Mugabe not dead: There is method to this madness

By Tinomudaishe Chinyoka

If there is a rainbow, at the end of her tough road, no-one has identified the road yet, so she is not on that road. No, Linda Masarira traverses a different road, one that reminds one of Simon Chimbetu’s epic poetry:

“Gomo, gomo, Hupenyu hwangu, hwunokwira gomo risina michero gomo renzara…

 Vamwe vachifamba kune sambasi, hupenyu hwangu, hwunokwira gomo risina miti

A mother of 5 with nothing to her name but a smile that defies logic, Linda has spent two months in prison, serving not a jail sentence, but awaiting trial on charges arising out of standing up for our rights at Africa Unity Square.

Denied bail, not yet a prisoner and presumably presumed innocent, she comes to court in prison garb, and her case does not appear to have an end in sight. On 2 September 2016, she was once again in Court. That got postponed.

Meanwhile, on 1 September 2016, the government of Zimbabwe issued Statutory Instrument 101A of 2016. While the title is a mouthful and requires no recitation here, this is the one that purported to ban demonstrations within the Harare area for a period of two weeks, on pain of a fine or imprisonment, or both.  On 5 September 2016, the Regulations were in Court. That too, got postponed.

There is a tendency for people to fear the law, no, not in the sense of respecting the law, but to fear reading what laws actually say. There is the feeling (justified) that the language is inaccessible, and that what it says is likely not what it means. This is a valid fear, but sometimes is unmerited.

The recent ban on demonstrations, couched in unnecessary legalese but merely saying “if you demonstrate or ask others to demonstrate in Harare over the next two weeks you will be fined or go to jail or both” is one such example. However, fearing this law is all the bite it has, because that is what the crafters intended: to instil fear.

I do not think that even they thought that it would pass constitutional muster, no matter what the Courts decide. If they get to decide, because what you are going to see is a number of postponements and delayed decisions until, well, just before or just after the ban lapses. The momentum lost, the task will have been achieved.

There are several common sense reasons why this law is not worth the paper it is written on, and why the common citizen must be equipped to defeat it.

Laws must apply to everyone. Everyone knows this. They should say “it is illegal to beg on the street”, and cannot say “those with no food and no jobs must not beg in the street”. When we are banned from begging, it means Strive Masiyiwa or Russell Goreraza (no association intended) cannot beg on the streets, even though we know they will never ever beg on the streets. It’s called neutrality.

So you can’t have a law that is passed a day or two before NERA was due to demonstrate in Harare and pretend that it was not targeting NERA. That’s just silly. Also, you cannot preempt the enjoyment of rights then claim to be a constitutional democracy. The Regulations are effectively a declaration of a state of emergency in Harare, and there is simply no legal justification for that in 2016 Zimbabwe.

The justification that demonstrations have led to destruction of property in the past is foolish. The police cannot validly wake up tomorrow and declare a curfew just because they expect crimes to be committed after 8pm at night. They should target their efforts to preventing such crimes, not to punish law abiding revellers that want to be up after 8pm.

That’s the same here: you don’t ban demonstrations that haven’t happened on the basis that some people might be violent. Especially when you know who is going to be violent: the police with their unwarranted use of teargas and Zanu PF youths intent on ‘taking the law into their own hands’ supposedly to defend the gains of the liberation struggle – the postman is still to deliver the letter listing those benefits, because we ain’t seem them yet.

You arrest those that caused the violence. You stop firing teargas at peaceful citizens exercising their constitutional rights. Better yet, you run the country better, removing the need to demonstrate in the first place. How about giving us some of those benefits of the liberation struggle for example? That would be a good place to start, no?

Going to Court to challenge this law should be a formality, but they will dissemble, use delaying tactics, and everything in their bag of tricks until their aim is achieved, deflating the momentum that citizens have generated thus far.

And just to add more spice to the matter, Ebagum comes from rescuing his son from a drugs charge in Dubai and announces that judges must watch out and not authorise the enjoyment of human rights. Suddenly, the world is up in arms over this attack on the judiciary.

I posit that all this is well crafted. I tell you we are all being had. Put differently, there is method to this madness. And here is why.

Is it by accident that Mugabe did his disappearing act just when there was likely going to be the mother of all demos in Harare? Or is it more likely that he figured that if people were excited at the idea that he might be dead, no-one would actually bother going to the demonstration but instead take time to celebrate?

Upon his return, did he look at all like someone that had had a stroke? This was stage-managed theatre I believe, all orchestrated to take the thunder out of what was going to be a make or break demonstration. We were meant to think that he had died. We were meant to go into euphoric excitement and lose focus on what we ought to have been doing: driving him out of office.

Notice how he references the Arab Spring and says that it will never happen in Zimbabwe? We cannot possibly think that that is just wishful thinking on his part. He is actively doing things to make sure that the momentum is sucked out of our protests. And if that means faking a death here or a stroke there, why not?

Meanwhile, his machine is in full gear. Chombo, the Corruption-in-Charge at the Home Office, him that is married to the deputy head of the Zimbabwe Anti Corruption Commission (you cannot make this stuff up) comes up with Statutory Instrument 101A, another in a string of assaults against democracy in our country, but we are too busy celebrating a rumoured death to do anything about it.

At the same time, Supa Mandiwanzira, in-law to Grace Marujata Mugabe (nee Marufu) surreptitiously publishes the Computer Crime and Cybercrime Bill, the one that will criminalise your whatsapp messages and allow any number of assaults on your right to privacy and freedom of expression. But, again, we are too busy celebrating a rumoured death to care.

Is it by accident that he chooses to attack judges just at the very same meeting where his youths claim that if there is another demonstration they will ‘take the law in to their own hands?’ In a truly democratic society, a President’s mere presence at a meeting where such things are said would be censured, but we have come to accept and expect this rubbish.

And it is all deliberate. We are thrown so many bones to chew at that our focus moves from what he is doing wrong, to the individual bones that directly affect us.

So, instead of 100 lawyers going to Mbare Magistrates Court to demand justice for Linda Masarira, they are caught up in discussions about the assault on judicial independence, as if that animal has existed in Zimbabwe since the day Chief Justice Gubbay was accosted and politely asked to hand over the resignation letter that he had not even written.

Instead of the opposition regrouping to demonstrate in Bulawayo instead of Harare, we are led to think that he actually believes that he might lose the court challenge, and so we fight a battle of principle (to vindicate justice) in the Courts instead of simply taking the protest elsewhere.

And when he comes back, beaming from ear to ear, having used the time to extricate his son from yet another consequences of his ‘drugs, drink and groping’ escapades in Dubai, we are so deflated by the falsity of the rumoured death that when Biti talks about fighting Statutory Instrument 101A in Court you are tempted to think, even if we win, what’s the point?

Oh, and while you are busy digesting that, your whatsapp chats will soon belong to the CIO listening post near you, because our so called parliament will rubber-stamp Supa’s  monstrosity of a bill without even reading it. Why bother reading laws when you are guaranteed your vehicle allowance and reelection every 5 years?

And on 2 September, the National Railways of Zimbabwe, landlord for Linda, evicted her children and their maid from home. You missed that news didn’t you? Of course, because we all thought Ebagum was dead and that, I tell you now, is guaranteed to dominate the news. Now, I ask you, who actually thinks that he and his henchmen don’t know that?

We are being had I tell you. It is time to get angry, and DO something.

Tinomudaishe Chinyoka is a UK based lawyer and a prominent former student leader. His column ‘Chinyoka in Exile’ is exclusive to Nehanda Radio.