Opinion / Columnist
Mugabe arrested Dzamara to avoid regime change - it is the path we choose to avoid our destiny that leads to it!
14 May 2015 at 18:02hrs | Views
Sometimes one meets their destiny by the path they chose to avoid it! "Regime change" has been the one curse Mugabe and Zanu PF have left no stone unturned to avoid. And the regime has successfully avoided regime change, until the July 2013 elections which the regime claimed a victory but has turned out to be hollow victory. Since that rigged election, the wheels have fallen off the Zanu PF juggernaut but it seems it was the arrest of Itai Dzamara, a fly in the ointment, which has made regime change more certain than ever.
Itai Dzamara and a handful of followers staged a few public demonstrations demanding that Mugabe and his cabal must resign because they had failed to deliver on their promise to bring economic prosperity. Mugabe, painfully aware of his regime's abysmal economic record and the worsening economic situation; arrested Dzamara and no one knows what has happened to him.
Mugabe thought Dzamara would serve as a warning to the nation to all those who should dare to challenge his rule and as for Dzamara himself, Mugabe was sure he would soon be forgotten. Dzamara has not been forgotten and instead pressure is growing on the regime to find him. Last week it was the EU who was demanding Dzamara's release and now the Americans are adding their voice.
"This to us (disappearance of Dzamara) is something that raises significant concerns and we have discussed with the government that they have to conduct a full and transparent investigation," said US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, Steven Feldstein.
"We have had the allegations and the circumstances of the disappearance and I think it's important that we have the facts as quickly as we can."
The facts are that Mugabe rigged the July 2013 elections and thought it was going to be plain sailing from there on. He has had many very rude awakenings.
The first and immediate awakening from the economy; shares in the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) fell by a staggering 35% on the news of Zanu PF election victory and the economy has been on a nose-dive trajectory ever since. Mugabe thought he would rig economic recovery with his ZimAsset plan which did not seek to address the underlying economic problems of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption but instead overwhelm these wasteful structural weaknesses by throwing lots and lots of money, $27 billion, into the economy.
Sadly Mugabe failed to get any donor to bankroll his plan. Not even his "all weather friends", the Chinese, were prepared to finance such a hare-brain scheme. So ZimAsset is well and truly died in the water.
The economic meltdown which had started with the fall of ZSE shares has been on a home run for over a last year. Companies has closed, unemployment has soar to 90%, over 16% of the people now live in abject poverty, etc. and the situation is get worse by the day. As long as Zanu PF remains in power the economic meltdown is set to get even worse.
The second rude awakening for Mugabe is in-fighting that has broken out within his own party Zanu PF. The economic meltdown has resulted in a significant shrinkage of the national cake and Mugabe's bloated army of cronies and hanger on have started fighting amongst themselves over the small cake like a clan of hyenas fighting over a hare. The fight is to the death because all those who are purged from the party will face poverty.
The third rude awakening for Mugabe has been the realisation that Zimbabwe faces social unarrest because the economic meltdown was social and politically unsustainable. The regime was hoping the arrested and disappearance of Dzamara would serve as a warning to all those who dare threaten his rule.
To the people the economic meltdown is like the forest fire to a herd of buffalo; just as the herd know the lions are a serious threat the buffalo know the lions will kill one or two individuals whereas the forest fire will wipe out the whole herd, similarly the people know the economic meltdown threatens the whole nation and not a few individuals the regime will pick off.
The demands by the West for the regime to reveal what it has done with Dzamara means the regime's threatening move has, if anything, backfired; the regime's human rights record is under even closer scrutiny than ever, it is being forced to scale down its plans to use force to subdue an increasingly restless public at the time when it should be stepping up!
In the economy Mugabe has met more that his match! He has stayed as head of his party, Zanu PF, for 50 years and as head of the country for 35 years because he was able to bribe, cheat, bamboozle and even kill his political opponents within his party and outside. His gravy train honey pot trap not even the threats of murder had any effect on the economy; it had neither human weaknesses to be exploited nor backside to be kicked.
Yes, it can now be said, that whereas all humans had failed to force Mugabe to accept regime change; it was the economic meltdown that started in earnest the day Mugabe rigged the July 2013 elections that forced the tyrant to accept regime change.
The irony of all ironies, it was the decades of mismanagement and corruption that has fuelled the economic meltdown and it was Mugabe's own political patronage system that created these cancers and their denial that has allowed them to grow and spread. After three and half decades, with some tumours the size of tennis ball, the cancers have come home to roost in their millions like red-billed quelea!
The tumours must be removed or the economy will collapse and since Mugabe and Zanu PF have neither the political will nor the political credibility to be trust to carry out this ask there is no other way out than for Mugabe and Zanu PF to step aside. The regime change they have killed in the past to avoid it now as certain as sun rise.
It was the arrest of Dzamara, ostensibly to stem wave of social unrest, which has trigged the tsunami wave that is now sweeping the regime aside! Yes it is the path one takes to avoid their destiny, regime change for Mugabe, which leads them to that destination.
Itai Dzamara and a handful of followers staged a few public demonstrations demanding that Mugabe and his cabal must resign because they had failed to deliver on their promise to bring economic prosperity. Mugabe, painfully aware of his regime's abysmal economic record and the worsening economic situation; arrested Dzamara and no one knows what has happened to him.
Mugabe thought Dzamara would serve as a warning to the nation to all those who should dare to challenge his rule and as for Dzamara himself, Mugabe was sure he would soon be forgotten. Dzamara has not been forgotten and instead pressure is growing on the regime to find him. Last week it was the EU who was demanding Dzamara's release and now the Americans are adding their voice.
"This to us (disappearance of Dzamara) is something that raises significant concerns and we have discussed with the government that they have to conduct a full and transparent investigation," said US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, Steven Feldstein.
"We have had the allegations and the circumstances of the disappearance and I think it's important that we have the facts as quickly as we can."
The facts are that Mugabe rigged the July 2013 elections and thought it was going to be plain sailing from there on. He has had many very rude awakenings.
The first and immediate awakening from the economy; shares in the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) fell by a staggering 35% on the news of Zanu PF election victory and the economy has been on a nose-dive trajectory ever since. Mugabe thought he would rig economic recovery with his ZimAsset plan which did not seek to address the underlying economic problems of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption but instead overwhelm these wasteful structural weaknesses by throwing lots and lots of money, $27 billion, into the economy.
Sadly Mugabe failed to get any donor to bankroll his plan. Not even his "all weather friends", the Chinese, were prepared to finance such a hare-brain scheme. So ZimAsset is well and truly died in the water.
The economic meltdown which had started with the fall of ZSE shares has been on a home run for over a last year. Companies has closed, unemployment has soar to 90%, over 16% of the people now live in abject poverty, etc. and the situation is get worse by the day. As long as Zanu PF remains in power the economic meltdown is set to get even worse.
The second rude awakening for Mugabe is in-fighting that has broken out within his own party Zanu PF. The economic meltdown has resulted in a significant shrinkage of the national cake and Mugabe's bloated army of cronies and hanger on have started fighting amongst themselves over the small cake like a clan of hyenas fighting over a hare. The fight is to the death because all those who are purged from the party will face poverty.
The third rude awakening for Mugabe has been the realisation that Zimbabwe faces social unarrest because the economic meltdown was social and politically unsustainable. The regime was hoping the arrested and disappearance of Dzamara would serve as a warning to all those who dare threaten his rule.
To the people the economic meltdown is like the forest fire to a herd of buffalo; just as the herd know the lions are a serious threat the buffalo know the lions will kill one or two individuals whereas the forest fire will wipe out the whole herd, similarly the people know the economic meltdown threatens the whole nation and not a few individuals the regime will pick off.
The demands by the West for the regime to reveal what it has done with Dzamara means the regime's threatening move has, if anything, backfired; the regime's human rights record is under even closer scrutiny than ever, it is being forced to scale down its plans to use force to subdue an increasingly restless public at the time when it should be stepping up!
In the economy Mugabe has met more that his match! He has stayed as head of his party, Zanu PF, for 50 years and as head of the country for 35 years because he was able to bribe, cheat, bamboozle and even kill his political opponents within his party and outside. His gravy train honey pot trap not even the threats of murder had any effect on the economy; it had neither human weaknesses to be exploited nor backside to be kicked.
Yes, it can now be said, that whereas all humans had failed to force Mugabe to accept regime change; it was the economic meltdown that started in earnest the day Mugabe rigged the July 2013 elections that forced the tyrant to accept regime change.
The irony of all ironies, it was the decades of mismanagement and corruption that has fuelled the economic meltdown and it was Mugabe's own political patronage system that created these cancers and their denial that has allowed them to grow and spread. After three and half decades, with some tumours the size of tennis ball, the cancers have come home to roost in their millions like red-billed quelea!
The tumours must be removed or the economy will collapse and since Mugabe and Zanu PF have neither the political will nor the political credibility to be trust to carry out this ask there is no other way out than for Mugabe and Zanu PF to step aside. The regime change they have killed in the past to avoid it now as certain as sun rise.
It was the arrest of Dzamara, ostensibly to stem wave of social unrest, which has trigged the tsunami wave that is now sweeping the regime aside! Yes it is the path one takes to avoid their destiny, regime change for Mugabe, which leads them to that destination.
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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