EDITOR – Firstly, I would like to thank all Zimbabweans who went to the polls in their numbers to vote out the ageing dictator. Truly, you deserve more than applause.
Your votes spoke loudly and that’s why the once ruling party is now the opposition in Parliament. This is why the opposition Zanu (PF) thugs are terrorising innocent people in most parts of the country.
No wonder that’s why the opposition party is mum on the violence, which has claimed yet more lives in our once peaceful country. Now the final battle is looming. Bravery is needed. Let’s all go and vote for the change we can trust.
For us it’s not a run-off. It’s a run-over of the ageing and brutal dictator instead. The time has come when we need to shame the dictator and his bootlickers legally.
Let’s throw the final blows together. Ours is a peace-loving role so let’s not resort to violence, like the almost ousted regime. Don’t betray the struggle. Vote wisely. Defend your party colleagues from Zanu (PF) vultures. Together we can make it.
ZIMUDZI, Harare
Zimbabweans need protection
EDITOR – One of the main functions of law is to regulate violence and violent crimes. Governments and the international community have an obligation to regulate the use of violence through legal systems governing individuals, society and political parties. The recent wave of violence on innocent Zimbabweans, however, in both Zimbabwe and South Africa is evidence of two countries lacking effective policies and commitment to protect their citizens, hence the need for international co-operation.
Law enforcement is the main means of regulating non-military violence and timely interventions can stop continuous conflict escalating into full-scale war. The Zimbabwean government has apparently failed to effectively commit itself in protecting vulnerable villagers whose only crime was exercising their democratic right in electing leaders of their choice.
The law enforcement agents in Zimbabwe have become part of state machinations in the political repression process. Innocent civilians in rural Zimbabwe are going through unprecedented episodes of torture while government leaders pay lip service to the unfolding crisis. This is a humanitarian crisis, which urgently needs civic organizations to mobilise and call for SADC, African Union and the United Nations to come and address.
The story of suffering innocent Zimbabweans does not end in Zimbabwe. As they flee from persecution in Zimbabwe to neighbouring countries, mainly South Africa, they are engulfed by waves of xenophobic attacks.
With the President of South Africa insisting that he sees no crisis in Zimbabwe, it means criminal gangs are have free rein on desperate Zimbabweans, who should be protected by refugee laws.
The United Nations would do a commendable job if they can put pressure on the South African government to allow international humanitarian organisations such as the Red Cross, UNHCR to name a few, to be allowed to protect and take care of Zimbabwean refugees.
After revelations of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in rural Zimbabwe and Johannesburg, one of my colleagues sent me words of wisdom from Psalms 10v17-18: You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, In order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more “
The will of the oppressed shall prevail.
EDWIN KAMANDA, MDC Secretary: Stoke and Crewe Branch
Is bussing voters the answer?
EDITOR – Can’t someone start a fund for all Zimbos in SADC to be ‘bussed’ into Zim and back? This will make it economically viable for millions to go and exercise their patriotic duty? I was just thinking.
JOHN, by email
Your time is up Chinamasa!
EDITOR – Sanctions! What sanctions? There are no sanctions on Zimbabwe.
There are targeted travel bans against the Zanu (PF) hooligans and their diabolical dictator. Chinamasa, the hunger we are suffering from is due to Zanu (PF)’s evil policies, mismanagement and corruption not sanctions.
Poverty and hunger are due to the chaotic land reform when you dismantled what worked and made the country prosperous without substituting something viable. All went wrong when Zanu (PF) chose to follow the advice of SATAN and racism. Isn’t it that you once asked the West to increase their sanctions? Why do you want them off now? Zimbabweans are better educated than you and will not be hoodwinked into believing your delusions of neo-colonialism.
It’s a great idea that the US wants to extend targeted sanctions to include overzealous CIO agents, who pretend to be journalists, like Reuben Barwe and Judas Iscariot Makwanya. I also urge the US and UK to deport the sons and daughters of the Zanu (PF) hoodlums; this is now long overdue. Let them come and vote for their diabolical monster on the 27th of June.
Who is wiser? A British puppet, who wants to bring food and jobs to his poverty-stricken people, or a Chinese puppet, who brings guns, bullets, and grenades to kill defenseless, hungry people?
We voted for change and we will vote for the MDC, which you said, is in collusion with the US administration and the British government. We Zimbabweans are working with the MDC to effect regime change, not the British. They never voted on the 29th of March and will never.
Who are you Mugabe to reverse the will of the people? You will be charged in front of the International Court of Justice in The Hague with your bunch of thugs. Your charges will include use of torture, fixing of elections in 2000, 2002, 2005, and 2008, and suppression of free media, genocide, illegal seizure of property, corruption and misuse of state funds. Zanu PF will never be a party again!
To the people of Zimbabwe whoever votes for Tsvangirai shall have a job, food and money in abundance, he will save our country. Whoever votes for Mugabe will perish from hunger, will never have peace, will be tormented in The Hague and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
VICTORY IS CERTAIN, Nyanga
Help us bury Mugabe
EDITOR – Dear people of Zimbabwe, June 27, 2008 is a final day to bury Mugabe’s government, which has caused great suffering to the people of Zimbabwe at large.
The message when you go to vote is very simple. Just ask yourself should we continue with this high velocity of inflation? Should we continue without food? Should we continue without employment? etc.
Zanu (PF) does not deserve to ruin our country any more. Mugabe should not exceed 15% in the run off. Let us bury him by voting overwhelmingly for Morgan Tsvangirai. Those who did not participate please help us to complete this work.
“VOTE MORGAN TSVANGIRAI FOR PRESIDENT”
MUKHAISI, by email
Who’s burnt his bridges?
EDITOR – I am beginning to feel the war of liberation that Zanu (PF) perennially boasts about was not worth it after all, given what is happening in Zimbabwe now. People were happier under Ian Smith than Robert Mugabe. We never heard about Zimbabweans getting burnt to death in SA for running away from Ian Smith’s misrule.
CK, by email
We DID vote for change
MorganTsvangirai
EDITOR – In past years Zimbabweans were vigorously deported towards election time and the South African Police Service would say they should go and vote for change, change that would make sure they had no reason to go back to South Africa.
The people would go back home speak through their vote, only to be silenced by Mugabe’s rigging machinery. On the 29th of March the people of Zimbabwe spoke and it took close to a month for their voices to resound, but the fact is it they indeed echoed loudly, though some have expressed doubt on the strength of that vocal power (the figures according to ZEC).
Having done what they had been instructed to do prior to their deportation and what they believed in, Mugabe embarked on what he has confessed as having degrees in, violence. There was pandemonium as houses were burnt down, people being beaten to death etc. The list is so long and painful.
The people of South Africa then embark on the unthinkable – yet many would agree they had seen it coming – the xenophobic attacks. Xenophobic in the sense that these perpetrators of violence are South African citizens and their victims are foreigners.
What I fail to understand is why would these perpetrators then loot the little that these people had acquired. Interesting to note that they arrive on the “scenes with bakkies”. Is this really a xenophobic issue or these people are feeling the economic pinch? It is an open secret that most of the South African population suffers from a dependency syndrome. So the grants from the government are no longer meeting their costs, therefore they resort to crime.
Mbeki dearest then appears on his national TV saying this should stop. It would have been avoided if he had acknowledged the existence of a crisis in Zimbabwe, then his fellow South Africans would have understood why so many Zimbabweans are in South Africa.
By so doing Mbeki has just followed the trend of most African leaders; that of watching events that culminate in a mess unfolding, sit and do nothing until it happens, then act. Those in the know are not surprised by Mbeki’s code of conduct because this is what he has done with the HIV-AIDS pandemic and this is the reason why so many of his own people have died and are still dying.
Mbeki, you have done enough damage. Please put your house in order, be a man and tackle problems head on in South Africa and Africa at large. We, the people of Zimbabwe, are disappointed in you.
ZVENYIKA, Plumtree
Does Mugabe’s muti’ keep Brits away?
EDITOR – The horrific political conditions in Zimbabwe are a very serious issue that needs nothing but intervention from the super powers. Without United States of America (USA) and Britain, I don’t think there is anyone else that can topple the corrupt, evil, monstrous and schizophrenic Zimbabwean leadership under Robert “Power Abuser” Mugabe.
The USA and Britain are capable of removing any leader who abuses power in the world, but to Zimbabwean situations it looks like they have shifted their gears to neutral spot.
If they did it against Saddam Hussein, why don’t they do the same to Mugabe? Some of my Zimbabwean friends here in South Africa told me that there is no way the USA and Britain can deploy soldiers in Zimbabwe because Mugabe uses a very strong African “chemical” (muti)!
In addition to this, Zimbabwe does not have resources like OIL, so there is no way America can benefit after Mugabe’s regime is overthrown. I personally take their views seriously.
DR. DRE MAKHUBELA, South Africa
Heroes’ Gallery should honour dead voters
EDITOR – Please allow me space to comment and make suggestions on the very distressing politically motivated murder of defenceless civilians caught up in Zanu (PF)’s desperate quest to cow the electorate to vote for them.
We all now know that the 75% effort that Bright Matonga felt was lacking in the their recent electoral campaign is the violence we are witnessing throughout the country.
Zimbabwe law provides for the death penalty for premeditated murder. The current wave of senseless cruel deaths of 33 (and still rising) MDC party activists and civilians – some of whose only connection with politics was a brief five minute visit to the polling station as has been stated by observers – is the execution of a premeditated plan by elements in the army, police and Zanu (PF) “strategists”.
The victims of this madness are people who dared to dream of a better future for themselves without Zanu (PF) and paid the ultimate price. It appears therefore that the High Court bench, which one hopes will be reconstituted soon, has its work cut out as soon as this cabal of JOC losers is decisively rejected by electorate again on June 27th.
I applaud civic society as well as the MDC for keeping up the pressure on the perpetrators by promising them prosecution to the fullest extent of the law for all the violence being perpetrated against the Zimbabwean people.
Prosecution of these murderers should serve the dual purpose of warning those in the incoming MDC government, who may have similar inclinations (there are a few) to resort to violence, that power to rule derives from the people and the people’s will always prevails.
Mr. Editor, Zane (PF) warmongers are counting on the deaths of these heroic Zimbabweans that have dared to vote against them as being anonymous and mere statistics that we will soon forget about. Your paper and all progressive publications have the social responsibility to deny these murderers cover of anonymity of their victim’s identities.
I feel, therefore, that a Heroes’ gallery of all the dead victims should be posted in all progressive papers, complete with relevant details will immortalise their names and help advance the cause of justice for the vulnerable in our society.
C. MAPHOSA, UK