"I apologise for propping white regime'" says Coltart - but will not do so for propping up Zanu PF P Guramatunhu

“I sincerely apologise for the role that I played in propping up a racist regime as a young man in the police. If I knew then what I know now, I would have resisted conscription and actively sought to fight, using non-violent means, the injustices of the Rhodesian regime. Even though I was a teenager at the time, I take responsibility for my actions and inactions.  I also acknowledge that, as a White person, I have benefitted from Rhodesia's discriminatory policies and laws. While I can't apologize on behalf of a government that I was not a part of, I do apologise on behalf of the broader White community which was largely complicit in the oppression of Black, Coloured and Asian brothers and sisters,” you say.

You put so much emphasis on your being “a young man” as if your selfish streak ended when you became an adult! It did not!

You were a senior member of the MDC in the 2008 to 2013 GNU who sold-out. There is no logical explanation why MDC failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years of the GNU. The party had the chance to redeem itself when the choice was not to contest in flawed elections. You admit in your book that you lot participated out of greed.

“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” you admitted. 

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”

You have pointedly refused to admit that you and your fellow MDC friends sold-out much less apologised and has instead continued to take full advantage of the ordinary people who have failed to figure out for themselves what is going on here.

Right now you are preparing to contest this year’s elections although you know only too well that boycotting the elections will be the “obvious” and most prudent course of action. MDC factions have formed the MDC Alliance, so what is your excuse for contesting flawed elections this time?

By failing to implement even one democratic reform in your twenty years in the opposition camp but especially during the GNU you and your MDC friends have helped “prop up the Zanu PF dictatorship”. SADC leaders would have declared the July 2013 elections null and void if MDC leaders had boycotted the elections, as you admit yourself. The country could be saved the torment of another rigged election if MDC leaders honoured their own “No reform, no election!” resolution.

As a white, you and your fellow whites had it all; a privileged upbringing, first class education, wealth accumulated from slave black labour, etc. Compared to your black MDC friends, like Morgan Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube and Tendai Biti whose education qualification is not much more than can read and write and whose lifetime of poverty made them susceptible to bribery and corruption. What was your excuse for succumbing to Mugabe’s gravy train lifestyle honey pot trap?

After nearly 100 years of black oppression and exploitation so you, as a white person, get first class everything whilst some of us had to make do with third class everything for no other reason than because we are black. The least you could do is use your first-class education to help us get out on the hell-hole Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs landed us into instead you are using it to get back on the gravy train for selfish greed. Is that the thanks we get from you for white colonial oppression?  

Senator Coltart your apology for your pre-independence wrongs has no value whatsoever when you will not admit to the post-independence wounds you have inflicted and continue to inflict. You are just like a bully who apologises for stepping on your toes yesterday and yet is crashing your toes as he speaks!