News / National
I resigned from Zanu-PF before Gukurahundi massacres: Tsvangirai
18 Oct 2011 at 13:46hrs | Views
Movement for Democratic leader Morgan Richard Tsvangirai alleges that he joined Zanu-PF after the 1980 elections and left the ruling party in 1984 after losing faith in both the party and its autocratic leader.
He however acknowledges that he regarded Mugabe as a champion of freedom and Mugabe was at some point one of his heroes.
A prominent political scholar and analysts has dismissed Tsvangirai's grand standing as a a lie specifically designed to gain Machiavellian mileage over the Gukurahundi affair to win emotive and undeserved votes in Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces where searching and uncomfortable questions are increasingly being raised about Tsvangirai's views on the matter in the early 1980s.
Professor Jonathan Moyo took his time to analyse the book and says throughout the book, and especially on Pages 298 and 299, Tsvangirai distances himself from nationalism which he says ended with independence in 1980. Earlier on Page 88 he claims that "Full of enthusiasm, and regarding Robert Mugabe as a champion of freedom, I had joined the ruling party after the elections of 1980. I would leave it in 1984, after losing faith in both the party and its autocratic leader, giving myself to national trade union activities".
But there's nothing in Tsvangirai's book to explain why he joined the liberation movement only after independence in 1980 or to explain why he did not participate even in the election of that year.
While Tsvangirai confirms in his memoirs the already known fact that he became a member of Zanu-PF after the independence elections in 1980, he alleges without proffering any verifiable evidence that he left the party in 1984. It is standard practice that any unsubstantiated or unverifiable factual claim made in a book must be dismissed as false. This is to say Tsvangirai's claim that he left Zanu-PF in 1984 is a lie specifically designed to gain Machiavellian mileage over the Gukurahundi affair to win emotive and undeserved votes in Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces where searching and uncomfortable questions are increasingly being raised about Tsvangirai's views on the matter in the early 1980s.
In any case, many in Zanu-PF know for a fact that Tsvangirai would not have risen after 1984 to the position of Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) secretary-general without the political and strategic support of Cde Kumbirai Kangai when he was the Cabinet minister responsible for labour. Indeed, he would not have made it at the time without Zanu-PF support. Not in a million years. Yet this pivotal issue without which Tsvangirai's life today would be something else is not even hinted, let alone acknowledged, in his voluminous memoirs whose misplaced and incompetent revisionist focus is President Mugabe and his government that Tsvangirai says he has been opposing as a career which has now come to an unceremonious end with the advent of the GPA beyond which Tsvangirai will not be able to oppose President Mugabe with any credibility.
He however acknowledges that he regarded Mugabe as a champion of freedom and Mugabe was at some point one of his heroes.
A prominent political scholar and analysts has dismissed Tsvangirai's grand standing as a a lie specifically designed to gain Machiavellian mileage over the Gukurahundi affair to win emotive and undeserved votes in Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces where searching and uncomfortable questions are increasingly being raised about Tsvangirai's views on the matter in the early 1980s.
Professor Jonathan Moyo took his time to analyse the book and says throughout the book, and especially on Pages 298 and 299, Tsvangirai distances himself from nationalism which he says ended with independence in 1980. Earlier on Page 88 he claims that "Full of enthusiasm, and regarding Robert Mugabe as a champion of freedom, I had joined the ruling party after the elections of 1980. I would leave it in 1984, after losing faith in both the party and its autocratic leader, giving myself to national trade union activities".
But there's nothing in Tsvangirai's book to explain why he joined the liberation movement only after independence in 1980 or to explain why he did not participate even in the election of that year.
While Tsvangirai confirms in his memoirs the already known fact that he became a member of Zanu-PF after the independence elections in 1980, he alleges without proffering any verifiable evidence that he left the party in 1984. It is standard practice that any unsubstantiated or unverifiable factual claim made in a book must be dismissed as false. This is to say Tsvangirai's claim that he left Zanu-PF in 1984 is a lie specifically designed to gain Machiavellian mileage over the Gukurahundi affair to win emotive and undeserved votes in Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces where searching and uncomfortable questions are increasingly being raised about Tsvangirai's views on the matter in the early 1980s.
In any case, many in Zanu-PF know for a fact that Tsvangirai would not have risen after 1984 to the position of Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) secretary-general without the political and strategic support of Cde Kumbirai Kangai when he was the Cabinet minister responsible for labour. Indeed, he would not have made it at the time without Zanu-PF support. Not in a million years. Yet this pivotal issue without which Tsvangirai's life today would be something else is not even hinted, let alone acknowledged, in his voluminous memoirs whose misplaced and incompetent revisionist focus is President Mugabe and his government that Tsvangirai says he has been opposing as a career which has now come to an unceremonious end with the advent of the GPA beyond which Tsvangirai will not be able to oppose President Mugabe with any credibility.
Source - Byo24News
