When President
Mugabe denounce Pastor Evans Mawarire as a “man of cloth” worshipping “dog” he must
have thought then that Mawarire had turned tail and left Zimbabwe for good and he,
Robert Gabriel Mugabe, was having the final word on the matter!
"So beware
these men of cloth, not all of them are true preachers of the Bible. I don't
know whether they are serving God. They spell God in reverse," said
Mugabe, six months ago. "The Mawarires, if they don't like to live with
us, let them go to those who are sponsoring them, to the countries that are
sponsoring them."
Those were very
harsh words; even those of us who know Mugabe to be corrupt and murderous
tyrant given to speaking harshly even when there is no need for it, were taken
aback by the harshness of those words. After all what crime had Pastor Mawarire
and his #ThisFlag followers committed; voicing their concern about the misrule
and corruption that had left millions out of work and destitute is should not be
a crime. In Mugabe’s Zimbabwe that is a very serious crime as others like Itai
Dzamara, who was abducted never to be seen again, would readily testify.
Mugabe must have
spoken those harsh words to remind all those Mawarire had inspired to join in
the street protest that swept the country like grass fires of what happened to
Itai Dzamara could happen to them too. As for Pastor Mawarire, Mugabe was
convinced he roughing up he got had scared him to turn tail and run never to
comeback.
The big story is
that Pastor Mawarire has returned to Zimbabwe!
"Zimbabwe is
home for me and my family. That's the place where we have a right to be without
acquiring a visa, we are citizens of Zimbabwe,” Mawarire told the reporter, Simon
Allison.
“The president of
Zimbabwe made comments to the effect that I was not welcome in Zimbabwe, but he
doesn't get to make that decision for me. I have not committed a crime, I'm not
a fugitive, I'm a citizen, and an upstanding citizen for that matter."
Old age has taken
its toll on President Mugabe; forget all the macho talk him being “as fit as a
fiddle”. Physically, he has shrivelled up; no amount of Botox body-filler can hide
the fact there is little of the original frame left to hang it on. Mentally,
old age has turned Mugabe from Grumpy into the character Sleepy, in Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs. He now dozes off at the drop of a hat; even when he is
standing up!
The news that
Pastor Evans Mawarire was coming back to Zimbabwe must have forced Mugabe to sit
bolt up and to stay wide-awake for many hours!
Of course, the
authorities arrest Pastor Mawarire when he landed at Harare International
Airport; after all the grandstanding and harsh words from Mugabe; they had no
choice but arrest him or lose face. Now the tyrant has to come up with a charge
serious enough to make punishment worth the regime’s while (nothing short of
five-year jail term will do) and make the charge stick!
“He has been
charged with subverting a constitutionally elected government,” Mawarire’s attorney,
Harrison Nkomo, told VOA. “The same charges as last time [following his July
protest]. I do not know what they are trying to do, so we will deal with it
when we get to court”
The standard charge
serious charge against his critics and opponents is for Mugabe to accuse them
of plotting to assassinate him; that is what he accused Joice Mujuru and before
her Morgan Tsvangirai. He failed to make the charge stick in both cases for
lack of evidence but that has never deterred Mugabe from making such wild and
unfounded allegations.
Charging Mawarire
of holding a peaceful public protest will result in a few weeks in jail sentence
at most, hardly the five years with hard labour Mugabe wanted.
The regime ended up
with a lot of egg on its face last July when the Magistrate dismissed all the
charges brought against him; Mawarire won that round. Unless the regime “jazz
up” the charges against Mawarire there is no doubt that Mawarire will once
again win this round by a unanimous decision!
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