Jonathan Moyo bloodshed threats cannot be ignored

The flying of brickbats between Zimbabwe's political foes — the vanquished G40 and their Lacoste rivals — following the fall of the former and ascendency to power of the latter, can be understood and expected.

What, however, becomes cause for great concern and alarm is the escalation of their verbal showdown into threats of national bloodshed. Politicians have the right to exchange blows for power; tear each other apart even, just as it is the right of citizens to ultimately decide whom they want to rule them. But, when power-hungry politicians seek to invite bloodshed onto the citizenry, it becomes a totally different story.

One of the leaders of the G40 faction, Professor Jonathan Moyo, who still leads his team in the verbal confrontation between the Zanu-PF rivals, threatened on Friday night in an interview with an international media organisation Reuters, that there was going to be bloodshed in Zimbabwe "as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow" if the current leadership of Emmerson Mnangagwa is not removed.

In his chilling warning that spoke of guns and blood, he declared that "conflict floodgates" would open, unless the United Nations and the African Union intervened and removed the current government which took over power from the Robert Mugabe regime through a popular uprising triggered by the military end of last year.

"If you don't intervene when there has been such an outrageous, brazen attack on a constitutional order, you are simply opening the floodgates to conflict," Moyo said.

"If they don't act, just as the sun will rise tomorrow, Zimbabwe will be another Somalia. There will be bloodshed."

These Moyo utterances amount to a declaration of war, and the bloodshed he alludes to here is not the blood of political leaders like him, but that of the ordinary citizen who benefits nothing out of the power-hungry acts of these war mongers.

Zimbabweans participated in and celebrated the removal of former president Mugabe. What they loved most about it, and which the world saluted, was the peaceful and bloodless nature of the exercise.

If those that were removed from power, including Moyo and his G40 group, feel what happened was unlawful, wrong, unfair or are simply unhappy about the whole thing, they are free to raise the issue with the continental and world bodies, as Moyo has been trying to do ever since their ejection from power.

What is certainly unlawful, wrong, unfair and unacceptable is for Moyo and his friends to seek to invite war and bloodshed on the peaceful people of this country.

The words that Moyo and friends are using — "conflict floodgates" and "bloodshed" — amount to treasonous acts which put the lives of Zimbabweans in danger. It would be folly therefore, for the United Nations, the African Union and indeed the government of Zimbabwe to ignore these serious threats or warnings.