The bomb that strengthens the party and the country

The bomb attack on the White City Stadium in Bulawayo on the 23rd June 2018, was first and foremost an inhuman, undiscriminating attempt to massacre innocent, unsuspecting men and women attending a watershed rally in the city of kings.. Our first thoughts must at once be for those who died and for those who are now in the hospital recovering from their injuries. Those who are limping in pain and those whose emotions are raised in pain and agony, are to remain stuck to this cruel day forever. The pain of the sight of blood and wailing will forever stick in our memories.

But the bomb attack clearly signified more than this. It was an attempt not only to disrupt and terminate our campaign trail. It was an attempt to cripple the revolutionary party and to cause mayhem and strife in Zimbabwe. That is the scale of the outrage in which we have all shared, and the fact that we are going ahead with our campaign, shocked but composed and determined, is a sign not only that this attack has failed, but that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail. Threatening our hard earned freedom will not work. Many people including the bombers are mistaking the white cloth extended to them by ED as a sign of weakness.

Zimbabwe should express deep gratitude to the police, firemen, ambulance men, nurses and doctors, to all the emergency services, to our party staff who stood with us and shared the danger. A new form of heroes was born on this fateful day.

As ZANU PF we thank them all and send our heartfelt sympathy to all those who have suffered and the comrades who paid with their blood and life.

Now commissariat must make it business as usual, the campaigns must roll on without fear or favour. The blood of those who perished must not dry before we claim victory in the forthcoming elections. Those who decide to soil our party by posting Victory photos celebrating the death of the comrades must be investigated. Our security must work as one unit and stop the nonsense of who is the greatest in the system. Fortune must favour all the police CIO and the army. The Zimbabweans must have one goal which is one goal only, peace love and unity.

This campaign must be superbly carried on- and our candidates must be blessed with very little sleep and carry on marvellously. The campaign with excellent contributions from our members must be an outstanding example of an orderly assembly and free speech. We must present the great national and international plans as well as those which affect the daily lives of our people. We must see at the rostrum worker and pensioner, nurse and manager, clergyman and student.

In Government, we must fulfil the promises contained in our election manifesto which was put to the people.

In the quest for a sound local government, we must rely on the help of ZANU PF councillors. Their task should never be understated and their virtues should not go unsung. So, for this reason, we must campaign for our councillors too. They work hard and conscientiously with a true spirit of service.
We have few days to go before the elections, let not our fire be extinguished by bombs or threats of bombs.
Again and again, this bomb must bring greater motivation to our electorate, our managers and workforce, higher profits and rising investment. What is more, many in the industry now must have a share of the firm for which they work. We ZANU PF want every owner to be an earner and every earner to be an owner. Soon we shall have the biggest ever ECONOMY. There will be more to come in this Party and together we will achieve more.

And just as we have stood by our pledge on change it is our pride that despite the recession we have kept development going on in the past seven months of the new dispensation.

This performance in the economy could never have been achieved without an efficient and competitive people to create the wealth we need. Efficiency is not the enemy but the ally of compassion. Zimbabwe will be a bread basket again.

ZANU PF speaks of the need for enterprise, profits, and a wider distribution of property among all the people. In our party, we have no truck with outmoded Marxist doctrine about class warfare. For us, it is not who you are, who your family is, or where you come from those matters. It is what you are and what you can do for our country that counts. That is our vision. It is a vision worth defending and we shall defend it. Indeed, ZANU PF will never put the defence of our country at risk.
No one in their senses will bomb the peace-loving people. It is clear that those who bombed the rally in Bulawayo are blood-sucking vampires in our midst benefiting from our protection. But for how long we ask???? But equally no responsible Party could take the colossal gamble of giving up our freedoms in the name of free speech.
No nation in history has ever shouldered a greater burden, or shouldered it more willingly nor more generously, than Zimbabwe. Winston Churchill's warning is just as true now as when he made it many, many years ago. He said: ‘Once you take the position of not being able in any circumstances to defend your rights against aggression, there is no end to the demands that will be made or the humiliations that must be accepted.' We must never allow terrorists to roam our country in the name of democracy.

We have also won agreement on the need to keep the national spending under proper control. The nation can now enter on a new chapter and use its energies and influence to play a greater part in world affairs, as an example of what democracies can accomplish, as a very powerful trading group and as a strong force for freedom. Zimbabwe will rise again under the leadership of ED.

We had one of the most disappointing times on employment, which we all agree is the scourge of our times. To have over 5 million people unemployed in this country is bad enough, even though we share this tragic problem with other nations. But to suggest, as some of our opponents have, that we do not care about it is as deeply wounding as it is utterly false. ED has assembled a team which will make unemployment the thing of the past. Our youth will enjoy the fruits of employment and hard work. They will have the liberty of choosing the jobs they want. The opposition has accused ZANU PF of unemployment in the country. They have tried to steer the youth against ZANU PF.

Do they really think that we do not understand what it means for the family man who cannot find a job, who has to sit at home with a sense of failure and despair? Or that we do not understand how hopeless the world must seem to a young person who has not yet succeeded in getting his first job? Of course we know; of course we see, and of course, we care. However, could they say that we welcome unemployment as a political weapon? We have put contingency plans to go round this unemployment.

What better news could there be for any Government than the news that unemployment is falling? The day cannot come too soon for us and time will surely prove ZANU PF right. Others, while not questioning our sincerity, argue that our policies will not achieve our objectives. They look back 37 years, to the Mugabe Period period, when we were poised to launch a brave new world, a time when we all thought we had the cure to unemployment. They do not believe that things have changed and will surely continue to change.

In that confident dawn it seemed that having removed Mugabe we knew how to win the peace. ED had provided the diagnosis. Let the bygones be bygones. But there are those provoking reaction, our maturity restraints us from over reacting.  But the truth was that some politicians took some part of the formula in it and conveniently ignored the rest. Zimbabwe must not be allowed to degenerate into chaos by a single grenade. We are peace loving people.

The new Zimbabwe led by ED has the horror of inflation, a fear of too much state control and a belief in the market. We are heeding those warnings. We are taking the policy as a whole and not only in selected parts. We have already brought inflation down below 5 per cent. Output has been rising steadily since November and investment is up substantially.

But if things are improving, why, you will ask, does unemployment not fall? That was the question one could feel throughout the campaign, even though people know that there is always a time lag between getting the other things right and having a fall in unemployment. Why does unemployment not fall? This is because things do not happen in a day. we are fighting and we will win. More jobs are being created. Over the last half year more than a quarter of a million extra jobs have been created, but the population of working age is also rising very fast, as the baby boom  become the school leavers . So although the number of jobs is rising, the population of working age is also rising. And among the population of working age, a larger proportion of married women are seeking work. This does not discourage us, ED says give me a chance to finish this problem.

So you will see why ZANU PF is working flat out to create more jobs just to stop unemployment rising and even more jobs to get it falling. On top of that, new technology has caused redundancy in many factories. But it has also created whole new industries providing products and jobs that only a few years ago were undreamed of. So it has two effects. The first one is redundancies; the second, and slightly later, new jobs and new products become possible. This has happened in history before. ZANU PF is promising a better life to all of us and cannot be stopped by an earthquake. It is the spirit of enterprise that provides new jobs; it is being prepared to venture and build a business. And the role of ZANU PF in helping to do that? It is in cutting taxes, cutting inflation, keeping costs down, cutting through regulations and removing obstacles to the growth of small businesses, for that is where many of the new jobs will come from - small businesses. The role of Government is also in providing better education and training.
So what is the conclusion that we are coming to? It is that it is the spirit of enterprise that creates new jobs. And it is the Government's task to create the right framework, the right financial framework in which that can flourish, and to cut the obstacles which sometimes handicap the birth of enterprise, and also to manage our own resources carefully and well. Our youth will be placed in positions of control. Zimbabwe is for everyone.

What we have seen in this country is the emergence of an organised revolutionary minority who are prepared to exploit the generational gap. The opposition is a bunch of former radical students who confuse the student's politics and national politics. But whose real aim is the breakdown of law and order and the destruction of democratic parliamentary government. We have seen the same sort of thugs and bullies before and now organised into flying squads around the country calling themselves Alliance led by Chamisa big mouth Nelson. If their tactics are to be allowed to succeed, if they are not brought under the control of the law, we shall see them again at every corner demonising the truth.

Democratic change there has always been in this, the home of democracy, but the sanction for change is the ballot box. It seems that there are some who are out to destroy any properly elected Government. They are out to bring down the framework of law. That is what we have seen in this bombing and in the mantra by MDC that democracy means their win. And what is the law they seek to defy? It is the freedom brought by fearless fathers and mothers, and passed down across the decades. It is freedom scrutinised and kept by a league of a free people. It is under the custodian of parliamentarians, elected once every five years by secret ballot of one citizen, one vote. This is the way our law was fashioned, and that is why our freedom is renowned across the world.

No one owns the law. It is the law of the land, the heritage of the people. ‘No man is above the law, and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right - not asked as a favour. so creating violence will not break us, we are Zimbabweans.

The battle to uphold the rule of law calls for the resolve and commitment of the people. Our institutions of justice, the courts and the police require the unswerving support of every law-abiding citizen, and I believe that they will receive it. Justice must be done on those responsible for the murders of Bulawayo rally.

The nation faces what is probably the most testing crisis of our time - the battle between the extremists and the rest. We are fighting as we have always fought for the weak as well as for the strong. We are fighting for great and good causes. We are fighting to defend them against the power and might of those who rise up to challenge them. This Government will not weaken. This nation will meet that challenge. Democracy will prevail. Zimbabwe will never be defeated by a single lunatic grenade throwing fool.

it is a shame that people now make jokes of this bombing. our hearts bleed but they will heal. The only way to reward the affected is to vote for progress. Vote for ED. Zimbabwe needs continuity not experiments. Peace is what makes Zimbabweans.

vazet2000@yahoo.co.uk