Obi Egbuna Jr., how does Mugabe's murder of 30 000 embody "African fighting spirit".

There is no one blinder than one who refuses to see!

Apologists, bootlickers and sycophants are an obnoxious group of those who not only refuse to see the truth but, worse still, they “see” what is not there and trumpet it as the reality and factual truth. Obi Egbuna Jr. Simunye is one these blind bootlickers given to praising Robert Mugabe to the high heavens ignoring the reality that he is a corrupt, vote rigging and murderous tyrant who has made the lives of millions of Zimbabweans a living hell-on-earth.

“For many Africans at home and abroad, when President Mugabe presented not only Zimbabwe, but all of Mother Africa's case before the United Nations last Thursday concerning Sustainable Development Goals, he without question invoked the memory of three fallen yet eternally beloved warriors the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, W.E.B DuBois and Malcolm X,” wrote Obi in his latest article entitled “President embodies African fighting spirit”.

Why is it that nincompoops like Obi can see Mugabe’s “fighting spirit” against the West but refuse to see how Mugabe has applied the same “fighting spirit” to deny the people of Zimbabwe their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life itself!

Mugabe went all the way to New York to accuse; the accusation was delivered with the usual the vitriolic gusto to impress the impressionable simpletons; the West for Africa in general but Zimbabwe in particular’s failure to achieve any meaningful development. The tyrant had already conveniently forgotten he had just admitted a few weeks before that Zimbabwe had lost a staggering $15 billion of Marange diamond revenue for looting.

Many people have blamed mismanagement and corruption for Zimbabwe’s economic collapse. All these years Mugabe has vehemently denied that there was corruption and blamed the country’s economic woes on drought and other causes but especially sanction. Even a simpleton like Obi has to admit that there was no way the Zimbabwe economy could hope to thrive given the seriousness of the corruption Mugabe himself had just acknowledged is happening in Zimbabwe. $15 billion constitute Zimbabwe’s current GDP; how can any nation sustain such wholesale economic wealth haemorrhage!

Of course Obi can see that corruption and not sanctions are the root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic woes, he is only pretending that the sanctions are the cause because he is paid and paid well to do pretend.

Mugabe does not represent Zimbabwe or Africa; he stopped doing that a long, long time ago! The people of Zimbabwe lost confidence in him a long time ago but have failed to remove him from office because he rigs elections. He has murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish and retain his de facto one-party dictatorship. This is Mugabe’s sadistic “fighting African spirit” people like Obi Ogbuna Jr. refuse to see and insult the millions of Zimbabweans who are the victim of this tyrannical rule with these denial of reality.

The Herald has Obi Egbuna Jr. Simunye as “a US Correspondent to The Herald and the External Relations Officer to ZICUFA(Zimbabwe-Cuba Friendship Association)”. In other words Obi is probably one of those foreign nationals who are abusing Zimbabwe’s hospitality by joining the brigade of Zimbabwean born Mugabe apologists and bootlickers in praising Mugabe and insulting the suffering masses. God knows, Zimbabwe has more than its fair share of home-grown Mugabe apologists and boot-lickers without having to import other nations’ rejects, sell-outs and morons.

The day Mugabe’s tyrannical dictatorship collapses, Obi Egbuna Jr and his ilk must leave Zimbabwe with nothing other than the cloths they are wearing. They have done so much to defend the totalitarian Zimbabwe; they will not be welcome in a democratic and free Zimbabwe; persona non grata. 

Mnangagwa delivered KO on Mugabe and G40 but only to inherit a poisoned chalice.

As soon as Grace Mugabe returned from her extended Christmas Holiday in Singapore last year she got her G40 factional team together and she took up her meet the rallies from where she had left off. The sole purpose of the rallies was to de-campaign VP Emmerson Mnangagwa who occupied pole position in the race to replace Robert Mugabe as leader of Zanu PF and the country’s president.

Government business came to a complete halt to facilitate the rallies and no expense was spared. ZBC covered the rallies live from start to finish. Grace was the principle speaker and her pitch was simple enough – she would make a better president than VP Mnangagwa. Getting former VP Joyce Mujuru “dumped” from the party to stop her being elected VP in 2014 had been a walk in the park compared to task of forcing Mnangagwa of the pole position in the race to succeed Mugabe!

Although Grace and G40 had the clear advantage of having her husband’s in their corner; they were free to attack Mnangagwa and his supporters under the pretext they were defending Mugabe from those who wanted to force him unconstitutionally out of office. The G40 faction’s greatest weakness was that although they landed countless punches, putting them way ahead on points, it was clear none of the punches bothered Mnangagwa and his supporters.

By the time Zanu PF held its party congress in Victoria Falls in December last year it was clear that the G40 factions was running out of steam and forcing through the resolution that the party must restore the gender parity in the presidium was a desperate effort. The faction’s hope was that Mugabe will then replace VP Mnangagwa with a woman. Why VP Mnangagwa and not VP Mphoko, for example? Everyone knew that sooner or later Mnangagwa will hit back and everyone knew if the punch landed – light out!

The clash between G40’s Saviour Kasukuwere, whom Mugabe had appointed party’s Political Commissar (PC) and Chris Mutsvangwa, who was then Minister for War vets and a known Mnangagwa loyalist, was proxy war between the two factions. G40 members including Grace and Kasukuwere criticized Mutsvangwa and the war vets for demanding that they should be given special consideration because of their liberation war credentials. Even Mugabe chipped in saying the war vets must not “flaunt” their war credential as if they alone fought the war.

Mutsvangwa was stunned by the criticism and called a meeting of war vets to protest. Mugabe stepped in and used the Riot Police with water cannon and tear-gas to stop the meeting.

 Since the 2000 referendum on the proposed new constitution which Zanu PF lost the party had used the war vets as its foot-soldiers to intimidate, beat, rape and even murder innocent Zimbabweans to help Mugabe and Zanu PF stay in power. Even a heartless tyrant like Mugabe must have realized that tear-gassing the very people who had been betrayed all they had stood for during the civil war to gratify his selfish greed was a outrage, particularly since he still need their blind loyalty to remain in power. When Mugabe proposed to meet the war vets of 7 April 2016, he was reaching out to appease them.

When the war vets demanded that Minister Kasukuwere must be dismissed as PC ahead of the meeting; Mugabe hit back. He said the war vet association was an “affiliate” organization to Zanu PF and thus could not dictate how the party should be run.

The war vets hit straight back and told Mugabe they were the stockholders in Zanu PF, they go nowhere, and leaders like him were merely the stakeholders who would come and go. In a recent interview General Constantine Chiwenga reinforced the same message saying he was the “stockholder of Zimbabwe”!

Robert Mugabe is a seasoned politician and he knew immediately the game was up for him and the G40 faction.

“Buoyed by recent events in the warring Zanu-PF, the party faction rallying behind embattled Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa's mooted presidential aspirations are said to be resuscitating their plans to either persuade or cause President Robert Mugabe to retire before the country's eagerly-anticipated 2018 national elections,” said a report in Bulawayo 24.

“Well-placed Zanu-PF sources told the Daily News yesterday that the mood within Team Lacoste (Mnangagwa faction) was ebullient, as the camp felt that it had finally weathered the relentless onslaught that it had experienced from its avowed party foes, the Generation 40 (G40) group, over the past year.”

Of course the Mnangagwa have won the party’s factional war what they will soon learn is that Zanu PF will still have to win free, fair and credible national elections; this is going to be the mother of all electoral battles and the factional war they have just won is a mere skirmish in comparison! 

Zimbabwe’s economy is in total meltdown and VP Mnangagwa may be able to end some of Mugabe’s stupid policies like the indigenisation law but to consolidate his own hold on power he will keep all the deadwood behind the mismanagement and corruption, the root causes of the economic meltdown.

Besides having won the factional war with the help of the rogue war vets who believe they have the veto as contrast to everyone else who will have the vote, on who should rule Zimbabwe it is clear Mnangagwa is banking on the war vets helping him rig the 2018 elections.

Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown has resulted in unemployment soaring to 90% plus, millions of our people now live in abject poverty, health and education have all but collapsed, etc. The economic situation is socially and politically unsustainable and the key to ending the economic meltdown is free, fair and credible elections. Zanu PF has never won a free and fair elections; of all people Mnangagwa will know this since he has helped Mugabe rig the past elections; and it will not do so now even with a new leader.

So this is Mnangagwa’s dilemma; hold free and fair elections and lose power after all these years of waiting his turn. Rig the next elections face the music of the social and/or political instability brought on by the worsening economic meltdown! Yes President Mugabe has final lost his iron grip on power but he will have the last laugh over the unlucky Mnangagwa who has not only waited patiently for 36 year to take over the presidency from Mugabe now finds he is inheriting the poisoned chalice!

Mugabe pays war vets' children's fees but are they smart to finally know this is painkiller!

Ignorance, especially the type that leads one to act against one’s own best interests, has to be one of the worst curses to afflict an individual, society and, worst of all, a nation. We are a cursed nation, how else can one explain the self-debasing ignorance shown by the war vets, for example.

“We have a total of 43 000 (war veterans’) children who benefit from our US$6 million budget per term, of those children about 22 000 forms have so far been submitted and processed,” boosted the Secretary for Welfare Services for War Veterans, Walter Tapfumaneyi.

The money was only paid after the war vets had complained to Mugabe about the economic hardships they were facing. Ever since the country attained her independence in 1980, the country has followed a downward path to economic decline whose gradient has grown steeper and steeper. After the first two decades of mismanagement and corruption under this Mugabe tyrannical rule, it was finally clear to the majority of Zimbabweans that Zanu PF will never deliver mass prosperity.

Mugabe was not willing to dismantle the corrupt and oppressive political system he has set up since it was the one that kept him and Zanu PF in power. The only way the nation was ever going to change course from the disastrous path it was on was for the people to reclaim their democratic right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country and have free, fair and credible elections. If there is one segment of Zimbabwe society that has done the most to resist democratic change in the last 20 years it is the war vets!

When Mugabe lost the 1999 referendum on the new constitution he felt his iron-grip on political power slipping he needed four things to happen to restore his autocratic grip on power:

·         He needed an issue for the nation to focus its attention on taking it away from his pathetic record of mass poverty induced by gross mismanagement and rampant corruption and murderous tyranny as exemplified by Gukurahundi murderers – the land issue.

·         With the worsen economic situation there was very little wealth left to dole away to his wasteful but ever demanding Zanu PF cronies – the white owned farms was the only resource left to dole away.

·         To silence the growing public demand for democratic change including free and fair elections Mugabe knew he would need to dig deep and deny the people their freedoms and basic human rights even more ruthless than ever. What he needed was an excuse to justify his use of violence against all those opposed to continued rule by his imposed de facto one party dictatorship. First, he declared war marked by the wanton violence against the white farmers and their workers; burning properties, beating people and no fewer than 30 people were murdered. The violence was unjustified since none of the white farmers ever tried to resist the evictions.

The gratuitous violence against the white farmers always spread to engulf all blacks who dared oppose Mugabe’s no-regime change agenda under the pretext those people were sell-out working in cahoots with the West who were seeking regime change to undermine Zanu PF’s land reform.

The gratuitous violence against the opposition and the ordinary people assumed its monstrous proportion in the 2008 elections when it was impossible to hide its real political intention. “What was achieved by the bullet cannot be undone by a ballot!” boosted Mugabe at the time. Millions of people were beaten and/or raped and over 500 were murdered in the orgy of violence that year.

·         Mugabe had corrupted the Police, Army and CIO, as with all the other State institution, to turn a blind-eye to the lawlessness and violence by Zanu PF members designed to further the party’s no-regime change agenda. With the country’s economic decline Mugabe lost the party’s traditional foot-soldiers in the form of overzealous Zanu PF women and youth members; the penny had finally dropped as they too realized that the country need political change to stop the economic rot. Mugabe needed new foot-soldiers to carry out the low level harassment, intimidation, beating, etc. of the civilian population and the war vets step up to do this dirty work with zeal.

After 20 years of doing nothing war vets like Jabulani Sibanda were only too pleased to be granted a political role even if it was a demeaning one, completely at odds with what freedom fighters stood for!

However, the primary reason why many war vets spearheaded the violent farm invasions and the equally violent denial of the people’s freedoms and basic human rights these last 20 years was economic; they were affected by the growing poverty just as badly as everyone else and they thought Mugabe was offering them the sure path to the elusive prosperity. They thought the Z$50 000 cash payment, a pension, government promise to pay war vets’ children’s fees, etc. were the first down payment of many more to come. By giving the regime their blind loyalty even to the extent of denying the masses their freedoms and basic rights the war vets were doing their bit to ensure Zanu PF remained in power to make the future payments!

What the war vets failed to understand 20 years ago because of their ignorance is that the nation’s economic decline was caused by mismanagement and corruption and as long as Zanu PF remained in power these were set to get worse and so too will the economic decline. The Z$ 50 000, etc. were painkillers and not the cure. It was not therefore in the war vets own economic interest as well as that of the nation to retain the corrupt and incompetent Mugabe regime in power under this false pretence that the country’s elections are about land and nothing else.

Although it was self-evident that the war vets were not bowled over by promise to pay the school fees much less the other wishy-washy promises Mugabe made at the 7 April meeting with the war vets. What Mugabe would be hoping is that the school fees payment would be enough to buy the war vets’ blind loyalty for the time being.

What the war vets must get into their thick heads is that it is not the continued reign of Zanu PF which is at issue here but the very survival of the nation. The economic meltdown and political chaos in the country is socially and politically unsustainable; we need cure and democratic reforms are that cure. If 20 years ago the nation’s leg was broken and then today gangrene has set in; the war vets forced the nation to take painkillers back then the nation cannot go a long with this foolishness today!  

It is for the people, not the corrupt opposition, to ensure 2018 elections are free and fair.

Ever since the 2013 elections Zimbabwe’s political and economic situation have all got decided worse than before. What makes our situation so intolerable is that it is all a man-made problem, created by a regime we did not even vote to govern us. Mugabe and Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2013 elections to stay in power and give us all hell-on-earth!

Zimbabwe’s next elections are due in July 2018 and this time no stone must be left turned to ensure these elections are free, fair and credible!

Tsvangirai and his MDC friends failed to implement even one democratic reform during the GNU and the new constitution was weak and feeble it was a foregone conclusion the July 2013 elections would NOT be free and fair. If the democratic reforms are not implemented BEFORE the 2018 elections then Mugabe will, once again, blatantly rig those elections and the nation’s political and economic nightmare will continue!

Zimbabweans like castigating Mugabe’s corruption and tyrannical rule but what many do not seem to realize that is not going to end his rule and get us out of the mess. By the same token it is naïve for the people to look up to Tsvangirai and his fellow opposition leaders to implement the reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections. If MDC failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU, when they had the majority in cabinet and parliament and had SADC’s backing, what chance now when Mugabe has the upper hand.

After the rigged 2013 elections, all the MDC factions were united in their demand for electoral reforms and vowed they would not take part in any future elections until the reforms are implemented. Last year the MDC-T led by Morgan Tsvangirai broke rank with the rest of the opposition parties to announce that the party will end its elections boycott because they have devised ways to force Zanu PF “kicking and screaming” to implement the electoral reforms. MDC-T said this would be done by the end of 2015.

No reforms have been implemented to date and we are already nearly halfway into 2016. This was just grandstanding and posturing by Tsvangirai.

Indeed, even if Mugabe conceded and implement all the electoral reforms Tsvangirai is calling for, the country will still not have free and fair elections it will take a lot more that realigning existing laws to the new constitution because the latter is weak and feeble to deliver free and fair elections.

“Personally, I was in two minds about the new draft constitution,” admitted former Senior David Coltart in his Book, The Struggle continues, “because although I recognised it as a remarkable achievement, in my opinion it remained deeply flawed. First, it did “not adequately cater for the fact that man cannot be trusted with power”.

“One thing the American founding fathers understood well was that if men are given unfettered or excessive power they have a natural tendency to abuse it, and to counter this they built in all sorts of checks and balances,” continued Coltart. He then admitted the new constitution “gave far too much power to the executive” with no checks and balances!

Senator Coltart went on to give graphic details of how Mugabe used his unfettered powers to rig the July 2013 elections. If you do not read Coltart’s whole book then just read Chapter 27 giving the details of the election irregularities and vote rigging, it will be clear no amount of  tinkering with electoral laws will take back Mugabe’s dictatorial powers or stop him abusing them!

“What exactly do you expect povo to do to ensure the next elections are free and fair?” someone would ask.

If the people of Zimbabwe were to realize the nation cannot afford another rigged elections that would be a very significant first step. It is the first step that is hardest to make.

The second step would be for the people to realize that it is up to them and not the corrupt and incompetent opposition leaders to demand that everything necessary is done to ensure the next elections are free and fair.

The third step would be for the people to demand the formation of an independent body that will be tasked to implement the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA which are designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and allow for free, fair and democratic elections to take place.

If the people successfully carried out the first two steps then SADC and the international community will back them up and leave Harare in no doubt that they too want to see the return of law and order in Zimbabwe, an end to the corruption and misrule, an end to the human suffering and political and economic stability restored in the region.

It is not in the nurture of tyrants to give up their dictatorial powers; it is for the oppressed people to end the dictatorship. In Mugabe, we have a seasoned tyrant, if we want free, fair and democratic elections then we will have to confront him and demand the reforms!

Mugabe would have scrapped the "a ass" indigenisation law but for the reckless gambler in him

Mugabe enacted the indigenisation law to please his very demanding but wasteful Zanu PF cronies. Sadly, the law is bad for business. After years of economic decline without gaining anything by the cronies to plicate them; how much longer can Mugabe keep up this charade!

Mugabe enacted the indigenisation law with its hallmark demand for all foreign owned businesses valued at $ 500 000 and above to sell 51% to local black Zimbabweans back in 2008. The Zimbabwe economy was in tatters with shops empty, inflation a runaway 500 billion per cent, etc. He had already doled out to his ever demanding but wasteful cronies most of the seized white farms and many were already deserting the farms and demanding easier loot. He needed to come up with something quick-smart and the indigenisation law with its promise to his cronies to control foreign owned business with little input from them was the answer.

Zanu PF cronies were given seized white farms complete with the animals, crops, plant and all the buildings worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and even millions. They failed to make use of all these assets and keep up agricultural productions and within a few years most of the seized wealth was gone but that is another story. The indigenisation law was just an extension of the white farm invasion with the subtle difference that instead of being disposed completely the foreign business owner will be forced to concede 51% of the shares to a Zanu PF chef(s) or approved appointee(s) and retain the balance and the management of the business.

If Mugabe had allowed the white farmers to retain 49% of the farm and its management farm production would have suffered but not totally collapse as happened.

To the existing foreign business owner and would-be foreign investor the indigenisation law is a Dickensian “a ass”.

"If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass - a idiot".

Paying tax, workers, etc. are a great inconvenience but a necessary evil the business person will grudgingly pay but being force to a partner one neither ask for nor need is a curse no shrewd business person would willingly tolerate. Tax is milk from a cow, having a partner imposed is the tick and partner with 51% controlling shares is a tick the size of a monkey! No matter how sweet the grass may happen to be, no cow would graze with a tick the size of a monkey on her back!

When President Mugabe passed this act in 2008 his cronies believe law will work and they too will become filthy rich and finally live happily ever after. How Mugabe convinced these cronies back then; I attribute it to his persuasive oratory skills. How the cronies have continued to believe this nonsense to this day, eights later without even one local or new foreign investor having step up to be sucked dry; I attribute it to the mind numbing naivety of these cronies.

It is one thing to wait in vain let the dog guarding the grinding stone hoping something to fall off. What these Zanu PF cronies are doing is more like the proverbial dog guarding the grinding stone not knowing the miller now does all the family’s grinding. “Kugarira guyo sembwa kusaziva vatenzi vaenda kuchigayo!” as one would say in Shona. 

The total failure of the law to deliver any foreign owned shares had no effect on the ordinary Zimbabweans; they would have never got even a sniff of any of the shares just as they never got any of the seized white farms. The masses would have benefited the businesses themselves, directly as employees and indirectly from the economic boom; if the existence of this obnoxious law had not forced local and foreign investment to dry up.

Unemployment has soared to 90% plus and the years of little or no economic investment is one of the factors behind the worsening economic meltdown. This has affected everybody the masses and the Zanu PF cronies alike. Mugabe has never been bothered about the suffering of masses he cannot ignore his increasingly restless cronies; the truth of indigenisation law never delivering any foreign owned company shares is slowly dawning on them!

Mugabe was never, even back in 2008 when the law was enacted, under an illusion that the indigenisation law would rest in any local or foreign business owner wanting to go into such cow and tick partnership. It was a cheap political gimmick and he is a reckless politician known for making very reckless gambles damn the consequences. The violent seizures of the white owned farms being one such very reckless gamble; with equally damning consequences to the nation, at least.

Still the damning consequences of indigenisation law to the nation cannot be ignore for long; a 90% unemployment rate, for example, is socially and politically unsustainable. Last week Mugabe reviewed the law and tried to make it as acceptable to the would-be foreign investors. Investors have been given the option of not selling any shares if they paid some empowerment levy instead, for example; but still there were no takers.

Mugabe is now caught in an impossible situation of his own making; he can keep the indigenisation law and risk certain social and/or political turmoil or scrap the obnoxious law and disappoint his cronies that they have been the dogs guarding the grinding stone all these years for nothing.  Being the reckless gambler he is Mugabe will keep the law, continue tinkering with it without changing the key tenet of forcing foreigners to sell shares to locals, and damn the consequences.

One of the damning consequences of seizing the white owned farms was the collapse of the country’s food production; Zimbabwe fall from its coveted position of exporting surplus food to having to import food at great expense. The current drought hitting the region has hit the country very hard; the consequence of one of Mugabe’s reckless gambles that has now come back to bit him and the nation.  By failing to scrap the obnoxious indigenisation law Mugabe has compounded the nation’s situation; the nation will now have to deal with the terrible drought on the one hand and the economic meltdown due to lack of investment on the other.

Mugabe has recklessly gambled with the nation’s wellbeing even people’s very lives many times in the past and seemed to get away with it; however this time the cumulated damning consequences are such he will not get away with it!  

Mapfumo is spot-on, Tsvangirai sold out on reforms sadly he is still opposition leader.

"People no longer have anyone to stand with. They (Zanu PF) bought Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai joined the money brigade. Here the Americans did not give him money because of his ways. So whom should the people follow? There is no one who genuinely stands for the people in Zimbabwe," Thomas Mapfumo, Mukanya, told Nehanda Radio.

Mukanya is spot-on, Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC friends sold-out during the GNU there is a mountain of evidence to prove it.

MDC were supposed to implement a raft of democratic reforms and draft a new democratic constitution to ensure the next election, the July 2013 elections, are free, fair and credible. SADC, the guarantor of the GPA, did their best to remind MDC to stick to the set task but MDC paid no heed. MDC failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years of the GNU. The only thing they did was to draft a new constitution only to make a dog’s breakfast of that!

"Zimbabwe also needs a new constitution," wrote Trevor Ncube in a recent article. "The current document is the outcome of horse-trading between Zanu-PF and the two MDC factions. It fails to lay a strong foundation of the rule of law, strong national institutions, transparency and accountability. And, of course, the sanctity of life and respect for private property must find full expression."

In the article, Ncube described the opposition as “pedestrian”.

In fact Ncube was being very generous here because the horse-trading was actually one way; Mugabe got all he wanted – absolute power – and MDC got nothing. Mugabe “dictated” the new constitution the Zanu MP Paul Mangwana boasted. He was the co-chairperson of the parliamentary committee appointed to draft the constitution.

Instead of admitting the new constitution was weak and feeble MDC leaders came out in full force and campaigned for a yes vote in the March 2013 referendum. They assured the nation the new constitution would deliver the people’s freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair elections. Tsvangirai even claimed the new constitution was an “MDC child”!

The people of Zimbabwe believed the MDC lies and without even having the common sense to take time off to study the proposed constitution, they approved it with a whopping 95% yes vote. New constitution failed its very first acid test a few months later as the promised free, fair and credible elections did not materialize. Mugabe blatantly rigged the elections!

“MDC vadzidza kudya vanyerera!” was cynical remark from one Zanu PF permanent secretary during the GNU. (MDC leaders have learnt to enjoy the gravy train comforts without rocking the boat!) He was comment on why, years into the GNU, MDC had still done nothing to implement the democratic reforms.  

Soon after the formation of the GNU Mugabe had seen to that Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were given all the gravy train comforts they could ever wish for; the tyrant threw in the $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai. MDC leaders showed their appreciation of Mugabe’s generosity by kicking the democratic reforms into the tall grass.

Of course MDC leaders sold-out; if being bribed with mansions and gravy train comforts in return for doing nothing about the reforms is not selling-out then what is!

Thomas Mapfumo is wrong to say the people have no leader; a number Zimbabweans still follow Tsvangirai and the other MDC factions, not as many as those followed MDC before the elections but still a number of people have remained faithful to Tsvangirai.

Whilst Mukanya and Ncube can see Tsvangirai as the “sell-out” and “pedestrian”, respectively, leader he is sadly there are still many Zimbabweans out there who do not. Even with the benefit of hindsight, there are many Zimbabweans who will never see Tsvangirai and his MDC friends for the breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent individuals they are because they are programmed to follow leaders without ever asking any questions even in the face of a mountain of evidence of the leader’s incompetency!

Zimbabwe’s struggle for democratic change, freedom, justice and human dignity has been a tale of taking one or two steps forward and the nation has a big song and dance to celebrate meanwhile the nation’s leader “join the money brigade” to indulge themselves dragging the nation ten or more steps backwards. It is very sad and tragic that these leaders are dragging the nation backwards but what making the whole situation a double tragedy is that the people themselves take forever to notice they are being conned!

It is bad enough that Zimbabweans risked life and limp to vote for a pedestrian and sell-out person like Tsvangirai once or twice but to do so a third and fourth time is sheer folly. People get the government they deserve and we cannot say we do not deserve this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF dictatorship compete with its coterie of equally corrupt and incompetent MDC opposition.

Ncube, Zimbabwe is "broken" but it is not the mythical "can-do" youths who will fix it.

You can tell where the lion has been from the huge paw prints!

“For those who are still in denial, it is worth restating: Zimbabwe is broken. Its people are broken. Their minds and spirits are broken. The infrastructure is broken - rotting, in fact. And, unsurprisingly, the image of our country is in tatters,” wrote Trevor Ncube in his article, “Only a 'Third Way' can fix Zimbabwe”.  What great opening lines!

In my humble opinion, Ncube’s opening stand head and shoulder together with Alan Paton’s equally memorable opening lines in “Cry, the beloved country”.  “There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it.”

Could not agree with you more Trevor; Zimbabwe is broken and in desperate need of fixing. You are placing your hopes of a new Zimbabwe on the youth.

“My greatest hope for Zimbabwe lies in our young people who seem not to have been contaminated by our limiting politics and debilitating milieu. My sagging spirits have been lifted by this new generation, one unburdened by colonial baggage,” you said.

“This is a can-do generation that could catapult us into our future if it is empowered.”

Where the fcuk (pardon my French) have these can-do youth been hiding all these years whilst the country sunk to these nauseating depths of despair and hopelessness!

If these can-do youths are indeed the “can-do generation” – as it says on the tin – then why do they need to be “empowered”? They are waiting to be empowered by whom?  

These can-do youths are a myth; they are like the beautiful ones who are yet to be born! Youth has become an over rated attribute, a silver bullet; if you have youth on your side then you do not need anything else, especially in our political discourse.  

Look at the Zanu PF and its Generation 40 (G40) faction, they have been complaining that the war vets should not be flaunting their liberation war credentials because they are no guarantee for competent leadership and yet they have been flaunting their youths as if that was the guarantee. Indeed, for all their avowed faith in youth it is the G40 faction that is fighting tooth and nail to keep Mugabe is power. Grace Mugabe, the G40’s leader, has repeatedly said Mugabe must stay in office even if it means getting him a wheelchair! One should be careful of what they wish for!

Grace will have to get her husband the wheelchair sooner than she thought! At 92 years of age Mugabe is old and has been stumbling and falling in public. She will have to keep him strapped to his wheelchair too because he now dozes off at the drop of a hat, even when he is standing up!

I too have hope that this broken country can be fixed and become a great nation. If we can start to think and reason as we should have been doing all along then there is no reason why we cannot fix what has been broken and, better still, strike out and build anew a greater then we can dare imagine at present.  We are in this mess because of Mugabe and Zanu PF corruption and brutal oppression but this would not have happened if we had not switch-off and taken French leave of our senses!

Yes we have been subjected to all manner of physical and mental abuse by Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs but that will never explain why we then risked life and limp to vote for a corrupt, incompetent and “pedestrian” opposition, as Ncube called it?  

“Zimbabwe also needs a new constitution,” as Ncube rightly pointed out. “The current document is the outcome of horse-trading between Zanu-PF and the two MDC factions. It fails to lay a strong foundation of the rule of law, strong national institutions, transparency and accountability. And, of course, the sanctity of life and respect for private property must find full expression.”

The worst thing the pedestrian MDC opposition did was failing to implement even one democratic reform in the five years of the GNU. We are in this political and economic mess because Mugabe was able to blatantly rig the July 2013 elections because the democratic reforms required to stop the vote rigging were never implemented. And yet even with all the evidence that MDC sold-out many Zimbabweans still continue to sheepishly follow MDC  - proof they are still on French leave mentally!

Zimbabwe has some of the best land to produce all the food the nation needs with plenty left over for export, for example. For the last decade the country has failed to produce enough to feed our own people. We are starving in the Garden of Eden – proof we are on French leave mentally.

Zimbabwe is a broken country because as a nation we have taken leave of our senses. To fix the broken nation and to go on to soar to even greater heights all we need for the nation to start thinking and listen to voice of reason.

It is not the can-do youths who can fix this nation but more the can-think nation. Thinking is not the preserve of the young or the old alone; anyone can think. Even Mugabe and Mai Mahofa and their harahwa and chembere generation, Tsvangirai and Joice Mujuru and their sekuru and mbuya generation, Biti and Grace Mugabe and their tsumborume and mvanha generation, school leavers and everybody; they can all think.

Granted it is not everyone who can be the competent and visionary leader the nation needs; still, a thinking populous will separate the wheat from the chuff – depend on it. 

Zimbabweans will not celebrate 36th birthday - for them wife is still in labour.

“Will you be celebrating Zimbabwe’s 36^th Independence Day on Monday?” asked DJ Sodza of his Zimnet Radio listeners?

The quick and short answer to that for any thinking Zimbabwean has to be a NO! What is there to celebrate?

18 th April 1980 was supposed to be the day every Zimbabwean became a full citizen of Zimbabwe to claim and enjoy all the freedoms, human rights and dignities denied to the blacks by the oppressive and racist white colonial government. The cold reality is that the majority of the people have been systematically denied their freedoms and basic rights by the Zanu PF government.

After 36 years of trying to cash the independence cheques and getting nothing there is no doubt that the ordinary people have been cheated and given bad cheques! How can we pretend that we are a free nation when we have been denied a fair share in the nation’s wealth and a voice in its governance?

Last week Health Minister, David Parirenyatwa, condemned the one room maternity ward at Chiredzi General Hospital as “unsafe”. The ward is overcrowded and ill equipped. The ward was built in 1967 by the white government when Chiredzi was a small outpost serving a population of a few hundred people. Today it is the referral hospital catering for the health needs of hundreds of thousands.

As a referral hospital the maternity ward would have delivered hundreds of pre-mature babies each year, for example, and the majority of these babies died for the lack of something as basic as incubator! Even the big hospitals like Mpilo rarely have enough of something as basic as incubators if they have them at all, let alone backwater rural hospitals like Chiredzi.  

Chiredzi hospital’s tragic story was in the paper side by side with the story of Mugabe’s daughter, Bona, who is in Singapore to have her baby. Grace Mugabe had left the country to be on their daughter’s side; Mugabe told the nation.

Mugabe has been going to Singapore for his health needs for years; in 2012 he made 8 health trips each costing US$ 3 million plus!

There must be a lot more than that none of our hospitals can provide a good-enough health service for our ruling elite! If the billions of dollars being squandering on Bona’s baby were spent equipping just one special ward, for example, it would be comparable quality to any in Singapore. The idea of having such ward was discounted because other Zimbabwean women would have used the same ward after Bona and her baby; putting the two on par with “ordinary” Zimbabweans, unthinkable for one whose  grandmother wears nothing else but Gucci designer shoes.

Whilst cities and towns up and down the country have failed to supply clean running water for weeks on end at times because of lack of funds to maintain the service; Mugabe has admitted $15 billion or the nation’s GDP in Marange diamond revenue alone were looted recently! So there grinding poverty in Zimbabwe not because the country is poor but because its wealth is being wasted!  

The people of Zimbabwe have known for years that Mugabe and his Zanu PF party are corrupt and incompetent but they have failed to remove the tyrannical regime from office because the regime blatantly rigs elections and uses wanton violence to stay in power. In the 36 years of Mugabe’s tyrannical rule, over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans have been murdered in cold blood to establish and retain this de facto one-party cum one-man dictatorship.

For the masses the struggle for freedom, justice and human dignity has never stopped; on 18 April 1980 they swapped the white oppressors for black oppressors. The struggle continues!

Luta continua!

Celebrate? One does not celebrate the birth whilst the wife is still in labour, especial the celebration is at the behest of those who are holding back the birth for selfish gain! 

Musewe, there will never ever be a "rapture from the old to the new" from recycled corrupt leaders.

Vince Musewe and Robert Mugabe have one thing in common, they are both stubbornly single track minded. Allow a single track minded individual to get into power and you know immediately you are in trouble because they will abuse their position to get absolute power and then bring hell-on earth on us all as the latter has done.

Whilst Musewe has admitted, be it grudgingly, that twisted political system is the root cause of the Zimbabwe’s poor economic performance.

“ZANU (PF)'s ultimate aim was always to create a one party capitalist state dominated and controlled by a predatory leadership and a predatory coalition (a "comprador bourgeoisie" as Ibbo Mandaza likes to call it) and this they have achieved much to our detriment. We need to change that paradigm, but that paradigm will not change as long as Mugabe is entrenched at State house,” admitted Musewe.

For his solution he proposed “a second national revolution” which is to come in two stages:

First “we need a fundamental rapture from the old to the new,” he argued. “As PDP we are therefore promoting the idea of a grand coalition which is currently taking shape.”

“Second, as articulated in our HOPE policy document, must be the immediate establishment of National Technical Transition Council (NTTC) to take over the running of the country to restore confidence and stability as a transitional mechanism to re-position Zimbabwe back onto a socio-economic recovery trajectory.”

This is where the trouble with having a single-track mind comes to the fore. The “grand coalition” Musewe been wittering about for the last two years is composed of the likes of Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC-T, Tendai Biti and his PDP, Joice Mujuru and her ZimPF, Welshman Ncube and his MDC, etc. All these politicians without exception have a proven track record of betrayal and failure; they are all incompetent and corrupt.

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic hell-hole because for the last 36 years the nation has had the great misfortune of having incompetent and corrupt leaders. All the men and women Musewe has assembled to form his new grand coalition have played their part in the demise of the country; five years for the MDC leaders and 34 years for the ZimPF leaders.

Musewe is recycling the same incompetent and corrupt leaders; there will not be any “fundamental rapture from the old to the new”.

Since not even one democratic reform was implemented by MDC during the GNU there is need for yet another transitional body, NTTC or whatever, which will be tasked to implement the reforms and hold the free, fair and credible elections. My quarrel with Musewe is over his insistence that Mugabe should be assured that no reforms will be implemented by the transition body.

“Our main problem, however, remains the fact that we are expecting the same dictator to implement political reforms which are most likely to result in his dismissal from power. It is therefore clear that the dictator, and the predatory coalition that has mushroomed around him, will hardly be enthusiastic to implement the very changes that will inevitably result in their demise and possible criminal prosecution,” argued Musewe in one of his last articles.

“This an obvious fact and I just don't know why some of us are choosing to ignore this fact.”

So if we are not to ignore “this fact” we have to assure Mugabe his position in State House is assured throughout the life time of the transitional body and after it since there will be no free, fair and credible elections at the end of the transition period.

Only a single-track minded person like Musewe would admit there will be no “change as long as Mugabe is entrenched at State house” in one breathe and argue that Mugabe must be allowed to stay in State House in the next breathe and not see these are two conflicting positions.

We are in this political and economic mess because Mugabe has the same single track mind like Musewe and thus given to holding opposite and conflicting position without realizing it. Mugabe continue to see himself and his Zanu PF cronies as a great national liberation icons and yet for the last 36 years he and his thugs have ridden rough shod over the people’s freedoms, rights and dreams! He has ruthlessly imposed his no-regime-change ethos and yet would swear he has always held free, fair and credible elections.

If we want free and fair elections then we must implement the democratic reforms; that is a fact. We cannot appease Mugabe and still have free and fair elections because democracy and dictatorship can never co-exist side by side; that is an oxymoron single track minded and pretentious analysts pedal!

“Another Zimbabwe is possible!!!” Signed off Vince Musewe.

Yes, another Zimbabwe is possible just as it is possible to have another single track minded dictator after Mugabe. If we want a free, just, democratic and economically prosperous Zimbabwe then we must to implement all the democratic reforms and make sure we not only to flush out the incumbent single track minded tyrant occupying the State House but prevent another single track minded tyrant occupying the State House ever again.   

Tsvangirai admits there is a 'leadership crisis' - he is at the apex of the change matrix.

Tsvangirai admits to the students that the nation is facing a “crisis of leadership”.

“I want to start by saying the country is currently facing a huge crisis; a crisis of the economy; a crisis of expectation due to the many unfulfilled promises but most importantly, a crisis of leadership,” said Tsvangirai.

The economic crisis, crisis if expectation, etc. are all a by-product of the crisis of leadership.

Zimbabwe is by all accounts a blessed country with a great bounty of diamonds and other minerals and yet the country is so impoverished it cannot afford to up keep of something as essential as clean running water in this day and age because $ 15 billion worth of diamonds are looted by the ruling elite. The country is the Garden of Eden and ever since the ruling elite seized the farms the nation has failed to produce enough to feed its own people let alone have surplus for export as happened before the farms were seized.

Zimbabwe’s problem is not one of material resources, lack of opportunities, etc. we have all we could ever wish for expect for one thing poor leadership! We have been cursed; we have the leaders from hell everywhere you look!

“Where there is no vision, the people perish:” Proverbs 29:18.

“The current leadership of government has chosen to ignore the multi-layered crisis facing the people; it is choosing instead to focus on the issue of the succession issue of our 92-year old President, whose age is a crisis unto itself,” continued Tsvangirai.

True there is a crisis of leadership in Zanu PF and government but we have known of this for years now and, indeed, was that not the reason why the students, the workers and the nation at large have rallied behind Tsvangirai and MDC these last 16 years giving MDC for the singular purpose of MDC delivering meaningful democratic change to end President Mugabe’s reign of corruption and terror. A task Tsvangirai readily acknowledged in his address to the students.

“The only credible way forward for all of us as a collective is to ensure that we usher in a legitimate government at the next election. Any government must be a product of a free, fair, peaceful and credible election,” admitted Tsvangirai.

“We must all join hands in demanding not only the implementation of the Constitution, but also the institution of far-reaching reforms to ensure that the next election does not breed yet another uncontested outcome.”

Hold your horses, Mr Tsvangirai; do not rush from one subject to the next like an excited monkey jumping from one branch to the next.

MDC had the best opportunity ever to implement the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA which would have dismantled the Zanu PF dictatorship and deliver free, fair and credible elections. SADC Heads of State have reminded MDC leaders on numerous occasions during the GNU to implement the reforms but were ignored. At the end of the GNU, not even one democratic reform has been implemented.

President Mugabe was able to blatantly rig the July 2013 elections because no democratic reform was implemented in the five years of the GNU.

Just as the economic crisis is a consequence of the leadership crisis so too is the post 2013 Zanu PF leadership crisis; the fact that Mugabe is still in power today is a consequence of Tsvangirai and MDC leaders’ failure to implement the democratic reforms.

Since the rigged July 2013 elections Tsvangirai and his MDC friends have promised to have electoral reforms implemented to ensure the next elections are free and fair. How MDC would accomplish this feat given that the GPA expired and SADC could not pressure President Mugabe to revisit the GPA. MDC would not give any details but promised to force Zanu PF “kicking and screaming to implement the reforms by the end of the year (meaning end of 2015)!” Mr Douglas Mwonzora, MDC-T Secretary General, said.

As is clear from Tsvangirai’s statement about MDC has clearly failed to force Zanu PF to implement any reforms by the end of 2015. Worse still Tsvangirai and his MDC friends do not have a clue what reforms they wanted implemented. The initially asked for electoral reforms as stated in their National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA) which all serious analysts dismissed as inadequate for free and fair elections. Judging from his statement above it is clear this message has finally sunk home because, although he is still calling for electoral reforms he is now also calling for “but also the institution of far-reaching reforms”. What these are he has not said. How he is going to have them implemented, again he does not say.

Tsvangirai will string the nation along assuring the nation that MDC will implement the reforms necessary for free and fair elections, just as he did during the GNU, but will never deliver free and fair elections.

Mai Mujuru and her ZimPF friends are not interested in implementing any reforms; as far as they are concerned they are hoping to defeat Zanu PF not by ensuring the elections are free and fair but by having “moles” in Zanu PF who will expose and stop the vote rigging shenanigans. The best electoral result will therefore be the removal of the corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF and only to replacing it with the equally corrupt and incompetent ZimPF.  

Joice Mujuru is corrupt and incompetent changing the name of the party will not change her in anyway; if she is elected back into office she will continue where she left off when she was kicked out of Zanu PF. All those who say she has had her Damascene moment are self-indulgent day-dreamers.

All hope of any meaningful economic and political change in Zimbabwe today has to start with removing the corrupt and incompetent Morgan Tsvangirai from leadership; he is the one who blocked all meaningful change during the GNU and he continues to block change now.

If we are serious at removing Mugabe then we must look at getting an opposition leader competent enough to do so and not stick with the corrupt and incompetent Morgan Tsvangirai or Joice Mujuru whom the cunning Mugabe has already outwitted repeatedly in the past.

We are in this economic and political hell because as a nation we have developed a knack for following leaders blindly like sheep, it is no surprise that they have, more often than not, turned out to be corrupt and incompetent, like Tsvangirai, and, worse still, murderous tyrants like Mugabe. To get rid of Mugabe we need a competent opposition leader and not the corrupt and incompetent Mujuru and/or Tsvangirai whom the tyrant has already outwitted repeatedly in the past.

There is no point in wishing to remove Mugabe and then get someone incompetent to do it, especially one who has already proven beyond doubt that they are incompetent! If we are serious about bring about any meaningful change in Zimbabwe then that change must start with removing Tsvangirai as opposition leader. We do have a leadership crisis in Zimbabwe but it is Tsvangirai himself who is sitting at the apex of the change matrix! He is the one who block change during the GNU and he is the one blocking change today!

Zimbabwe cannot afford to have yet another rigged election because the consequences are the economic meltdown will get worse and so too will the political chaos; Zimbabwe is already on a knife-edge of and any more of this chaos can destabilize the country with far reaching tragic consequences for the nation and the whole region.

Msipa warns Mujuru of Mugabe violence - she has ears but neither the will nor vision

Former Zanu PF strongman, Cephas Msipa’s warns Zimbabwe’s opposition parties of President Mugabe and Zanu PF’s tendencies to use violence to stay in power.

“They (ZPF) have a mammoth task before them. I know Zanu PF are good at defending themselves and remaining in power. Since 1980, they (Zanu PF) have been using the same tactic,” he warned.

“They will do everything possible to destroy their opponents. They use all sorts of dirty tactics, including violence and intimidation. They think to win an election they need to use force.”

In giving his warning, Comrade Msipa singled out Comrade Mujuru and her ZimPF followers. Not that she needed the warning because her followers have already been subjected to Zanu PF intimidation and beating. No doubt the level of violence and the numbers of the victims will increase as time goes on and we getting nearer and nearer the elections. The greater the political threat  Zanu PF feels the worse the violence its thugs will dish out.

Joice Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti and all the other ZimPF member who are also ex-Zanu PF members do not need Comrade Msipa to remind them what a violent party Zanu PF can be since they were part and parcel of the Zanu PF machinery themselves. All three above have been named as key players in the beating or worse of opposition members in the Zanu PF days.

Both ZimPF and MDC have had many chances to end Zanu PF’s culture of using violence and other dirty tricks to win elections and which has wasted them. MDC had their best chances during the GNU where all they needed to do was implemented the democratic reforms. They failed to get even one meaningful reform implemented in their five years in the GNU.

As for Mai Mujuru and her ZimPF lot they will now want to put some clear water between themselves and this violent Mugabe culture but they can never deny they benefited from the system and when push came to shove and their position on the gravy train was stake they too used violence.

The first question one has to answer, it is all very well knowing Zanu PF will be using violence to stay in power; the question is, what can the opposition do stop Zanu PF violence?

The opposition can demand the implementation of the democratic reforms, the same reforms MDC should have implemented during the GNU.

There were three main reasons why MDC did not implement even one reform throughout the five years of the GNU:

a)     For all their political posturing and grandstanding Tsvangirai and his MDC friends are some of the most corrupt and incompetent politicians in modern history; they never appreciated the critical importance of the democratic reforms in the creation of a democratic and free society.

b)    MDC leaders have always viewed the violence as an integral part of the cut and thrust of Zimbabwe politics; they love reading out how many of their own supporters have been beaten, raped and murdered, the more the better. They will always do their uttermost to secure their safety; Tsvangirai is well known for his Usain Bolt dash to Netherland Embassy or high speed race to Botswana. However if they are ever caught in the mayhem they will wear that like the badge of honour. Tsvangirai has reminded all who care to listen of his brush with Zanu PF thugs just as Mugabe has never tired of reminding the nation of his heroic exploits in the fight for independence.

c)     Tsvangirai and his MDC friends knew they are not the cleverest kids on the block and so whilst they want democratic change now to propel them into power they, once in power, they will have to revert to the present undemocratic system if they too are to enjoy absolute power for decades the same as Mugabe and Zanu PF. They have failed to implement any meaningful reforms because they have one foot on the democratic change accelerator and other on the breaks, they are scared stiff of a healthy and functional democracy!   

Although everyone in MDC has, since the elections, acknowledged that Mugabe rigged the 2013 elections and vowed not to take part in any future elections “until reforms are implemented to stop vote rigging”. It is now over two years ago and all they have done is come up with a list of wishy-washy electoral reforms they say must be implemented. None of the reforms will do anything to stop Zanu PF using violence and other vote rigging dirty tricks.

MDC leaders have since revised their position; they will take part in future elections as they are confident they will get Zanu PF to implement the democratic reforms before the next elections.

MDC will not get even one meaningful democratic reform implemented before the next elections for the same main reasons given above.

Mai Mujuru and her ZimPF friends too not do anything in response to Comrade Cephas Msipa’s warning about Zanu PF resorting to violence for the same three main reasons given above.

If Mai Mujuru and her friends are elected back into office they top priority will be to restructure the State Institutions not to make them more democratic, they will not want the system changed in anyway, just their loyalty changed from Mugabe to Mujuru, from Zanu PF to ZimPF!  ZimPF will use the same dirty vote rigging tricks and violence to stay in power!

It is within the political powers of Zimbabwe’s opposition parties to end Mugabe’s culture of political violence; they have never even tried because they neither have the political vision nor will to do so.