Welcome home, Mr Zvayi

Welcome home, Mr Zvayi

DEPORTED...CAESAR ZVAYI

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By Luke Tamborinyoka

HE WAS a man who occupied acres of space in the government-controlled Herald newspaper, extolling the virtues of the Zanu PF regime.

He also doubled-up as a political analyst, periodically appearing on the government-controlled ZBC TV, spewing malice and telling us how Zanu PF would always prevail over its detractors.

He was a man full of venom; full of sound and fury against those of us who have taken up the generational mandate of completing the business of the liberation struggle by bringing true freedom and democracy to the land of our fathers.

Ceaser Zvayi, a Geography teacher who landed in the newsroom by accident, was the regime’s ready servant when it came to lampooning all the enemies of Zanu PF, real or imagined.

Two weeks ago, Zvayi, who had fled into neighbouring Botswana when Zimbabweans collectively made a loud statement against his masters in March, was deported by the government of Lieutenant-General Ian Khama.

Welcome home, Mr Zvayi!!

The Zanu PF regime has no monopoly over sovereignty. It is the sovereign right of other nations, including Botswana, to deport those citizens who derive joy in promoting hate language against certain individuals and political parties.

Zvayi and his colleagues went into overdrive in making sure that Zanu PF was retained in the last election. But Zimbabweans had other ideas! On 29 March, they made history by collectively rejecting a dictatorship.

When the regime convenes Parliament next week, the people’s resounding verdict will be laid bare for all to see as the MDC’s popularity takes physical form in the august House.

Forget this nonsense about the British or the Americans. It was Zimbabweans themselves who said through their vote that they were tired of Robert Mugabe and his retinue of thieves and corrupt barons.

Ironically, Zvayi’s misadventure into Botswana was itself a major testimony that the regime upon which he lavished praises for good governance had dismally failed to run the country. He had confided in his close friends that he saw no future in Zanu PF after 29 March and that he wanted to leave the country.

But why would he run away from 100 percent empowerment? Why did he decide to run away from total independence? Unless Zvayi wants to tell us that the promise of total empowerment could only be fulfilled by the government of Botswana while for the regime here that dictum was a mere slogan whose life-span was never intended to go beyond 27 June?

Stay here Mr Zvayi and stew with the rest of us. Stay here with real patriots like some of us who are struggling to eke out a living in these trying times. Real patriots do not run away from their countries. You cannot have your cake and it, Caesar!

You even had the audacity of recounting to the world your 24-hour experience in a jail in Botswana where you say you were shocked such treatment could be meted on “innocent” people simply because they supported Robert Mugabe’s government.

I met George Charamba at the Rainbow Towers two weeks ago when President Thabo Mbeki tried to hammer out a political settlement between President Tsvangirai and the other two guys. He asked me why I had kept silent over Zvayi’s deportation. But who am I to interfere with the sovereignty of other countries to protect those who have committed crimes against humanity by promoting hate speech and abetting a dictatorship?

Some of us have endured worse from the very same regime that you proudly support. I have been brutally tortured while some of my friends have been killed, not in Botswana, but here in our own motherland for simply supporting the cause of the MDC. Some of us have been humiliated and faced worse treatment, not in foreign lands, but here in Zimbabwe, in the country of our birth.

We have been jailed and brutally assaulted by our own government for simply demanding that democracy returns to our motherland.

That has not broken our spirits. We have instead become unrepentant regime change activists.

I hope to see you soon in the bread or cash queues, or any of the many queues which became longer during your brief sojourn to Gaborone!

Once again, welcome home, Cde Zvayi!

Luke Tamborinyoka is the Director of Information and Publicity of the MDC formation led by Morgan Tsvangirai. He is a former secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists and a former news editor of the banned Daily News.
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