF to succeed Mugabe is heating up. The two front runners were Defence Minister Mnangagwa and Vice President Mujuru. The latter’s prospects fizzled out after the death of her husband, Solomon Mujuru last year. Another challenger has since emerged, Army General Chiwenga and Mnangagwa is reportedly “furious” that none other than Jonathan Moyo has joined the Arm General’ s faction.

Mnangagwa and Moyo have both played key roles in turning Zanu PF into a party of ruthless thugs. Mnangagwa is right to be furious at the reality of facing Moyo as his adversary is frightening. Like him, Moyo fights to win, to hell with the rules! As we say in Shona “Matsotsi haagerani - anozumana”! And there is everything to fight for here - the presidency. This is going to a clash of the titans!

One is tempted to encourage the two thugs to fight - “tinhayi dzerwe!” - if only no innocent blood would by shed and, worse still, if it was not almost certain the winner would claim the presidency as his prize. The last thing Zimbabwe want now or ever is to be ruled by yet another blood-thirst brute!

99999

Mugabe has reportedly poured cold water on his nephew, Philip Chiyangwa’s political comeback bid. Chiyangwa was expelled from the party when he was accused of selling state asset. However, he was never convicted of any wrong doing. Mugabe told the party’s decision making body that Chiyangwa could not be elected vice-chairman of Mashonaland West Province because he was only recently readmitted into Zanu PF as an ordinary member.

Some people were surprised; no doubt Chiyangwa himself amongst them, that Mugabe would do such a thing. But one has only to ask themselves; who is Chiyangwa and it becomes clear why Mugabe beached his nephew.

Mugabe has always been a political loner and his isolation has become worse in the last three years. He is desperate to make a few allays and would have been stupid mess up an opportunity to do so by supporting Chiyangwa, a political parasite seeking to ride on Mugabe's cocktail.

I am as fit as a fiddle: Mugabe claims!

“I was shocked to discover that some of our equipment at some companies was bought in 1924," Tsvangirai said at the launch of a Zimbabwe trade Policy.

It was a poorly veiled jab at Mugabe who was born in 1923.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride! It does not matter how often Mugabe wish he was young the fact remains that he is, by any account, very old and in ill health!

Prime Minister Tsvangirai is a “flawed and indecisive character” as US Ambassador Chris Dell so aptly put it. Mugabe has taken full advantage of this weakness and twisted the PM round his little finger at will. Mugabe has nothing but contempt for Tsvangirai whom he has often called a “puppet”.

“I was in fact born in 1924 but I am not too old ladies and gentlemen. I am as fit as a fiddle," replied Mugabe who was at the launch too. "Vanorova imbwa akaviga mupini [The PM was secretively aiming to take on me], I know this man very well," he added to the laughter of ministers, senior government officials and guests

Mugabe is the author of Zimbabwe’s economic melt down and political nightmare with tragic human consequences. Tsvangirai had so much to aim for the knockout punch without ever hitting below the belt. Picking on Mugabe’s advanced age and ill health, the only things Tsvangirai has found to “hit” Mugabe back with, shows just how incompetent and desperate the PM is!

True to form, the foxy Mugabe turned the tables on poor Tsvangirai and had the last laugh!

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Mugabe is back in Singapore, “to arrange” post graduate studies for his daughter Bona, according to the Sunday Mail. Bona has been studying in Singapore for the last two years and many more years in Hong Kong. After all these years, she must have seven University Degrees - like her father -, at least. And, if she ever finishes her post graduate studies, she will be one on her father who never has no doctorate qualification.

For a nation struggling to provide the most basic education to hundreds of thousands of its children; how can the nation afford the extravagancy waste of collecting costly University degrees!

Mugabe has been a regular visitor in Singapore for health reasons. He says he is "as fit as a fiddle", but no one is fooled by that.