The issue of politically motivated
intimidation, harassment, beatings, rapes and murders is a very important
matter in the nation’s fight for free, fair and credible elections. It is
therefore infuriating that MDC’s corrupt and incompetent leaders still fail to
deal with this matter with the seriousness and urgency the matter demand!
“Asked if his party has found a strategy
to counter a recurrence of the violence ahead of the next elections in 2018,
MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu gave an emphatic yes,” reported New Zimbabwe.
"We definitely have a solution but it would be full hardy for me to disclose matters of strategy," Gutu said, adding, "But I want your readers to appreciate that this time around Zanu-PF will not have its cake and eat it. We will definitely send them packing."
“However, during the 2013 campaign period, top MDC politicians, among them Theresa Makone, who was both party women's assembly secretary and cabinet minister, openly urged supporters to retaliate when attacked by the enemy.
"We definitely have a solution but it would be full hardy for me to disclose matters of strategy," Gutu said, adding, "But I want your readers to appreciate that this time around Zanu-PF will not have its cake and eat it. We will definitely send them packing."
“However, during the 2013 campaign period, top MDC politicians, among them Theresa Makone, who was both party women's assembly secretary and cabinet minister, openly urged supporters to retaliate when attacked by the enemy.
"If you are beaten up, hit
back. We do not want people who just take it lying down. Look today there are
very few women here-many have stayed home because they are afraid of what
happened here last week when there was violence," she said then.”
There is no doubt that MDC-T has no
answer to Zanu PF’s culture of violence to achieve political goals other than “If
they hit you, hit back!” Mrs Makone was advocating. This is worse than an eye
for an eye until the whole nation is blind! These MDC morons know the Zanu PF
thugs have the whole state machinery; the Police, Army, CIO and the Courts; every
time the opposition have tried to fight back, they have only made things even
worse.
These MDC leaders have been out
telling their supporters to fight back and they jump back in their cars and go
back to the relative safety of their low-density urban homes. If they are followed
there they have escape further afield. Tsvangirai took the fastest 100m dash to
the Netherlands Embassy last time Zanu PF thugs drove past his house.
It is the poor MDC supporters and
the ordinary Zimbabweans, with nowhere to go or hide, who have had to deal with
the wave after wave of Zanu PF thugs, war vets and the whole State machinery on
their own. Tell these people to fight back is like telling a mouse cornered by
a gang of cats to fight back.
In wanton political violence of 2008,
Mugabe used the reckless fight-back calls to justify his claim that the
violence was “from both sides of the political divide”!
This top secret MDC-T “strategy” that
will stop Zanu PF’s culture of violence is nothing but yet another MDC empty
promise that will add up to naught just their repeated promise that the Copac
constitution would deliver free and fair elections. Tsvangirai claim the new
constitution was an “MDC child” which was a blatant lie; Mugabe “dictated the
constitution” boasted MP Paul Mnangagwa, the Zanu PF Copac co-chair. The real
test was to confirm this, the new constitution failed to deliver free and fair
elections.
What is really annoying in this is
there is an answer to ending Zanu PF’s culture violence; implement the raft of
democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) design
to cut the political umbilical cords that have made it impossible for State
institutions like the Police to carry out their duties without the present Zanu
PF partisan bias.
Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC
friends had five years during the GNU to implement these reforms but failed to
get even one reform implemented. Not one!
SADC, who were the guarantor of the
GPA, reminded MDC of the need to implement the reforms but MDC ignored the
warnings. Mugabe bribed MDC with the gravy train lifestyles plus the $4 million
Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai to forget about the reforms. Of course MDC betrayed
the nation in failing to implement the reforms and thus deal with this scourge
of political violence and all the other related problems that have made it
impossible to hold free and fair elections. They sold-out!
Last month MDC-T came up with a list
of eight reforms they want Zanu PF to implement for them to end their election
boycott. None of the eight demands would end the scourge of violence and, no
doubt, the nation is to assume MDC-T’s secret weapon will deal with the violence
problem!
After the sell-out during the GNU
MDC did not just lose the rigged July 2013 elections their also lost all political
credibility with SADC, the donors who had funded their political activities and
with the people of Zimbabwe too. As more and more realized how MDC had sold-out
they stopped supporting the party.
MDC-T has fighting a losing battle
to remain politically relevant in Zimbabwe and in their desperation the party
has become reckless. The MDC-T’s attention seeking eight reform demands is one
reckless gamble in that even if Zanu PF was to implement all of them, the nation
will still not have free and fair elections. The promise of a secret strategy to
end the Zanu PF scourge of political violence is another gamble to take the
nation’s attention away from the demand to have all the GPA democratic reforms implemented
as the only sure way to end the scourge of violence and deliver free and fair
elections.
Zimbabwe’s worsening economic
situation is putting Mugabe and Zanu PF under great pressure to accept
meaningful political reforms. We must demand the implementation of all the GPA
reforms with no compromises. To accept MDC-T’s revised list of reforms on the
mistaken believe that MDC-T will have other ways of dealing with the problem of
political violence and all the other problems would be a serious and foolish compromise.
President Mugabe and Zanu PF will
continue to resist the implementation of the GPA reforms as long as they can
and thus they are the main obstacle to the nation ending this corrupt and
oppressive Zanu PF dictatorship. However the nation must now acknowledge that
MDC leaders have now become part of the problem and not its solution; in
failing to implement the reforms the cost the nation a golden opportunity during
the GNU to end the dictatorship and ever since they have been coming with all
manner of schemes to take our eyes off implementing all the reforms.
15 comments:
Western countries have launched a fresh bid to vilify Zimbabwe's diamond sector and label the precious stones from Marange as "conflict gems" ahead of the Kimberly Process Interces-sional meeting in Angola next month.
The Sunday Mail claims that it understands that the plot is geared at suspending Zimbabwe from KP member states at next month's meeting.
Zimbabwe has been a target of Western demonisation for backing the United Arab Emirates to assume the vice-chairmanship of the KP Certification Scheme at next month's meeting.
Australia is bidding to upstage the UAE for the post. - See more at: http://www.bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-67865.html#sthash.4mK0krcw.dpuf
There is a serious problem of looting and plunder going on in Marange of that there can be no denying. Former Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, complained that government was not getting all the tax revenue it was supposed to be getting from this industry. Ever since Patrick Chinamasa took over from Biti tax revenues have all but disappeared.
Beginning of the year Information Minister twittered to announce there would be a “significant drop in revenue from diamonds”. A few weeks later Minister Chinamasa told the nation there were no diamonds coming from Marange as all “alluvial diamonds were finished”. That was a lie because there were reports of mining there had been stepped up, it was a 24/7 operation. The Russians had joining in on the looting in September 2014 and they would not have bothered.
Last month the media carried reports from Minister Chinamasa to IMF claiming the regime had suspended collecting tax from Marange diamonds because the industry was facing some finan-cial problems. The Minister did not dare repeat the initial lie of no alluvial diamonds because he knew the IMF would know that was a blue lie! IMF also knew the financial problems was another blue lie because production of the diamonds has continued to soar with the proceeds shared between the mining operators and the Zanu PF ruling elite!
The whole world would do the people of Zimbabwe a great favour by kicking Zimbabwe out of KP to stop the serious wholesale looting and plundering of Zimbabwe’s resources that is going on whilst the nation’s economy is allowed to sink into the abyss starved of funding!
"We are not supporting any candidate, but if you are to vote, when you enter the polling booth I urge you to write 'No Reforms No Elections' on the ballot paper. It's either you spoil the ballot paper with this message or just boycott the polls altogether," Tsvangirai said.
If anyone else said that it would make sense but coming from the man who failed to implement even one reform in five years because he had sold-out to President Mugabe, it is the dumbest thing I have heard this year!
Tsvangirai is caught between the rock and a hard place. Until the July 2013 elections he has pretended the reforms were not important because to admit otherwise meant admitting he had failed to implement any reforms because sold-out.
Since the July 2013 elections he has been forced to admit the reforms are important, it was self-evident Zanu PF rigged the elections because the reforms to ensure elections were free and fair had been implemented.
And here is where it has become very tricky for Tsvangirai; how to call for the implementation of the reforms without calling attention to himself and his MDC friends that they sold-out in failing to implement the reforms during the GNU. Now that the story of MDC selling-out is spreading to all corners of Zimbabwe; Tsvangirai’s pretence that MDC did not sell-out is slowly turning into the fairy-tale Emperor strutting around in his invisible golden rob! The more people listen to Tsvangirai the more they become convinced he is naked.
As for SADC and donors, they did not bother to witness the 31 July 2013 rigged elections, they had seen enough. They knew MDC had sold-out and deserted the party in droves!
@ Patrick
You can say that again! Still, as more and more people finally realize that MDC sold-out during the GNU the more MDC will lose support. We need first and foremost an electorate that is competent enough to see that MDC are a waste of time because only a competent opposition will implement the reforms to get us out of this hell-hole.
The fact that MDC still has any followers is proof we still have a long way from getting the competent electorate we need. As long as we continue to have a naïve and gullible electorate we will never ever get out of this hell-hole!
"We know that Jonathan Moyo will win this by-election but it will be a hollow victory. We all know that Jonathan Moyo doesn't represent anyone because he'll never change anything here in Tsholotsho,” said Tsvangirai.
"We're not here to campaign for Members of Parliament. This campaign of reforms is important before we move to the next elections. We want transparency."
Yes Tsvangirai, you have made it easy for Zanu PF to win the July 2013 elections by failing to implement even one democratic reform in all the five years of the GNU. And now by recalling the MDC MPs and then fail to field the alternative in the by-elections, you have made it even easier for Zanu PF to win the 10 June 2015 by-elections.
MDC had the majority in parliament after the 2008 elections, it too was some hollow victory since the party failed deliver any meaningful democratic changes - the single most important task the party was set to do!
"Instead of focusing on ZimAsset and how to finance it for economic development and the improvement of people's lives, Zanu-PF's focus now is on petty party positions which do not benefit the people. This party does not know how to put people first," Mavhinga said. - See more at: http://www.bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-67894.html#sthash.N7oHv0XT.dpuf
Get real Dewa; Mugabe’s ZimAsset plan was designed to throw lots and lots of cash, $27 billion, on the economy with no attempt being made to address the mismanagement and corruption behind the economic meltdown. No donor, not even the Chinese, was prepared to bankroll such a hare-brain scheme. ZimAsset in dead and if anyone in Zanu PF is serious about economic recovery now then they must know the party must bite the bullet and accept the political reforms which will lead to the dreaded regime change.
Even the brain-dead Zanu PF hardliners are slowly realizing they have successfully rigged past elections to achieve their “no regime change” objective and got away with it. It is now impossible to resist implementing the democratic reforms that will make it impossible to rig future elections.
They know the present economic meltdown is not socially or politically sustainable and that the only way to save the economy from sinking even further is by implementing the reforms!
Mugabe Regrets Expelling Mujuru – “I wish I had not followed bedroom pillow vomit.” - See more at: http://www.zimeye.com/mugabe-regrets-expelling-mujuru-i-wish-i-had-not-followed-bedroom-pillow-vomit/#sthash.DXg5HeL7.dpuf
Zanu PF has always been a party of ruthless thugs if Mugabe is sincere then he has to all he has done to undermine the country's democratic institutions, the political violence, the corruption and the murder of the over 30 000 in his 35 years in power. His betrayal of Mai Mujuru is but any insignificant part of his murderous past!
PRESIDENT ROBERT MUGABE, some of his ministers and senior army officials were closely involved in the planning and execution of the Gukurahundi massacres, new research and recently declassified Australian government documents have revealed.
The revelations are likely to embarrass the ruling Zanu PF government at a time the emotive is-sue has creeped back into the spotlight. Australian embassy dispatches to Canberra from 1983 reveal how Zanu PF ministers, Vice-President Emmerson Mnangwagwa, Defence minister Syd-ney Sekeramayi and the late Eddison Zvobgo were aware of the 1980s massacres, with the aim to finish off Zapu and create a one-party state
- See more at: http://www.zimeye.com/mugabe-orders-gukurahundi-murders-files-opened/#sthash.4WEiYb41.dpuf
The brutal murder of one or two people can be hidden for all time but not that of 20 000 people as happened during Gukurahundi; it was just a matter of time before the truth, the whole truth, was known. And now that the leak has started there is no stopping it until the whole story is told.
@ Patrick
Zanu PF has always been a party of thugs and none of its members had the vision and guts to stop Mugabe dragging the party into this hell. By the same token the people have watch Mugabe drag the whole nation into this hell and they too have done nothing about it for 35 years!
Unless the people snap out of their comatose like sleep, I confess I do not see them doing so, the nation is going to be dragged deeper and deeper into this hell-on-earth.
No one has ever managed to force Mugabe and Zanu PF to give up power these last 35 years but that is all about to change and it is not Tsvangirai or Mujuru who is to for force regime; it is the economy.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is real and it if squeezing the Zanu PF regime harder and harder each day. Unemployment is a nauseating 90%, 16% of the population are already living in abject poverty and the situation is getting worse. Zanu PF's $27 billion ZimAsset plan is dead in the water because no donor was prepared to bankroll such a hare-brain scheme. And the party had no plan B.
Meanwhile the economic meltdown continues to get worse and Mugabe knows that it is socially and politically unsustainable.
The only way to end the economic meltdown is by implementing the far reaching economic reforms necessary to end the endemic mismanagement and corruption; something Zanu PF cannot do since these lie at the very heart of the party's political patronage system.
The only way to get the necessary economic reforms will be implemented is by a regime with a new democratic mandate. The country must implement all the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA and then hold fresh free and fair elections.
Free and fair elections are the one thing Mugabe and Zanu PF have dread for 35 years but now they have no choice but to accept or else the social arrest that will take place to protest the worsening economic situation will force the regime accept. There is no other way out now.
Hardtalk with Zimbabwe Information Minister J Moyo
The dismal failure by Zimbabwe opposition to implement even one of the raft of reforms every-one agreed in 2008 were necessary for free, fair and credible elections has allowed President Mugabe and his regime to assume the air of invincibility. It has given the regime "re bull" wings! However it is the worsening economic situation in the country that is going to force the regime to come down to earth.
President Mugabe's very ambitious $27 billion economic recovery plan, ZimAsset, is dead be-cause he failed to get donors to bankroll it. He had no backup plan. The only people with both a recovery plan and the money to back it are EU and USA but they before they would release any funds they have demanded political and economic reforms.
The Zimbabwe economy is in total meltdown and with no working plan to address the root caus-es the economic situation is set to get worse. It is just a matter of time before the Zanu PF re-gime is forced to accept the political and economic reform.
President Mugabe has resisted regime change for 35 years by bribing, cheating and even mur-dering his political opponents both in his own party Zanu PF and outside. It is the economy that is going to force him to give up power.
Irony of ironies, it is President Mugabe who has brought about his own final downfall for it is his 35 years of misrule that is fuelling the economic meltdown.
@ Kuwachana
The looting was nothing more than killing the goose that lay the golden eggs. The looting has killed the Zimbabwe economy and so there are no more golden eggs for the looters!
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is real and it is taking a heavy toll on the nation; unemployment has soared to 90%, 16% of the people are already living in abject poverty, etc. And the economic situation is getting worse and not better.
As long as Zanu PF remains in power the economic meltdown will get worse, of that we can be certain. The regime may not want to admit it, at least not yet, but the truth is the situation is socially and politically unsustainable.
Since Zanu PF has failed to deliver any economic recovery there is going to be regime change.
Gweru provincial hospital is owned $1.5 million by patience and is not unable to provide any ser-vice because of lack of funds.
“Government has an obligation to fund public hospitals but the deepening economic crisis is se-verely affecting its ability to do so. The situation is now therefore restricting poor people’s access to health care because they cannot afford to seek services from private institutions.”
One can understand why patience are failing to pay their medical bills with unemployment at a record 90% millions of ordinary Zimbabweans are so poor they cannot afford food, cloths, shel-ter, education, health, etc. Whilst hundreds of thousands of school going children have dropped out and many people, do not have even one decent meal a day, are going around half naked, are living in shacks, etc. There are some things they cannot do without like medical help; poor or not people will get sick and if they do not get the help they need they will suffer and even die unnec-essarily.
What makes Zimbabwe’s collapse of basic services like health so hard to swallow is that the nation is not poor but rather has its priorities all wrong! Zimbabwe must be exporting diamonds worth billions of dollars every month and yet only a few individuals are benefiting from this bounty. President Mugabe continues to fly in and out of the country like a yoyo and each trip cost $3 million or more; we have plenty of cash to pay for all these trips but have no money to meet the health needs of millions of our people!
“The trouble is that they (Tsvangirai and Mutasa) seem to be acting under the illusion that some-thing positive can indeed result from their complaints. The truth is that the two bodies (SADC and AU) will never give Zimbabwe any relief. They have failed to do so in the past, they are not doing so presently, and there is therefore no reason to believe that they will do so in the future.”
Could not agree with you more that SADC and AU are going to help us out of the mess, in the present nor in the future; at least not because the likes of Tsvangirai and Mutasa asked them to. It is important to note that SADC did try to help during the GNU; they nagged Tsvangirai to implement the democratic reforms but were ignored. They literally begged Tsvangirai not to take part in the elections without the reforms but again MDC leaders paid no heed.
It is not surprising that ever since the rigged July 2013 elections, SADC has pointed ignore Tsvangirai; he is a sell-out!
As for Mr Mutasa he has been part and parcel of the same tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship he is now foaming on the mouth denouncing. Of course SADC and the AU are not fools, they can see Mutasa is nothing but a two faced hypocrite!
As long as Zimbabweans continue to follow politically discredited leaders like Tsvangirai and Mutasa not only SADC and AU but the rest of the international community will ignore our cries for help. By electing leaders with an already proven track record of being corrupt and incompetent, Zimbabweans are sending a clear message that they are not taking their political situation with the seriousness and urgency it demands. The whole world will ignore us until we finally show them we are serious!
@ Staff reporter Byo24
MDC leaders have already proven beyond all doubt that they are corrupt, breathtakingly incom-petent and, to crown it all, sell-outs. It is only because Zimbabweans have been slow in accept-ing these home truths that MDC still have some followers.
Whilst one has some sympathy for Khupe and her followers in that they are entitle to express their views without all the abuse they have been subjected to by Tsvangirai and his followers. The fact still remains that if she had not been just as corrupt and incompetent as the rest of the other MDC leaders then she should have put her foot down over the substantive issue of imple-ment the reforms; she did not!
For failing to implement the democratic reforms during the GNU all the MDC leaders should have apologized to the nation and then resigned en mass. Still no stone should ever be left unturned to ensure none of them are elected into office ever again!
Zimbabwe Unemployed People Association (ZUPA) has to be the only association that has grown in potential membership at least in leaps and bounds thanks to Zanu PF's 35 years of misrule. And so in appreciation ZUPA is backing Zanu PF candidate Jonathan Moyo in the Tsholotsho 10 June 2015 by-elections! Well that makes sense. If all the unemployed in that constituency were ZUPA members and they all listen to this call then Professor Moyo is assured of electoral victory.
If anyone ever doubted the sanity of ZUPA members then this articles has laid the matter to rest - either ZUPA members are insane or are a CIO project toying with the unemployed or both!
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