By Brown Moyo
OPINION – Zimbabweans need not sympathise with the expelled former Zanu PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa and his group because what they are yearning for now has been what this country has been starved of for decades: Justice and Democracy.
Mutasa and company have always helped President Robert Mugabe to hold on to power, thwarting, subverting and crushing the will of the people to preserve the status quo even if when the odds were against them.
These are the same people who in 2000 unleashed a campaign of terror on the white farmers in a chaotic and bloody land reform programme after Mugabe’s grip on power was threatened.
Following its defeat in a constitutional referendum and in a bid to ward off mounting political and social discontent, Mugabe and Zanu PF launched a controversial land reform programme in which thousands of white commercial farmers were violently evicted from their farms.
Mugabe claimed the whole programme was aimed at resettling landless people throughout the country. However, most of the prime land was taken by senior Zanu PF officials including the Mutasa’s, who are multiple farm holders.
Mutasa and company are the same people who in 2008 took violence to unprecedented levels, killing more than 500 people, after MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai trounced Mugabe in the first round of the general elections.
MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu said Mutasa and company have now entered the real world where everyone is yearning for democracy.
“We welcome Didymus Mutasa to the world of reality. However, it is very sad that it has taken him such a long time to appreciate that Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF are the exact anti-thesis of democracy and fair play,” Gutu said.
“We have always maintained that Zanu PF is a commandist and intolerant political organisation that plays to the whims and fantasies of only one man i.e. Robert Mugabe. Be that as it may, we are pleased to note that Mutasa has finally seen the light by appreciating the glaring fact that there is absolutely no democracy within Zanu PF.”
Another political commentator Vince Musewe said there is no need to shed any tears for Mutasa and company.
“In my opinion Didymus Mutasa et al made Mugabe a little god in their hearts and created a throne for him – yet today they condemn the power they willingly gave to him and expect us to sympathise with them. That disrespects our intellect,” said Musewe.
“The greed for power and privilege by the likes of Mutasa has surely been at the expense of the ideals of the liberation struggle. It is not out of principle that they now condemn Zanu PF but out of sheer self-interest.
“Genuine war veterans who joined the struggle for the good of Zimbabweans know that these ideals have been sabotaged by the acts of Mutasa and his cronies since independence in 1980. They must now swallow the bitter pill of their complicity in propping up a dictator and not expect us to commiserate with their selfish intentions.”
Mutasa has already filed papers with the courts to overturn the resolutions made at the December Zanu PF congress. The congress came after a serious infighting rocked the party resulting in the ouster of former vice president Joice Mujuru and a number of her followers including Mutasa.
“Comrade Mutasa, the tears you shed today have been shed by many for many years, while others have died in pursuit of the freedom promised but never delivered by Zanu PF since 1980,” Musewe said.
“When opposition political parties faced violence and death of their members, your silence was deafening and today you want us to believe that you believe that you are a true democrat who has been wronged and thrown off the Zanu PF gravy train. We are not stupid.”
