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What is the role of 'The Zimbabwean' in Zimbabwe’s fight for Democracy?
Journalist Itai Dzamara has been presenting some "facts" in The Zimbabwean newspaper of what transpired at the October 2005 national council meeting which marked the split of the MDC. Paul Themba Nyathi, who was the united party's spokesman at the time, and is now elections director in the faction led by Arthur Mutambara reacts:
By Paul Themba
IN "The untold story of the MDC split', Itai Dzamara has written an article that raises questions about the role of “The Zimbabwean” newspaper in Zimbabwe’s struggle for democracy, human rights and political decency.
The article, that quotes unnamed sources alas, Herald, Chronicle and other state sponsored mouthpieces, is full of blatant lies, misinformation, innuendoes and what would seem like a deliberate attempt to malign those who hold views contrary to those of Morgan Tsvangirai.
Whilst I do not advocate editorial censorship on the part of The Zimbabwean, I am distressed that a newspaper that claims to promote “voices of the voiceless” would give room to articles that seek to promote only one voice that of Mr Tsvangirai.
Let us examine some of the untruths in Dzamara’s article:
• All the internal commissions of enquiry that were commissioned by the united MDC’s National Council do not reveal a single incident of inter-party violence perpetrated by any other group other than groups aligned to Morgan Tsvangirai.
When the MDC split following the October 12 vote, Professor Welshman Ncube did not become the Acting President of the formation that went to Congress and was subsequently led by Professor Arthur Mutambara. That grouping was led by Gibson Sibanda. This constant reference to "Welshman Ncube’s camp" is a sinister disinformation designed to mislead the general public.
• “They tried to push for a preservation of their senior positions through a decree by Tsvangirai”, writes Dzamara. Which section of the MDC constitution would have allowed Tsvangirai to “decree” some process in the MDC? None! Why would someone make such a blatantly false statement in a newspaper that seeks to rescue Zimbabweans from the nauseating disinformation spewed out by state newspapers on a daily basis? Why would Tsvangirai, as Dzamara revealingly puts it, “want to get rid of Ncube"?
I thought it was Congress delegates who decided who held which position in the Party! So, according to Dzamara, Tsvangirai was on record as saying “to hell with the Top Six". A leader that uses that kind of language can only be admired by those that are blindly psychopathic. The truth of the matter, and I do not claim to speak for Tsvangirai, he is not on record anywhere as saying, “to hell with the Top Six,” that is Dzamara’s fanciful invention.
• Though Dzamara claims that “it is important to unravel the link between the Tsholotsho plot and the MDC (I thought it was only Zanu PF and Mugabe who referred to the Tsholotsho gathering as a plot), he is unable to offer any reasonable links between the two.
Again he indulges in fanciful innuendoes without providing concrete evidence. Those of us, who were in the united MDC then, know for a fact that there was no such link. Why would a serious journalist, if at all he is a serious one, writing in a serious human rights promoting newspaper, write such untruths?
• The rest that he writes about with respect to Professor Jonathan Moyo and President Thabo Mbeki can be dealt with by those individuals that, in my view, he seeks to malign in order to promote Tsvangirai's leadership.
• So, according to Dzamara, the Tsholotsho “plot” flopped because it was leaked to Tsvangirai! If that is true, then Zanu PF owes Tsvangirai a huge debt of gratitude. Of course, this is fanciful stuff designed yet again, to elevate Tsvangirai’s status way above its purchase level.
• I can understand Dzamara maligning Zimbabwean opposition politicians that do not support Tsvangirai’s leadership, but to make disparaging remarks about President Mbeki in yet another attempt to promote Tsvangirai’s leadership is in bad taste to put it mildly.
President Mbeki had nothing to do with the MDC split, Tsvangirai presided over that split. President Mbeki did not influence 33 members of the National Council to vote in favour of participating in the senatorial contest.
What tends to be ignored by those who are in the business of distorting facts is that of the 12 Party Provinces that decided on the matter, six voted in favour of participation, four voted against and two had not completed the process of consultations. Let anyone dispute these facts. Whether participating or not participating in the senatorial race was politically wise or not is now water under the bridge that should not be mudded by peddling untruths.
• The allegations of fraud around the voting procedure are false. After the Top Six Management team had been asked to deliberate on the issue in response to Roy Bennet’s resolution which was unanimously adopted, Tsvangirai came back and announced that the Top Six had agreed that the matter be subjected to a vote by secret ballot. It was Tsvangirai himself who urged all present to abide by the outcome of that vote. Let Tsvangirai and his supporters dispute this fact if they dare.
• It is false, in fact it is a despicable lie to state that after the National Council vote “Ncube and his followers walked out to announce the split”. It is Tsvangirai who walked out despite entreaties from his colleagues who included Tendai Biti. It was Tsvangirai who, thirty minutes after leaving the Council, falsely told journalists that the council vote had been split evenly and that he had used his “presidential casting vote”.
Of course that was untrue. The MDC Constitution does not have a provision for a presidential casting vote -- whatever that means! The lie that is being currently peddled to the effect that there were two proxy votes from Sekai Holland and Grace Kwinjeh is just that -- a lie. There are no proxy votes in the MDC Constitution. In any case, those two did not even know that there would be a vote over the matter.
• The ethnic frame in which the split is being cynically cast by Tsvangirai’s supporters raises questions about the group’s ability to build a united Zimbabwe free of ethnic intolerance. Is it possible that Dzamara’s investigations did not reveal who exactly met President Mbeki to seek the President’s assistance in this matter?
The inclusion of Paul Themba Nyathi in the group that went to see Mbeki cannot be an innocent error. It is designed to cast the matter in an ethnic mode. For the record, Gift Chimanikire, Gibson Sibanda, Welshman Ncube and Fletcher Dulini Ncube went to meet President Mbeki. The late Isaac Matongo had initially agreed to undertake the trip but gave in to pressure from Tsvangirai at the last minute.
• President Mbeki should be commended for attempting to assist the opposition heal the split. He was, after all, seized with attempts to get Zanu PF and the MDC resolve the Zimbabwean crisis, a fractured MDC would not achieve this objective. The nonsense about Mbeki preferring Ncube to Tsvangirai is the product of an inferiority complex that cannot be blamed on Mbeki. He took the risk of angering Zanu PF in the process.
• So “Tsvangirai declined and actually called the developments a storm in a tea cup”. We have a private conversation between a Head of State and an opposition leader revealed in order to promote Tsvangirai’s leadership! Is it any wonder that President Mbeki would “prefer” some leaders in the opposition and have disdain for others?
• Professor Arthur Mutambara was unanimously elected by a properly constituted Congress in Bulawayo comprising 3000 delegates from all of the Party’s 12 Provinces. Attributing his election to Welshman Ncube is designed to de-legitimise his leadership. It is yet another ethnic project that only shameless people would have no qualms in promoting.
Democratic forces in Zimbabwe need to come together to rid the country of the tyranny that has bedeviled it in the past 27 years. We demean the struggle by peddling untruths in an effort to outdo each other in the eyes of the people of Zimbabwe and the international community.
We need to use information outlets like The Zimbabwean to give people factual information that will enable them to make informed choices
PAUL THEMBA NYATHI
MDC NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF ELECTIONS
Writing
in his personal capacity
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