MDC-T flogging a dead horse

To the MDC formations and their appendages in the private media, Livingstone is dead and no amount of grandstanding can flog that dead horse to life. Let me take this opportunity to urge the MDC-T leadership to stop expending time on misinforming people about Sandton, and instead direct their energy to lobbying for the lifting of the illegal economic sanctions so as to level the playing field, writes Farirai Chubvu.

DAVID LIVINGSTONE was a Scottish congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and explorer in Africa.

His meeting with (Henry Morton) Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr Livingstone, I presume?"

Perhaps, one of the most prominent Europeans of the late 19th century in Victorian Britain, Livingstone had a mythical status, which operated on a number of interconnected levels: that of Protestant missionary martyr; that of working-class "rags to riches" inspirational story; that of scientific investigator and explorer; that of imperial reformer; anti-slavery crusader; and advocate of commercial empire.

Livingstone's fame as an explorer helped drive forward the obsession with discovering the sources of the River Nile that formed the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of the African continent.

At the same time his missionary travels, "disappearance" and death in Africa, and subsequent glorification as posthumous British national hero in 1874 led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European scramble for Africa.

The man would no doubt be surprised by the mythical status his name has assumed in a section of Zimbabwean politics since the ill-fated Sadc Troika Summit was convened in the Zambian town named after him on March 31.

It was at that summit that procedural oversights saw an MDC-T document being passed for the facilitator's report and subsequently, a Troika document, a document that was a de facto blueprint for illegal regime change in Zimbabwe as directed by Western think-tanks.

For that brief period between March 31 and June 12, the MDC-T's reactionary politics were passed as having been endorsed by the region.

Zanu-PF, the revolutionary party that speared-headed the liberation struggle was as a conclave of untouchable lepers who had fallen out of favour in southern Africa.

All of a sudden Morgan Tsvangirai and his politically ugly MDC-T who all along had been bad-mouthing Sadc, calling the bloc a club of dictators found them agreeable.

He believed his subversive cause was a Sadc cause.

With events in North Africa where a divided and confused Arab League had proposed the no-fly zone over Libya giving Westerners a much-needed excuse to launch an invasion on Libya, Westerners thought they had at last found a chink in the Sadc armour which would enable them to bayonet their nemesis, President Robert Mugabe.

This explains the frantic agenda setting we saw ahead of the Sandton Extraordinary Summit where the local private and Western media expected Mugabe to be guillotined.

But, as it turned out, Zanu-PF which had slumbered ahead of Livingstone had awoken and done its groundwork exposing the lies in the MDC-T document which is why even the ''bombing'' of Tendai Biti's house, which appeared to have been a desperate attempt to bolster the MDC-T's calls for security sector reforms was not even mentioned at the Summit.

The Livingstone report was presented and, given how Zanu-PF envoys had set the record staraight about the MDC-T's claims of state-sanctioned violence and the alleged silence along with developments since the Troika summit, the Livingstone report was just ''noted'' and not endorsed.

Noting means acknowledging report's existence for the record; it's a form of rejection.

Outright rejection was not tenable for the simple reason that the report is part of the record.

Endorsement would have meant the recommendations made in the Troika communique would have formed part of the Sandton communique and would call for implementation on the part of the parties to the GPA

Be that as it may, Livingstone was all about ambushing Zanu-PF to score cheap political points since the MDC-T with the connivance of someone on the facilitation team, probably Lindiwe Zulu, smuggled their report passing it off as the facilitator's report.

The MDC-T leadership must take a leaf from the statecraft shown by President Mugabe in Windhoek last month where he asked the Summit to defer discussion on Zimbabwe saying he did not want to ambush the other principals who had not been invited since the Summit was at the level of heads and State and Government.

To the MDC formations and their appendages in the private media, Livingstone is dead and no amount of grandstanding can flog that dead horse to life.

MDC-T leaders must stop expending time on misinforming people about Sandton, and instead direct their energy to lobbying for the lifting of the illegal economic sanctions so as to level the playing field.

Nicodemously asking Westerners to maintain the sanctions on one hand, while seeking concessions from Zanu-PF to ''level the playing field'' is the worst form of deception the MDC-T can embark on.

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Farirai Chubvu can be contacted on fariraichubvu@gmail.com