Tambanavo Chamanyawi: Is Marry Mubaiwa above the law?

By Tambanavo Chamanyawi

I am tempted to think that a warped debate about the arrest of Marry Mubaiwa is gripping Zimbabwe. The deliberations are taking very wrong twists.

The media is awash with commentaries, analyses and side-bars depicting Marry as a victim of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga’s abuse of power. All of a sudden the former model is portrayed as a saint who is as innocent as a dove, simply because she is a woman.

Meanwhile women should be protected, respected and loved but they are not above the law. The law should be applied without fear or favour irrespective of the sex or status of the alleged criminal. Hold on! I neither hate Marry nor celebrate the General.

Miss Mubaiwa is facing serious charges of money laundering to the tune of $1 million, marriage fraud and attempted murder, so why should she not be detained, brought to court and remanded in prison? Isn’t a due legal process? She is still innocent until proven guilty by the court but the legal process must be initiated.

Of course the all-time powerful Chiwenga is the complainant, also embroiled in an ugly divorce with Mubaiwa, but the General still reserves the right to open charges against anyone who allegedly fleeced the state and suspected to have attempted to kill him.

I am not suggesting that Mubaiwa is guilty of all the charges she is facing, but only the courts can clear her and Chiwenga initiated the due process to yield that. How is this an abuse of power?

So a Vice President can’t seek legal redress even if he suspects wrong doing in order to avoid accusations of power abuse? In as much as Mubaiwa’s rights should be respected but Chiwenga has a right to open charges against someone he suspects to have attempted to take his life.

So Chiwenga’s exercise of his rights is being labelled as abuse of power? So what was he supposed to do in face of what he suspects Mubaiwa to have committed?

The fact that the couple is going through a divorce doesn’t give any of them immunity of prosecution for alleged crimes committed during happier times. Such an argument is emotional and drenching with feministic nonsense.

In any case chokwadi chinobuda kana vanhu vaburana. Kana uchida kudzwa chokwadi, rega gonzo nachin’ayi zvitosvorane. Chokwadi chese chinobuda pachena. Saka torerega kutevera chokwadi nekuti chakabuda vanhu vachigwa?

Circumstances surrounding revelations of alleged crimes can’t be given precedence ahead of the credibility of the accusations which the courts are in the process of determining. The court process to establish that is on, so how is this an abuse of power?

If Chiwenga is abusing power, then such accusations should be put before the courts to determine. I however do not mean to suggest that Chiwenga is a law abiding citizen whose actions are beyond reproach. Of course he is not. He led a military coup which disposed ‘a constitutionally elected government of the late dictator, Robert Mugabe.’ But this time he is not doing that.

He referred the matter to the courts to decide. Gudo kuipa kuipa zvaro asi paragona tisangoti rakonewa. Marry is not the only mother awaiting trial whilst in incarceration. A court can either grant or deny an accused bail, so what is all this hullabaloo about her confinement.

Is this because she was married and divorced by all the three men who happened to be her husbands. Mubaiwa limped from businessman Terry Mandizha to a Premier Soccer Star, Shingi Kawondera and the retired General.

She parted ways with all the men under similar acrimonious circumstances which involve allegations of dosh spinning and fraud. So all the three were devils to the saintly Marry?

Her former conquests must have caucused in order to ‘manufacture’ uniform complaints against her. Get me right. I am not about to declare her a gold digger, but her history seems to suggest that she has all the traits of one.

Her alleged ‘nude arrest’ is sweet fodder to fuming feminists, but police could not have abandoned their mission to apprehend her simply because she stripped naked and took refuge in a bathing room. She might be a former model, but I doubt if the police were more interested in her nudity.

Their intention was fixed on detaining her in order to guarantee a court appearance the following Monday. Police used minimum force to get her under lock and key. This rule applies to everyone else notwithstanding the suspect’s demographic data.

Marry could have simply wrapped herself in a towel and engaged the police by merely saying: “Ndimirirei ndimbopfega hembe.” The police couldn’t have allowed a suspect to successfully resist arrest by taking off clothes.

There is also nothing amiss about bringing a case against anyone as long as credible evidence is provided. If Mary bought immovable properties and a Roger Rover through the proceeds of looting scarce foreign currency, as alleged in court papers, why should she not be detained and tried.

Of course she might have been introduced to that leeway by the General as people claim, but that does not make her innocent. She who is found in possession of stolen property is the prime suspect.

Upon their mother’s arrest, the General saw it fit to surrender Marry’s children from previous two marriages to her mother. I thought Chiwenga was considerate enough to place the children under the custody of their biological grand-mother, as Marry fights her battles in court.

As a loving father Chiwenga kept the three children he had with Marry. So how is this wrong? Was Chiwenga supposed to dump his children at Marry’s mother’s place as well?

As to why ZACC is expected to ignore such a serious charge of money laundering is mind boggling. The Commission’s interest doesn’t extend to the messy divorce involving the Vice President and Marry, but is limited to the $1millon bled out of the national coffers.

It is convenient fiction to suggest that only Marry is being targeted for creating marriage headaches for Chiwenga when a lot of other high flying Zanu PF characters (were caught and released) are under investigations.

Uyuvo Marry uyu vakomana! Why does Marry think she is entitled to Chiwenga ’sentimental Borrowdale Brooke mansion, which the General got as a divorce settlement from his former wife, Joceyln?