UN is wrong to bargain Zimbabweans' rights to appease Mugabe!

Mugabe has no intention of ever giving up power inZimbabweand ever since he was first elected in 1980 he has used brute force against his political opponents and the people to retain his iron grip on power. His demands to have targeted sanction against him and his cronies lifted as a prerequisite for democratic reforms is no different from Saddam Hussein’s 1990 demand after invadingKuwait!  

 When the late tyrant ofBaghdad, Saddam Hussein – may his soul root in hell – invadedKuwaitin 1990; he tried to link his barbaric act to the Palestinian issue. He told the world at large he would leaveKuwaitif theIsraelleft all Palestinian occupied land. The government and people ofKuwait, like many other people the world over sympathised with the Palestinian people.Kuwaithosted hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. That did not reduce the Kuwaitis’ outrage at Saddam Hussein’s preposterous proposition.

 Why should the people ofKuwaitbe denied their land, freedom and human dignity because of somethingIsraelhas done?

 The international community and the UN itself too rejected the linkage and Saddam Hussein was unceremoniously booted out ofKuwait. The gullible Palestinians inKuwaithad voiced their support of Saddam Hussein’s scheme were themselves in turn booted out ofKuwait.

 Saddam Hussein wantedKuwait’s oil revenue and he only brought up the Palestinian as a smoke screen to hide his real intentions.

 Zimbabweans, like our brothers and sisters inKuwait, can see through Mugabe’s political machination. And we feel insulted that anyone much less a UN Human Rights Commissioner no less should be encouraging this tyrant to ride rough shod over our hopes and dreams of freedom and dignity.

 Mugabe has had some SADC Head of State foolishly campaigning for the lifting of the sanctions.Zimbabwe’s own Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, and his follow MDC leaders have too joined the band wagon. The West has even responded by taking some of the names of the sanctions list. Mugabe has responded to all this by demanding an even great political bias from the nation’s security services, he has rich war-chest from commandeered diamond revenue to pay for an even bigger militia operation than that seen in 2008, etc. He has thumbed his nose at SADC by refusing to implement any of the GPA reforms agreed four years ago. As for Tsvangirai, one of the most incompetent leaders in human history, Mugabe has had nothing but contempt for the man.

Allowing Mugabe back into power through the back door after the sham June 2008 presidential run-off has been Tsvangirai greatest blunder. And for a thank you, Mugabe has kicked Tsvangirai in the kisser at very opportunity! And the people of Zimbabwe now face the real prospect of yet another bloody election in which their electoral wish will be disregarded thanks to Tsvangirai’s blundering incompetency.

Appeasing a tyrant like Mugabe does not work and it has never worked. It is deeply regrettable that Ms Navi Pillay has decided to join the band wagon of those appeasing Mugabe. The people ofZimbabwereject and condemn her decision because our right to free elections is not some Indian Sari Ms Pillay, Mugabe or anyone can trade or deny as they please!

Mugabe say he can not retire for fear of a civil war - what a hypocrite!

Enos Nkala, a former Mugabe buddy, says Mugabe is ready to retire but fear that Zanu PF will break up and the country slide into civil war if he did.

Very few Zimbabweans would shed a tear at the demise of Zanu PF. As for the country slipping into chaos and civil war if Zanu PF breaks up; that is very likely. But that is likely only because the country Mugabe stifled debate and competition – the prerequisites for evolutionary change – to create a de facto one-party state. The one-party state did not work and it has been clear for years that there has to be change. Having stifled evolutionary change for so long the possibility of a revolutionary change including civil war is real.

The longer Mugabe stays in power the greater the danger of Zimbabwe breaking up into a civil war to force change. Mugabe is a man who has been seating on a boiling pot, he is feeling the heat and yet fearful of standing up for fear the pot will explode in his face. Saves him right!

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Minister Patrick Chinamasa says Zimbabwe welcomes the UN Human Rights Official.

"We have nothing to hide in terms of human rights issues," says Minister Chinamasa. What he means is Zimbabwe has developed ways and means to keep most of its human rights issues well hidden and as for those it cannot hide, like the never ending Zanu PF inspired political violence, it has conditioned Zimbabweans to accept as a necessary evil in the fight to resist regime change. And the UN too must ignore all such human rights violations.

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If all Zimbabweans who do not want Mugabe to remain in power had the opportunity to leave the country then Zimbabwe will have a few thousand people left. The leaders’ children, who can afford it, have all left Zimbabwe. Mugabe's own daughter, Bona, does not even visit Zimbabwe any more let alone want to live there. She must have as many degrees as her father by now; she has been studying for donkey years. Even Tsvangirai’s children are overseas studying and will do anything too just to stay away from Zimbabwe.

Mugabe is so unpopular that his own spin-doctor Jonathan Moyo said he would lose the election to a donkey in a free and fair election. That is why the political violence has to continue even at the risk of an adverse human rights report from the visiting UN Official. The diplomatic consequences of such a report are nothing compared to the consequences of regime-change! Mugabe and his cronies will lose all their loot and those with the blood of tens of thousands innocent Zimbabweans on their hands risk the sudden drop and quick stop at the end of a rope. They all shudder even to think of it!

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Zimbabwe has a “better” human rights record than several other African countries! Tell that to the sons, daughters, relatives and friends of the man in Zaka East whose hands were cut off and then killed by Zanu PF thugs a few weeks ago!

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Chinamasa said his meeting with Pillay was cordial, but reiterated Zimbabwe's insistence on outlawing "homosexual activities". Ms Pillav is in Zimbabwe to assess Zimbabwe’s human rights record. There are not many homosexuals in Zimbabwe and although Mugabe and Zanu PF has maintained their anti-homosexual rhetoric few homosexuals have ever been arrested, as far as I know. None have ever been killed. Contrast this with the millions of Zimbabweans who were harassed, beaten or raped and over 500 were murdered in the three months period April to June 2008 alone for political reasons. The reason why Minister Chinamasa brought up the issue of homosexuals is therefore clear: he would ignore or dismiss all other human rights violations and concentrate of human rights violations against homosexuals.

Even if Ms Pillav’s report fails to mention any human rights violations against homosexuals, the Minister will be sure to raise it and defend the government’s position as if the nation’s very existence depended on it!

Mugabe has threatened for years to criminalise and now to outlaw homosexual activities. This has become one of his lightning-conduct issues behind which to hide the real burning issues he does not want discussed.

The UN has produced critical and wishy-washy human rights reports about Zimbabwe before and Mugabe has continued in his repressive ways regardless. Ms Pillav’s report, whatever it says, will be like water off a duck’s back. The world attention is focussed on the economic crisis in Europe; no one would notice the increased role of  Zimbabwe’s State Security Agencies in state sponsored violence, which should come out in Ms Pillav’s report if it is thorough. Zimbabweans will notice and we know the dirty tricks Mugabe has been playing only too well!

Tsvangirai has been like Reed Warbler with a Cuckoo chick Mugabe in the nest!in

The Zimbabwe governments spends a misery US$5 per year on the education of povo’s children a far cry from what the same government is spending on the children of the ruling elite. Mugabe’s daughter Bona has been studying overseas at great expense to the Zimbabwean taxpayer. When she was studying in Hong Kong she reportedly lived in a US$ 50 million mansion rented (some say bought) for her exclusive use. She must have the seven University degrees like her father by now considering she has been a student for donkey-years. She hardly ever visits Zimbabwe; it is her parents who visit her regularly at the cost of US$ 3 million a trip for Mugabe. All paid by the impoverish Zimbabwe masses – who else.

Cuckoo, the paragon of cleptoparasitism, would fall off his perch if it understood what Mugabe’s kleptocracy was doing! The Zimbabwe economy is on its knees and the overwhelming majority are dying of want of the most basic necessities because the nation’s resources and wealth have been commandeered by a corrupt and oppressive few and wasted on luxuries and guns. The demands of Zimbabwe’s Cuckoos know no limit; it is unsustainable, it is killing the Reed Warblers!

The Cuckoo will surreptitiously eat one egg out of a Reed Warbler’s or whatever the host happened to be nest and replace one of its own. If she is not ready to lay the egg; she will eat them all to force the host to start again. Within minutes of the Cuckoo usurper hatching, naked and blind; it will evict the host’s nestlings and remaining eggs.

The foster parents will have their work cut out for the next three weeks, the time it takes for a Cuckoo chick to fledge (which is twice the time a Reed Warbler chick will take); trying to silence incessant hunger calls and fill that cavernous coloured gape! Within two weeks the Cuckoo chick will be three times the size of Reed Warbler feeding it!

  

The cleptoparasitic behaviour of the Cuckoo is a widespread life strategy and every, very attractive – who needs birth control if there is a filthy-rich uncle or bottomless sacks of public funds to pamper and spoil junior rotten for you! In reality, the Cuckoo can only lay its egg in a select few other bird spices. And even then many of the forced surrogate species have developed various ways to counter the Cuckoo sparking an evolutionary “arms” race of a sort.

There are corrupt and oppressive individuals in every society and situation; the human Cuckoos. The men and women who championed our struggle to end white colonial exploitation and oppression were follow travellers and our heroes. The black masses, povo, believed the black liberation heroes would were committed and would deliver freedom, justice, liberty, economic prosperity, etc. Only Mugabe and his Zanu PF friends were interested in and totally committed to secure absolute power for themselves and all the prestige, influence and wealth that come with it.

Mugabe and his cronies were as genetically different to povo as a Cuckoo is to a Reed Warbler. The only thing they have in common is the black feathers!

When the Cuckoo hatchling starts evicting the other nestlings and eggs out of the nest the host parent(s) know this is not right but at a loss as what to do to stop it! For thirty years Mugabe and his thugs has suck the life blood out of the nation and spent it on luxuries and on tear-gas and guns whilst the basic needs of our people like health and education collapse for lack of fund. The tear-gas and guns have been used against those who dared complain about this criminal waste of resources and gross human injustice. The nation is at a loss as what to do next!

In 2008 the Zimbabwean electorate risked the anger and reprisals from Mugabe and his oppressive regime to vote for Tsvangirai and his MDC party in droves. Over 500 innocent Zimbabwe paid with their very lives when Mugabe unleashed his murderous party thugs aided and abetted by the Police, National Army and other State security Agencies. Although the 2008 election gave Tsvangirai and MDC the parliamentary majority and electoral mandate to rule; there was to be no meaningful change. In a bizarre and unfathomable act of political folly Tsvangirai agreed to have Mugabe back as head of state and government complete with his dictatorial powers!

For the last four years Tsvangirai has been at best the hapless Reed Warbler parent telling the world Mugabe has changed whilst the tyrant continued his campaign of terror and bloodshed. There is overwhelming evidence that power has transformed Tsvangirai, just like Mugabe before him, from a reed Warbler into a Cuckoo. Mugabe gave Tsvangirai US$ 1.5 million to build a house – taking him out of his US$ 30 000 house -, unlimited overseas travel, his children are studying overseas too, etc.

The windows of the ministerial Mercedes Benz are heavily tinted so that to the occupants looking out everything looks rosy! Tsvangirai forgot his promise to bring democratic change the minute he tasted the pleasures of being Prime Minister!

Tsvangirai, Mugabe, etc; these are men of no conviction. They “move easily because they have nothing to weigh them down,” as Benny Frank would say.

Many people thought Zimbabweans would stage an Arab Spring style uprising against Mugabe the kleptocratic regime which has rob them of hope and spirit. Public awakening has not materialised. The pended up public anger will force the people to act but it will not necessarily bring about the any meaningful change just as 1980 and 2008 rebellions have failed to bring peace, justice, etc. Just as the Cuckoos hijacked the 1980 and 2008 uprisings what is there to stop them doing so again?

There are corrupt and ruthless tyrants everywhere whilst other nations have learnt how to stop them overwhelming the nation we in Africa have yet to learn what to do. My hope and wish is that we do so soon