ZAPU: Condolence message to the Maisiri family

We have learnt with deep sadness the death of 12 year old Christpower Simbarashe Maisiri in a mysterious fire at his home in Headlands on the 23rd of February 2013. While investigations continue to establish the source of the fire, ZAPU joins the Maisiri family in mourning their beloved son. And to the late young Simbarashe, may your dear soul rest in eternal peace.

We call upon our police force to leave no stone unturned in their efforts to establish whether the fire that killed the innocent boy was caused by arsonists or not and if it was politically motivated. This is so because the late boy's father is said to be a known political activist. However, ZAPU is shocked at the ensuing scramble for Simbarashe's body by both Zanu-PF and their MDC T counterparts who are now claiming that it belongs to their respective parties, much the same way trophy hunters do. Just how low can politicians go in order to harvest cheap political mileage?

This is even unacceptable coming from the same Didymus Mutasa who is famed for convincing President Mugabe and his party that a grade two drop-out, Rotinah Mavhunga, has discovered diesel oozing rocks in Chinhoyi. Those who still take Mr. Mutasa seriously will require urgent psychological help from Rotinah Mavhunga herself. Nonetheless, the Maisiri family deserve to mourn the loss of their son without any unwarranted political drama.

ZAPU, while coming to terms with the death of young Simba just a few months before crucial elections, and assuming that investigations point to political mischief, will condemn in the strongest possible terms the political grandstanding by President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai for continuously claiming that the forthcoming elections will be free of political violence. This death will be a timely reminder that the two leaders are simply out of touch with reality at best or are not in control of their militias at worst, or both.

While Mugabe and Tsvangirai are busy outdoing each other in prophesying a peaceful poll, the reality is that their own children are either far from harm's way, having been relocated to Australia and Malaysia for comfort and better education facilities, or will never find themselves living in the same type of shack where Simba met his death. This is a reminder that no politician is worth killing or dying for. More so, considering that the12 year old boy met his death just two days after the 89th birthday of the Republic's President, who is just eleven years shy of his 100th birthday.

Young Simbarashe Maisiri's death has also exposed what ZAPU has always been saying for the past two and a half years. We have been vocal on the need for the country to establish special courts to deal with political violence before, during and after elections. Instead of the GNU parties dedicating their terms in Parliament towards establishing these, they have been busy arguing and quarrelling about anything and everything. These courts, supported by stiffer penalties for violence perpetrators, will serve as a deterrent to would be perpetrators. Zimbabwe is the only country in the world where livestock theft attracts harsher penalties than political murder. Just how do you justify punishing a guy that steals a donkey more than one that kills a human being in the name of a political party or leader? We hope that these parties will listen to ZAPU this time and establish these courts before elections.

ZAPU also calls upon the GNU parties to open up and expand the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) to include other non-GNU political parties, civic society, labour, business and churches to participate in that organ if it can be effective in creating an environment of mutual trust and tolerance as we move towards elections. The above stakeholders also have a genuine desire for a free and uncontested electoral result just like, if not more than the GNU quarrelsome 3-some. Speaking of stakeholders, ZAPU hopes that the American Embassy in Harare will continue to condemn political violence irrespective of who the victims are or who the perpetrators are and that they will one day classify the Gukurahundi genocide on ZAPU members in the 1980s as an atrocity, much the same way Mrs Sharon Hudson-Dean classified the unfortunate death of young Christpower Simbarashe Maisiri as an atrocity.