By Somerset Masikati
Conditions existing in a country have to be terribly bad before a large number of its citizens decide to leave in droves to seek their future elsewhere.
Worse still, a country ought to have lost its soul and moral compass irredeemably for there to exist conditions that make it possible for a young and fragile 12 year old boy to be brazenly murdered through arson and for there not to be immediate legal ramifications.
The conditions that gave rise to this horrendous and despicable act are a product of President Mugabe’s 30 year rule – a period which began with so much promise and hope for a nation that had been denied so much for so long and, in the end, paid so much for so little in return.
The Diagnosis
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s ills is a fundamental lack of intolerance for different political views. The origin of this frame of mind is the Liberation Struggle. There can be no doubt that those who gallantly participated in it, including President Mugabe are men of steel and needed to be endowed with a strident, obdurate and unwavering sense of mission to see it through.
Unfortunately however, such traits, though admirable and tailor made for that task at hand, are exactly what is not needed in building a truly democratic country. Thus, since April 1980 President Mugabe has set about building a state that uses and thrives on violence and coercion as a tool of subjugating not only his opponents but his supporters as well through the use of state and party structures.
Green Bombers, War Veterans, the C.I.O, Military Intelligence and others are just but a few examples of this strategy.
In recent times, he has also gained from the near extinction of the rare species of peers from his era whose credentials are at par with him and could have otherwise mustered enough courage to challenge him.
To this end, Zanu PF leaders and leaders of other important state institutions like the Army, Air Force, Police and Judiciary are not in any doubt that they have to demonstrate total loyalty to Mugabe personally in order to continue serving at his pleasure.
This is why some of these leaders attended the Zanu PF conference, a civilian affair. It also explains why they regularly publicly declare their allegiance to Zanu PF and Mugabe despite being civil servants which comes with a requirement of being apolitical.
The Importance of Fear in Shaping Our Political Landscape.
The use of violence as a tool on our political landscape has meant that otherwise competent leaders from within and without Zanu PF have shied away from competing for political leadership for fear of encountering serious harm. This has cultivated a pervasive culture of fear in Zanu PF and at the national stage. This has also, by default, stunted Mugabe’s growth as a national leader.
The end result is that Zanu PF itself has failed to grow as a political body owing to a lack of robust political debate within the party. Those who have been brave enough to question the party position – cue one Eddison Zvobgo have been derided and aspersions have been cast on them as “traitors”.
That fear has manifested itself through sickening sycophancy which has in turn not gone unnoticed by President Mugabe – which in turn has acted as a sort of unofficial compass of what he expects from his Lieutenants.
We have got a wealth of experience in this fora as encapsulated by, among others, Minister Mzembi’s golden tears that oozed from his delightfully chubby cheeks after being triggered into delirium by the very uplifting sight of seeing a photo of a young President Mugabe, Minister Mpofu’s cringe worthy “ever obedient son” letter, and the late Deputy Minister Tony Gara’s blasphemous “Son of God” comment, which was recently repeated by Mai Mujuru. I am certain Minister Kasukuwere and Webster Shamu have also uttered sentiments to the same effect.
It is well known that President Mugabe has generously rewarded these unhelpful sycophantic outpourings. The net result has been to inspire other “cdes” who might not have been so inclined to indulge or partake in the same behaviour publicly, ad nauseam to curry favour with him, thereby compromising on the party’s capacity to self-examine its failures and undertake leadership renewal.
In the same context, the political tsunami that was generated by the Wikileaks revelations is also a by-product of that fear as the majority of the leadership of Zanu PF, including two Military Generals are reported to have surreptitiously approached the Americans to air their views on party related sensitive subjects.
In the same vein, an intellectually limited Tsvangirai rose from the top echelons of the Trade Union movement to catapult himself into the role of the new face of the struggle for a new Zimbabwe.
I am not in any doubt that Tsvangirai would never had stood a chance of occupying the space that he now occupies had Zanu PF created room for other competent leaders within the party to come to the fore and openly contest for leadership positions.
Likewise, this would not have been the case had other leaders in Zimbabwe outside of Zanu PF not stayed away from the political sphere for fear of encountering political harm.
Christpower’s Death
In a moving interview, his father said that he had lived in mountains on occasions in the past 10 years and lost two children to cold weather whilst there. He also stated that there had been previous attempts of arson in the past which had left Christpower with scars at the time of his death.
He stated that in recent times he had been issued with threats by the local Zanu PF leadership who were incensed by the incarceration of a leader of a local terror base during the post Mach 2008 national elections.
Is it not mindboggling that the Police can say that there are no indications that Christpower’s death was politically motivated in connection with a case with an extensive history of targeted political persecution taking place over the best part of a decade?
Have the Police interviewed Mr Maisiri, whom Didymus Mutasa had disingenuously tried to claim as a Zanu PF member? Can the Police comment on the previous lack of arrests and why they only acted after the intervention of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights? Have the Police interviewed the people that Mr Maisiri claimed had recently threatened him with serious harm (and provided a reason / motive why they wanted to harm him)? If not why?
Before you accuse me of showing naivety for demanding that Chihuri’s highly compromised Police Force provide answers to my questions you should note that my quest is to merely highlight the ZRP’s lack of professionalism and its appendage as an instrument of Zanu PF’s repression and to connect it to the way that President Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980. Zanu should be called ZANLA PF.
It never made that transition from a military organisation to a democratic party. Today you can’t wave in public in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. You can’t criticise him without being arraigned before the courts on the most spurious of charges. He is indeed God in Zimbabwe. You can’t suddenly wipe away 30 years of a political system premised on violence. The genie is now out of the bottle.
Impunity
It is a hallmark of President Mugabe’s rule that those who have participated in brutal and heinous human rights violations are aptly rewarded and put beyond the reach of the law leading to impunity. There is a plethora of evidence in relation to this.
Thus, the main protagonists of the Gukurahundi saga were rewarded and put beyond the reach of the law. This includes President Mugabe himself whom it must be said, is, on the strength of the available evidence, a man given to violent dispositions. Thus, at the height of Gukurahundi he said of the late Vice President Nkomo; “Dr. Nkomo was trying to overthrow my government. … The only way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and destroy its head ….”;
On 30 March 2007, he said: “Tsvangirai deserved his beating-up by police because he was not allowed to attend a banned rally” and openly praised the Police for “bashing him up” before threatening that if he did this again he would receive similar treatment.
Currently President Mugabe is preaching the mantra of peace. However, in recent times the Military referred to Tsvangirayi as a “security threat” and said they would never allow him to take the reigns of power, even if he won elections.
Jabulani Sibanda openly compared Tsvangirayi, a current Prime Minister to a “flea”, which he could “squash” at any time. He is going across the country conducting rallies imbued with threats of political violence whilst the law enforcement authorities idly seat by.
Joseph Mwale was openly implicated in the murders of Talent Mabika and Tichaona Chiminya in Buhera, Murambinda in the run up to the 2000 Parliamentary Elections.
Despite the then High Court Judge Justice Devittie asking for his arrest in court he has continued to roam the country with reckless abandon – with reports placing him in Chimanimani (leading the expropriation of Roy Bennett’s former farm) and a diplomatic posting in Zambia.
Elias Kanengoni, a C.I.O operative and Kizito Chivamba, a Zanu PF activist brazenly attempted to murder Patrick Kombayi in 1990 in broad daylight for the “sin” of competing against the late Vice President Muzenda for a Parliamentary seat in Gweru.
They were arrested and convicted and sentenced to 7 years in prison only for President Mugabe to issue Presidential Pardons. I understand that Kanengoni has now risen to the lofty position of Director of Intelligence in the President’s Office. President Mugabe has repeated this process after every election.
Given the above state of affairs, how can it be a surprise that in our nation today we now have people who can brazenly eliminate political opponents in broad daylight? How can we be surprised that Christpower was taken this way?
What other end result can there be when such behaviour has in the past been rewarded with a Presidential Pardon and a promotion? What other conclusion can such course of action mean than an endorsement, encouragement or condonation of such actions?
How can beneficiaries of such policies not feel they are beyond the reach of the law? How can the Police not feel that such people are not to be subjected to due process when the most powerful man in the land abuses his power to release them?
How can President Mugabe have the audacity to preach peace when over the past 30 years his actions have contributed immensely to bloodletting in our country?
How can he expect to be believed when he has regularly renewed the contract of Commissioner General Chihuri for the past 10 years, in spite of the acts cited above? How can the renewal of Chihuri’s contract not be interpreted as anything other than an endorsement of the way he has run the organisation?
Sanctions and a Contrived Narrative.
Is there no correlation between the imposition of sanctions and the above cited behaviour?
When the sanctions were imposed in December 2001 were there no gross human rights violations in Zimbabwe? Does the West’s duplicitous or hypocritical behaviour mean that Zanu PF should be absolved from being accountable to its citizens for its brutal and unchecked rule?
Is it not possible for Zanu PF to focus on showing leadership outside of the political matrix of the West’s existence? Mugabe and his apologists state that the sanctions are a direct result of Land Reforms. However, this is false and a contrived explanation.
The reality is that it is how he went about this which caused ruction. It is clear from the timing that this was done as a political survival strategy. Was it necessary for people to be killed to take land? Aren’t the majority of the victims African farm workers?
Part of being a great leader involves picking your battles wisely. Is Mugabe suggesting that it was not foreseeable that there would be a reaction from the West because of the brute violence on the farms? Is there a country that does not act in its national interest?
If he was aware of the potential consequences, was it not his responsibility to take a different approach to safeguard Zimbabwe’s national interest? Didn’t the late Vice President John Nkomo and Nathan Shamuyarira spurn the British’s offer for the programme to be funded under the auspices of the UNDP with the involvement of the then Minister of Agriculture Water & Lands – Kumbirayi Kangai after they had travelled to London for talks?
Was it not foreseeable that a haphazard land policy would strangle the economy, cause food shortages and cause social upheavals / discontent through a dramatic reduction in the quality of life which in turn could create conditions conducive for the rise of a new political party?
Aren’t these conditions, rather than the West, the basis of the MDC’s rise to prominence? The problem is that our President loves to grand stand. He loves sabre-rattling just for the sake of it. Today Mugabe the great nationalist uses US currency to pay his bills in a nation he founded.
He begs the very same people he condemns for funds to run elections. Despite his reputed intelligence, he fails to capture the fact that true leadership means taking the responsibility to steer a country in a direction which results in the aspirations of the majority of its people being met.
Elections to Anoint the Dear Leader
Elections in Zimbabwe are a charade – they are meant to confirm Mugabe’s rule since it is known that both he and the military are unable to accept an outcome that leaves them out of power. Evil is evil whether carried out by Mugabe, Cameron or Obama. Each country has permanent interests, and not friends.
The focus should be on treating our citizens in a humane way, not fixating on the West and its hypocrisy for Mugabe is supposed to get his mandate from the Zimbabwean people. As they are intelligent enough, they will pass a verdict on his message, ie, whether they believe it is well founded and genuine or contrived and bogus.
He should never claim to think on their behalf or proclaim his superiority to them. Tsvangirayi’s political ascendancy is confirmation of Mugabe’s failure to address all of the above issues.
Mugabe and his party continue to refuse to acknowledge their mistakes but instead railroad / double down on propaganda particularly the tiresome “Zimbabwe will never be a colony again” mantra. Freedom and democracy did not arrive on 18 April 1980 as Zanu PF believes.
Instead, that day ushered in an enabling environment to perfect the process from time to time as this is always an ongoing process. Nations can move forward only if their leaders are willing to.
The narrative about imperialism and neo-colonialism is nothing but hollow, self-serving and deliberately calculated to mask misrule. Zanu PF is unable and unwilling to confront its mistakes in an honest, robust and conclusive manner.
The continued improvement in the MDC’s share of the vote since its creation is a clear indication that Zanu PF has lost the argument on the cause of the Zimbabwean crisis.
When you lose such a fundamental discourse on a subject central to your message you do not double down, you undertake a comprehensive review with a view to overhauling your strategy and tailoring any new solution towards the position that is resonating with the voting public.
Zanu PF does the very opposite of this. It is rather sad to see such a historic entity as Zanu PF stooping so low as to appoint Psychology Maziwisa as its Director of Information. This is a young man who only recently was attacking the party and praising the MDC and who has got questionable personal judgment owing to his association with Peter Roebuck.
This can only indicate that the party is now desperate, suffers from a lack of “talent” and needs to do more to create conditions which are conducive to luring well educated and articulate young men and women. The cause of freedom, justice and human dignity is an idea of the “ages”.
It cannot be defeated in the fullness of time. Rather, it should be embraced. It is what brought Zanu PF to power and, ultimately it is what will result in its demise. May I take this opportunity to appeal to Zanu PF to be decisive and honest with the Zimbabwean people by making a proclamation that they do not want elections.
Why participate in something whose outcome you are not prepared to accept?
Won’t we all be saved from a lot of grief, broken limbs and anguish by just anointing the dear leader? Of what use are elections when an “elections command centre” can be shut down during counting of results by one party to the election, ballot boxes taken to unknown place and results “announced” by that party after 5 weeks? How can the result be credible? What has changed?
Somerset Masikati is a Zimbabwean national living in the UK with an interest in Politics and Philosophy. He hopes to save in the Zimbabwean cabinet one day as part of a new generation of Zimbabweans with the people’s interests at heart.
