News / Press Release
Zimbabwe today by the Liberal Democrats
08 Dec 2017 at 05:35hrs | Views
Fellow Zimbabweans, indeed it appears true that the morning sickness after an orgy of drinking is more unbearable than the cocktail of all beers night. The excitement of the fall of the mighty Mr Mugabe has subsided and reality sinks in. It was the thought of having a Mugabe free society and at least for Mr Mugabe to test the humiliation he gave Zimbabwe for the last 37 years whilst still alive which was pleasurable to all Zimbabwe. If people must learn, then that would have been a lesson that no one is invincible and that every dog often will have its own day, except that he has been shielded from answering for his works in court.
We believe that Mr Mugabe must at least be dragged to court ((sec 98(2) of the Constitution provides) whatever the courts will say but Zimbabwe must show a propensity to see justice done by having this man sit in the dock and answer for Gukurahundi and all the atrocities he committed.
The purpose of this Press Statement is two tiers, first to show that Mr Mugabe must answer for his works so that any person who presides over Zimbabwe must not think that they will get some immunity given by the army or somebody to protect them for abusing political office. It must be known that a moment of reckoning must come someday. The second tier is the biggest of the two tiers. It goes to the depth of the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe.
This is not about the inability of Mr Mnangangwa to execute nor about criticism in general, but it is about the scheme of things, the way things should never be allowed to be. The excitement has barely waned out and the army is showing signs of stress by being on the bit, the army is harassing people for shooting pictures, clapping the poor lady until she spun. This is the few moments that have come to light and dust has barely settled of the march to Mr Mugabe's house for him to step down when the army was shooting pictures with the people and even pulling them on to their armored tankers and yet today there are being bashed for taking pictures of their erstwhile heroes. The bottom line is the army is a bad omen in the streets of any country, they belong in the barracks, not in the streets nor in cabinet, period. Picking the army from their ranks and putting them in government, shows that you have a military run state.
The people should have resigned first and joined politics but instead it is clear that they were politicians while in the army and were partisan while in the army in direct violation of sec 208 (2-4) of the Zim Constitution. Their deployment to date on the streets violates sec 208(4) of the Zimbabwean Constitution which prohibits the deployment of soldiers in civilian institutions except in periods of public emergency. Is there a state of emergency in Zimbabwe? If the answer is in the affirmative, who caused it and what threat is Zimbabwe faced with except the army? Today Zimbabwe is quiet, not because we do not see these anomalies but the terror brought by the sight of the army on our streets and the tankers still docked in the bushes pointing their nozzles towards places like the support HQ in Harare, tells us that things are not as they should be.
One mistake should not be made, that mistake is assuming that the Liberal Democrats are not happy that Mr Mugabe is out of the office, thanks to the army. That however does not make the coup acceptable or a none coup. If a person kills to save his own life or for some other noble cause it does not change the fact that same has taken a life, killed a person, despite the fact that the courts will acquit him of murder. We need to acknowledge that Mr Mugabe as a person was standing as a stumbling block to the next phase of Zimbabwe no matter how bad it would be but it was necessary to have Zimbabwe rolling on so that it could pass all phases and probable beginning to self-correct. It was stagnant now. The army did the unthinkable and we all celebrated but that does not make the act correct, but every Zimbabwean feels indebted to them to that extent and no further because the army had kept Mr Mugabe in power anyway all these years just the same way they then told people to keep away from him after the coup because he is protected and must enjoy his retirement, and gave him $10million, a salary for all his life and half his salary for all her life, and one wonders what then is the purpose of pension if Mrs Mugabe will earn half the husband's salary after his passing on?
The question is who is ruling the roost? The army tells Zimbabwe how to act in their civilian duties and directs such affairs. Is that a normal society? This goes further to the point where we come to the High Court judgments of the 24th of November 2017, the day of the inauguration of Mr Mnangagwa the current President of Zimbabwe. To start with it was within ZANU's rightful domain as per the Constitution within 90 days to install whoever they wanted after the purported resignation of Mr Mugabe, that non-event, despite sec 101 of the Constitution which in any case can easily be overridden by the fact that these Vice Presidents are appointees of the President and therefore their removal has not been clearly provided for in the first ten years but it follows that they serve at the President's pleasure and he can so remove them. In light of that legal standing therefore the firing of Mr Mnangagwa was lawful and valid as opposed to Judge President Chiweshe's judgment that ruled otherwise. The JP did not only misdirect himself in the two judgments, but he abused his office except if he can show that he made those pronouncements with the barrel of the gun on his head. The judgments are grounds enough for the petitioning of his removal on gross incompetence and misconduct which are grounds for removal of a judge from office sec 187(1)(b-c). The JP violated the Constitution and quoted sec 212 of the Constitution to justify the acts of the army neglecting section 208, 213 and 214. Sec 212 cannot trump the three sections because it is the section that is explained by sec 213 and 214 to show how that is carried out and never can the army act without the instructions of the CIC, that is a clear mutiny.
The statement that was made the General Chiwenga that they were restoring order in ZANU PF, clearly shows partisan behavior because the army cannot have interests in party matters as per section 208, furthermore that no one with no liberation credentials could lead Zimbabwe clearly violates the Constitution of Zimbabwe because there is no such qualification in the Constitution to be the President. Any pronouncement that is contrary to the Constitution or any such law is invalid and a deliberate attempt to pervert and subvert the supreme law of Zimbabwe seen as the will of the people.
The ruling on the firing of Mr Mnangagwa as Vice President surely was unnecessary and superfluous in that the Constitution does not bar any person who has been previously fired as VP or is not VP from being a President or appointed by his party in terms of schedule 6, part 4, sec 14(4)(b), (5). The only hurdle was in terms of the VP who last acted and that there was at the stage one VP Mr Mphoko, but that was a lesser evil in that the appointed person from the party (in this case ZANU) should be done within 90 days which could be done even in an hour or whatever time and that would be Constitutional still.
The JP therefore soiled himself with an unnecessary matter in the Mnangagwa judgment which also cited VP Mphoko as respondent and it is doubtful if he was given right of response since he was in hiding which is a travesty of justice because he had a right to respond or answer which is an important principle of our law. The judgment relating to the army has a mischief theory which is understandable because the army generals were and are in jeopardy of prosecution for violation of the Constitution and they cannot wangle themselves out of that except when Zimbabwe in general decides to overlook that which I think no one in Zimbabwe is not willing to do except for G40. The judgment therefore serves as nothing but a false sense of security which is no bar to any criminal charges in terms of the Constitution and the ZDF code of conduct for the charging of the generals except they simple go to exile maybe.
The biggest problem lies with leaving that judgment unchallenged. It is of no effect that it was made ordinarily except that it is setting a wrong precedence and means that civilian rule in Zimbabwe will always be in jeopardy of the army if left unchallenged. Of course, in the future the Supreme Court could overturn that judgment because the High Court can overturn its own judgments but that judgment was not supposed to see the break of light or to have been made in the first place because the harm it sought to prevent is less than the one it causes. Zimbabweans had not challenged the coup and even let SADC's demands slide and no one would have ever revisited that except now it has opened a pandora's box and its existence frowns at the essence of our courts and judiciary and goes back to show the nefarious intentions of President Mnangagwa in his first amendment shenanigans on the Constitution where he plucked sec 84 of the Zimbabwean Constitution of amendment 14 of 1984 and brought it to replace sec 180 of the new Constitution amendment 20 of 2013, which is to have judges indebted to the appointing authority, the President.
This is the mischief of the 1st amendment of the Zimbabwean Constitution and why it must be challenged as already we can see JP Chiweshe is wagging his tail to the master. The Legal Practice in Zimbabwe and the whole law fraternity will fail Zimbabwe if it fails to decisively deal with this madness and cancer that threatens the core fundamentals and existence of the concept of law. The law cannot be interpreted to suit the interpreter but it must be understood in terms of the purpose for which it was created and the mind of the crafter.
The important things to note here in summation are therefore that:
1. We may not leave things as they are in terms of the army judgment as it sets a wrong president which will haunt Zimbabwe and create an environment manifestly prone to coups in the future and unfettered intervention by the army in the body politic and the politics of the country including influencing the politics of the country and continuing the Mugabe legacy of the supremacy of the gun.
2. The willful manipulation of the judiciary which shows that the judiciary is not free and acting as a balancing act in the trias politica but serving as a functionary of the executive which trumps the concept of democracy and Constitutionalism.
3. That rule of law will not exist but we will have partisan judgements and a non-free political environment which means we can forget about free and fair and legitimate elections, which means the ZANU legacy will continue unchallenged.
4. That any person who is in charge of the army can use the inventory of the military of the country to their personal interest as seen here that the General to save his skin used the whole armory of Zimbabwe, state assets to serve his skin, which is the continued abuse of state resources.
5. That ZANU continues to use state resources as party property unabated while the whole country is burning.
6. That the international community will watch on the terraces despite flouting of the general people's political rights by a few while they cast losts amongst themselves on power and wealth.
Zimbabwe has seen this in the last 37 years and we as the Liberal Democrats stand against this notion and practice and urge Zimbabwe to stand with us in fixing this and refusing to let any man or woman to ever abuse our resources and country including the abuse of our men and women in uniform. Just reform the police and leave the army where they should be. We need a sober mind to overcome and ensure that the new person at the helm and his new cabinet are in check and it's our view that general Chiwenga will shortly shoot to the VP as a reward for a job well done as seen already by the two other appointments of Air Marshal Shiri and General S Moyo who are now in cabinet. It must be seen that the new President has absolutely no respect for the Constitution hence he appointed initially eight non-MPs into the Cabinet, in contempt of the Zimbabwean Constitution, the man is a trained lawyer, served as Minister of Justice for so many years, manipulated the law to suit his needs which clearly shows he is smart but simply has no respect for the Constitution or the people of Zimbabwe and thinks less of the legal profession.
We would like to implore our lawyers and the whole judiciary to guard and protect the integrity of Zimbabwe and its people by exercising their duties with great vigilance and due diligence.
My Zimbabwe! Your Zimbabwe! Our Zimbabwe! Together let us rebuild it and leave it as a living legacy to the future generations. The duty is yours and mine, its is our collective effort, in a Zimbabwe that knows no gender, knows no colour of skin, nor knows tribe or political affiliation when it comes to national duty.
LDNC, Dr Vusumuzi Sibanda.
We believe that Mr Mugabe must at least be dragged to court ((sec 98(2) of the Constitution provides) whatever the courts will say but Zimbabwe must show a propensity to see justice done by having this man sit in the dock and answer for Gukurahundi and all the atrocities he committed.
The purpose of this Press Statement is two tiers, first to show that Mr Mugabe must answer for his works so that any person who presides over Zimbabwe must not think that they will get some immunity given by the army or somebody to protect them for abusing political office. It must be known that a moment of reckoning must come someday. The second tier is the biggest of the two tiers. It goes to the depth of the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe.
This is not about the inability of Mr Mnangangwa to execute nor about criticism in general, but it is about the scheme of things, the way things should never be allowed to be. The excitement has barely waned out and the army is showing signs of stress by being on the bit, the army is harassing people for shooting pictures, clapping the poor lady until she spun. This is the few moments that have come to light and dust has barely settled of the march to Mr Mugabe's house for him to step down when the army was shooting pictures with the people and even pulling them on to their armored tankers and yet today there are being bashed for taking pictures of their erstwhile heroes. The bottom line is the army is a bad omen in the streets of any country, they belong in the barracks, not in the streets nor in cabinet, period. Picking the army from their ranks and putting them in government, shows that you have a military run state.
The people should have resigned first and joined politics but instead it is clear that they were politicians while in the army and were partisan while in the army in direct violation of sec 208 (2-4) of the Zim Constitution. Their deployment to date on the streets violates sec 208(4) of the Zimbabwean Constitution which prohibits the deployment of soldiers in civilian institutions except in periods of public emergency. Is there a state of emergency in Zimbabwe? If the answer is in the affirmative, who caused it and what threat is Zimbabwe faced with except the army? Today Zimbabwe is quiet, not because we do not see these anomalies but the terror brought by the sight of the army on our streets and the tankers still docked in the bushes pointing their nozzles towards places like the support HQ in Harare, tells us that things are not as they should be.
One mistake should not be made, that mistake is assuming that the Liberal Democrats are not happy that Mr Mugabe is out of the office, thanks to the army. That however does not make the coup acceptable or a none coup. If a person kills to save his own life or for some other noble cause it does not change the fact that same has taken a life, killed a person, despite the fact that the courts will acquit him of murder. We need to acknowledge that Mr Mugabe as a person was standing as a stumbling block to the next phase of Zimbabwe no matter how bad it would be but it was necessary to have Zimbabwe rolling on so that it could pass all phases and probable beginning to self-correct. It was stagnant now. The army did the unthinkable and we all celebrated but that does not make the act correct, but every Zimbabwean feels indebted to them to that extent and no further because the army had kept Mr Mugabe in power anyway all these years just the same way they then told people to keep away from him after the coup because he is protected and must enjoy his retirement, and gave him $10million, a salary for all his life and half his salary for all her life, and one wonders what then is the purpose of pension if Mrs Mugabe will earn half the husband's salary after his passing on?
The question is who is ruling the roost? The army tells Zimbabwe how to act in their civilian duties and directs such affairs. Is that a normal society? This goes further to the point where we come to the High Court judgments of the 24th of November 2017, the day of the inauguration of Mr Mnangagwa the current President of Zimbabwe. To start with it was within ZANU's rightful domain as per the Constitution within 90 days to install whoever they wanted after the purported resignation of Mr Mugabe, that non-event, despite sec 101 of the Constitution which in any case can easily be overridden by the fact that these Vice Presidents are appointees of the President and therefore their removal has not been clearly provided for in the first ten years but it follows that they serve at the President's pleasure and he can so remove them. In light of that legal standing therefore the firing of Mr Mnangagwa was lawful and valid as opposed to Judge President Chiweshe's judgment that ruled otherwise. The JP did not only misdirect himself in the two judgments, but he abused his office except if he can show that he made those pronouncements with the barrel of the gun on his head. The judgments are grounds enough for the petitioning of his removal on gross incompetence and misconduct which are grounds for removal of a judge from office sec 187(1)(b-c). The JP violated the Constitution and quoted sec 212 of the Constitution to justify the acts of the army neglecting section 208, 213 and 214. Sec 212 cannot trump the three sections because it is the section that is explained by sec 213 and 214 to show how that is carried out and never can the army act without the instructions of the CIC, that is a clear mutiny.
The statement that was made the General Chiwenga that they were restoring order in ZANU PF, clearly shows partisan behavior because the army cannot have interests in party matters as per section 208, furthermore that no one with no liberation credentials could lead Zimbabwe clearly violates the Constitution of Zimbabwe because there is no such qualification in the Constitution to be the President. Any pronouncement that is contrary to the Constitution or any such law is invalid and a deliberate attempt to pervert and subvert the supreme law of Zimbabwe seen as the will of the people.
The ruling on the firing of Mr Mnangagwa as Vice President surely was unnecessary and superfluous in that the Constitution does not bar any person who has been previously fired as VP or is not VP from being a President or appointed by his party in terms of schedule 6, part 4, sec 14(4)(b), (5). The only hurdle was in terms of the VP who last acted and that there was at the stage one VP Mr Mphoko, but that was a lesser evil in that the appointed person from the party (in this case ZANU) should be done within 90 days which could be done even in an hour or whatever time and that would be Constitutional still.
The JP therefore soiled himself with an unnecessary matter in the Mnangagwa judgment which also cited VP Mphoko as respondent and it is doubtful if he was given right of response since he was in hiding which is a travesty of justice because he had a right to respond or answer which is an important principle of our law. The judgment relating to the army has a mischief theory which is understandable because the army generals were and are in jeopardy of prosecution for violation of the Constitution and they cannot wangle themselves out of that except when Zimbabwe in general decides to overlook that which I think no one in Zimbabwe is not willing to do except for G40. The judgment therefore serves as nothing but a false sense of security which is no bar to any criminal charges in terms of the Constitution and the ZDF code of conduct for the charging of the generals except they simple go to exile maybe.
The biggest problem lies with leaving that judgment unchallenged. It is of no effect that it was made ordinarily except that it is setting a wrong precedence and means that civilian rule in Zimbabwe will always be in jeopardy of the army if left unchallenged. Of course, in the future the Supreme Court could overturn that judgment because the High Court can overturn its own judgments but that judgment was not supposed to see the break of light or to have been made in the first place because the harm it sought to prevent is less than the one it causes. Zimbabweans had not challenged the coup and even let SADC's demands slide and no one would have ever revisited that except now it has opened a pandora's box and its existence frowns at the essence of our courts and judiciary and goes back to show the nefarious intentions of President Mnangagwa in his first amendment shenanigans on the Constitution where he plucked sec 84 of the Zimbabwean Constitution of amendment 14 of 1984 and brought it to replace sec 180 of the new Constitution amendment 20 of 2013, which is to have judges indebted to the appointing authority, the President.
The important things to note here in summation are therefore that:
1. We may not leave things as they are in terms of the army judgment as it sets a wrong president which will haunt Zimbabwe and create an environment manifestly prone to coups in the future and unfettered intervention by the army in the body politic and the politics of the country including influencing the politics of the country and continuing the Mugabe legacy of the supremacy of the gun.
2. The willful manipulation of the judiciary which shows that the judiciary is not free and acting as a balancing act in the trias politica but serving as a functionary of the executive which trumps the concept of democracy and Constitutionalism.
3. That rule of law will not exist but we will have partisan judgements and a non-free political environment which means we can forget about free and fair and legitimate elections, which means the ZANU legacy will continue unchallenged.
4. That any person who is in charge of the army can use the inventory of the military of the country to their personal interest as seen here that the General to save his skin used the whole armory of Zimbabwe, state assets to serve his skin, which is the continued abuse of state resources.
5. That ZANU continues to use state resources as party property unabated while the whole country is burning.
6. That the international community will watch on the terraces despite flouting of the general people's political rights by a few while they cast losts amongst themselves on power and wealth.
Zimbabwe has seen this in the last 37 years and we as the Liberal Democrats stand against this notion and practice and urge Zimbabwe to stand with us in fixing this and refusing to let any man or woman to ever abuse our resources and country including the abuse of our men and women in uniform. Just reform the police and leave the army where they should be. We need a sober mind to overcome and ensure that the new person at the helm and his new cabinet are in check and it's our view that general Chiwenga will shortly shoot to the VP as a reward for a job well done as seen already by the two other appointments of Air Marshal Shiri and General S Moyo who are now in cabinet. It must be seen that the new President has absolutely no respect for the Constitution hence he appointed initially eight non-MPs into the Cabinet, in contempt of the Zimbabwean Constitution, the man is a trained lawyer, served as Minister of Justice for so many years, manipulated the law to suit his needs which clearly shows he is smart but simply has no respect for the Constitution or the people of Zimbabwe and thinks less of the legal profession.
We would like to implore our lawyers and the whole judiciary to guard and protect the integrity of Zimbabwe and its people by exercising their duties with great vigilance and due diligence.
My Zimbabwe! Your Zimbabwe! Our Zimbabwe! Together let us rebuild it and leave it as a living legacy to the future generations. The duty is yours and mine, its is our collective effort, in a Zimbabwe that knows no gender, knows no colour of skin, nor knows tribe or political affiliation when it comes to national duty.
LDNC, Dr Vusumuzi Sibanda.
Source - Dr Vusumuzi Sibanda
