Opinion / Blogs
Lindiwe Zulu peddling regime change agenda under facilitator umbrella
16 Aug 2011 at 07:18hrs | Views
I admire President Robert Mugabe. While I have never personally met him; I have read and taken to heart many of the wise words that come from his mouth. In my discussions I have found that hate him or love him President Mugabe is admired for his principles.
"Is it not a paradox that while we are denied resources for development, funding is readily available to support elements bent on subverting the democratically expressed will of the majority of the people?"
"They claim to be champions of democracy yet they want to impose their will on us, they think they know what's good for us, it is high time they got rid of the big brother mentality."
However this article is not really about President Mugabe but about Madame Lindiwe Zulu. There are many of us who believe that there are women in positions of power who are doing a great disservice to their fellow comrades. It has been a long walk for women to be accepted as equals in many sectors of life. Unfortunately these days we find that many women are placed in positions of authority not by merit but because they are just women. It is such characters that have a tendency of not only getting excitedly ahead of themselves but take on an donkey attitude when it is pointed out that they are headed in the wrong direction. We have all come across such women who are ruthless because they are trying to make up for their lack of qualifications and depth.
Madame Zulu has a problem and I strongly believe it emanates from the fact that she needs to feel needed and important and so she has to create crisis situations so that the spotlight remains on her. When former President Thabo Mbeki was mediating Zimbabweans never knew the names of his facilitating team and yet those were the days when Zimbabwe was a hotbed of all kinds of political machinations. One episode that comes to mind was when Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai decided to sleepover at the Norwegian Embassy for a few nights claiming that he wanted to be assassinated or the time he refused to attend a SADC meeting in Swaziland claiming he had no passport only to find his way to Europe visaless to receive some bogus humanitarian award.
Again I have digressed; my problem with Madame Zulu is this, she attracts controversy more that a pile of you know what attracts flies. In fact I am beginning to believe the first couple of numbers on speed-dial on her telephone are those of journalists. This please listen and look at me syndrome makes her a liability not only to President Zuma but to the people of Zimbabwe. As a facilitator is it not her role to ensure that there is dialogue among the negotiating parties and that the GPA is adhered to while parties chat an election roadmap. Why is it then that Lindiwe Zulu seems to be at the centre of creating disharmony among negotiators? Why is she seeking to bring new players into the arena that have already been rejected by the ordinary Zimbabwean as vehicles of American and European interests in Zimbabwe?
Recently Lindiwe Zulu held a meeting with several groups among them Crisis Coalition of Zimbabwe, ZESN, WOZA and NANGO where these groups made recommendations on how the facilitating team could shape the agenda to have their ideas and demands incorporated at the SADC Heads of State Summit. Lindiwe Zulu's actions are nothing more than an attempt to have these so called civic groups that have been kept out of the negotiation process enter into the process through the backdoor. It is these same groups that last month were giving funding by one Leusia Goncales Mahoney an America working for the CIA backed and funded National Endowement for Democracy (NED).
A few weeks back Madame Zulu decided she had the power to call into question the operations of Zimbabwe's Security Forces. Not only was this outside her mandate but it brought to disrepute the office of President Zuma as a facilitator and was interpretated by many political analysts as an abuse to the SADC mandate.
Before that she had called everyone in her telephone book including several SADC heads of State who were peacefully enjoying their sleep to inform them an alleged arrest of the MDC-N convoy which in fact never took place claiming that it was threatening the GPA and the so-called Sadc election roadmap.
In May she was quoted in the media as having expressed concern over President Mugabe's faling health and how his potential death could compromise the negotiations. Again Madame Zulu chose to stick her nose where it was not meant and worse still she was ready microphone in hand to put her foot in her mouth.
Lindiwe Zulu is working in cahoots with elements that are pushing for regime change in Zimbabwe. Her actions are not that of an impartial facilitator but with each step she is being exposed as having her own aims to achieve through her role and these goals have nothing to do with the SADC mandate but more to do with pleasing America and her allies.
Each day she shrillingly sound more and more like a US State Department official and her recent meeting with civic groups that have been bought lock, stock and barrel by the American Government is an indication as to where her alligence lies. She is frantically working to prop up these groups and give them legitimacy which SADC has blatantly refused to grant them. Her statements castigating former President Thabo Mbeki for not initially incorporating civic society in the negotiation process are a parroting Western Donors stance on the Zimbabwe negotiations.
In Zimbabwe most Civic Society Organizations are groupings of individuals who have been bought and paid for by Western donors to further the regime change agenda. One of the biggest players in the regime change agenda has been the National Endowment for Democracy NED. NED claims it does not directly fund any political party, as this is forbidden by law. However, it has been accused of providing funding to opposition candidates in elections in countries other than the USA. It intervenes in elections by funding election observation and civic education on voting. Its main targets are trade unions and business associations, youth and student organizations, women's groups, civic organizations and religious communities.
The civic society in Zimbabwe has been used to strengthen the MDC as a vehicle for regime change. It has added voices to create an impression that there is a crisis in Zimbabwe. In fact the umbrella organization for the NED funded civic groups in Zimbabwe is Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition. This is how it is marketed to the global audience "Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition is a Coalition of more than 350 civil society organizations. It was conceived in August 2001 as a collective response by Zimbabwean civics to the multi faceted crisis facing the nation." While this bogus civic society claims to represent the Zimbabwean majority it is neither accountable to the Zimbabweans it claims to represent nor is it reflective of the real concerns and views of the ordinary Zimbabwean. Instead of being vehicles for progress and social change Civic Society is fighting the regime change war against the people of Zimbabwe. Donor funds are its main source of funding and not the society it claims to be representing. So in essence what Zimbabwe has are civic groups that are paid to endorse whatever their Western donors say. These are the people Lindiwe Zulu is meeting with to discuss how best to tackle the Zimbabwe situation. They have fabricated stories, created situations and events in order to strengthen the West's bid for regime change in Zimbabwe. What Lindiwe Zulu is doing is not only unheard of but a clear breach of the trust that SADC has placed on President Jacob Zuma as an impartial and objective facilitator to the Zimbabwe negotiations.
President Zuma has to put his house in order. His resource person Madame Lindiwe Zulu has shown that she is an irresponsible official who has no understanding of the magnitude of the task at hand, what she says and does has great bearing on the lives of millions of Zimbabweans and yet she chooses to address Zimbabwe's negotiating parties through the media. SADC is an institution built on foundations of solidarity, peace and stability and its heritage deserves better than the likes of Madame Zulu who have clearly become pawns in a game of chess older than her age which has certainly not brought any wisdom.
Madame Zulu should do well to remember that the tenants of democracy which she wants to use as a disguise to further the Western regime change agenda in Zimbabwe are meant to protect the millions of Zimbabweans who have refused and denounced the actions of not only Western governments but those groups she is giving audience too. It is these institutions that have brought untold suffering and left Zimbabwe limping. Zimbabweans will also refuse and denounce her as an unelected emissary for the West who sacrilegiously marred their rights as a people and attempted to ruin a regional institution in exchange for endearment by imperialists who do not see Africans as their equals but as sub-humans.
"Is it not a paradox that while we are denied resources for development, funding is readily available to support elements bent on subverting the democratically expressed will of the majority of the people?"
"They claim to be champions of democracy yet they want to impose their will on us, they think they know what's good for us, it is high time they got rid of the big brother mentality."
However this article is not really about President Mugabe but about Madame Lindiwe Zulu. There are many of us who believe that there are women in positions of power who are doing a great disservice to their fellow comrades. It has been a long walk for women to be accepted as equals in many sectors of life. Unfortunately these days we find that many women are placed in positions of authority not by merit but because they are just women. It is such characters that have a tendency of not only getting excitedly ahead of themselves but take on an donkey attitude when it is pointed out that they are headed in the wrong direction. We have all come across such women who are ruthless because they are trying to make up for their lack of qualifications and depth.
Madame Zulu has a problem and I strongly believe it emanates from the fact that she needs to feel needed and important and so she has to create crisis situations so that the spotlight remains on her. When former President Thabo Mbeki was mediating Zimbabweans never knew the names of his facilitating team and yet those were the days when Zimbabwe was a hotbed of all kinds of political machinations. One episode that comes to mind was when Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai decided to sleepover at the Norwegian Embassy for a few nights claiming that he wanted to be assassinated or the time he refused to attend a SADC meeting in Swaziland claiming he had no passport only to find his way to Europe visaless to receive some bogus humanitarian award.
Again I have digressed; my problem with Madame Zulu is this, she attracts controversy more that a pile of you know what attracts flies. In fact I am beginning to believe the first couple of numbers on speed-dial on her telephone are those of journalists. This please listen and look at me syndrome makes her a liability not only to President Zuma but to the people of Zimbabwe. As a facilitator is it not her role to ensure that there is dialogue among the negotiating parties and that the GPA is adhered to while parties chat an election roadmap. Why is it then that Lindiwe Zulu seems to be at the centre of creating disharmony among negotiators? Why is she seeking to bring new players into the arena that have already been rejected by the ordinary Zimbabwean as vehicles of American and European interests in Zimbabwe?
Recently Lindiwe Zulu held a meeting with several groups among them Crisis Coalition of Zimbabwe, ZESN, WOZA and NANGO where these groups made recommendations on how the facilitating team could shape the agenda to have their ideas and demands incorporated at the SADC Heads of State Summit. Lindiwe Zulu's actions are nothing more than an attempt to have these so called civic groups that have been kept out of the negotiation process enter into the process through the backdoor. It is these same groups that last month were giving funding by one Leusia Goncales Mahoney an America working for the CIA backed and funded National Endowement for Democracy (NED).
A few weeks back Madame Zulu decided she had the power to call into question the operations of Zimbabwe's Security Forces. Not only was this outside her mandate but it brought to disrepute the office of President Zuma as a facilitator and was interpretated by many political analysts as an abuse to the SADC mandate.
In May she was quoted in the media as having expressed concern over President Mugabe's faling health and how his potential death could compromise the negotiations. Again Madame Zulu chose to stick her nose where it was not meant and worse still she was ready microphone in hand to put her foot in her mouth.
Lindiwe Zulu is working in cahoots with elements that are pushing for regime change in Zimbabwe. Her actions are not that of an impartial facilitator but with each step she is being exposed as having her own aims to achieve through her role and these goals have nothing to do with the SADC mandate but more to do with pleasing America and her allies.
Each day she shrillingly sound more and more like a US State Department official and her recent meeting with civic groups that have been bought lock, stock and barrel by the American Government is an indication as to where her alligence lies. She is frantically working to prop up these groups and give them legitimacy which SADC has blatantly refused to grant them. Her statements castigating former President Thabo Mbeki for not initially incorporating civic society in the negotiation process are a parroting Western Donors stance on the Zimbabwe negotiations.
In Zimbabwe most Civic Society Organizations are groupings of individuals who have been bought and paid for by Western donors to further the regime change agenda. One of the biggest players in the regime change agenda has been the National Endowment for Democracy NED. NED claims it does not directly fund any political party, as this is forbidden by law. However, it has been accused of providing funding to opposition candidates in elections in countries other than the USA. It intervenes in elections by funding election observation and civic education on voting. Its main targets are trade unions and business associations, youth and student organizations, women's groups, civic organizations and religious communities.
The civic society in Zimbabwe has been used to strengthen the MDC as a vehicle for regime change. It has added voices to create an impression that there is a crisis in Zimbabwe. In fact the umbrella organization for the NED funded civic groups in Zimbabwe is Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition. This is how it is marketed to the global audience "Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition is a Coalition of more than 350 civil society organizations. It was conceived in August 2001 as a collective response by Zimbabwean civics to the multi faceted crisis facing the nation." While this bogus civic society claims to represent the Zimbabwean majority it is neither accountable to the Zimbabweans it claims to represent nor is it reflective of the real concerns and views of the ordinary Zimbabwean. Instead of being vehicles for progress and social change Civic Society is fighting the regime change war against the people of Zimbabwe. Donor funds are its main source of funding and not the society it claims to be representing. So in essence what Zimbabwe has are civic groups that are paid to endorse whatever their Western donors say. These are the people Lindiwe Zulu is meeting with to discuss how best to tackle the Zimbabwe situation. They have fabricated stories, created situations and events in order to strengthen the West's bid for regime change in Zimbabwe. What Lindiwe Zulu is doing is not only unheard of but a clear breach of the trust that SADC has placed on President Jacob Zuma as an impartial and objective facilitator to the Zimbabwe negotiations.
President Zuma has to put his house in order. His resource person Madame Lindiwe Zulu has shown that she is an irresponsible official who has no understanding of the magnitude of the task at hand, what she says and does has great bearing on the lives of millions of Zimbabweans and yet she chooses to address Zimbabwe's negotiating parties through the media. SADC is an institution built on foundations of solidarity, peace and stability and its heritage deserves better than the likes of Madame Zulu who have clearly become pawns in a game of chess older than her age which has certainly not brought any wisdom.
Madame Zulu should do well to remember that the tenants of democracy which she wants to use as a disguise to further the Western regime change agenda in Zimbabwe are meant to protect the millions of Zimbabweans who have refused and denounced the actions of not only Western governments but those groups she is giving audience too. It is these institutions that have brought untold suffering and left Zimbabwe limping. Zimbabweans will also refuse and denounce her as an unelected emissary for the West who sacrilegiously marred their rights as a people and attempted to ruin a regional institution in exchange for endearment by imperialists who do not see Africans as their equals but as sub-humans.
Source - Dambudzo Mapuranga
All articles and letters published on Bulawayo24 have been independently written by members of Bulawayo24's community. The views of users published on Bulawayo24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Bulawayo24. Bulawayo24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.
