Liberal Democrats respond to Mnangagwa statement

STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO MR MNANGAGWA, AN APPEAL!

What is good for the goose must be good for the gander. 'Tichingotonga! Vachivukura!' we are dogs that bark. Today Mr Mngangwa you dare talk in reference to Mr J. M. Nkomo. This is leaving a foul stench in many Zimbabweans' mouth. We understand your need for sympathy at this darkest hour.  Today you give you credentials of how you suffered and that you fought the liberation struggle and furthermore that ZANU PF is being made personal property of the first family. This is laughable, you have not made ZANU PF your personal property during your tenor, instead you made Zimbabwe your backyard spaza shop. If you made it your property, you would have treated it respectfully but you made it worthless. You are aggrieved because food is slipping off your fingers and because you know your crimes are beckoning after you.

You have been fingered heavily in the Gukurahundi issue, you called the Matabele people objects of treatment through Gamatox. That is what you saw in the Midlands and Matabeleland region, yet you talk of regionalism because it suites you to respond in that manner after your taking to yourself Midlands and Masvingo as alluded to by the President. Sir I am under no illusions of how brutally cruel a man you are. If you want sympathy don't try it from normal thinking Zimbabweans. It is barely yesterday when you sent your rookie fourth year law student to throw the country into disarray because you wanted your choice of candidate for the CJ.

We know you have been preparing the way for yourself to handpick the CJ and Judges. Reason behind, is because you wanted to do as you please once you are President having continued to manipulate our legal system as you have done over the years. Despite CJ Malaba's appointment you knew he will be out in four years and you fancied yourself in the driving sit hence you continued with your 1st amendment bill. You are a selfish man, you have not used your education to the good of the country but indeed to subjugate the will and power of the people of Zimbabwe.

You have many video clips, more than one cares to remember where you show how you revere ZANU PF and its firing policy. You celebrated Dr Mujuru, Mr Mutasa, Mr Gumbo, Mliswa your relative and many other's firing. You said those who do not tore the line will be fired. You said ZANU PF 'hayimwashuku kana padzingwa vanhu', you contrasted it to MDC 'yakamwashuka' many times. Sir with all due respect you fancy yourself an academic, a sage philosopher, an intellect and you insult our sense of humanity and Zimbabweanhood by this press statement. Today you call expelling people idiotic and insane because it has hit home, sorry Sir, its ZANU culture please enjoy it. It's your time in the cold.

I know as you read this and your friends, you have turned purple with anger and if I was next to you, you would squash me like a bug. Every dog often has its day, what is insane and barbaric is what you have done to our country. Your children are well fed while we rot and languish in foreign lands, treated like dogs without masters. We sleep in gutters and are called names the world over while you look smooth and 30 while you are almost three times that number, because you have banished us from our home and looted diamonds and every Zimbabwean resource. Please stop pointing at G40, stop pointing at Mr Mugabe, in particular you, you were his personal assistant, then became likea son, (your own words) the son he did not have. Apparently, the only man he could have listened to, ironic! so we are here today thanks and accolades to you 'vaMnangagwa. Mazvibaya nerenyu pfumo.'

As we speak you could have been the one person who advised the President well, you are the person who could have stopped the 37 years of carnage but instead you fueled it, creating laws that made life hard and dictatorship, the will of one man possible. I wonder if the President on his own could have pulled this whole thing. Sir, fry in your own fat and stew. If you manage a comeback well, try, let us see and good luck. Please do not try to use the suffering people as your tools and stoogies to fight your battles only to discard once back on the driving seat.

Zimbabwe does not want any coup Sir, and we understand the law, the President appointed you and appoints the Army Commanders and according to your laws to serve at his pleasure for him to fire at will. Has he done anything wrong in the eyes of the world? No! Sir. Only in your eyes because you are on the receiving end and your friends. Your own laws have ensnared you now. The Global community will not tolerate a coup. You have been arresting and charging people for subverting a lawfully elected government, Sir dodge this now! Subvert it and 'we will throw you into prison as we are an open democracy' just to borrow your phrases when all was nice on the driving seat.

Maybe you had more democratic laws in ZANU PF, you can appeal to ZANU but you cannot touch 'our' President, legitimately elected, this is a democratic society. Try and see, the world will hang you to dry and watch you shrivel like every other Zimbabwean that has been on the receiving end this far.
We as the Liberal Democrats want to have no part in this drama but Zimbabwe is our country and we continue to desire and work towards seeing a prosperous, inclusive, open democratic, non-tribal, non-sexist, non-corrupt, non-kleptocratic, non patrimonialistic, nor patronage based political system based country. We desire a job creating economy, booming industries that has equal opportunities for all and not a select few. The status quo in our country is regrettable and surely it would have been unfair for the perpetrators not to taste their own medicine. We pray that Zimbabweans will open their eyes to say, 'Never again will they subject themselves to hero-worship mentalities,' dictators and dictatorships are created by flatterers who want to close themselves in with the people they want to benefit from.
We pray to God that all political parties that operate on the same basis of hero-worshipping their leaders must know those leaders will prey on them sooner. You would think this is the culture of uneducated people or unschooled people but not a country with a third of its population and probably all MPs being lawyers. This is a plea to all political parties that are operating on the same basis chief of all in the opposition being the largest MDC with all its break away and come back prodigal sons and daughters. You owe it to Zimbabwe, the dearly departed stalwarts of this wave of this opposition era, the maimed and the beaten to pulp, to do the honourable thing, be constitutionally minded people who are fearless when it comes to doing the right things. The people that were on the helm of MDC at its formation still sit there today even in their various breakaway parties and yet you have the audacity to call ZANU and Mr Mugabe, dictators.

Look in the mirror, smell the coffee, you cannot stay at the helm and say the system is failing you. It's not the system, its you. You think you are the only ones that can do it! No! Infact you know others can, but you are just selfish, greedy and dictators at heart. Imagine the young generation that is ever in running battles with the system they could have taken over and done better, the Mkwananzis, Masarira, the then Chamisas now corrupted, etc, you should be advising now with the advantage of a hind sight, but never, you are stark in the thick of things.

Cry our beloved Zimbabwe. Who is better? Where shall we turn to for help. Everywhere we look, all we have are predators and no genuine patriots, each thinking for him/herself. The reason for being in politics is none other than self agrandisement.  Mr Mnangagwa, former VP, Second Secretary or whatever of ZANU PF, indeed you have produced your own kind, the country over. None thinks like a leader, but all are now predators and ready for the kill and loot. You have cost us many generations to rebuild, if ever we will manage it. Will you not sit in retrospect and go down in honour, just shut up, see your mistakes, accept them, retire to your lovely farms and businesses and try and advise remorsefully for the rot you have put us all in? Try to be good at least maybe God can forgive your sins, genuinely accept your mistakes and stop fighting and tell the generation after you to look out for the mistakes you did. You are 75 or 77 and retirement age is 60 or 65, where are you getting lost Sir? You have passed retirement age. You understand the law, you are a lawyer. Laws are for us all. You know with old age comes sleepiness and forgetfulness, maybe the President has even forgotten you. Do you want to do the same? Surely you know your time is up. Please, there is many young people that still need to live so don't start a war for us. Tell your army friends it's a lost cause.

We have seen war vets today in RSA calling you Commander come back. Please do the honourable thing and call them off their mentality, so we can preserve the remaining ruins at your hands. Just allow us to salvage whatever life we can. We want to rebuild if we can, so please let us be. No more war! No more bloodshed! Enough killings! Senseless killings by your people you trained to kill mercilessly for ZANU. You are not alone, join your other fallen heroes and reminisce orderly without causing us any trouble please. It's our time to try rebuild, you were one of the major stumbling blocks hence you were Minister of Justice, to cook the law and also VP and you had many barrettes, I have lost count and it was for the work you were dutifully doing, killing every life out of ordinary Zimbabweans.
One hopes you can see this. Thank you Sir.

Dr Vusumuzi Sibanda (LDNC Chair).
Liberal Democrats Zimbabwe