ZPP Report: A lie cannot live

The observation by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German philosopher of the early enlightenment was on the nose. Hegel said: "We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) thinks it can forever thrive on peddling concocted and adverse reports about Zimbabwe and the governing party. The Jestina Mukoko-led organisation is one of the rabid institutes being funded by the West to tarnish the image of Zanu PF.

She is the same Mukoko who, in 2008 was in the courts on charges of recruiting and training activists in banditry, insurgency, sabotage and terrorist bombings. She runs a 'peace project' but one wonders how peace and banditry go hand in hand. The acts of terrorism and insurgency in some parts of the globe such as Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia, among others, are quite instructive in showing the water and oil relationship of peace and banditry.

Thank God for the vigilance of the state security, otherwise this country would not have been as peaceful as it is if Mukoko had succeeded in her banditry training in Botswana.

The same people are today telling the whole world that they advance sustainable peace in Zimbabwe. They hire MDC-T activists who are motivated by nothing else but money, to monitor and gather information in constituencies. These so –called monitors know what ZPP and its western benefactors want to hear, thus they feed them accordingly.

 One day the credulous benefactors will come to life and discover that they are throwing money into a bottomless pit. Professor Lovemore Madhuku and his National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) walked the same path. He made money through dubious projects that he used to dupe the gullible western funders. He could brazenly lie and funds would pour in.

However, Martin Luther King Junior said: "a lie cannot live."  Madhuku could not sustain the lies for long. The Western funders began to realize that they were funding useless projects and they became disenchanted. They have not only dumped the NCA but the MDC-T, the private media and many other civic groups. This is the history that the ZPP is refusing to learn from. One day chickens will come home to roost for the ZPP.

In its December 2015 report, ZPP shamelessly stated that Zanu PF was the most violent political party in the country. It also alleges that PF supporters are canvassing supporters at night for fear of attack from Zanu PF. The demolitions of illegal settlements in Harare by the City council were some of the rights violations cases cited in the dubious ZPP report.

Maybe Mukoko and her ZPP are living in a different Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe we know is one of the most peaceful countries in the continent. The consumers of the ZPP report must interrogate it before swallowing it hook, line and sinker. How could those reported violence cases escape the attention of the private media, with their proclivity for sensationalism?

Perhaps petty fights over girls and super beer in pubs or over passengers at ranks are the cases that ZPP is attributing to Zanu PF. Some of these violent activities are mere criminal with nothing to do with politics, let alone Zanu PF. Instead of giving mere percentages of violations cases, ZPP must give details of these cases if they are not lying like a rug.
ZPP's allegations that PF supporters are meeting under the cover of darkness for fear of attacks from Zanu PF is ridiculous. PF is a non-existent creature only existing in the imaginary minds of the private media and the ZPP. It is a fictional party that Zanu PF can never lose sleep over. Zanu PF has greater things to do than chase the rainbow.

In any case, it's not long ago when the so called PF people had a group photo in Masvingo which appeared in the Newsday issue of 20 January 2016. If there is indeed that fear of Zanu PF, why would they parade themselves in the newspaper? The group photo was taken after a rally which was conducted in broad day light.

The revolutionary party is more democratic than the parties that claim to be the paragon of democracy. If ZPP wants to sample a real violent and undemocratic party, it must look at what is currently happening in one party, known by a misnomer with ‘Democracy' as a middle name.

Zanu PF and its leadership have been maliciously assaulted by political opponents. President Mugabe himself has been subjected to malevolence by little men in the newsrooms and activists of no substance. Not a single person was arrested or even threatened over that. What is so unique about PF supporters to invite the alleged threats from Zanu PF?

Perhaps PF is holding its meeting at night as ZPP claims. That's not debatable. However, PF is holding their rallies in the dead of night out of their own choice. Remember these people are a nocturnal pack with a penchant to pull an all-nighter. While still the Vice-President, Dr Joice Mujuru, the purported leader of PF used to meet the US ambassador under the cover of darkness. The cabal used to meet during the night while plotting to ouster President Mugabe. So nobody pushed these people to hold their rallies at night.

ZPP report deserves to be dismissed with condescension. Linking the house demolitions in Harare with Zanu PF goes to show that ZPP is not serious and so are the newspapers that packaged that hogwash as news. It is a well-known fact that the MDC-T-led Harare city council is responsible for the demolitions of the houses. The fact that the majority of the victims of house demolitions are Zanu PF supporters gives the lie to ZPP's allegations.

Not that the City Council wrong for the demolitions of the illegal settlements. These demolitions are spot on for they curb chaos in the cities, which had become the MDC-T's campaign trump card. Now that the authorities have moved in to restore sanity, ZPP call it rights violation and the MDC-T and the private media ululate, for political expediency of course.