In a week when it was announced that last year Zimbabwe produced the most asylum seekers in the world, Vigil members were surprised to get an invitation to hear Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe speak at the Royal Commonwealth Society in London if they could stump up 25 to get in. (PictureLounge suit / cocktail dress required. With 158,000 Zimbabweans seeking asylum from the coalition government in 2009, Khupes dinner is just one more sign of how unreal the MDC elite are becoming. Not many of the Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the UK have a lounge suit or a cocktail dress. Most of us at the Vigil are struggling. Those Zimbabweans likely to go to this event are well-connected Zanu (PF) people of whom there are all too many in the UK. We are tired of hearing their propaganda at meetings here.
We repeat our invitation to Ms Khupe to come to the Vigil and talk to some of the ordinary Zimbabweans who cant afford 25. We would like to hear from her why the MDC appears to have done nothing to end human rights abuses in the past sixteen months and, more particularly, why there has been no announcement of the outcome of the enquiry into corruption in the MDC in the UK. It appears that the MDC is being steadily contaminated by Zanu (PF) (see A Letter from the Diaspora: http://www.swradioafrica.com/pages/outside180610.htm). We were not surprised that one senior member of the MDC-Mutambara faction invited to the UK demanded to travel first class.
A Zimbabwean journalist working in the UK for a South African newspaper asked the Vigil for comments on various developments in Zimbabwe. Here are our comments on the four issues she raised.
1. The treatment of Farai Maguwu, who has been at the forefront of exposing human rights abuse in Chiadzwa
The Vigil is shocked by the behaviour of South African businessman Abbey Chikane in betraying the confidence of a brave human rights campaigner Farai Maguwu. Despite openly announcing that his own bags had been covertly ransacked by Zimbabwean intelligence agents, Chikane later went on to inform them that Maguwu had shown him secret documents exposing the diamond smuggling racket at Chiadzwa. Chikane apparently said the documents were illegal.
2. Delays in implementing the Global Political Agreement
The Vigils view is that Mugabe has never had any intention of implementing the ludicrous Global Political Agreement which was forced on the MDC by South Africa. We believe that the MDC should have taken up a tacit invitation to form a government in exile in Botswana after Mugabe drenched the 2008 elections in bloodshed. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe then had only US $5 million and the regime would soon have collapsed. The so-called points of difference over the GPA are merely ducks in a shooting gallery: remove one and another one pops up.
3. Fresh wave of farms invasions
The takeover of farms not only white-owned ones will go on while Zanu (PF) is still in charge and can continue to do anything it likes to ensure its survival. Next it will take over the mines, the banks, businesses and then houses and chickens everything is at risk from a rapacious elite unchallenged by the outside world. The Vigil believes that courts in Zimbabwe are irrelevant as there is no rule of law.
4. Call for elections
The Zimbabwe Vigil wants elections as soon as possible because we believe there is no advantage for Zimbabwe in delaying them. The coalition government is unworkable and its continuance will only drag the MDC further into corruption.
For latest Vigil pictures check: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/. For the latest ZimVigil TV programme check the link at the top of the home page of our website. For earlier ZimVigil TV programmes check: http://www.zbnnews.com/home/firingline.
FOR THE RECORD: 151 signed the register.
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