Squandered opportunity by anti-Mugabe lobby

Squandered opportunity by anti-Mugabe lobby

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By Mthulisi Mathuthu
(READ MTHULISI'S PREVIOUS ARTICLES)

THERE is something inherently flawed about the approach to the Zimbabwean crisis which invites comparisons to a collective enormous medical gaffe which saw a supposedly competent team of surgeons tumbling over one another in a scramble to administer a false cure to a misdiagnosed illness.

So narrow and chaotic has been the approach, and yet so broad have been the possibilities and opportunities that to a less discerning eye, it will be mind boggling how we are still hand-cuffed to the starting point over an issue we should have solved long ago had we been honest and truthful to ourselves.

If Simba Makoni’s entrance into the Presidential race serves any purpose at all, it is to prove and demonstrate how it was always possible to beat Robert Mugabe at his own game by turning his inner circle against him.

This opportunity presented itself as early as 2004 when it became clear to all and sundry that the entire Zanu PF hierarchy was disenchanted with Mugabe. Instead of riding on these leads to build long lasting synergies, the forces for change -- the West and the opposition -- remained hermetically sealed entities, their efforts at ‘regime change’ lurching from crisis to crisis.

There has been an evidently astonishing failure to properly define the parameters of victim-hood and vulnerability under Mugabe’s rule. Yet on the other hand, the notion of blame apportionment has been over-stretched to such proportions where it is has become akin to blind and senseless vindictiveness.

The very broad nature of Mugabe’s vulnerability as an opportunity has been ignored. Ushered in is a twisted collective Western foreign policy operating on the false and hyper generalised notion that the story of Zimbabwe is essentially an epic drama with the saints of the Movement for Democratic Change ranged against the Devils of Zanu PF.

All those who don’t have anything to do with either of the parties are of lesser importance, or should be banded together with the devils. All kinds of labelling are summoned to describe anybody who disagrees with London or the MDC. Such people deserve to be banned or deported from London and New York.

If we go by this logic, people like Trevor Ncube, Tony Namate, Andy Moyse, Peta Thornycroft, Phathisa Nyathi, Regionald Matchaba-Hove, Tawanda Mutasa, Depros Muchena and many others who acquitted themselves well as servants of democracy well before there was the MDC stand relegated from the band of democrats unless they become MDC or approve of everything that the opposition does.

Their work alone is not enough to qualify them as human rights activists – that class can only be made up of those who approve of the MDC.

If, for example, Andy Moyse or Peta Thornycroft criticises Tsvangirai, all the work they did at the Horizon magazine is deleted from their CV’s and they become CIOs (Mugabe’s secret police).

They should, therefore, not count amongst the victims of tyranny.

This limited concept of victim-hood and the over stretching of the blame game has tended to be counter-productive to the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe. It makes it difficult for the opposition to seek to close ranks with the many level headed people who are broadly in sympathy with the opposition even though they are in Zanu PF or outside the two parties.

Mugabe’s vindictive politics has a far reaching effect on people’s lives as it is a grand sweep disregarding loyalties and persuasions.

The Murambastwina saga and the so-called anticorruption drive which saw everybody falling victim to Mugabe’s ways proved everybody’s vulnerability and presented itself as a lead to new and holistic methods of fighting tyranny.

Victim-hood feeds from Mugabe’s overriding need to hold on to power rendering anything and everybody who appears to be a threat vulnerable to the whirlwind sweep of repression. Nobody is spared: journalists, businessmen, white farmers, judges, politicians, teachers, cronies and church leaders. Everybody falls prey.

His is an omnipotent, omnipresent and baleful form of repression. Yet we have a tendency to assume that Mugabe’s victims are those whom the West approve of -- white farmers and the MDC. While it is true that the opposition is more on the receiving end, it is also true that they are not the only ones. Think of Pius Wakatama, Sobuza-Gula Ndebele and Benjamin Paradza.

Rapacity as a political tool in Zimbabwe claimed its first victims as early as the 1980’s when PF Zapu’s properties were seized and plundered. This was to be followed by the seizure of the late veteran nationalist Ndabaningi Sithole’s farm in the 1990’s. The same goes with the murders as Mugabe’s goons descended on African villages emptying live ammunition on innocents in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces. In fact, the drama between 2000 and today is reduced to a picnic in comparison with the murder festival of the 1980’s. Ask Jeremy Paxman who covered the carnage then!

Today’s victims are not super victims; they should join the rest in the queue for justice delivery.

Isn’t this mutual vulnerability? A strength and tool to be exploited to enhance and broaden the fight for freedom? This pattern of rapacity and repression provides a platform to erect a sensible, all inclusive and pragmatic push for change with clear thinking attendant to it.

Instead, an awkward form of tyranny has taken root with the champions of democracy morphing into the Sultans of Blackmail. Daily they crank the gears towards a parallel form of repression with a panoply of new rules and measures banning and suspecting everybody including sports people.

Despite the fact that reputable international think tanks have advised otherwise, diplomats in Harare spend their time compiling lists of people targeted for banning and classifying those they disagree with as intelligence agents to be pursued everywhere. This doesn’t seem many steps away from Mugabe’s tactics.

Meanwhile, the MDC is being prepared to succeed Zanu PF as a party which is a union of super human beings intolerant of criticism. This is how we got Zanu PF and Mugabe. Just as Mugabe’s opponents then were branded ‘sell-outs’ and ‘bandits’, those who proffer new and different views today are tarred as the CIO.

Under this logic, the CIO has recruited Trevor Ncube and Nkosana Moyo! Arthur Mutambara and Welshman Ncube are already fully-fledged CIOs, or tribal warlords, whichever is convenient. This is like saying Mondhli Makhanya was an apartheid secret agent because he criticises President Mbeki. What baloney!

Sadly this blanket and blind ban on everybody has ensured an evident lack of reliable information coming from the centre to feed into the global anti-Mugabe tyranny crusade. A quiet and much smarter sanctions regime where certain individuals were denied free movement yet others allowed in without laying out a criteria or providing explanation would have done as opposed to the senseless, vindictive and reactionary system currently in place.

Nothing illustrates this than Ambassador Christopher Dell’s prediction not so long ago that Zimbabwe was going to implode and get rid of Mugabe within six months. Now we are well beyond his predicted time frame, and nowhere nearer what he predicted. Instead, tyranny is on the roll with the sabre-rattling master still on the pedal.

Dell’s prediction was probably fed by shoddy intelligence gathered from the periphery or proffered by those who are in his country’s good books -- most of whom have no clue as to what is going on. Vital information about Mugabe can only come from those around him but they are all banned yet it remains true that most of them are broadly in sympathy with the opposition.

Evidently, there is room for improvement in this drive to rid Zimbabwe of tyranny. To continue on this route we have taken is akin to administering alchemy to a 21st century patient.

Mthulisi Mathuthu is The New Zimbabwe news editor and can be contacted on e-mail: mthulisi@newzimbabwe.com
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