Three years ago at 04.00 hours local time on 15th November 2017 Zimbabwe Defence Force (ZDF) spokesman, Major General Sibusiso Moyo, addressed the nation and the world at large, live on Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Television.
"Fellow Zimbabweans, following the address we made on 13 November 2017 which we believe our main broadcaster, ZBC and The Herald, were directed not to publicise, the situation in our country has moved to another level," he announced.
"Firstly, we wish to assure the nation that His Excellency, The President, of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Cde R.G Mugabe and his family are safe and sound and their security is guaranteed. We are only targeting criminals around him who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice. As soon as we have accomplished our mission we expect that the situation will return to normalcy.
"To both our people and the world beyond our borders: We wish to make it abundantly clear that this is not a military takeover of Government. What the Zimbabwe Defence Forces is doing is to pacify a degenerating political, social and economic situation in our country which if not addressed may result in violent conflict.”
Fast forward to today, three years latter, it is common cause to say the “degenerating political, social and economic situation” has continued and the threat of social unrest or worse is as real now as it was in 2017. A situation that has not gone unnoticed by some of those like former ministers Professor Jonathan Moyo, Saviour Kasukuwere, etc. G40 leaders, the targeted “criminal around Mugabe who are committing crimes”. The G40 leaders are answering back with growing confidence.
“Either we organise or we agonise. If we continue looking at the situation as it is and expect that on its own, it will resolve itself, I think that won’t just happen like that,” argued Kasukuwere in a public discussion dubbed “Operation Restore Legacy, Unpacking the Democratic Transition in Zimbabwe”.
“The situation we find ourselves in as Zimbabwe is not the first time in the world over or in Africa.
“You recall we had such a situation in Nigeria. There was serious persecution of journalists, politicians and this all has to do with the role of the military at any given point when they take on the political platform and basically try to start directing the political affairs of any given country.
“In our situation, in Zimbabwe, we appear like we are in a political cul-de-sac. There is no defined pathway on how to proceed… Let’s take up the battle straight to the administration each and every day they must start to understand that the pain in our society is now unattainable.
“I believe the collective aspiration of the people of Zimbabwe will be much greater a force than any other thing that we have. Whether there are guns, whether they arrest us.
What is lacking in my view is a concerted push to change our situation.”
Three years ago the people of Zimbabwe came out in strong support of the military coup and poured in the streets in their thousands to demonstrate their support. After 37 years of Mugabe rule they wanted “to give Mnangagwa a chance”.
Now, three years latter, the talk is “Mugabe was better than Mnangagwa”! Kasukuwere and company are growing confident of staging a political comeback in the coming elections in 2023.
The truth is the November 2017 military coup was nothing but a musical chairs, Mugabe and a few around him were eliminated but those who remained were just as corrupt, incompetent, tyrannical, etc. All talk of “Second Republic and New Dispensation” was just a marketing gimmick to give the impression Zimbabwe had changed when in reality nothing of substance had changed.
Kasukuwere et al have targeted the military as the root cause of the rot in Zimbabwe just as the November 2017 coup had targeted his and his colleagues, most of whom are now in exile. This is just nonsense because the military has always played a major role in Zimbabwe politics. We have all heard of the Joint Operation Command, a junta, comprising the top brass in the Police, CIO, Army and Prison Services plus a few select individuals from the party head by Mugabe with Mnangagwa as his deputy.
The Police and CIO’s top brass belonged to the Mugabe and G40 faction whilst the Army belonged to the Mnangagwa and Lacoste faction. Former Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuru played no part in the coup and in being hounded because he was in “the wrong basket”, as Mugabe would put it.
Mnangagwa offered musical chairs Zanu PF, Kasukuwere et al are offering revolved door Zanu PF. Those who are now supporting Kasukuwere are as naive and gullible as those who supported Mnangagwa three years go. There is no difference between Mnangagwa and Kasukuwere in so far as that both are corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and power hungry thugs. There is no difference between a viper and a cobra in being deadly snakes especially to a mouse; to these Zanu PF thugs we are mice!
5 comments:
Emmerson Mnangagwa was Mugabe’s henchman for more than 40 years, ever since the war of liberation. If Mugabe had some really dirty work to do, his most trusted hitman to do it for him was Dambudzo Mnangagwa. Second only to Mugabe himself, Mnangagwa is responsible for the Gukurahundi massacre and played a role in many more of the over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans murdered in cold blood since our independence in 1980.
Mugabe wanted to admit the electoral defeat in the 2008 elections, the land mark elections to be remember for the blatant cheating in the March vote counting and the wanton violence in the run-off. It was Mnangagwa, by his own admission, he told Mugabe he could not accept defeat. And what Mnangagwa who orchestrated the cheating and the wanton violence.
The November 2017 military coup was an internal dog-eat-dog fight within Zanu PF. This is a party is corrupt, incompetent and ruthless thugs whose insatiable greed for power and wealth knew no bounds and like all such groups was doom to implode as members turned on each other fighting for scraps of a fast collapsing economy.
Yes every thinking man, woman and child welcomed the coup for no other reason other than as a contributory act to the weakening and final demise of Zanu PF. All those who trust Mnangagwa and thought he deserve “a chance” went too far. It was as nauseating as one eating their own vomit.
There are some who are warming up to the return of Kasukuwere, Professor Jonathan Moyo and their G40 friends either directly or indirectly as MDC leaders. These people have learned nothing from the folly of giving Mnangagwa another chance. This is as nauseating as eating cholera contaminated vomit!
Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because for the last 40 years the people have taken leave of their senses; we have done one foolish thing after another, blundering from pillar to post. Until we snap out of our sloth-like mental slumber the country is not getting out of the mess Zanu PF has landed us in.
@ Luke Tamborinyoka
Every thinking Zimbabwean out there is sick to the back teeth of your wittering.
“Today, as we suffer the ignominy of ED’s cluelessness and the plumbing depths of his incompetence and performance and electoral illegitimacy —– remember I had warned you beforehand,” you say.
This is not wiser with hindsight but lying with hindsight!
You are right the July 2018 elections were flawed and full of illegalities; ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, for Pete’s sake; and so it is no surprise we have an illegitimate regime.
The point is your MDC A leader, Nelson Chamisa, you and the rest of the party KNEW, with no reforms in place, Zanu PF was going to rig the elections. And yet you still participated, because you were after the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away as bait. You contested one of the rural constituency parliamentary seats and lost.
By participating in the flawed elections MDC A and the other opposition candidates gave credibility to the process and, by extension, legitimacy to the result. You lot all knew about this because you had been warned countless times. It is therefore insulting for you to be blubbering about “electoral illegitimacy” when it was your greed that gave Zanu PF legitimacy.
Zanu PF has not implemented even one reform since July 2018 or is it likely to do so before the 2023 elections because everyone in Zanu PF knows MDC A will participate in the 2023 elections regardless of the certainty Zanu PF will rig those elections.
The fight for free, fair and credible elections in Zimbabwe is now even harder than ever because we have not only Zanu PF thugs to deal with but MDC A sell-outs too. Ever since the 2008 GNU, MDC leaders have been running with the povo hare during the day whilst hunting with the Zanu PF hounds by night!
The beast you are “luke -ing in the eye”! is none other than yourself. Look in the mirror!
What we need is to implement the reforms so that we can have free, fair and credible elections and that will never happen now that Zanu PF has the opposition in its deep pockets. MDC leaders showed that they will forget about the reforms if offered the right inducements and ever since the 2008 to 2013 GNU Zanu PF has bribed the MDC leaders to participate in flawed elections.
Chamisa and company is just paying lip service to "demanding comprehensive reforms"; come 2023 he and his merry men and women will participate in the elections even without something as basic as verified voters' roll!
MDC A will once again come up with "stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections" and with strategies to "Win In Rigged Elections (WIRE)". MDC A will go into the elections certain to win and do not have to worry about some "stupid idiots mouthing the odds"!
The reality is that Zanu PF will never lose an elections in which they have carte blanche powers to cheat and, if necessary, use brute force to secure victory. Chamisa and company know that and their "stringent measures and WIRE strategies are just empty rhetoric for those naive and gullible enough not to know their left hand from their right!
How many times have we seen liberators like Museveni and Mnangagwa become the nation's oppressors! We must come up with a formula to end this curse of yesterday's liberator becoming today's oppressor and, in time, today's liberators becoming tomorrow's oppressor!
It is easy to see why many Zimbabweans rallied behind the 2017 coup plotters and wanted to give Mnangagwa "a chance" to fix the economy. They understanding of what Mnangagwa had done for the last 37 years in power was very superficial, at best, and when one makes decision based on ignorance they are bound to make a mistake. And so true to they nature of making decision based on ignorance the same people are now want Kasukuwere back in power. They have convinced themselves that Mugabe days "were better than Mnangagwa days!"
One can forgive Zimbabweans for supporting Zanu PF in the 1980s, they did not know much about these Zanu PF thugs. But after a decade of corrupt and murderous tyrannical rule, with the horrors of the Gukurahundi massacre still fresh in everyone's mind; they people should have rejected Zanu PF there and then. They did not.
The people should have been more shrewd and circumspect in whom they elected leaders given the nightmare of the Zanu PF dictatorship. They dived in head first, risking life and limb, to elect Morgan Tsvangirai and his banded mongoose to implement the democratic reforms and end the Zanu PF dictatorship. After 20 years, 5 of which in the 2008 to 2013 GNU, the banded mongoose have failed to implement even one reform.
Of course, MDC leaders sold-out big time in failing to implement even one meaningful reform during the GNU when they had the golden opportunity to do so. The people of Zimbabwe should have learned their lesson and deserted MDC in droves. They did not, MDC still continue to enjoy a significant public following.
As a rule of thumb, nations get the government they deserve. We in Zimbabwe certainly deserve this corrupt and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship complete with coterie of corrupt and utterly useless opposition parties. And until we, the people, snap out of our sloth-like mental slumber and pay attention to detail, we will continue to have bad governance and suffer the consequences.
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