My problem with Jonathan Moyo

My problem with Jonathan Moyo

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By Mutumwa Mawere

I READ with interest Professor Jonathan Moyo's post-Budiriro election analysis and the reaction it has generated both in Zimbabwe and externally.

Professor Moyo has continued his conversation with Zimbabwe and provided his insights into the politics of Zimbabwe and prospects for change notwithstanding the scepticism among many about his credentials and relevance.

We all must contragulate Professor Moyo for his courage to stand up for what he believes in and ability to extricate himself from any damaging baggage he may carry.

I agreed with the editor of New Zimbabwe.com to contribute to a weekly column to offer my insights into developments in Zimbabwe and hopefully allow the readers an opportunity to benefit from different perspectives.

Having read Professor Moyo's Budiriro piece it is clear that the Tsholotsho intiative is very much alive and also that in his analysis the successor to Zanu PF must originate from the womb of Zanu PF.

There is a common thread that seems to come through in the Prof's analysis that need to be understood and may have a material bearing in the future of the country.

It is evident that the principles upon which the Tsholotsho doctrine was founded and which appears to inform the Prof's analytical mind is that the successor to Mugabe must not be a Zezuru.

In addition, the Prof must be in the mix not only because he believes that he possesses a superior intellectual mind but his understanding of Zimbabwean politics is more advanced than all the political actors including his former boss, Mugabe. It is also important to appreciate that the Prof was surprised during the constitutional reform exercise that Mugabe had run out of defenders within the party leaving a gap for the Prof to pursue his ambition of firstly displacing the former ZAPU and secondly to take control of the organs of the state.

Although people may debate whether the relationship between Mugabe and the Prof was that of principal-agent type, it is clear that Mugabe may not have been fully aware that the emergence of the Prof in the Zanu PF family through the constitutional exercise was the beginning of what the Prof now describes as the Third Way. No doubt the Prof had studied the opposition forces and discovered that they lacked the killer instinct required to remove an entrenched incumbent.

Because of the indelible mark the Prof has made in the contemporary Zimbabwean story, I thought that there could be no better subject to launch my column that add my own personal interface with the Prof and try to locate my own predicament within the Tsholotsho doctrine that he remains an unrepentent advocate.

I have known the Prof since the early 1980s when I was introduced to him by a mutual friend in Zimbabwe. At the time, I was a student at the University of Zimbabwe. After graduation, I continued to interact with the Prof when we were both students in the USA.

I am convinced that an honest and frank conversation with the Prof is important not only because of the manner in which he successfully took control of Zanu PF but manipulatively prosecuted his agenda to create an opposition within the party but because he has chosen to selectively disclose the underlying agenda of the Tsholotsho group.

The Tsholotsho doctrine not only sought to undermine the unity accord under which ZAPU was assimilated into Zanu PF as a perpetual junior partner but identified an alternative leadership that was ethnically consistent with the Prof's convictions. In as much as the internal disputes within the MDC were also tribally-based resulting in the indentification of a non-Zezuru as the leader of the faction. What emerges from an analysis of all the opposition forces in Zimbabwe is that they are all led by non-Zezurus.

However, within the Zanu PF stable, the Presidium is comprised of four individuals i.e. Mugabe & Mujuru (former ZANU) and Msika & Nkomo (former ZAPU). The arrangement naturally did not fit into the construction of the Prof as he had no standing in the former ZAPU for him to ascend to the top of the party. Accordingly, any succession plan would require that a new paradigm be crafted and debate be generated within Zanu PF about the relevance of the unity accord and who was the authentic representative of the ndebeles.

Against the above background, it becomes understandable why the Prof used the state machinery to position himself as a successor to ZAPU. It is interesting to explore the link between the so-called new Turks that came into Zanu PF in the face of an opposition force.

I first attracted the wrath of Prof immediately after his appointment as a minister when he approached me to borrow some R300,000 to help finance his South African mortgage. When he refused to disclose a repayment plan, I declined to assist him. As a person who had known the Prof as a student and his views about Zanu PF, I was shocked when he accepted an appointment into the government. At first I thought it was motivated entirely by financial considerations but as he became entrenched into the state system, it became clear that he was a man on a mission whose destination was not defined even to his friends.

When the history of Zimbabwe is told in the future, I have no doubt that some of our names will be used or abused in trying to understand how things fell apart in Zimbabwe without any centre to hold the country together. What may be instructive in our collective stories is not what we did not do but what we did to make Zimbabwe a better or worse place that what was inherited from Ian Smith.

It is in this context that I thought, it would be beneficial for us to traverse together the memory lane and locate the Prof's convervations with me in the context of what many may take for granted as constitutional rights i.e. the freedom of expression and how the state can impinge on the rights of its citizens.

The actions of the Prof as an architect of dictatorship need to be brought into focus so that he can help us understand his role in it and possibly the real origins of Tsholotsho and its principals. To date, he has suggested that President Mugabe was an integral part of the Zanu PF succession conspiracy that would have seen Emerson Mnangagwa as the beneficiary. Incidentally, Mnangagwa has often been referred to as my principal suggesting that I could have been part of the Tsholotsho plot. It is, therefore, important that I provide my own input into this important subject.

I have chosen to provide such input using the secondary information that I picked from the internet regarding the conversation between the Prof and myself through the National Development Assembly, an organisation that I chaired that sponsored a television program that became a victim to the Prof's actions in 2001 well before my assets were nationalised.

In the NDA saga, it is important to locate the actions of Gideon Gono and Moyo and also explore their relationship so that we can better situate the economic and media strategy of the Tsholotsho group. It is also important to explore the hypothesis that Mugabe was part of the gang nothststanding the fact that before the entry of the Prof in Zanu PF, Mugabe did not have the balls to enact POSA and AIPPA. Could it be that the Prof was a de facto President and now wishes to distance himself from his principal?

I have no doubt that many of your readers are of the opinion that my problems can be directly traced to the actions of Mnangagwa who has been mistakenly described as my partner.

I am convinced that the Prof may have more to do with the expropriation of my assets in Zimbabwe than anyone else. To support this contention, I set out below my interface with the Prof and why my support for a free and tolerant Zimbabwe could not be accommodated under the Prof's construction of how Zimbabwe should be governed and whose views should dominate.

I have scanned the internet searching for the following key words: mational development assembly & mawere and was surprised to get a number of articles under the following titles that may help your readers understand the actions of the Prof.

A: From News24 (SA), 6 June, 2001
Zim govt bans own TV programme

B: From The Zimbabwe Standard, 15 July, 2001
Mawere blasts Moyo

C: Mugabe is challenged over axed TV show
By David Blair - Daily Telegraph
(Filed: 12/07/2001)

D: ZBC board denies political interference in banning programme
Country/Topic: Zimbabwe
Date: 08 June 2001
Source: Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)

In my capacity as Chairman of the National Development Assembly (NDA), I attacked information and publicity minister Jonathan Moyo for "abusing his power and position" by ordering the banning of a sponsored television program, Talk to the Nation, television programme because live phone-in contributions from viewers revealed the weight of critical opinion against the government.

Reacting to my attack, the Prof said that I did not know when to stop, and was abusing the government press to put across my views at the expense of alternative ones. The NDA successfully challenged the ban in the High Court of Zimbabwe but the order could not be implemented due to the Prof's intervention. Given the Prof's attitude against those who do not share his ideas, I shudder to think of what would become of Zimbabwe if the opposition is infiltrated by him and the third way (Prof's way) were to prevail.

Some of your readers may recall that my crime that generated the ban was that I had dared to allow an MDC legislator to participate in the television show. Some may not recall that the Prof appointed Gono who incidentally returned the favour by opening a CBZ branch in Tsholotsho as the Chaiman of the broadcasting corporation. In as much as Gono has denied being the principal force behind the expropriation of my assets, he also denied that the ban was linked to the actions of the Prof.

Speaking to "The Herald" at the time, Minister Moyo said the government fully supported the recent decision of the ZBC Board as well as the decision by ZBC management to terminate the NDA live production. According to "The Daily News" and "The Herald", ZBC was supposed to make Z$4 million (approx. US$72,860) from the expected twenty-six live programmes.

"It is not about money. Live productions can be tricky and dangerous. The setting on the NDA production was professionally done but maybe the programme should not have been broadcast live. You do not know what someone will come and say and there is no way of controlling it," said Moyo.

Speaking to "The Daily News" at the time, Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Department of Information and Publicity Munyaradzi Hwengwere said that the decision to terminate the programme was taken by the ZBC board.

"We understand why they took that decision and we support it. The professional integrity of ZBC was at stake," said Hwengwere.

However ZBC Board Chairperson Gideon Gono told "The Daily News" that the programme had not been banned. "It is temporarily off air and the move is not political. We review programmes from time to time, and some are aired for shorter periods. We are going through a transition in every department and this affects programming." said Gono.

Gono denied that the NDA live phone in programme was banned on political grounds, "The Herald" reported on 7 June 2001. "It is unfortunate that this matter is being politicised when there have been other similar removals in the past, whose sponsors accepted the ZBC position with sincerity," said Gono.

"There are no other motivations behind this decision and it is our hope as a Board that the producers will accept that position. As for the NDA programme, it is neither the first nor the last programme to be taken off air on the basis of failing to meet the set criteria in terms of our public responsibilities and broadcasting standards....The said standards are not based on imaginary or speculative considerations but rather, on broadcasting integrity, responsibility, ethics and the inherent obligations of a national broadcaster such as ZBC."

In an interview with "The Financial Gazette", I described the ban as unfortunate and regrettable. I said that the letter of termination only referred to the issue of policy. "There's only one broadcaster and in this case the broadcaster has spoken and if ever we wanted to speak through that broadcaster that opportunity has gone. The unfortunate thing is that the moment you reduce yourself to banning ideas then you have lost the essence of humanity".

I stated at the time that "Talk to the Nation" was part of nation-building. "We see nation-building as an enterprise whose keystone is the regeneration, processing and implementation of ideas. You can't build a nation alone or by talking to yourself hence our theme 'Talk to the Nation',".

Five years have elapsed since the NDA debacle and I have no doubt that the Prof will have a different spin to the events leading to the ban of the program on political grounds. He may now seek to hide behind Mugabe as claim amnesia. It is important that we critically examine the actions of those who now wish to be political analysts in an attempt to whitewash their past actions.

I trust that this column will hopefully generate an informed discourse into the role, if any, of the Prof in determining and participating in the future of Zimbabwe. It is also obvious that he will not rest until the opposition sees sense in accommodating him and we need to interrogate what will be the ramifications to democracy if such a development were to take place.

Finally, the Prof was one of the key persons in a committee that was set up by Mugabe to take-over my assets. For the record, having been banned by Moyo from using TV and radio, we then set a newspaper that was also later banned. By the time my assets were taken, the Prof had made sure that I had no access to the media in Zimbabwe and officially I did not exist. It is important that we give the Prof the opportunity to respond.

Mutumwa Mawere's weekly colum will appear on New Zimbabwe.com every Monday. You can contact him at: mmawere@global.co.za
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