President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his regime are feeling the heat as more and more voices have condemned last month’s Police and Army brutality and barbarism against the rioters and innocent Zimbabweans. The regime is scrambling to defending the indefensible.
"Those acts of banditry and hooliganism will not be tolerated and the government is going to use all in its power to make sure that it does not happen again. We are a peace loving country and we should not allow ourselves to be used for selfish agendas," said VP Kembo Mohadi.
"All these international and private media are not talking about the destruction caused by these hooligans, the massive looting, the burning of vehicles and government infrastructure like tollgates, over running of police stations and the eventual death of one of the policemen on duty. But they just want o concentrate on that the security forces were heavy handed in dealing with the protesters, that is not right.”
Of course, the security forces were heavy handed and for selfish political gain - Zanu PF used the riots as cover to silence its political opponents and beat the nation into submission.
VP Mohadi, the nation is pleased to hear your condemn “acts of banditry and hooliganism”. But are you, sir, being up front and honest with the people or are you taking them for fools?
Whilst no one would dispute the need for the Police and Army to act to stop rioting and looting still the brutality and barbarism of the security personnel was more than was required to quell the rioting and looting. Zanu PF has a reputation of using minor incidence to settle selfish political scores.
In the 1980s Zanu PF used a proverbial sledge-hammer to kill a fly in the Gukurahundi massacre. There were a few hundred dissidents at most and yet the state security personal ended up killing over 20 000 innocent civilians.
There is no doubt that Zanu PF was not after just ending “banditry and hooliganism” then but after destroying its main political opponent then, PF Zapu, to clear the way for the imposition of the de facto one-party dictatorship we have to this day.
It is never too late to carryout a thorough investigation into what really happened during the Gukurahundi “moment of madness” as Robert Mugabe once admitted. These moments of madness have happened again and again. Each time Zanu PF felt its iron grip on power threatened, the sledge-hammer has come out.
The nation made a serious mistake in allowing Zanu PF to sweep the Gukurahundi and all the other “moments of madness” that followed under the carpet. The regime has thus far believed it can do as it pleases and will get away with it; a dangerous precedence. We must now put this right.
We must carry out a thorough investigation into the barbarism and shooting dead of civilians the security forces in 15 to 25 January 2019, the shooting dead civilians on 1st August 2018, the Gukurahundi massacre, etc., etc. The investigations must establish who issued the “Shoot to kill!” orders and what was their motive. This is high treason and those responsible must be held to account.
One Police Officer was killed during the rioting in January 2019 and it was one too many. Still, this did not justify the security services shooting dead of 12 civilians, beating and raping hundreds of thousands and the arresting of over a thousand civilians. It is the Police and Soldiers who were behaving like bandits and hooligans and we must find out who gave them the order to run-riot and why!
The January stay-away was triggered by the country’s worsening economic meltdown; Zanu PF rigged last July’s elections but has clearly failed to rig economic recovery. So the country is set to sink deeper and deeper into the economic turmoil it is just a matter of time before the people are compelled to once again protest the economic hardship. It is totally unacceptable that Zanu PF should be allowed to beat, rape, arrest and even shoot people to silence them.
People must be allowed to voice they concerns and not be forced to suffer and die in silence like sheep in a slaughter house. Zanu PF must not be allowed to use brutal force to silence innocent protesters under cover they are bandits and hooligans.
3 comments:
If Mnangagwa insist he is legitimate and last July's elections were free, fair and credible then he is either a liar or he does not know what constitute free, fair and credible elections. He should know what constitutes free and fair elections because we have gone through this thousands of times.
Let us just focus on the universally accepted standards as stated in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 21.
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Last July’s elections violated subsection (1) above in that 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote (this should be compared with the 2.4 million Mnangagwa claims voted for him).
During his UN GA visit last September, Mnangagwa assured everyone Zimbabweans in the diaspora will vote next time, proof it could have been done already if the regime had wanted.
How could last elections be genuine elections when ZEC failed to release a verified voters roll, failed to make public all V11 forms with the summary of votes cast for each candidate although these are legal requirements.
The EU Election Observers said the ZEC results contained numerous errors, could not be traced and verified. “As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards,” stated the EU report.
All these flaws and illegalities worked in favour of the incumbent Zanu PF party at the expense of the ordinary Zimbabweans who were effectively denied a meaningful say in the governance of the country. The democratic free will of the people was subverted and therefore this Mnangagwa regime does not have the mandate to govern.
Mnangagwa is no more than a thief who insisting the stolen item belong to him even in the face the mountain of evidence proving the break-in, the rightful own producing proof of purchase, etc., etc.
Either Mnangagwa is exceptional stupid, so stupid he cannot see the elections were rigged or he is just a tyrant ignoring the rules for his own selfish gain, to stay in power at all cost. Either way he is not fit to remain in office one more day!
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta are holding the nation to ransom, they are the bandits and hooligans masquerading as the legitimate government. They must be forced to step down and that is not negotiable!
MM ‘Big men' politics as practiced by Zanu-PF's President Mnangagwa and the ANC's President Cyril Ramaphosa elevates the rule of man over the rule of law.
This ‘big men' politics is practiced under the guise of the principle of respect for non-intervention in sovereign states.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights prioritises the protection of human rights in international law over the principle of non-interventionism.
The South African government and international community have a moral and legal responsibility to protect the rights of the people of Zimbabwe over the big men who continue to trample on those rights.
OM: Zanu-PF and the government say you are doing the bidding of imperialists by intervening in Zimbabwe. What is your reaction to that?
MM: These are the words of almost all liberation movements turned dictators in Africa.
The Zanu-PF-ANC governments' coalition of oppression is no different. It is the story across Africa.
Liberation movements elected into government turn against the very people they claim to fight for.
Africa needs to liberate itself from its liberators. This is not about petulant politics — it is about the livelihoods of people.
One cannot help but to be impressed. If Africa had a few more leaders like Mmusi Maimane then the continent will have a fighting chance of pulling itself by its boot laces out of the stone-age where it has been stuck for millenniums.
Mmusi is right to criticise the “big men” mentality and “the rule of man over rule of law”, as he has rightly called it, that it has espoused. By failing to take Nelson Chamisa and his MDC Alliance friends to task for their blatant betrayal of the people of Zimbabwe by failing to get even one democratic reform implemented during the 2008 GNU; is Mmusi himself not guilty of the very thing he is criticising President Cyril Ramaphosa of. Is he not condemning the blind loyalty of liberation movement old boys network and yet he is just as blindly loyal to the new network of post independent parties.
Typical of Africa, we take one step forward and two steps backward and we think that is progress!
@ Standard
There is a very real danger that Zimbabwe may be plunged into serious social and political unrest unless the leaders of this country stop acting innocent victims of non-existant political plots and instead admit their failures.
Editorial Comment
The writing — bold and screaming — is there on the wall that President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF government have failed to run this economy and that the consequences are hurting the country.
You have hit the nail on the head again and again and I would have given you 100% was it not for the very first thing you said.
“There is a very real danger that Zimbabwe may be plunged into serious social and political unrest unless the leaders of this country stop acting innocent victims of non-existant political plots and instead admit their failures,” you said.
It is not a question of “may be plunged into serious social and political unrest”; we have been plunged already. Unemployment has soared to 90%, 3/4 of the population now lives on US$1.00 or less a day in a country whole poverty datum line is US$650 per month per person, basic services such as supply of clean water and health care have all but collapsed, we have a regime that now believes to retain power it must use brute force to beat the populous into submission, etc.
You will never get this Zanu PF regime to admit it has failed much less relinquish power. It is not in the DNA of tyrants to accept they have failed or to give up power. It is shocking that anyone out there was surprised that Mnangagwa rigged last July’s elections.
Mnangagwa, Chiwenga and the rest of the November 2017 coup plotters had risked life and limb to wrestle power from Mugabe; they were not going to risk losing it 8 months later in a free, fair and credible elections, especially when they knew that they would be risking the lives all over again if they lost the elections.
If Zimbabweans are serious about end this corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship that has dragged the nation into this hell-on-earth then they must demand that Zanu PF steps down and mean it! Those who expect Zanu PF to change are naive and are wasting everyone’s time!
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