ONCE again, the MDC wishes to acknowledge that difficult time of the year when Zimbabweans have to reflect on the liberation struggle and their victory against colonialism on the 18th of April 1980. The year 1980 witnessed the birth of what we thought was a secure nation with a strong economy and functioning institutions.

We were a potential powerhouse in Africa with an industrial base which compared favourably to what existed in the few well-managed African countries at the time.

We anxiously positioned ourselves ready to rebuild the country and to contribute to wealth creation and to explore the abundant opportunities brought about by the promise of freedom. Today, 26 years later, Zimbabweans are worse off than they were 50 years ago. We have nothing to show for our Independence, except overwhelming poverty. No sector has escaped the hand of the criminal and vampire state in our country today.

We are languishing in a hyper-inflationary environment where normalcy is impossible to sustain. The situation is so bad that only extra-ordinary steps must be taken, at the collapse of the dictatorship and the attendant crisis of expectations, to avert the state from receding into some form of spontaneous anarchy, if not total collapse. As a people we realize our responsibility to come up with a convincing national recovery agenda, out of which shall emerge a caring government with a capacity to re-kindle faith and confidence in our society.

All sectors of the economy have collapsed. Our once impressive infrastructure is in a state of decay. The dictatorship has destroyed our once impressive education, health and social services. The idea is to create a totally powerless citizenry, dependant on the patronage of the dictatorship. The regime believes in pushing the people to a level of extreme infirmity as a political control mechanism. I fully understand your concerns, the agony and anxieties within your families.

As a party, we shall fight hard to address the root of the problem, which is essentially political. A crisis of legitimacy, with us since the disputed June 2000 Parliamentary election and buttressed by a flawed Presidential election in 2002, has pushed us onto the edge of a precipice.

It is common cause that Zimbabweans never thought food could be a problem. Food security was our responsibility within the SADC region. Today, agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, is gone.

Out of greed and political avarice, Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF defied a cardinal covenant that expects all states to observe the sanctity of private property rights. And, out went the rule of law and with it business confidence, local and international investment, trust and faith.

The millions who returned home from exile in 1980 have begun the great trek, once again, out of Zimbabwe because of insecurity. The people are desperate to get out. There is too much poverty and too little growth. This is unacceptable. I know that those in the rural areas are caught between a rock and a hard place. They are being forced to contribute their meagre earnings towards the Independence celebrations. They are subjected to a barrage of propaganda messages, all designed to cow them into submission.

We have a duty, a responsibility to correct these anomalies. Our previous efforts were unheeded. We must organise ourselves against the dictatorship. For the record, allow me Zimbabweans to re-state that the march to tyranny can be traced to the early years of our Independence.

In a 24-page private letter in 1983 on the then emerging trend towards state-sanctioned brutality, the late Joshua Nkomo told Robert Mugabe: "Zimbabwe is defenceless today because the people live in fear, not of enemies, but their own government."

Six years later on 10 July 1989, the late Ndabaningi Sithole - in another letter to Mugabe said: "The exposure of the gross corruption of your most senior ministers and other government officials raises questions regarding the ability of the present government to run the country. The whole episode causes one to wonder whether we have a government or merely a gang of the most unscrupulous ever to be entrusted with the running of our country."

In March 2001, I wrote a personal letter to Mugabe. I pleaded with him to put the national interest above his personal ambition. I was concerned about the downward slide our nation was facing arising from Mugabe's selfish approach to the resolution of the crisis. Nothing came out it. Instead, Mugabe intensified his violent campaign against the poor.

As you can see, it was clear in those early years that the seed of the dictatorship was already in the ground. The people were betrayed. Zimbabwe was set for elite privatisation. Soon, intolerance reared its ugly head -- leading to massacres in Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands.

Today, the whole country is raising questions as to what happened to the ideals of the liberation struggle; what has become of the democratic resiliency of the nation. Zanu PF and Mugabe have no solution to the crisis they created. Our nation must be rescued from a minority class that has plundered our resources and our chances for national advancement.

Through democratic resistance, through people-power, we can change our fortunes and determine our destiny. Our concern is the future. There is no point in continuing to watch with trepidation a small nationalistic class, aided by a corrupt and parasitic bureaucracy and supported by desperate opportunists wreak havoc on the national cake. We are ready to pay the prize to liberate ourselves.

From our experience during the past six years, it is clear that we are in for a hard transition. Robert Mugabe, unlike Frederick de Klerk in South Africa, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Kamuzu Banda in Malawi and a host of others, does not have an exit strategy to save his own country from a state of paralysis.

Mugabe must be nudged into action. The people shall express themselves and ensure that Mugabe understands their demands. Our leadership was given a mandate to pursue all options to resolve the national crisis. Our Congress recommended a short, sharp programme of action to deal with the national grievance and achieve a permanent solution to the crisis of governance.

Our Congress further defined a road map to a New Zimbabwe, a road map to legitimacy and a realistic reconstruction agenda. Our Congress called for a comprehensive programme of social, economic and political transformation in Zimbabwe to restore stability within the nation.

Political legitimacy shall be a forerunner to building local and international confidence in our country as a member of the family of nations. Our Congress pledged to tackle the immense challenges before us – huge humanitarian emergencies covering all sectors of Zimbabwean life.

Given the confusion in Zanu PF on the way forward, you may ask: which direction therefore are the forces of democratic change moving? The answer defines our agenda for action. Our national policies and programmes are informed by a need for a post-Mugabe period of national healing, in which the nation could come to terms with 26 years of chaos and trauma.

Zimbabweans have to work out effective ways of handling the evils within our past in order to vaccinate against any future reversion into tyranny and darkness. The freedom we gallantly fought for, and the ideals of the liberation struggle, is now confined to a vastly shrunk political arena. We pledge to reverse that negative trend.

In conclusion, may I take this opportunity to thank you, the people, for your refusal to give in to pressure from the regime and its surrogates. You remained resolute and steadfast in your resolve to continue calling for sanity in our country. I am aware of the agony you do through daily while searching for food for your children. I know that many no longer have access to medical support, fuel, water, electricity and jobs.

We cannot allow this regime to impose its false supremacy over the people. Only action and political pressure shall bring in the desired results and lead us to resuscitate our failed state and our dying institutions.

I thank you,

Morgan Tsvangirai
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