South Africa’s then president F W de Klerk and the
man who would succeed him, Nelson Mandela, were co-recipients of the 1993 Nobel
Peace Prize.
Nelson Mandela’s citation for the prize was
easily and straight forward; he was the man successive white South Africa
Apartheid regimes had haunted, harassed, abused and imprisoned for 27 long
years. He was very lucky to be still alive as hundreds of thousands of his
fellow blacks have been brutally murdered by the white regime for no other
reason than that they were black.
Mandela was a worthy recipient of the Nobel
Peace Prize because he had walked out of prison ready and willing to forgive
and forget his white tormentors for the sake of rebuilding a new South Africa.
He was not at all a bitter man itching to drive the white oppressors into the
sea!
F W de Klerk got the Noble Peace Prize for the
more subtle reason: he was the white supremacist leader who realised that
apartheid was unsustainable and, instead of soldiering on, he sort to end the
system.
Zimbabwe has had the great misfortune of having
leaders with very little or no common sense much less with qualities worthy of
Nobel Prize! The story goes that it was US Secretary of State, Dr Henry
Kissinger, who pressure South Africa to stop supporting Ian Smith and his
Rhodesia Front. It was only when Smith was told in no uncertain terms that SA
will not be supporting Rhodesia in its sanction busting activities and, more significantly,
in the country’s civil war, that Smith agreed to hold the negotiations leading
to Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
When UK’s outgoing Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ms
Catriona Laing, told the Zanu PF regime that “the playing field for the recent
elections were not level” both sides knew the full import of that statement. The
British were the last nation to hold out on condemning the elections giving the
Zanu PF regime hope it will get away with yet another rigged elections. The
British had even started negotiation with IMF, WB, Paris Club and all the other
major financial institution to enable Zimbabwe to access the much need funding
to kick start Zimbabwe’s economic recovery. By acknowledging that Zanu PF had
rigged the elections the British was telling the regime they would not be
helping the regime with the cover up and, worse still, access the much needed
financial assistance.
What the British have just done on Mnangagwa is
no different from what the South Africans did on Ian Smith in 1979. Zimbabwe’s
economic situation is bad enough already with unemployment already 90% and most
basic services such as clean running water and health all but collapse it will
only get worse without the much needed financial assistance. This is
economically, socially, politically and morally unsustainable!
Tomorrow, 2nd October 2018,
President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa will chair his government’s first cabinet
meeting post the British pulling out the plug on the regime. Will Mnangagwa have
the common sense to admit the game is up as Ian Smith did when he faced a
similar situation? Or will Mnangagwa ignore the political and economic reality
and damn the consequences and dig in, as other tyrants and dictators like Adolf
Hitler, Saddam Hussein, etc. have done?
My guess is Mnangagwa; being the ruthless,
corrupt, vote rigging and murderous tyrant he is with very little, if any at
all, common sense; will ignore the British bombshell and sail on to the bitter
end, “until death do us part!”
Mnangagwa and many of his fellow Zanu PF thugs’
position is very simple: it is either they are allowed to rule Zimbabwe or the
country will go to the dogs!”Shaisano!” (It is me or nothing!) as the Shona
would call it.
Zanu PF has ruled the country for the last 38
years already and the country is in a serious political and economic mess. The
idea that the party must still be allowed to drag the whole nation even deeper
into this hell-on-earth is an outrage. But unless the people of Zimbabwe demand
an end to this political outrage then Zanu PF will turn this country into
another Germany or Iraq as Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein respectively did.
Zanu PF rigged the July 2018 elections thus
confirming Zimbabwe is still a pariah state ruled by corrupt vote rigging
thugs. The country will not have the desperately needed economic recovery
because investors and lenders alike do not like to do business with thugs.
Zanu PF rigged the elections and is, per se,
illegitimate. The regime must step down now and allow the appointment of an
interim administration to organise the nation’s transition back to legitimacy.
Mnangagwa’s gangster mentality will be to hold
on to power to the bitter end; it is incumbent on every Zimbabwean to make sure
he is not allowed to do this! Mnangagwa will never win Nobel Prize for anything,
still it is not too much to ask him to have the common sense to finally admit
Zanu PF’s reign of terror is over.
13 comments:
"As an individual, she was an absolute disaster and sad representative of the British government. Treated the average Zimbabwean as a native, she thought Zimbabwe in 2018 was Southern Rhodesia in 1931. She was an absolute disaster. She had no right to be called an ambassador," the former Finance minister said.
"She was partisan, was a card-carrying member of an authoritarian regime. She brought British diplomacy into disrepute."
There is no doubt that the British were wrong in trying to prop up the Mnangagwa regime but before she left Ambassador Laing has put the record right by telling the junta to its face that they rigged the recent elections.
Tendai Biti has had many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF authoritarian regime and he and his MDC friends have wasted them all. It is MDC's repeated failures to end Zanu PF's rule that has forced many people including the British and ordinary Zimbabweans to consider Zanu PF as the only answer for Zimbabwe.
Indeed, was it not Tendai Biti himself who called Mugabe "a fountain of wisdom, the unflappable father of the nation, etc."
It is therefore rich that Biti should be the one leading the charge against anyone who dares share hands with Zanu PF leaders as if he alone has the exclusive right to sing and praise Zanu PF thugs!
Tendai Biti participated in the recent elections even when it was clear ZEC was not going to release a verified voters' roll. How stupid was that! He did out of greed and he is glorious happy that he now has a seat on the gravy train! He should enjoy his sell-out prize and shut his trap!
In the past few weeks, prices of basic commodities and other services have shot through the roof as the surrogate currency, bond note kept plunging deep into the abyss, amid growing calls for its decommissioning as legal tender.
Sparked by new Finance minister Mthuli Ncube three weeks ago, the debate remains inconclusive and has created uncertainties, partly driving an active parallel market trading in both foreign currency and bond notes and coins.
If the truth be said, it was Minister Mthuli Ncube who blundered by suggesting that government was going to scrap the bond notes and then changing his mind. The Minister has proven to be one of those people with an impressive CV, in terms of book knowledge and experience, but very little common sense.
The Bill provides a legal basis for the vetting of non-combatants and war collaborators so that they can receive compensation from the government for their contributions during the armed struggle, even though they were not at the war front.
War collaborators are not receiving any monthly pay-outs like war veterans, and neither did they receive the ZW$50 000 that was given to ex-combatants in 1997.
The country is broke and is under pressure to reduce the bloated civil service, army, etc. and instead someone is talking of increasing the size of the civil service! The truth is if the national economic had done well none of these people now going back to government with begging bowls will be doing so.
What Zimbabwe needs is a competent government that will take the nation out of this economic mess Zanu PF landed us in.
Defence and War Veterans deputy minister Victor Matemadanda said only after the Bill has been aligned to the Constitution can the war collaborators start receiving monthly pensions and other benefits like their counterparts.
"There are three or more categories of war veterans. The first category is for the detainees and restrictees. The second is for the combatants; the third is for the non-combatants and the fourth is for the war collaborators."
This is just voodoo economics taking us round and round in circles.
His Excellency the President has, in terms of Section 205(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) Act 2013, appointed Mr.Ndavaningi (Nick) Mangwana as Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services.
This appointment is with immediate effect. Mr Ndavaningi (Nick) Mangwana has qualifications in Corporate Governance, Accounting, Law and Health Studies.
He has lived and worked in the United Kingdom where he was a regular on the International Media representing Zimbabwe's narratives to the world.
He is also a columnist for the Herald and People's Voice and writes for the New African. He will bring vast technical competence and experience in contemporary media to the new task.
You mean "misrepresenting" Zimbabwe's narratives to the world! Well he has his work cut out now. He biggest challenge will be to misrepresent the recent elections as having been free, fair and credible to a world that already knows the elections were rigged. The world considers the regime to be illegitimate and Nick has the impossible task of misrepresenting it as a legitimate regime!
If this illegitimate regime remains in power till 2023 then we, the people of Zimbabwe, would have failed ourselves once again. If Zanu PF is still in power in 2023 then the regime will rig the election and extend its rule by another five years! After 38 years of tyrannical Zanu PF rule - this nation must put an end to this madness!
VETERAN journalist Geoffrey Nyarota last week officially launched his second book - The Graceless Fall of Robert Mugabe: The End of a Dictator's Reign - published by Penguin in August 2018.
Thank you for all your contribution in educating the people of Zimbabwe and in setting the high standards in speaking the truth no matter what!
Looking forward to reading your book!
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF thugs will never ever give up power even if that means dragging the whole nation into the deepest and hottest depths of hell! When he promised to hold free and fair elections soon after the last November's coup it was all about the rebranding of Zanu PF as the new dispensation and to give credence to the "Zimbabwe is open for business!" mantra. He had no intention of keeping the promise, none.
Mnangagwa dismissed those calling for the junta to implement the democratic reforms, the pre-requisite for free, fair and credible elections, as barking dogs. "Zanu PF ichatonga! Igotonga! Imi muchingohukura! Nokuhukura!" (Zanu PF will rule! And rule! Whilst you (calling for reforms) bark! And bark!) he boasted.
Zanu PF was not going to risk losing power by holding free and fair elections. The best the regime was prepared to do was take off its foot off the wanton violence pedal as long as it could. The protestors on the 1st August pushed their lucky and the regime responded with renewed savagery just to send a clear message that the regime would never hesitate to use violence to retain power. It worked; the nation has been cowed into total submission.
Yes, the British were the last major nation that had actively campaigned to help Zanu PF get away with yet another rigged elections. Now that the British too have acknowledge that Zanu PF rigged the elections, Zimbabwe's status as a pariah state is confirmed and there will be no meaningful financial assistance to the country. But rather than give up power and allow the nation to implement the reforms, Mnangagwa et al will dig in. The regime will hang on to power to the bitter end. We are in for a rough ride!
It is time for all men and women of good will to stand up and demand that Zanu PF steps down now. If the doves fail to force the regime then the hawks will take over and all hell will break loose! The choice is between peace change or violent change but tyrants like Mnangagwa do not have the common sense to know that. He thinks he can hold back the tide and stop change.
Smith accepted peaceful change and save the nation from further and unnecessary suffering and deaths. Mnangagwa does not have the common sense to see the game is up!
"He has lived in the UK, where he was a regular on the international media representing Zimbabwe's narrative to the world," Sibanda said.
When the history of the country is finally written and the truth is told, Nick Mangwana will go down in history as just another Zanu PF apologist who misrepresented the country by defending the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime. His appointment is the regime's acknowledgement of his contribution to propping up the Zanu PF dictatorship.
Nick will be counted together with other Zanu PF apologists like Professor Jonathan Moyo as one of those Zimbabweans who would sell their own mother for a price and be proud they had a mother to sell. Zimbabwe's worst curse is that we have a whole brigade of such Judas Iscariot sell-outs!
Judas met his just deserve by hanging himself, Jonathan Moyo is now hiding in some fox-hole in Kenya; regime change will decide the fate of the likes of Nick!
A 6.3% economic growth rate in a country with 90% unemployment rate is nothing! The nation had expected a lot from Minister Mthuli Ncube but now it is clear he does not even have common sense!
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor John Mangudya, in a monetary policy statement presented yesterday, directed banks to create nostro accounts for foreign currency transactions (nostro FCAs), which will run separately from existing bank accounts, now limited to RTGS (real time gross settlement) transactions and bond notes only.
RBZ announced the currency measures, purportedly to strengthen the multi-currency regime, currently in circulation, under a broader framework of 13 measures introduced to stabilise prices; boost the amount of foreign currency in circulation and support the productive sectors of the economy.
This is just crisis management!
A significant amount of the foreign currency inflow is remittance from the diaspora, the recipients are not going to be classified as "productive sector" and will lose their foreign currency. Their relatives will have to think of sending goods instead of forex!
The regime has not solved the country's forex shortage problem; this is like squeezing the balloon one place only to see it bulge somewhere else!
Does Zimbabwe put a premium on human rights and democracy, a model championed by the West or adopt the Chinese model, which places more emphasis on political stability and economic growth?
Our sister paper, The Zimbabwe Independent, last Friday reported that President Emmerson Mnangagwa is eager to adopt Kagame's economic development model, which blends authoritarian practices and home-grown solutions with international best practices from developmental states.
In the experience of another authoritarian state, Singapore, under its founder Lee Kuan Yew, the city state moved from the backwaters of development to a first world nation in the space of a generation.
These examples are critical for Zimbabwe because, after being an aide to Mugabe for most of his life, Mnangagwa is trying to practise a brand of democracy that is alien to his more authoritarian DNA, so a system that blends control and success would appeal to him.
The country clearly needs discipline and direction, and but Mnangagwa also needs conviction of his own policies, of the direction which he intends to take the country and buy-in from Zimbabweans.
Zimbabwe needs strong economic and political leadership to start delivering economic growth a country of its endowments should be having and ensure stability.
The country needs to decide if human rights, particularly the right to vote whichever way, do not matter if the trade-off is sustained economic growth with food, shelter, health, and good sanitation.
A memorable quote for ED from LKY: "A nation is great not by its size alone. It is the will, the cohesion, the stamina, the discipline of its people, and the quality of their leaders which ensure it an honourable place in history."
You are right, Mnangagwa is an authoritarian with democracy is alien to him and he has only paid lip service to democratic values, as the rigged recent elections already showed. If Mnangagwa is hoping to replicate President Paul Kangame's success in Rwanda and become the next benevolent dictator he has already missed the boat!
When Kangame took over power he did not have the baggage of having been a corrupt and murderous tyrant that weighed Mnangagwa down from his Mugabe years. When Mnangagwa promised to hold free and fair elections the world held its breath to see if he would do it and thus prove he had indeed broken away from authoritarian past. He rigged the elections and thus proved that nothing had changed.
Kangame had the good will of the international community and by putting the aid to good use he got even more aid. Mnangagwa will have no such aid, donors, investors and lenders are sick to their back teeth of Zimbabwe's corrupt and wasteful thugs!
Those who think Zimbabwe can ever follow in the footsteps of Rwanda and be an economically prosperous dictatorship are naïve. Zimbabwe's dictatorship is corrupt and incompetent, set and well established, Mnangagwa has been spending millions of dollars already in buying loyalty to consolidate his hold on power. He does not have the vision nor the political strength to dismantle the dictatorship enough to deliver on the economic front!
By becoming a dictator, Kagame has put Rwanda's long term political stability and economic prosperity on the line. Whoever comes after him would want the same dictatorial powers and will not, necessarily, have the same focus Kagame had! Even China's political stability and economic prosperity are not a given, President Xi has already secured for himself more then ten years in power and will hang on to power even if China's economy was backsliding back into the chaos of Mao's days!
Mnangagwa’s son buys a car worth $3 million!
No wonder these guys rig elections, they has tasted absolute power and know all the wealth and influence that it brings; giving that all up is unthinkable!
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