etter are meant to sound sensible. But I am afraid you do not seem to accord with reality. Is the Matibenga you are referring to here the same person who suffered broken limbs and a damaged ear drum recently due to savage attacks by the Zanu (PF) militiamen? I am stunned. My impression of your frenetic hype against Matibenga is that you had a narrow interpretation of our leader’s pronouncements.
There is a distinct line between nonsensical activists whose primary objective is to use cyberspace as a launch pad to boost their egos and those motivated by the desire to see positive change in our hard-pressed nation. If you subscribe to the latter category, there is no need for you to issue rantings of such paranoid proportion.
We have no problem with intellectuals and cyberspace critics who slam the opposition constructively. I have seen the good work of many people who share their views on the internet with the aim of uprooting negative perceptions and in turn cultivating positive expectations among the disillusioned citizenry. If people criticise to make leaders aware of their responsibilities and weaknesses they deserve applause.
The problem is the emergence a generation of belligerent desktop activists and cyberspace warriors who have espoused a needless culture to trivialise and satirise our opposition leaders. And they seem to ignorantly revel in the misery of the distressed lives that these particular leaders are seeking to extricate from the siege of Robert Mugabe’s demonic regime. Most of us have no patience any longer with the anti-MDC rhetoric that these sceptics bombard us with everyday.
JAY-ZAT, Jozi
Inner circle of mujibas
EDITOR – We have all heard about G7 or G14 summits, but now Mugabe has his very own private G 26 which is the real stumbling block for the future of the country. Enos Nkala – an old hand Mugabe Mujiba and former cabinet minister has brought this to light – he described it as the “Group of 26 Zezuru clique” that are holding the country to ransom and want Mugabe to stay in power.
The actual members of the G 26 were not listed. In strictly analytical terms they are really the “muJee 26 Group.”Mugabe’s inner circle of Mujibas is very carefully appointed, because it represents his absolute power base.
Mujiba Enos was a member until 1989. A potentials list could run something like this: Mujibas Gideon, Josephs (two), Solomon, Joice, Augustine, Perence, Vitalis, Dumiso, Nathan, Obert, Didymus, Wayne, Tobias, Sydney, Munyaradzi, Anus, Herbert, Mike, David, Patrick Anthony, Paul, Samuel, Leo, John and Ignatius – pretty biblical by name. Commercial agriculture has not been overlooked by Mugabe – to include Mujibas like Nicholas (two of), Colin, Douglas, David, ChriStoff, Timothy, Duncan, George, Charles (now Royalty?), Kenneth, Kobus, Andries, Hendrik, Attie, Heinie, Neville, and old hand milk mujiba Paddy, just to name a few.
Apparently, “Farmer Bob” did not embrace the Official CFU Mujiba Line and was ‘Swiftly’ removed – after a CFI/CFU Mujiba Pungwe at the Harare Club, I assume. Meantime, Margaret Thatcher and Archibald Primrose (affectionately known as Lord Carrington) can now write their memoirs about the brilliant success of Lancaster House, and how they, with Peter Soames, never ever inflicted a terrorist government on the country – although the election monitors reported widespread Zanu intimidation in February 1980. Did the Foreign Office simply “tear up the top copy, old boy?” I fear so.
Once a Mujiba, the man is effectively emasculated, although he might have much money and power. Mugabe has cleverly brainwashed them to think they are “amadoda sibili” but it is the very reverse. For those that were a threat to His Mujiba State, Robert has been swift – Tongagara, Nyagumbo, Ushewokunze, Hunzvi, Gezi, Mahachi, Pamire and many more.
The Nutty Mujiba Professor appears to be an exception somehow, and Enos is suddenly all “uppity” (at last) – because he is now old and hungry? Dumiso (the Black Russian?) is still sitting happily on the gravy train, and looking for new recruits, when he should really be sharing his wealth of knowledge about “who murdered who.”
PRO LEGE, SIBILI, Australia
A plea for reconciliation
EDITOR – Reconciliation is about restoring broken relationships through forgiveness, it is about healing the Spiritual and the physical wounds. Generally, Zimbabwe is yearning for peace and justice and therefore, peace and justice can be nationally realized if and only God intervenes between /among the warring parties of the MDC.
I pray that members of MDC and its leadership will unite, reconcile and forgive each other. Without forgiveness from within, Zimbabwe shall perish. A Nation without a vision perishes. Members of MDC and its entire leadership should swallow pride and put the interests of the nation first and foremost. We need unity at all costs to motivate the masses that are now deeply apathetic to say the least.
The general man in the street has lost faith and confidence caused by split on the 23 October 2005. From observations our future is bleak and God be asked to intervene now than later. The country is crying and yearning for reconciliation and forgiveness.
FELIX MAFA, Harare
MDC must think outside box
EDITOR – Power is never surrendered willingly by the elite, which must be ‘persuaded’ to relinquish power through incentives to do so. These ‘incentives’ are varied and include the threat of revolutionary overthrow.
The MDC, like so many naive Zimbabweans, appears to believe that by engaging with Zanu (PF), the latter can somehow be reformed or persuaded to relinquish power, hence the continued participation in the fraudulent and perverted institutions of the occupied State like parliament, elections, the courts and other such irrelevancies instead of incentivising change.
One of the biggest demobilising influences for strugglistas has been the failure of the MDC to think outside the box, to challenge the political culture of Zimbabwe rather than merely seeking to replace the faces.
Many of us feel that the MDC would at best replicate the Chiluba phenomenon in Zambia as a new lootocracy takes over, since there are many in the MDC who are indistinguishable from the dinosaurs in Zanu (PF), the chefs with their pajeros, claiming to be defending the last available democratic spaces whereas in reality they serve to perpetuate the system while feeding on the table scraps.
If the MDC is serious about wresting power from the elite, they need to implement tactics that will achieve that goal. Let them pursue the illegitimacy angle and hammer home the illegitimate nature of this regime. Stand for every election but then resign immediately to cause a by-election, stand and resign again, thereby creating a constitutional crisis.
Mugabe’s biggest weakness (and he has many) is his egotistical desire to be perceived as a ‘liberator’, as a legitimate leader rather than as a common tyrant like Amin, Bokassa, Pinochet, etc which is why we still have the appearance of parliamentary democracy in this country, even though the institutions have been eviscerated. The participation by the MDC in the fraudulent processes of the occupied State perpetuates this facade.
MIKE DAVIES, Harare
SADC will sustain Zanu (PF)
EDITOR – Eddie Cross’s article, ‘How Long, O Lord?’ and Nelson Chamisa’s celebration of the MDC’s gains in local government elections, suggest that the opposition is continuing to underestimate the resolve, not just of Zanu (PF) but its allies in SADC and the African Union, to prevent the removal by democratic means of Mugabe and his successor regime.
Cross believes the demise of Mugabe and the disintegration of Zanu (PF) thereafter or the lack of stature of any of his possible successors, should provide an opening for the MDC even if, as he admits, the ‘machinery’ that has kept the party power remains in place.
Chamisa goes further to define that ‘machinery’ as militarized electoral management, which he says has to be ‘removed from the clutches of Zanu (PF)’, otherwise ‘ the electoral route will continue to breed illegitimate and sterile outcomes’.
I am not about to argue with the core of these gentlemen’s articles, which is, that the democratic struggle is far from suppressed, and that the ruling establishment is confused about the route to take post-Mugabe. These are both good omens for the opposition. What I am against is that flawed assumption, made before (principally in the 2001/2 elections), that popular sentiment, economic hardship and disunity within Zanu will necessarily hand victory to the MDC.
Cross and Chamisa are no doubt aware that after the humiliating defeat of Dr Kaunda and UNIP in Zambia, followed by the ouster of Dr Banda and the Congress Party in Malawi, the former ‘liberation movements’ of the SADC region met (in Pretoria, as I recall) for a formal summit, chiefly to strategise on how to prevent the downfall of ex-liberation movements across southern Africa and block the rise of new political elites which appeared to have western backing. The result of that summit was a commitment by those movements to support each other, a party-to-party pledge which is being executed through the facility of governments controlled by those parties.
The might of South Africa and SADC will therefore continue to sustain Zanu (PF) however many more ‘Murambatsvinas’ and fraudulent elections there may be.
CLAYTON PEEL, USA
Still laughing
EDITOR – When I speak to relatives and friends overseas, the stock reply to any reporting of the unbelievable conditions in which we live here is; “Well, at least you are still laughing”.
Well, if we did not laugh we would truly be crying non-stop. During September, like many Zimbabweans, I had no water for over three weeks – not a drop – only those who experience it can know the horror of trying to maintain a semblance of cleanliness both housewise and bodywise. The contents of your pool, if you are lucky to have one, diminish rapidly as the only means of having water for household use. After complaints by phone to the water board and neighbours, wasted fuel in trips to the District Office, phone calls to the Water Board, and a near physical collapse due to complete exhaustion or dehydration, we finally had a dribble of tan-coloured liquid which vaguely resembled water.
Obviously “flushed” with success, our illegal municipality saw a great chance for financial gain. Today I received a water bill containing a re-connection charge of $3,500. Do not be deceived, this is really $3,500,000 for finally supplying water which, through no fault of ours, had been denied us for nearly a month. What can one do but laugh at such a farcical situation.
LUCILLE POOLEY, Harare
Gono’s good ideas don’t work
EDITOR – This is an open letter to our ‘innovative’ and ‘honourable’ Dr Gono. our country’s problems you have to accept are beyond your office and capacity. Zimbabwe’s problems emanate as economic but they are political products. All of our economic problems have their roots in the political shortcomings of the people in power.
Dr Gono you are fighting a loosing battle and playing for a loosing team. What Zimbabwe needs at the moment are not economic remedies but political reforms.
The economic turnaround you have made so much noise about has become a fleeting illusion. The bottom line is even economic policies that have performed miracles on the moon won’t capitulate any success in Zimbabwe with the current leadership. For any economic policy to be successful there is need for the full commitment of the government, which you don’t have.
Dr Gono you seem to have tried everything – from global trotting preaching your homelink gospel; removed three zeros from our currency; closed 16 money transfers just but to mention a few. BUT, do you ever stop and appraise what you have achieved so far in terms of eradicating your two major enemies corruption and inflation? These two you are failing to eradicate because they are rampant in high offices within the government.
Maybe one day you will realize that our problems are not economic but political. Ask any medical practitioner they will tell you the effects of wrong prescription and medication on the patient. Throwing in the towel will be very honourable and we will always remember that you tried your best; only that your best wasn’t good enough.
SAVIOUS HARI, Gweru