Beware of too Much Teeth, Violence

By Joram Nyathi

“IF it was all up to me, Jomic’s power would be increased by 200%,” said MDC-T provincial chairman Morgan Femai.

He was taking up a theme raised by a participant at the first interparty provincial leadership conference convened by the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (Jomic) in Harare on November 27 2009.

Other party representatives to the conference echoed the same view.

They wondered why Jomic, given its centrality to the subsistence of the inclusive government, did not have a legal instrument conferring on it power to enforce its decisions or at least to compel the parties to the GPA to adhere to its provisions.

To me the comments showed not only growing awareness of the limitations
imposed on Jomic but also frustration with the slow pace of transition by
the coalition government from bickering over power-sharing to substantive
policy issues.

As one participant observed, while people talked glibly about low rate of
inflation, price stability and the abundance of goods in the shops, very
little of this made sense to ordinary people who were unemployed and could not afford the goods. It’s a recipe for chaos.

The conference was itself historic in several ways. For the first time Jomic
managed to bring to one venue at least 30 delegates each from the three
political parties to the global political agreement (GPA).

The provincial chairpersons sat shoulder to shoulder at the high table while
the delegates competed to ask questions after presentations by Jomic members Innocent Chagonda, Frank Chamunorwa and Oppah Muchinguri.

The participants told their leaders point-blank that it was politicians who
were responsible for much of the violence plaguing society.

There were however differences over whether the process of national healing should start at the top and cascade to grassroots structures or the reverse.

It was evident though that there is still a lot of tension in the communities. There is uncertainty about whether what is needed is mere restorative or retributive justice for those still smarting from the violence they suffered ahead of last year’s elections.

One could sense latent anger in the conference if it appeared that one
political party was being allowed to ask more questions than others. For
some strange reasons, the delegates chose to sit as close as possible to
fellow comrades so that they could “caucus” about issues being raised by
their “opponents”.

At some point there was grumbling when one of the delegates used the word
“comrades”. I don’t know how Zanu PF has managed to appropriate that word to itself.

I remember Winston Churchill using it in one of his great speeches during the Second World War to refer to Britain’s allies. The row died down when delegates were reminded that they also use the word at their party meetings.

There was unanimity on the need to form interparty liaison committees to
spread the gospel of peace and unity. All the parties fully endorsed the
GPA.

What I however found sad was that for the majority of the delegates the
so-called outstanding grievances were what they read in the newspapers and
none of the issues which affect them on a daily basis such as power outages,
water shortage, unemployment and a shortage of drugs in hospitals, which to me more closely reflect the slow pace of economic turnaround envisaged under Article 3 of the GPA.

Instead, everyone was an expert on pirate radio stations while the other
camps had enough ammunition to explain the reasons for their existence!One could also not miss the usual confusion about democracy when it comes to dealing with biased local newspapers and TV and radio stations.

There is a meeting of the minds of all the parties. Editors are the problem. This is evident from the way everyone thinks the only way to “correct” the problem is “talk” to them.

In a democracy you don’t talk to editors. It is the politicians who must
convey the right or correct message. You cannot fight for democracy by
muzzling the media unless they go out of their way to fan or incite
violence, hate speech or racial or ethnic hatred.

The real tragedy we have in Zimbabwe is that media themselves have abandoned ethical principles to align themselves with political parties. Thus one political party sees nothing wrong with abusive language or racist speech in the papers so long as it is directed at their opponents or rivals and get furious when the same language is used against them in some other paper.

They want that paper shut down or to have the editor “talked” to, an
expression which has very sinister connotations for freedom of expression.

Nothing better illustrated the hostage mentality between Zanu PF and MDC-T than the issue of agricultural inputs and the land audit on the one hand,
and how to use the US$510 million from the World Bank on the other. Suddenly everyone put on their true colours.

Zanu PF delegates accused Finance minister Tendai Biti of trying to sabotage
economic recovery by refusing to release money for agricultural inputs. MDC-T delegates felt excluded from farming and seemed to believe the money had been released to their party, not the coalition government.

So why should their party finance agriculture before a land audit which must
yield them free farms?  Some kind of grievance, some kind of war!

Talking about colours, I believe it did help a lot that the parties did not
bring with them party regalia to the conference. There were also loud calls
for delegates not to chant party slogans. It was even suggested that party
slogans calling for the death or killing of political rivals were
anachronistic and in desperate need for “change”, a word the MDC formations have appropriated as stealthily as the open palm.

Finally, it was time for a hearty meal and the spirit of camaraderie was
revived. Political foes who before the conference were wagging fingers at
each other were hugging and holding hands like homeboy rivals who have just met in a foreign country. It was a sight well worth to behold. We hope it
holds. We have more such meetings lined up.

To those who insist that Jomic should have “teeth” our prayer is really for
Zimbabweans to have more brains than teeth. Too “much teeth” often disposes one to violence.

Joram Nyathi is JOMIC’s communications manager.