Opinion / Columnist
Musewe says no to GPA reforms because are 'suicidal' for Mugabe - how typical!
02 Jan 2016 at 08:27hrs | Views
Vince Musewe, you used to write wonderful pieces guided by one thing and one thing only the truth but ever since you took unto yourself the task of midwife to this Tsvangirai - Mujuru coalition you have written one rubbish article after another. Your latest article Zimbabweans not yet hungry enough for total freedom is no different. The choking chlorine gas fog that have been whirling in your head like Jupiter's "red-eye" storm ever since you took up the midwife duties is making you see what is not there, come up with confused conclusions or worse.
"It was Thomas Jefferson who said that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots," you started Vince. What you have failed to understand is that Thomas Jefferson was sure America had planted a tree of liberty; we have planted a tree of tyranny and you want more innocent Zimbabwean blood to be shed to water corruption and tyranny.
Of course Zimbabweans are hungry for freedom, liberty, justice, good governance, human rights and dignity. Indeed, they are starving to death of hunger for freedom because their never ever tasted freedom let alone eaten their fill.
You want the people to join Tsvangirai's street protest, risking life and limp; that will be "blood of patriots" and proof they are "hungry for total freedom". What you forget is the people did risked all in the fight to end white colonial rule and thousands paid the ultimate price with their very lives – a historic fact many, especially Mugabe and his cronies, have actively down played.
By the time the nation attained her independence 18 April 1980 the people found much to their surprise and disgust that their right to free, fair and credible elections had been removed by Mugabe and his cronies. Over the years the tyrant has striped the people more and more their freedoms and rights including the right to life!
In his 35 years of tyrannical rule Mugabe has already murdered over 30 000 Zimbabweans whose only crime was that they dared to demand their freedoms and human rights including the right to a meaningful vote.
In 2008 the people of Zimbabwe mounted a concerted effort to end this Mugabe dictatorship by once again risking all to elect Tsvangirai and his MDC. MDC promised to bring democratic change. The price of getting MDC into the GNU was homes and livelihood destroyed, millions harassed, hundreds of thousands beaten and/or raped and over 500 murdered.
But once again the people were in for yet another disappointed; GNU failed to deliver free, fair and credible elections. This time it was Tsvangirai and his cronies who conspired to betrayed them. Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders the gravy train lifestyles, plus the $4 million Highlands Mansion for Tsvangirai in return for GNU ignoring SADC calls to implement the GPA reforms. Tsvangirai and friends accepted the bribes and not even one reform were implemented. Not one!
Whilst it is true that for the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans their lives are a hell lot worse now than it was under Ian Smith and so they will be even hungrier for freedom and for economic security and a share of the nation's bounty. But after years of risking all for freedom and human rights and being betrayed by the very people who promised them freedom and change; it is wise to ignore those for more patriot blood to water the tree of liberty and check what tree the nation has planted.
We do not have a tree of liberty but rather a tree of tyranny. If there is to be any patriot blood to be shed then is must be in making sure we uproot the Zanu PF dictatorship tree and replace it with the democratic tree. The Zanu PF dictatorship is not confined to just elected public officials, the dictatorship has far reaching rhizomes in every state or public institution or façade of human activity forcing them all to abandon their set public good to serve the regime's no-regime-change agenda at all cost.
The 2008 GPA has already established raft of democratic reforms that must be implemented to destroy the dictatorship. We do not need to reinvent the wheel, we demand the implementation of the 2008 GPA democratic reforms; this is the only fight worth the candle!
"Some of our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora continue to protest and demand political reforms from a regime which knows that it will be suicidal to do so," argued Musewe. "Their calls for comprehensive reforms will never be heeded because ZANU (PF) knows that it is hugely unpopular especially amongst those who had to make the choice to leave the country. Allowing them to vote, for example, would sound their political death knell and they will do whatever it takes to make sure that Zimbabweans in the Diaspora do not vote. That is the truth."
There are Zimbabweans inside the country and outside who agree and differ on this issue like on many others issues. The false claim that no Zimbabwean in the country wants the reforms implemented is, of course, nonsense. The innuendo that we all defer to Zimbabweans inside the country because they know best must be dismissed with the contempt it rightly deserves.
The country is in fact in this mess because of the twisted Mugabe logic claiming that only those with liberation war credentials were competent to rule. So of the generation old enough to fight, all of the competent individuals went to war. And all the other generations have failed to produce anyone remotely competent. There is no doubt that it was Mugabe himself who coerced security sector chiefs to publicly say they would not salute anyone with no war credentials – a treasonous statement.
Now that it is clear Grace Mugabe is gunning for the presidency Mugabe is telling the war vets and security sector top brass alike that they are not special and must stop flaunting their liberation war credentials. So Grace has now acquired the mental intellect denied everyone else of her generation! This is no ordinary "bedroom coup"; there must be something more magical than Aladdin's flying carpet about that bed!
To come back to the subject of reforms; our Mr Know-Best Musewe tells we should not demand the implementation of the GPA reforms because implementing the reforms will be "suicidal" for Mugabe. Good Lord, grant me patience!
So we must demand the implementation of the electoral laws (Tsvangirai's National Electoral Reform Agenda) which will change nothing and keep the Mugabe dictatorship intact. We are to condemn millions of our people whom Mugabe has cheated and betrayed these last 35 years already by denying them their freedoms, human rights, dreams and hopes, to suffer and die in dumb anguish forever since implementing the GPA reforms will always be "suicidal" for Mugabe or his future successors. As for the ever worsening economic meltdown we are truly stuck with it because there will be no economic recovery without political reform.
Of course Mugabe would try his ruthless best and use every dirty trick there is to avoid implementing the 2008 GPA reforms but is to be expected of a tyrant. It was infinitely easier to implement the reforms during the GNU years because Mugabe had tied his own hands then by signing the GPA. Still the worsen economic situation and the dog-eat-dog situation in his own party has weaken Mugabe's grip on power it is self-evident regime change is coming regardless of what Mugabe wants it or not!
Musewe wants the nation to forget demanding the tough 2008 GPA reforms in favour electoral law, NERA, knowing fully well whether or not they implementation will have no effect in stopping Zanu PF rigging the elections. Tsvangirai will take part in the next elections even if not even one electoral reform in implemented.
The only logical reason Tsvangirai continues to talk about NERA is having accepted that the last elections were rigged he has to be seen to be addressing that point. Besides NERA has now provided one issue round which to rally together other opposition.
This Mugabe is already failing to pay civil servant wages, Finance Minister Chinamasa's kiya-kiya is not the way to run a business let alone a nation. Every soon Mugabe will be forced to start digging deep into what he and his cronies have been looting to prevent economic collapse.
In 2012 Partnership Africa Canada said Mugabe pocketed $2 billion from his share of the looting and plunder going on in Marange. The national budget from "kiya-kiya" Minister Chinamasa was $3.8 billion so Mugabe's loot will pay 53% of the national budget. Even Mugabe will know this is not sustainable.
Musewe is pinning his hopes on his brainchild, the MDC-T and People First coalition, winning the next elections regardless all the inbuilt political defects in Mugabe's favour. Musewe's greatest selling point is that people should support his project for the sake of stopping Mugabe getting back into power and forget about dismantling the dictatorship, leave that for another day.
As long as the State President; whoever it happen to be, be it Mugabe, his wife, Mujuru or whoever; has dictatorial powers to control state institutions and rig elections as is the case now, he/she will never want to give up those power. Whoever wins the next elections will be more interested in consolidating their own power by taking advantage of the existing dictatorial powers; they will not want to dilute those dictatorial powers by implementing the 2008 GPA reforms.
The people of Zimbabwe lost the golden opportunity of ending the Zanu PF dictatorship by implementing the GPA reforms during the GNU. We have another chance now with Mugabe being squeezed hard on the economic front by the worsening economic situation and on the political front from Zanu PF imploding. We can pile on the pressure by demanding the implementation of the GPA reforms.
Even if Mugabe was to rest implement the GPA reforms and was to go on and rig the next elections the economic pressure on him will only be even worse then because by then even his looting from Marange will no longer be enough to pay for everything! And if we maintain our demand for the implementation of all GPA reforms, it will not be long for him or his successor realise there is no way out.
We have been cheated of our freedom and our rights for the last 35 years. Last time is was Tsvangirai et al who sold-out to deny us our rights after we elected them into power on the promise they will delivery change. Musewe wants us to elect the same corrupt and incompetent Tsvangirai, Mujuru and their respective party into power in the hope that once in power they will give up the dictatorial powers still inherent in the system out of pity and love of us their follow men and implement all the GPA reforms! Believe that and you too, like Musewe, must have the Jupiter red-eye storm whirling in your empty head!
"It was Thomas Jefferson who said that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots," you started Vince. What you have failed to understand is that Thomas Jefferson was sure America had planted a tree of liberty; we have planted a tree of tyranny and you want more innocent Zimbabwean blood to be shed to water corruption and tyranny.
Of course Zimbabweans are hungry for freedom, liberty, justice, good governance, human rights and dignity. Indeed, they are starving to death of hunger for freedom because their never ever tasted freedom let alone eaten their fill.
You want the people to join Tsvangirai's street protest, risking life and limp; that will be "blood of patriots" and proof they are "hungry for total freedom". What you forget is the people did risked all in the fight to end white colonial rule and thousands paid the ultimate price with their very lives – a historic fact many, especially Mugabe and his cronies, have actively down played.
By the time the nation attained her independence 18 April 1980 the people found much to their surprise and disgust that their right to free, fair and credible elections had been removed by Mugabe and his cronies. Over the years the tyrant has striped the people more and more their freedoms and rights including the right to life!
In his 35 years of tyrannical rule Mugabe has already murdered over 30 000 Zimbabweans whose only crime was that they dared to demand their freedoms and human rights including the right to a meaningful vote.
In 2008 the people of Zimbabwe mounted a concerted effort to end this Mugabe dictatorship by once again risking all to elect Tsvangirai and his MDC. MDC promised to bring democratic change. The price of getting MDC into the GNU was homes and livelihood destroyed, millions harassed, hundreds of thousands beaten and/or raped and over 500 murdered.
But once again the people were in for yet another disappointed; GNU failed to deliver free, fair and credible elections. This time it was Tsvangirai and his cronies who conspired to betrayed them. Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders the gravy train lifestyles, plus the $4 million Highlands Mansion for Tsvangirai in return for GNU ignoring SADC calls to implement the GPA reforms. Tsvangirai and friends accepted the bribes and not even one reform were implemented. Not one!
Whilst it is true that for the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans their lives are a hell lot worse now than it was under Ian Smith and so they will be even hungrier for freedom and for economic security and a share of the nation's bounty. But after years of risking all for freedom and human rights and being betrayed by the very people who promised them freedom and change; it is wise to ignore those for more patriot blood to water the tree of liberty and check what tree the nation has planted.
We do not have a tree of liberty but rather a tree of tyranny. If there is to be any patriot blood to be shed then is must be in making sure we uproot the Zanu PF dictatorship tree and replace it with the democratic tree. The Zanu PF dictatorship is not confined to just elected public officials, the dictatorship has far reaching rhizomes in every state or public institution or façade of human activity forcing them all to abandon their set public good to serve the regime's no-regime-change agenda at all cost.
The 2008 GPA has already established raft of democratic reforms that must be implemented to destroy the dictatorship. We do not need to reinvent the wheel, we demand the implementation of the 2008 GPA democratic reforms; this is the only fight worth the candle!
"Some of our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora continue to protest and demand political reforms from a regime which knows that it will be suicidal to do so," argued Musewe. "Their calls for comprehensive reforms will never be heeded because ZANU (PF) knows that it is hugely unpopular especially amongst those who had to make the choice to leave the country. Allowing them to vote, for example, would sound their political death knell and they will do whatever it takes to make sure that Zimbabweans in the Diaspora do not vote. That is the truth."
There are Zimbabweans inside the country and outside who agree and differ on this issue like on many others issues. The false claim that no Zimbabwean in the country wants the reforms implemented is, of course, nonsense. The innuendo that we all defer to Zimbabweans inside the country because they know best must be dismissed with the contempt it rightly deserves.
The country is in fact in this mess because of the twisted Mugabe logic claiming that only those with liberation war credentials were competent to rule. So of the generation old enough to fight, all of the competent individuals went to war. And all the other generations have failed to produce anyone remotely competent. There is no doubt that it was Mugabe himself who coerced security sector chiefs to publicly say they would not salute anyone with no war credentials – a treasonous statement.
Now that it is clear Grace Mugabe is gunning for the presidency Mugabe is telling the war vets and security sector top brass alike that they are not special and must stop flaunting their liberation war credentials. So Grace has now acquired the mental intellect denied everyone else of her generation! This is no ordinary "bedroom coup"; there must be something more magical than Aladdin's flying carpet about that bed!
To come back to the subject of reforms; our Mr Know-Best Musewe tells we should not demand the implementation of the GPA reforms because implementing the reforms will be "suicidal" for Mugabe. Good Lord, grant me patience!
So we must demand the implementation of the electoral laws (Tsvangirai's National Electoral Reform Agenda) which will change nothing and keep the Mugabe dictatorship intact. We are to condemn millions of our people whom Mugabe has cheated and betrayed these last 35 years already by denying them their freedoms, human rights, dreams and hopes, to suffer and die in dumb anguish forever since implementing the GPA reforms will always be "suicidal" for Mugabe or his future successors. As for the ever worsening economic meltdown we are truly stuck with it because there will be no economic recovery without political reform.
Of course Mugabe would try his ruthless best and use every dirty trick there is to avoid implementing the 2008 GPA reforms but is to be expected of a tyrant. It was infinitely easier to implement the reforms during the GNU years because Mugabe had tied his own hands then by signing the GPA. Still the worsen economic situation and the dog-eat-dog situation in his own party has weaken Mugabe's grip on power it is self-evident regime change is coming regardless of what Mugabe wants it or not!
Musewe wants the nation to forget demanding the tough 2008 GPA reforms in favour electoral law, NERA, knowing fully well whether or not they implementation will have no effect in stopping Zanu PF rigging the elections. Tsvangirai will take part in the next elections even if not even one electoral reform in implemented.
The only logical reason Tsvangirai continues to talk about NERA is having accepted that the last elections were rigged he has to be seen to be addressing that point. Besides NERA has now provided one issue round which to rally together other opposition.
This Mugabe is already failing to pay civil servant wages, Finance Minister Chinamasa's kiya-kiya is not the way to run a business let alone a nation. Every soon Mugabe will be forced to start digging deep into what he and his cronies have been looting to prevent economic collapse.
In 2012 Partnership Africa Canada said Mugabe pocketed $2 billion from his share of the looting and plunder going on in Marange. The national budget from "kiya-kiya" Minister Chinamasa was $3.8 billion so Mugabe's loot will pay 53% of the national budget. Even Mugabe will know this is not sustainable.
Musewe is pinning his hopes on his brainchild, the MDC-T and People First coalition, winning the next elections regardless all the inbuilt political defects in Mugabe's favour. Musewe's greatest selling point is that people should support his project for the sake of stopping Mugabe getting back into power and forget about dismantling the dictatorship, leave that for another day.
As long as the State President; whoever it happen to be, be it Mugabe, his wife, Mujuru or whoever; has dictatorial powers to control state institutions and rig elections as is the case now, he/she will never want to give up those power. Whoever wins the next elections will be more interested in consolidating their own power by taking advantage of the existing dictatorial powers; they will not want to dilute those dictatorial powers by implementing the 2008 GPA reforms.
The people of Zimbabwe lost the golden opportunity of ending the Zanu PF dictatorship by implementing the GPA reforms during the GNU. We have another chance now with Mugabe being squeezed hard on the economic front by the worsening economic situation and on the political front from Zanu PF imploding. We can pile on the pressure by demanding the implementation of the GPA reforms.
Even if Mugabe was to rest implement the GPA reforms and was to go on and rig the next elections the economic pressure on him will only be even worse then because by then even his looting from Marange will no longer be enough to pay for everything! And if we maintain our demand for the implementation of all GPA reforms, it will not be long for him or his successor realise there is no way out.
We have been cheated of our freedom and our rights for the last 35 years. Last time is was Tsvangirai et al who sold-out to deny us our rights after we elected them into power on the promise they will delivery change. Musewe wants us to elect the same corrupt and incompetent Tsvangirai, Mujuru and their respective party into power in the hope that once in power they will give up the dictatorial powers still inherent in the system out of pity and love of us their follow men and implement all the GPA reforms! Believe that and you too, like Musewe, must have the Jupiter red-eye storm whirling in your empty head!
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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