Free Zimbabweans Concerned About Sata's Misfiring

We members of The Free Zimbabwe Global Campaign (FZGC) are utterly dismayed at Zambian President Michael Sata's misguided statements regarding our beloved motherland since he landed the Zambian presidency a few months ago.

As peace-loving but tormented people, we were both excited and encouraged by the smooth transition in Zambia following the demise of President Rupiah Banda. We thought it was the epitome of democratic maturity and a development to be proud of in Africa.

To our greatest disappointment, Mr. Sata has become a self-appointed spokesman and gatekeeper for not only ZANU PF but those who work daily to crash democratic voices in Zimbabwe.

Recently he was shouting ZANU PF slogans in an SADC Summit plenary meeting despite the fact that he was there as part of the Security, Defense and Peace Troika, meant to maintain a neutral position in helping Zimbabweans find each other in the ongoing engagement.

Soon after he became president, Michael Sata denigrated the MDC, Zimbabwe's biggest and home-grown political party, for being a puppet of the West which should never be allowed to rule Zimbabwe.

As progressive Zimbabweans who formed this party at home and in the Diaspora out of the need to improve our own circumstances, we cannot take this insult lightly. Collectively, we remind President Sata that he is the fifth President of Zambia.  We ask him the same question; where was his party, the Patriotic Front, when President Kaunda's UNIP liberated Zambia?

It is in this context that we advise him to leave us to determine our destiny without him carelessly supporting a party whose time has expired and trying to remain in power through violent suppression of the democratic aspirations of people.

Does he not see any paradox in wishing us a life president when Zambia has changed leaders five times?  If Zambia can have a Caucasian as deputy president, why can't a white deputy minister of Agriculture in Zimbabwe, as he suggested?

We hereby remind him that Zimbabweans are very patient people but they are not intellectually deficient morons? Our current struggle that we have been seized with for more than a decade is to extricate our country from the morass created by this regime.
We want to put on record that the Zambian people are our sisters and brothers owing to our shared geography, history and culture. Nevertheless, President Sata's uninformed or biased views on our political dynamics are a major concern.

We will visit Zambian embassies in the US, in London, and all over the world on the 21st of June to remind his officials of these truths.

For and on Behalf of the People of Zimbabwe