Opinion / Columnist
MDC-T secret 'strategy' to scourge of violence is a lie to make us drop demand for all GPA reform!
17 May 2015 at 20:30hrs | Views
The issue of politically motivated intimidation, harassment, beatings, rapes and murders is a very important matter in the nation's fight for free, fair and credible elections. It is therefore infuriating that MDC's corrupt and incompetent leaders still fail to deal with this matter with the seriousness and urgency the matter demand!
"Asked if his party has found a strategy to counter a recurrence of the violence ahead of the next elections in 2018, MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu gave an emphatic yes," reported New Zimbabwe. "We definitely have a solution but it would be full hardy for me to disclose matters of strategy," Gutu said, adding, "But I want your readers to appreciate that this time around Zanu-PF will not have its cake and eat it. We will definitely send them packing." However, during the 2013 campaign period, top MDC politicians, among them Theresa Makone, who was both party women's assembly secretary and cabinet minister, openly urged supporters to retaliate when attacked by the enemy.
"If you are beaten up, hit back. We do not want people who just take it lying down. Look today there are very few women here-many have stayed home because they are afraid of what happened here last week when there was violence," she said then."
There is no doubt that MDC-T has no answer to Zanu PF's culture of violence to achieve political goals other than "If they hit you, hit back!" Mrs Makone was advocating. This is worse than an eye for an eye until the whole nation is blind! These MDC morons know the Zanu PF thugs have the whole state machinery; the Police, Army, CIO and the Courts; every time the opposition have tried to fight back, they have only made things even worse.
These MDC leaders have been out telling their supporters to fight back and they jump back in their cars and go back to the relative safety of their low-density urban homes. If they are followed there they have escape further afield. Tsvangirai took the fastest 100m dash to the Netherlands Embassy last time Zanu PF thugs drove past his house.
It is the poor MDC supporters and the ordinary Zimbabweans, with nowhere to go or hide, who have had to deal with the wave after wave of Zanu PF thugs, war vets and the whole State machinery on their own. Tell these people to fight back is like telling a mouse cornered by a gang of cats to fight back.
In wanton political violence of 2008, Mugabe used the reckless fight-back calls to justify his claim that the violence was "from both sides of the political divide"!
This top secret MDC-T "strategy" that will stop Zanu PF's culture of violence is nothing but yet another MDC empty promise that will add up to naught just their repeated promise that the Copac constitution would deliver free and fair elections. Tsvangirai claim the new constitution was an "MDC child" which was a blatant lie; Mugabe "dictated the constitution" boasted MP Paul Mnangagwa, the Zanu PF Copac co-chair. The real test was to confirm this, the new constitution failed to deliver free and fair elections.
What is really annoying in this is there is an answer to ending Zanu PF's culture violence; implement the raft of democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) design to cut the political umbilical cords that have made it impossible for State institutions like the Police to carry out their duties without the present Zanu PF partisan bias.
Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had five years during the GNU to implement these reforms but failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!
SADC, who were the guarantor of the GPA, reminded MDC of the need to implement the reforms but MDC ignored the warnings. Mugabe bribed MDC with the gravy train lifestyles plus the $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai to forget about the reforms. Of course MDC betrayed the nation in failing to implement the reforms and thus deal with this scourge of political violence and all the other related problems that have made it impossible to hold free and fair elections. They sold-out!
Last month MDC-T came up with a list of eight reforms they want Zanu PF to implement for them to end their election boycott. None of the eight demands would end the scourge of violence and, no doubt, the nation is to assume MDC-T's secret weapon will deal with the violence problem!
After the sell-out during the GNU MDC did not just lose the rigged July 2013 elections their also lost all political credibility with SADC, the donors who had funded their political activities and with the people of Zimbabwe too. As more and more realized how MDC had sold-out they stopped supporting the party.
MDC-T has fighting a losing battle to remain politically relevant in Zimbabwe and in their desperation the party has become reckless. The MDC-T's attention seeking eight reform demands is one reckless gamble in that even if Zanu PF was to implement all of them, the nation will still not have free and fair elections. The promise of a secret strategy to end the Zanu PF scourge of political violence is another gamble to take the nation's attention away from the demand to have all the GPA democratic reforms implemented as the only sure way to end the scourge of violence and deliver free and fair elections.
Zimbabwe's worsening economic situation is putting Mugabe and Zanu PF under great pressure to accept meaningful political reforms. We must demand the implementation of all the GPA reforms with no compromises. To accept MDC-T's revised list of reforms on the mistaken believe that MDC-T will have other ways of dealing with the problem of political violence and all the other problems would be a serious and foolish compromise.
President Mugabe and Zanu PF will continue to resist the implementation of the GPA reforms as long as they can and thus they are the main obstacle to the nation ending this corrupt and oppressive Zanu PF dictatorship. However the nation must now acknowledge that MDC leaders have now become part of the problem and not its solution; in failing to implement the reforms the cost the nation a golden opportunity during the GNU to end the dictatorship and ever since they have been coming with all manner of schemes to take our eyes off implementing all the reforms.
"Asked if his party has found a strategy to counter a recurrence of the violence ahead of the next elections in 2018, MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu gave an emphatic yes," reported New Zimbabwe. "We definitely have a solution but it would be full hardy for me to disclose matters of strategy," Gutu said, adding, "But I want your readers to appreciate that this time around Zanu-PF will not have its cake and eat it. We will definitely send them packing." However, during the 2013 campaign period, top MDC politicians, among them Theresa Makone, who was both party women's assembly secretary and cabinet minister, openly urged supporters to retaliate when attacked by the enemy.
"If you are beaten up, hit back. We do not want people who just take it lying down. Look today there are very few women here-many have stayed home because they are afraid of what happened here last week when there was violence," she said then."
There is no doubt that MDC-T has no answer to Zanu PF's culture of violence to achieve political goals other than "If they hit you, hit back!" Mrs Makone was advocating. This is worse than an eye for an eye until the whole nation is blind! These MDC morons know the Zanu PF thugs have the whole state machinery; the Police, Army, CIO and the Courts; every time the opposition have tried to fight back, they have only made things even worse.
These MDC leaders have been out telling their supporters to fight back and they jump back in their cars and go back to the relative safety of their low-density urban homes. If they are followed there they have escape further afield. Tsvangirai took the fastest 100m dash to the Netherlands Embassy last time Zanu PF thugs drove past his house.
It is the poor MDC supporters and the ordinary Zimbabweans, with nowhere to go or hide, who have had to deal with the wave after wave of Zanu PF thugs, war vets and the whole State machinery on their own. Tell these people to fight back is like telling a mouse cornered by a gang of cats to fight back.
In wanton political violence of 2008, Mugabe used the reckless fight-back calls to justify his claim that the violence was "from both sides of the political divide"!
This top secret MDC-T "strategy" that will stop Zanu PF's culture of violence is nothing but yet another MDC empty promise that will add up to naught just their repeated promise that the Copac constitution would deliver free and fair elections. Tsvangirai claim the new constitution was an "MDC child" which was a blatant lie; Mugabe "dictated the constitution" boasted MP Paul Mnangagwa, the Zanu PF Copac co-chair. The real test was to confirm this, the new constitution failed to deliver free and fair elections.
Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had five years during the GNU to implement these reforms but failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!
SADC, who were the guarantor of the GPA, reminded MDC of the need to implement the reforms but MDC ignored the warnings. Mugabe bribed MDC with the gravy train lifestyles plus the $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai to forget about the reforms. Of course MDC betrayed the nation in failing to implement the reforms and thus deal with this scourge of political violence and all the other related problems that have made it impossible to hold free and fair elections. They sold-out!
Last month MDC-T came up with a list of eight reforms they want Zanu PF to implement for them to end their election boycott. None of the eight demands would end the scourge of violence and, no doubt, the nation is to assume MDC-T's secret weapon will deal with the violence problem!
After the sell-out during the GNU MDC did not just lose the rigged July 2013 elections their also lost all political credibility with SADC, the donors who had funded their political activities and with the people of Zimbabwe too. As more and more realized how MDC had sold-out they stopped supporting the party.
MDC-T has fighting a losing battle to remain politically relevant in Zimbabwe and in their desperation the party has become reckless. The MDC-T's attention seeking eight reform demands is one reckless gamble in that even if Zanu PF was to implement all of them, the nation will still not have free and fair elections. The promise of a secret strategy to end the Zanu PF scourge of political violence is another gamble to take the nation's attention away from the demand to have all the GPA democratic reforms implemented as the only sure way to end the scourge of violence and deliver free and fair elections.
Zimbabwe's worsening economic situation is putting Mugabe and Zanu PF under great pressure to accept meaningful political reforms. We must demand the implementation of all the GPA reforms with no compromises. To accept MDC-T's revised list of reforms on the mistaken believe that MDC-T will have other ways of dealing with the problem of political violence and all the other problems would be a serious and foolish compromise.
President Mugabe and Zanu PF will continue to resist the implementation of the GPA reforms as long as they can and thus they are the main obstacle to the nation ending this corrupt and oppressive Zanu PF dictatorship. However the nation must now acknowledge that MDC leaders have now become part of the problem and not its solution; in failing to implement the reforms the cost the nation a golden opportunity during the GNU to end the dictatorship and ever since they have been coming with all manner of schemes to take our eyes off implementing all the reforms.
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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