This is a reply to Skint War Vet's comment on the last blog which also apeared in the Zimbabwe Times.
Skint, you say you will ask one question and then go on to ask several questions and make some remarks besides. Still I will answer them to the best of my ability.
Question: What else should Biti and Tsvangirai or MDC in general, have done that could have removed Mugabe from power?
Answer: You have to understand that after the sham 27 June 2008, Mugabe had politically “hanged” himself – no one was prepared to accept him as the legitimate president of Zimbabwe after such a violent and murderous campaign. Mugabe was finished! No one with any sense would trust such a brute to hold any position of power and authority – that, sadly, did not include Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai cut down the dictator and reinstated him – a stupid mistake, particularly since the brute has continued to keep Tsvangirai and the nation at large in the teeth as soon he caught his breath! Still, it is water under the bridge; what can we do NOW to remove Mugabe?
Tsvangirai insists the GNU is working and the next minute he is complaining about Mugabe’s arrogance and intransigence. Well there is an example of some one who can not make up his mind. He keeps talking about the GNU being “the only game in town”. Again another stupid move, telling Mugabe that has made the dictator even more arrogant! If the GNU is NOT working – and it is not – then we must have the courage to face that reality and explore other options.
The next best option is for MDC to walkout of the GNU. Then there will have to be fresh elections. Yes Mugabe will probably have to resort to the same violent and murderous tactic to win. (There is no guarantee that at the end of the GNU when fresh elections will be necessary, Mugabe will not use violence. So staying the present course out of fear of fresh election violence is only saving to post pone and not eliminate the threat. Indeed, I would even argue that delaying elections is helping Mugabe to reorganise and find better ways of hiding his murderous activities.)
Another sham election would put Mugabe back where he was after the 27 June 2008 election – bungling at the end of the hangman’s rope. Hopeful Tsvangirai will not step in and cut the rope – but I would not count on it!
Q: Why haven’t you formed your own party so that you can remove Mugabe or even MDC from government?
A: So you think only the politicians have the exclusive right to comment on how Zimbabwe should be governed? A logical extension of that is that those who risked their lives in the liberation of the country; have the divine right to rule. For that is exactly what people like Mugabe think; indeed that is exactly what the brute was saying to justify his violent and murderous campaign last year. With shallow minded people like in power; little wander we are in this mess!
I am a Zimbabwean citizen and it is my divine right and duty to comment on public matters regardless of whether I am a member of a political party or not. And every Zimbabwean out there has the same right. I know this right like many other rights and freedoms have been denied us but that does not change a thing. There are still our basic and fundamental rights and I, for one, will exercise these rights whenever I can.
Comment: You seem to be obsessed with seeing innocent blood being spilled. In a democracy you do not get into power through violence but through the ballot box. Zanu PF will never rule forever. That is why there are elections every five years. One day those elections shall be free and fair.
Reply: You are clearly confusing MDC’s mix of appeasement and down right blundering with being none-violent. The two are worlds apart. MDC should by all accounts have ended Mugabe’s rule in 2000 or 2002, they failed because they are politically incompetent. Last year the again failed and now they are appeasing Mugabe. And you think they did that to save innocent blood being spilt – how naïve!
Skint and many others like you, really need to snap out of this old mentality in which any political leader who is appointed to district chairman position or above is automatically placed on a pedestal to be worshiped. Do that and, naturally, these individuals start behaving as if they are indeed infallible and they are cut above the rest of us. We went through that with Mugabe and the nation has paid dearly for it. But at least some of us learnt something from that; I will be damned if I will let myself go through that again!
Tendai Biti’s remark was stupid and completely off the mark. I want Mugabe removed because he is a ruthless dictator not because he is old. Youth is not a virtue, just as old age is not a curse or some contagious disease; youth, old age and death are as certain as morning, afternoon and night, it is the way all us mortals go.
Friday, 14 August 2009
Thursday, 13 August 2009
BITI SAYS MUGABE TOO OLD RULE AND SHOULD HAND OVER TO TSVANGIRAI - IS THE LATER SMART ENOUGH?
MDC Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, says Mugabe is too old to lead the nation. Mugabe and Zanu PF have made some monumental blunders in both in the running of the national economy and on the political front. MDC has failed to take advantage of these blunders and that is why the nation is stuck with Mugabe.
How many opposition parties in the world will fail to unseat the incumbent with a 95% unemployment record, inflation seating at 500 billion %, etc.
When Mugabe unleashed his thugs to beat, terrorise and murder people to “win” the presidential elections last year; the idiot even boosted that “only God” and not the electorate would him out of office; he had political sacrilege! No one would endorse such an outrage as a free and fair election. Not even the AU Election monitors, who had blindly endorsed rigged elections in Zimbabwe and in other countries in the past, would do so then. The threats, the violence and the murders were just too many and blatant to ignore. The whole international community simply refused to accept Mugabe as the “dually elected” president of Zimbabwe.
The sham 27 June 2008 had Mugabe of the hook!
Guess who helped off the hook? Morgan Tsvangirai! When Morgan Tsvangirai signed the GPA, he got Mugabe off the hook.
The very same Morgan Tsvangirai, Save, Biti thinks, Mugabe should hand power over to because “vachiri kutemwa dzinobuda ropa” -is still full of life and bountiful energy.” I do not know about being full of life etc. and, frankly do not care; what Zimbabweans want to know is whether he is a “full shilling”.
Mugabe is a brutal dictator and that is the reason why Zimbabweans want him to go – not because he is old. But, damn it, we do not want to replace a dictator with an idiot!
How many opposition parties in the world will fail to unseat the incumbent with a 95% unemployment record, inflation seating at 500 billion %, etc.
When Mugabe unleashed his thugs to beat, terrorise and murder people to “win” the presidential elections last year; the idiot even boosted that “only God” and not the electorate would him out of office; he had political sacrilege! No one would endorse such an outrage as a free and fair election. Not even the AU Election monitors, who had blindly endorsed rigged elections in Zimbabwe and in other countries in the past, would do so then. The threats, the violence and the murders were just too many and blatant to ignore. The whole international community simply refused to accept Mugabe as the “dually elected” president of Zimbabwe.
The sham 27 June 2008 had Mugabe of the hook!
Guess who helped off the hook? Morgan Tsvangirai! When Morgan Tsvangirai signed the GPA, he got Mugabe off the hook.
The very same Morgan Tsvangirai, Save, Biti thinks, Mugabe should hand power over to because “vachiri kutemwa dzinobuda ropa” -is still full of life and bountiful energy.” I do not know about being full of life etc. and, frankly do not care; what Zimbabweans want to know is whether he is a “full shilling”.
Mugabe is a brutal dictator and that is the reason why Zimbabweans want him to go – not because he is old. But, damn it, we do not want to replace a dictator with an idiot!
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
MUGABE IS IN A HUFF: HE EXPECTED A RICH DOWRY FROM THE WEST FOR MARRYING TSVANGIRAI!
In his funeral speech of Vice President Joseph Msika, Mugabe lashes at the West for trying to “divide” the nation and re-colonise Zimbabwe.
"Shiri yoga yoga inemaririro ayo!" so goes the Shona saying. Every bird species has its own call. Every time Mugabe opens his gab at Heroes’ Acre or some such occasion, he has denounced the West, especially the British. He did just that at Msika’s burial on Monday; nothing has changed.
The people believed all this anti-West rhetoric at first but over the years it has started to sound empty, shallow and devoid of truth. In the last few years most people have seen the rhetoric for the nonsense it is. Even the ardent Mugabe supporters have stopped repeating, parrot style, the total nonsense Mugabe has been saying.
For example, for years Mugabe has blamed Zimbabwe’s economic melt down on the “illegal sanctions” the West imposed on him and his cronies. And yet when MDC ended the price controls, scrapped the Z$ and thus shut down Gono’s money printing crazy that was fuelling the hyper inflation, and implement a few other common sense economic reforms the national economy was totally transformed. Within weeks the empty shops filled with food and other goods, the run away inflation was reined in. The targeted sanctions are still in place and thus proving it was the stupid Zanu PF policies not the sanctions that were causing the shortages, inflation, etc.
However, after three decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption, scrapping the misguided economic policies was not enough to get the Zimbabwe economy back on track. The country needs US$ 8 to 10 billion according to the GNU to do that. Zimbabwe is broke and does not have that kind of money; none does any of its African and Mugabe’s “look East” friends. So in June Mugabe sent Tsvangirai to the dreaded West, begging for financial aid. The West sent Tsvangirai back home with not a penny in his begging bowl!
Whilst in the West; Tsvangirai had done his best selling the GNU as a fresh and democratic beginning for Zimbabwe. The reality on the ground told a different story; a story of a lawlessness and Mugabe flexing his tyrannical muscles. The West told Tsvangirai they will not bankroll Mugabe’s dictatorship and until there is real democratic change in Zimbabwe they will not give the country any financial aid.
Mugabe was lucky to have a feeble leader like Morgan Tsvangirai as his political opponent; he has bullied and out witted Tsvangirai into accepting whatever he, Mugabe, wanted. Tsvangirai should really be back in his rural home herding goats –no disrespect intended – because he does not have the foggiest idea of what he is doing and is quite contend to be Mugabe’s acolyte and errant-boy. And, unfortunately it is the ordinary Zimbabweans who have paid dearly for Tsvangirai’s many political blunders.
The thing is, Mugabe really believed he could hoodwink the West as easily as he did Tsvangirai. The West was not fooled; they could see the GNU just a Mugabe dictatorship by another name!
Getting food and other goods in the shops, end the run away inflation, etc. was the ease bit. Getting the economy back on track and creating jobs for the 90% unemployed is the difficult part; and without financial assistance, it is near impossible! Mugabe knows that.
"Our detractors,” Mugabe vented his anger at the West for sending back Tsvangirai empty handed, “the same old detractors continue with their sinister efforts to divide us."
The only thing that is clearly “sinister” here is a leader who signs a power sharing agreement, with no intention of honouring it, to con others into bankrolling his selfish political agenda – to remain in power at all cost. The West is under no legal or moral obligation to give Zimbabwe a single penny, even if GNU was indeed “working and is irreversible” as Tsvangirai claims. As things are, the West has a moral duty to the ordinary Zimbabweans not to prop up a dictatorship that has brought so much suffering and misery to them.
Mugabe has always treated Tsvangirai with disgust and contempt and only agreed to GNU because he believed the West will give Tsvangirai lots and lots of money! After six months of patiently waiting, Mugabe has now realised there will NO Indian style dowry for his bride, “chamatama” – big cheeks – Tsvangirai, as Mugabe called Tsvangirai. Mugabe set out to con the West and ended up being conned himself; a conman; conned! No wander Mugabe is in a huff!
So will Mugabe consummate the political marriage, finally after six months of dilly dallying, or will he kick chamatama out? Frankly, the people of Zimbabwe would be better off if the later happened because then they will have another chance to vote Mugabe out of power. This Mugabe dominated GNU will never deliver the economic recovery the people are after and therefore demise of the regime can not happen soon enough!
Mugabe will step up the empty anti-Western rhetoric with renewed vigour and rapture born out of one desperate to be heard but know they are being totally ignored; the haunting cry of an owl in the dead on night. When Mugabe sent Tsvangirai to the West, the very people he has despised all these years with such venom and passion, it was the ultimate in “eating humble pie”. When the West send Tsvangirai back empty handed it was a kick in the teeth for Mugabe!
Pride comes before the fall. Zimbabwe’s economic collapse and political descent into lawless thuggery under Mugabe’s leadership has been spectacular- the full story is yet to be told. The scene was set for Mugabe’s own fall from a respected national liberation hero and great statesman to a ruthless and heartless despot whose own people hated and despised him in equal measure.
Mugabe has so much of his past he does not want known and he can only be sure it remains hidden if he stays in power. On the other hand he also knows the human suffering and misery his failed rule has caused will continue as long as he remains in office. The pressure for him to go will only get worse with each passing day. There is a man who must feel well and truly corned and unwanted; so much so he must wish he dropped dead only that it seems for once even undiscerning death too does not want him!
"Shiri yoga yoga inemaririro ayo!" so goes the Shona saying. Every bird species has its own call. Every time Mugabe opens his gab at Heroes’ Acre or some such occasion, he has denounced the West, especially the British. He did just that at Msika’s burial on Monday; nothing has changed.
The people believed all this anti-West rhetoric at first but over the years it has started to sound empty, shallow and devoid of truth. In the last few years most people have seen the rhetoric for the nonsense it is. Even the ardent Mugabe supporters have stopped repeating, parrot style, the total nonsense Mugabe has been saying.
For example, for years Mugabe has blamed Zimbabwe’s economic melt down on the “illegal sanctions” the West imposed on him and his cronies. And yet when MDC ended the price controls, scrapped the Z$ and thus shut down Gono’s money printing crazy that was fuelling the hyper inflation, and implement a few other common sense economic reforms the national economy was totally transformed. Within weeks the empty shops filled with food and other goods, the run away inflation was reined in. The targeted sanctions are still in place and thus proving it was the stupid Zanu PF policies not the sanctions that were causing the shortages, inflation, etc.
However, after three decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption, scrapping the misguided economic policies was not enough to get the Zimbabwe economy back on track. The country needs US$ 8 to 10 billion according to the GNU to do that. Zimbabwe is broke and does not have that kind of money; none does any of its African and Mugabe’s “look East” friends. So in June Mugabe sent Tsvangirai to the dreaded West, begging for financial aid. The West sent Tsvangirai back home with not a penny in his begging bowl!
Whilst in the West; Tsvangirai had done his best selling the GNU as a fresh and democratic beginning for Zimbabwe. The reality on the ground told a different story; a story of a lawlessness and Mugabe flexing his tyrannical muscles. The West told Tsvangirai they will not bankroll Mugabe’s dictatorship and until there is real democratic change in Zimbabwe they will not give the country any financial aid.
Mugabe was lucky to have a feeble leader like Morgan Tsvangirai as his political opponent; he has bullied and out witted Tsvangirai into accepting whatever he, Mugabe, wanted. Tsvangirai should really be back in his rural home herding goats –no disrespect intended – because he does not have the foggiest idea of what he is doing and is quite contend to be Mugabe’s acolyte and errant-boy. And, unfortunately it is the ordinary Zimbabweans who have paid dearly for Tsvangirai’s many political blunders.
The thing is, Mugabe really believed he could hoodwink the West as easily as he did Tsvangirai. The West was not fooled; they could see the GNU just a Mugabe dictatorship by another name!
Getting food and other goods in the shops, end the run away inflation, etc. was the ease bit. Getting the economy back on track and creating jobs for the 90% unemployed is the difficult part; and without financial assistance, it is near impossible! Mugabe knows that.
"Our detractors,” Mugabe vented his anger at the West for sending back Tsvangirai empty handed, “the same old detractors continue with their sinister efforts to divide us."
The only thing that is clearly “sinister” here is a leader who signs a power sharing agreement, with no intention of honouring it, to con others into bankrolling his selfish political agenda – to remain in power at all cost. The West is under no legal or moral obligation to give Zimbabwe a single penny, even if GNU was indeed “working and is irreversible” as Tsvangirai claims. As things are, the West has a moral duty to the ordinary Zimbabweans not to prop up a dictatorship that has brought so much suffering and misery to them.
Mugabe has always treated Tsvangirai with disgust and contempt and only agreed to GNU because he believed the West will give Tsvangirai lots and lots of money! After six months of patiently waiting, Mugabe has now realised there will NO Indian style dowry for his bride, “chamatama” – big cheeks – Tsvangirai, as Mugabe called Tsvangirai. Mugabe set out to con the West and ended up being conned himself; a conman; conned! No wander Mugabe is in a huff!
So will Mugabe consummate the political marriage, finally after six months of dilly dallying, or will he kick chamatama out? Frankly, the people of Zimbabwe would be better off if the later happened because then they will have another chance to vote Mugabe out of power. This Mugabe dominated GNU will never deliver the economic recovery the people are after and therefore demise of the regime can not happen soon enough!
Mugabe will step up the empty anti-Western rhetoric with renewed vigour and rapture born out of one desperate to be heard but know they are being totally ignored; the haunting cry of an owl in the dead on night. When Mugabe sent Tsvangirai to the West, the very people he has despised all these years with such venom and passion, it was the ultimate in “eating humble pie”. When the West send Tsvangirai back empty handed it was a kick in the teeth for Mugabe!
Pride comes before the fall. Zimbabwe’s economic collapse and political descent into lawless thuggery under Mugabe’s leadership has been spectacular- the full story is yet to be told. The scene was set for Mugabe’s own fall from a respected national liberation hero and great statesman to a ruthless and heartless despot whose own people hated and despised him in equal measure.
Mugabe has so much of his past he does not want known and he can only be sure it remains hidden if he stays in power. On the other hand he also knows the human suffering and misery his failed rule has caused will continue as long as he remains in office. The pressure for him to go will only get worse with each passing day. There is a man who must feel well and truly corned and unwanted; so much so he must wish he dropped dead only that it seems for once even undiscerning death too does not want him!
Monday, 10 August 2009
ZIMBABWEANS MUST DEMAND AND TAKE AWAY MUGABE'S ABSOLUTE POWERS: DICTATORS NEVER EVER FREELY CONCEDE ANY!
“Let everyone in the inclusive government and in the country generally know that our nation will never prosper through foreign handouts,” Mugabe said at the funeral service of late Joseph Msika’s funeral. “Let us be clear, great enduring nations are built on their own endowments and efforts.” Wise words, indeed! Sadly he then launched into his usual anti-West rhetoric and shadow boxing.
Assuming Mugabe heeded his on words that Zimbabwe would not prosper through handout but through its own effort. When Mugabe has to accept that when he took over the running of the country in 1980 Zimbabwe was doing well. The country was growing enough food to feed all our own people and had surplus for export, for example. Today Zimbabwe’s economy is in total ruin; PM Tsvangirai went out begging for money to rebuild the national economy. Ironically, begging from the same the same Western countries he is so fearful of.
Mugabe’s chaotic and violent seizure of white-owned farms has destroyed the nation’s once thriving agricultural sector. Today, 80% of our people now depend on foreign food aid to survive – not to prosper, to survive! The farm seizures were supposedly to benefit the country’s landless peasants; in practice it was the ruling elite who benefited. And they have completely failed to make productive use of the farms, even after receiving millions of dollars in government subsidies.
An essential plank of Zimbabwe’s food and economic recovery has to be increased agricultural productivity. The seized farms must be given to those who will put them to productive use. Mugabe has vowed the ruling elite are to keep the farms. “Should it (the seized land) ever slip through our reckless fingers, let him rise to torment us and this nation,” said Mugabe; evoking the spirit of the late Joseph Msika.
The real heroes and heroines of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle die or alive must in fact be disappointed that Mugabe and Zanu PF have betrayed the noble cause of freedom, justice and economic prosperity for Zimbabweans to pursue selfish individual interest. As a senior member of the ruling elite, Joseph Msika benefited from the corruption and the ruthless repression. If Msika had any conscience at all, then he must have been ashamed that hundreds of thousands of innocent Zimbabweans have lost their lives during his watch!
Mugabe has enjoyed absolute power and he was abused it beyond belief. He has completely destroyed Zimbabwe’s agriculture for his own selfish gain – the nation was completely powerless to stop him – and he is even claiming the looting was a patriotic act!
Lord Acton said “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In Mugabe, we have the graphic example what it really meanings to have a leader who has been absolutely corrupted by power! Zimbabweans now know exactly what that means in terms of the unnecessary and tragic human suffering and lost human lives. And, more potently, they have now realised the only way to end their tragic sufferings and deaths is by taking away the absolute power from Mugabe. The million dollar question is ‘How to take away the absolute power from the dictator, Mugabe?’ It is the equivalent of the mice putting the bell round cat’s neck.
After the sham 27 June presidential run-off election the whole international community would not accept Mugabe as the dually elected president of Zimbabwe. He needed MDC to join him to form a Government of National Unity. MDC demanded meaningful power sharing and Mugabe did not concede to any of their demands. Even if Mugabe had conceded there was always the danger that he would go back on his word. After all he is a dictator; no one in their right mind would expect him to behave honourably.
Tsvangirai and MDC pinned their hopes on Mugabe giving up his absolute powers, powers he had stubbornly refused to give up under pressure, out of the generosity of his heart or that they would systematically and serendipitously take these powers away from him in time. One has to be really naïve to even think such a stupid plan would work, particularly given it was Tsvangirai – a naïve and timid dove - trying to pull a fast one on Mugabe – a cunning and ruthless fox.
It had taken a lot of courage and determination for Zimbabweans to vote to end Mugabe’s tyrannical rule in the March 2008 elections, knowing the violence and murder Mugabe could dish out to them in retribution. If the people had retained the head of steam, there is a real chance that there would have been meaningful change in Zimbabwe by now. Unfortunately the nation has let out the steam because they believed Tsvangirai that the GNU will bring about the democratic change they want.
After six months, the GNU has achieved nothing. On the political front Mugabe has continued to act in his repressive ways – to retain his iron grip on power. He has also resisted pressure to take away the looted land and other wealth from the ruling elite and to tackle corruption – that too would undermine his said iron grip on power. The GNU is in fact nothing more than the old Mugabe dictatorship whitewashed by the appointment of enfeebled MDC leaders in some ministerial positions.
Many Zimbabweans already realise this GNU will achieve nothing. But having let out their head of steam, there is little they can do now to once again take away Mugabe’s absolute power. They have effectively resigned themselves to whatever Tsvangirai’s hare brain scheme brings!
The tragic human sufferings and deaths will continue and pick up pace. The people will soon realise that having shops full of food and other goods is a good thing but, without the money to buy them with, it is simply not good enough. The suffering will push the people to once again build a head of steam and to demand change.
Tsvangirai’s policy of appeasing the dictator and hope against hope that he will freely give up his dictatorial powers will not work. The people will have to back to the proven method of demanding and taking away the power from him!
“Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation,” said Frederick Douglass, “are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.”
Assuming Mugabe heeded his on words that Zimbabwe would not prosper through handout but through its own effort. When Mugabe has to accept that when he took over the running of the country in 1980 Zimbabwe was doing well. The country was growing enough food to feed all our own people and had surplus for export, for example. Today Zimbabwe’s economy is in total ruin; PM Tsvangirai went out begging for money to rebuild the national economy. Ironically, begging from the same the same Western countries he is so fearful of.
Mugabe’s chaotic and violent seizure of white-owned farms has destroyed the nation’s once thriving agricultural sector. Today, 80% of our people now depend on foreign food aid to survive – not to prosper, to survive! The farm seizures were supposedly to benefit the country’s landless peasants; in practice it was the ruling elite who benefited. And they have completely failed to make productive use of the farms, even after receiving millions of dollars in government subsidies.
An essential plank of Zimbabwe’s food and economic recovery has to be increased agricultural productivity. The seized farms must be given to those who will put them to productive use. Mugabe has vowed the ruling elite are to keep the farms. “Should it (the seized land) ever slip through our reckless fingers, let him rise to torment us and this nation,” said Mugabe; evoking the spirit of the late Joseph Msika.
The real heroes and heroines of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle die or alive must in fact be disappointed that Mugabe and Zanu PF have betrayed the noble cause of freedom, justice and economic prosperity for Zimbabweans to pursue selfish individual interest. As a senior member of the ruling elite, Joseph Msika benefited from the corruption and the ruthless repression. If Msika had any conscience at all, then he must have been ashamed that hundreds of thousands of innocent Zimbabweans have lost their lives during his watch!
Mugabe has enjoyed absolute power and he was abused it beyond belief. He has completely destroyed Zimbabwe’s agriculture for his own selfish gain – the nation was completely powerless to stop him – and he is even claiming the looting was a patriotic act!
Lord Acton said “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In Mugabe, we have the graphic example what it really meanings to have a leader who has been absolutely corrupted by power! Zimbabweans now know exactly what that means in terms of the unnecessary and tragic human suffering and lost human lives. And, more potently, they have now realised the only way to end their tragic sufferings and deaths is by taking away the absolute power from Mugabe. The million dollar question is ‘How to take away the absolute power from the dictator, Mugabe?’ It is the equivalent of the mice putting the bell round cat’s neck.
After the sham 27 June presidential run-off election the whole international community would not accept Mugabe as the dually elected president of Zimbabwe. He needed MDC to join him to form a Government of National Unity. MDC demanded meaningful power sharing and Mugabe did not concede to any of their demands. Even if Mugabe had conceded there was always the danger that he would go back on his word. After all he is a dictator; no one in their right mind would expect him to behave honourably.
Tsvangirai and MDC pinned their hopes on Mugabe giving up his absolute powers, powers he had stubbornly refused to give up under pressure, out of the generosity of his heart or that they would systematically and serendipitously take these powers away from him in time. One has to be really naïve to even think such a stupid plan would work, particularly given it was Tsvangirai – a naïve and timid dove - trying to pull a fast one on Mugabe – a cunning and ruthless fox.
It had taken a lot of courage and determination for Zimbabweans to vote to end Mugabe’s tyrannical rule in the March 2008 elections, knowing the violence and murder Mugabe could dish out to them in retribution. If the people had retained the head of steam, there is a real chance that there would have been meaningful change in Zimbabwe by now. Unfortunately the nation has let out the steam because they believed Tsvangirai that the GNU will bring about the democratic change they want.
After six months, the GNU has achieved nothing. On the political front Mugabe has continued to act in his repressive ways – to retain his iron grip on power. He has also resisted pressure to take away the looted land and other wealth from the ruling elite and to tackle corruption – that too would undermine his said iron grip on power. The GNU is in fact nothing more than the old Mugabe dictatorship whitewashed by the appointment of enfeebled MDC leaders in some ministerial positions.
Many Zimbabweans already realise this GNU will achieve nothing. But having let out their head of steam, there is little they can do now to once again take away Mugabe’s absolute power. They have effectively resigned themselves to whatever Tsvangirai’s hare brain scheme brings!
The tragic human sufferings and deaths will continue and pick up pace. The people will soon realise that having shops full of food and other goods is a good thing but, without the money to buy them with, it is simply not good enough. The suffering will push the people to once again build a head of steam and to demand change.
Tsvangirai’s policy of appeasing the dictator and hope against hope that he will freely give up his dictatorial powers will not work. The people will have to back to the proven method of demanding and taking away the power from him!
“Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation,” said Frederick Douglass, “are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.”
Saturday, 8 August 2009
BITI CONCERNED ABOUT MUGABE'S SUCCESSOR: WE SHOULD CONCERN OURSELVES WITH ENDING THE DICTATORSHIP!
Finance Minister told a Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries conference that Zanu PF’s failure to produce a clear successor to Mugabe is a serious threat to the country’s political stability and economic recovery.
Zanu PF's succession is only important because MDC has made Zanu PF relevant, against the expressed wish of Zimbabweans and common sense!
Finance Minister Tendai Biti is right to be concerned about the need to settle Zanu PF's leadership issues but only because the Minister and his party MDC have never believed the anyone else other than Zanu PF can rule Zimbabwe. That was why MDC agreed to join Mugabe to form this GNU.
After six months of this GNU it is clear it is not working even to MDC itself. PM Tsvangirai was in SA last week to complain about Mugabe not honouring the GPA. Finance Minister Biti has just said the same thing.
So if the GNU is not working why has PM Tsvangirai and MDC not walked out of the agreement, people have asked again and again? Before the PM Tsvangirai was sworn into office in February he assured the nation MDC will reserve the right to walk out if Mugabe did not accept the power sharing arrangement. It was not long before he changed his tune to “the GNU was the only game in town” committing himself and his party to staying in the coalition no-matter-what! Naturally Mugabe has taken full advantage of that to fall back to his dictatorial way of doing things.
Now Zimbabwe finds itself in this ridiculous position in which the very people – PM Tsvangirai, Finance Minister Biti and the rest of MDC leadership – are complaining about Mugabe and Zanu PF’s failure to honour the terms of the GPA one minute and are saying the GNU is “working” the next!
If MDC walks out of this GNU, Zimbabwe will have to hold fresh elections. That is the one thing Mugabe can not face right now; he cannot unleash his thugs again and without them he will be lucky to get 5% of the popular vote. Minister Biti; who cares who is leading Zanu PF when the party has no popular support and out of power?
MDC is locked into this GNU. The truth is the nation too is locked into this GNU only because we the people choose to follow our leaders blindly like sheep. We know the GNU is not working, and it is us, the people, who are paying dearly for it, we can and should fight to end it bring it down now not tomorrow or next year!
In the 1980s there was a popular joke of the late Vice Simon Muzenda being told that Mugabe had died. Muzande’s response was “Who am I going to deputise?” PM Tsvangirai has accepted that he and MDC will always play the abused junior partner role to Mugabe and Zanu PF. Only Finance Minister is concerned is who MDC will be grooving up to if Mugabe dies. MDC is free to groove all they want; we do not have to groove with them!
Zanu PF's succession is only important because MDC has made Zanu PF relevant, against the expressed wish of Zimbabweans and common sense!
Finance Minister Tendai Biti is right to be concerned about the need to settle Zanu PF's leadership issues but only because the Minister and his party MDC have never believed the anyone else other than Zanu PF can rule Zimbabwe. That was why MDC agreed to join Mugabe to form this GNU.
After six months of this GNU it is clear it is not working even to MDC itself. PM Tsvangirai was in SA last week to complain about Mugabe not honouring the GPA. Finance Minister Biti has just said the same thing.
So if the GNU is not working why has PM Tsvangirai and MDC not walked out of the agreement, people have asked again and again? Before the PM Tsvangirai was sworn into office in February he assured the nation MDC will reserve the right to walk out if Mugabe did not accept the power sharing arrangement. It was not long before he changed his tune to “the GNU was the only game in town” committing himself and his party to staying in the coalition no-matter-what! Naturally Mugabe has taken full advantage of that to fall back to his dictatorial way of doing things.
Now Zimbabwe finds itself in this ridiculous position in which the very people – PM Tsvangirai, Finance Minister Biti and the rest of MDC leadership – are complaining about Mugabe and Zanu PF’s failure to honour the terms of the GPA one minute and are saying the GNU is “working” the next!
If MDC walks out of this GNU, Zimbabwe will have to hold fresh elections. That is the one thing Mugabe can not face right now; he cannot unleash his thugs again and without them he will be lucky to get 5% of the popular vote. Minister Biti; who cares who is leading Zanu PF when the party has no popular support and out of power?
MDC is locked into this GNU. The truth is the nation too is locked into this GNU only because we the people choose to follow our leaders blindly like sheep. We know the GNU is not working, and it is us, the people, who are paying dearly for it, we can and should fight to end it bring it down now not tomorrow or next year!
In the 1980s there was a popular joke of the late Vice Simon Muzenda being told that Mugabe had died. Muzande’s response was “Who am I going to deputise?” PM Tsvangirai has accepted that he and MDC will always play the abused junior partner role to Mugabe and Zanu PF. Only Finance Minister is concerned is who MDC will be grooving up to if Mugabe dies. MDC is free to groove all they want; we do not have to groove with them!
Friday, 7 August 2009
Mrs Clinton to ask President Zuma to push Mugabe harder on political change.
US Secretary of State, Mrs Hillary Clinton is on an 11 day tour of Africa. She has arrived in SA and it reported she will be asking SA President Zuma to push Mugabe harder to impliment meaningful political change.
It is very diplomatic of US Secretary of State, Mrs Clinton, to say she will be asking SA to push Mugabe harder - she is after all the US's chief diplomat. The truth is, and the truth must be allowed to cut through the niceties of the diplomatic language, President Zuma’s administration has not pushed Mugabe in any way. Still, that is a plus for President Zuma compared to what his predecessor, President Mbeki, was doing. President Mbeki allowed himself to be pushed around by Mugabe, taking Zimbabwe the direction she did not want to go!
I hope and prey Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai will shut up for the next few days at least. He was himself in SA asking President Zuma to push Mugabe to stop acting in his old autocratic way. Sadly the next minute the Zimbabwe PM is waffling about the government of national unity is “working”!
Whilst Zimbabweans are rightly angry with former President Thembo Mbeki for landing us with this totally unworkable GNU; we are furious with PM Tsvangirai for his the sheer naivety in agreeing to such a stupid arrangement and his self delusion that it is working when it is not.
During her current tour of Africa Mrs Clinton has underline the importance of good governance and Zimbabwe is a prime example of the dire consequences of letting economic corruption and political repression ran riot. This is a very important message and one only hopes the likes of PM Tsvangirai hold his peace and not issue his usual self contradicting outbursts.
It is very diplomatic of US Secretary of State, Mrs Clinton, to say she will be asking SA to push Mugabe harder - she is after all the US's chief diplomat. The truth is, and the truth must be allowed to cut through the niceties of the diplomatic language, President Zuma’s administration has not pushed Mugabe in any way. Still, that is a plus for President Zuma compared to what his predecessor, President Mbeki, was doing. President Mbeki allowed himself to be pushed around by Mugabe, taking Zimbabwe the direction she did not want to go!
I hope and prey Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai will shut up for the next few days at least. He was himself in SA asking President Zuma to push Mugabe to stop acting in his old autocratic way. Sadly the next minute the Zimbabwe PM is waffling about the government of national unity is “working”!
Whilst Zimbabweans are rightly angry with former President Thembo Mbeki for landing us with this totally unworkable GNU; we are furious with PM Tsvangirai for his the sheer naivety in agreeing to such a stupid arrangement and his self delusion that it is working when it is not.
During her current tour of Africa Mrs Clinton has underline the importance of good governance and Zimbabwe is a prime example of the dire consequences of letting economic corruption and political repression ran riot. This is a very important message and one only hopes the likes of PM Tsvangirai hold his peace and not issue his usual self contradicting outbursts.
Saturday, 1 August 2009
SOME WORDS OF WISDOM AND ADVICE.
Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day!For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the Verities and Realities of your Existence.
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And To-morrow is only a Vision;
But To-day well lived makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!
BY KALIDASA
SOME WORDS FOR THOSE RULING ZIMBABWE TODAY.WE THOUGHT BECAUSE WE HAD POWER WE HAD WISDOM!FROM STEPHEN VINCENT BENET.
And finally something for MDC, especially P M Morgan Tsvangirai."Nine tenths of wisdom consist in being wise in time!" said Theodore Roosevelt.
Look to this Day!For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the Verities and Realities of your Existence.
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And To-morrow is only a Vision;
But To-day well lived makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!
BY KALIDASA
SOME WORDS FOR THOSE RULING ZIMBABWE TODAY.WE THOUGHT BECAUSE WE HAD POWER WE HAD WISDOM!FROM STEPHEN VINCENT BENET.
And finally something for MDC, especially P M Morgan Tsvangirai."Nine tenths of wisdom consist in being wise in time!" said Theodore Roosevelt.
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