Benjamin Chitate on Welshman Ncube- setting the record straight

I have spent some thirty hours going through articles written by Driden Kunaka under his pseudonym Benjamin Chitate. His hatred for MDC President Welshman Ncube seems very topical in his writings. This is our first in the series of responses we will make to the lies, half truths, fiction and malicious opinions that Kunaka has been using to poison unsuspecting readers. 

While at some point it will be necessary for the world to know why he hates Ncube so much and why he does not want his real name to be associated with the stuff he writes, the purpose of this article is to highlight and correct some of the fiction that he presents as fact.

From the onset it must be understood that this article is by no means an attempt to silence Kunaka but a normal way of encouraging him to refrain from using the media as an outlet of his anger and also to advise him that when one has to write anything that will be consumed by the public it is always important to be factual.

In The Standard of 30 January 2011, before even Arthur Mutambara had disowned the congress through which he handed over power to Ncube, Kunaka wrote an opinion titled "Tribal Card Could Be the Undoing of Ncube's MDC".

 The article began as follows: Politicians and political commentators have had their say on the ascendancy of Professor Welshman Ncube to the helm of MDC-N. Some have dismissed his rise as a non-event, while others have showered him with praise and embraced him as a capable and intelligent leader.

What most of the commentators seemed to miss is the tribalistic element in Professor Ncube's rise which was pronounced by Professor Ncube himself and the late MDC-M Vice-President Gibson Sibanda. The commentators may have missed media articles in which Professor Ncube and the late Gibson Sibanda told a rally in Bulawayo that they had made a mistake inviting Professor Mutambara to lead the party. They both reportedly bemoaned the invitation of a Shona person to lead the party, and vowed that come next election, they would field a Ndebele as a candidate for presidency.

While it may be possible that Ncube and Sibanda may have regretted the years spent under Mutambara's presidency it is extremely reckless for Kunaka to propagate something as unthinkable as saying that a) Ncube and Sibanda expressed their regret at a rally b) they publicly made a tribal slur c) there was media that quoted them as having said so.

Kunaka should have at least had the courage to quote one newspaper, radio or television report as a source of this allegation. Even the editor of The Standard should have requested that he makes credible reference so that he makes sense.

The fact of the matter is that Ncube and Sibanda are disciplined cadres who have never publicly expressed contempt of their leader. Even when they both won Parliamentary seats in 2000 while Tsvangirai lost, they continued to serve under him respecting that he was the leader of the party. They did the same under Mutambara to the extent that at no time was there a report of turmoil in the party.

One needs the services of a highly competent psychiatrist to imagine any national leader standing on a public platform to "bemoan the invitation of a Shona person to lead the party"

Everyone who cares knows that Mutambara treated himself more as a praise poet for Robert Mugabe than as a leader of a political party opposed to him. He was a lazy leader who spent half his tenure as President on a plane to and from South Africa than with party structures. It never became necessary for any right thinking person to discuss whether or not Mutambara should be retained.

Today the same people who laughed at us when he was praising Mugabe every time he opened his mouth are maligning us for having replaced him. Is this not scandalous?

From the other 16 anti-Ncube articles I have read from Kunaka one thing that comes clear is that Kunaka believes that the two MDC formations should reunite or at least form an electoral pact. In March 2006 a month after Arthur Mutambara was elected MDC President he wrote the following letters to the editor and spread them across the independent media.

A)    Split a blessing in disguise

I WAS relieved to read Professor Arthur Mutambara's acceptance speech after his election to lead the pro-senate faction of the MDC.

Mutambara seems eager to fulfil his promise to unite the MDC as he openly says he is willing to subject himself to an election for the presidency of the party in the reunification process. This is in contrast to the positions of those who invited him.

It has been demonstrated that they hate Morgan Tsvangirai, president of the MDC.
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Tsvangirai tried to achieve unity after the split, but we even had headline stories of how people in the other camp spurned his efforts.

I hope those who have given Tsvangirai headaches will now realise what Zimbabweans need.

...................

Benjamin Chitate,
New Zealand.

B)    Mutambara still to deliver
MOST people, myself included, were relieved by Professor Arthur Mutambara's acceptance speech in which he said his mission was to reunite the MDC.

Most of us were wondering how he was going to achieve this, considering that he had already taken sides by accepting the presidency of the pro-senate group.
 
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He did acknowledge MDC president, Morgan Tsvangirai, as a hero and spoke strongly about the need to forget the past and move forward.

A week or so later, Mutambara was quoted in the media saying: "How do we talk about a regime which is criminal and violent when we ourselves are carrying out violent acts and violating our own party rules? We won't be qualified to fight Mugabe if we are little Mugabes."

His statements were obviously aimed at Tsvangirai.

Mutambara has obviously not had time to do a careful analysis of the situation, and must have relied more on information supplied to him by officials of the pro-senate faction.
 
He obviously has not heard about the acts of violence committed by members of his own faction against members of the other faction.

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Mutambara clearly stated his position on the senate and other government institutions, saying: "My position was that the MDC should have  boycotted those senate elections. Not only that, I was for the total withdrawal from parliament and all the other election-based institutions."

The hope of many Zimbabweans was that he would quickly consult with his colleagues with a view of persuading them to pull out of the senate, parliament and all other offices obtained through dubious elections.
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Some will argue that Mutambara needs more time to put his house in order, but so far, he has not yet lived up to his acceptance speech.

The best is for us to watch and see.

Benjamin Chitate,
MDC activist,
New Zealand.

Clearly, the thematic issues in these letters are that 1) Tsvangirai is always right and those who disagree with him are always wrong and ignorant of the needs of the people of Zimbabwe.  2) Mutambara had no means of independently ascertaining the causes of the MDC split and had to rely only on biased narratives from those who were physically involved. Again Kunaka makes reference to Tsvangirai's efforts to "achieve unity after the split" and "headline stories of how people in the other camp spurned his efforts". Nobody can doubt that Kunaka is not referring to real life events but the fiction he imagines from his New Zealand base. Real life events will detail that Gison Sibanda visited Tsvangirai at his Strathaven house to plead with him to reconsider his decision that "I have the keys to this party and if it means it has to split let it be so". Most importantly he should have known that David Coltart spent months trying to reconcile the two camps and even boycotted either congress. He later chose the MDC and published his reasons for doing so.

Kunaka should have quoted at least one news story of Tsvangirai's efforts and how the other people spurned that effort.

In his recent articles including the one that appeared in the Zimbabwe Independent of 19 to 26 April titled "Ncube a Stumbling Block to Unity", Kunaka attempts to insinuate that there is discord in the MDC rank and file on whether or not the two MDC formations  should contest the next elections as a united front. He tries without success to present a picture where there is a pro-pact grouping in the party led by Secretary General Priscilla Misihairabwi Mushonga and Secretary for Legal Affairs Senator David Coltart while President Ncube leads an anti-pact clique. To justify his argument, Kunaka correctly quotes President Ncube saying there are no grounds for us to engage in coalition talks but misconstrues Senators Misihairabwi Mushonga and Coltart's call for democratic forces cooperation into saying they mean the parties must coalesce.

Kunaka attempts to run away with Priscilla Misihairabwi Mushonga's statement of January 2013 with complete disregard of the context and circumstances under which the statement was made. When Senator Misihairabwi Mushonga said "if pro-democracy forces did not "pull up their socks", or remained divided, it would provide a "priceless gift - like manna - for those in Zanu PF who are bent on reversing the gains realised during the transitional period" she was actually making reference to the need for the two MDC formations never to allow re-opening of the draft constitution which had been completed on 31 January 2013. She feared that if the two MDC formations allowed the reopening of constitutional negotiations, ZANU PF factions would use the draft constitution as turf and in the process reverse what has been gained already. One needs not be a rocket scientist to understand that one can only be referring to the new constitution when they say "gains realised during the transitional period".

The fact of the matter is that the MDC is united behind its Presidential Candidate Welshman Ncube and since he was accepted in January 2011 there has been no debate about that.

When on 19 November 2012 The Zimbabwean wrote a false story that the MDC had sought to have 3 Senators and 2 MPs expelled from Parliament, Kunaka responded in the most confused of manners. Consistent with his belief that Ncube is always wrong, he wrote a letter to the editor of the same newspaper advising that "Ncube should be a gentleman" and allow these allegedly expelled MPs to finish their terms because expelling them will give ZANU PF a majority in the new constitution vote.  Inconsistent with his belief that Ncube commands a critical mass that is required to back Tsvangirai and make him win elections, Kunaka went to The Zimbabwean website and wrote a comment which in essence accused Ncube of seeking to expel MPs who were voted under Mutambara's ticket and therefore outside his control. 

While  the consistency with which has maintained his "pactocracy" stance deserves applause it is his belief that Welshman Ncube is the sole reason why his wishes are not coming true that baffles the mind. Kunaka seems to have contempt of everyone who associates themselves with Welshman Ncube to the extent of not only believing but also propagating his belief that all who associate themselves with Ncube are his unthinking yes men and women. He seems not to believe that there can be debate in an organisation led by Welshman Ncube but rather Ncube dictates everything. This particular point comes out when he argues that "Ncube has cleverly played around the ignorance among his fellow colleagues in the party to promote his personal agenda as evidenced by his mobilisation of people to support a congress resolution he wanted and then treating the same resolution as if it is cast in concrete. (Zimbabwe Independent 19-26 April 2013).
 
It realy baffles the mind to imagine that somebody out there thinks that MDC leaders will ever accept to work together with people whose membership holds with so much disdain and contempt.
In future, we will get into more of Kunaka's writings and further highlight how he has made his hatred for Ncube a thematic topic on which he writes.

However, it will be unfair if this article focuses on Kunaka and fails to at least introduce the world into the reality of the impossibility of Kunaka's consistent views about a coalition of the MDCs. All things being normal, Morgan Tsvangirai would not have walked out of a packed MDC boardroom on 12 October 2005, all things being normal the MDC would never have split and all things being normal the MDCs would have gone into the 2008 elections as a united force. The fact that these things are not so is a clear indication that things are not normal. The mere fact that MDCT took MDC MPs for a weekend in Botswana and induced them to defy their leadership in the Speaker of Parliament vote demonstrates the extent to which those who lead political parties are contemptuous of the other. In essence the MDC is justified to believe that the bribing of its MPs was the launch of a programme that would lead to its ultimate dissolution and swallowing by MDCT.

However that does not mean that there are no genuine proponents of unity out there. The challenge with these genuine proponents is that they have only thought of one Presidential Candidate and the face but excused themselves from thinking about the 270 House of Assembly positions, 60 senatorial posts, 80 Provincial Council posts and 1958 councillors. These proponents also disregard either party's written and actual positions on key electoral issues like violence. Let whosoever can answer these questions come forward.

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Discent Bajila is the Secretary General of the MDC Youth Assembly and a member of the party's Media Information and Publicity Committee.