Perhaps Thokozani Kupe, the Deputy Prime Minister, is getting a taste of the cynicism and disillusion we feel as she meets with Zimbabweans in the UK diaspora. I hear that she is defending the Constitutional Outreach Programme and claiming that its all going well. Tell that to the people in the rural areas, in Mudzi and Marondera, Masvingo, Matabeleland and Manicaland! If it is not outright violence they are being subjected to by Zanu PF thugs, they are certainly not being allowed to express their own views openly. I also hear Ms Khupe has shunned attendance at the Vigil and I wonder why she is reluctant to meet these ordinary Zimbabweans in the diaspora who travel long distances every week at great personal sacrifice to demonstrate their belief in a new Zimbabwe. The truth is we are beginning to lose faith that the MDC can ever deliver the change we all want in Zimbabwe.
I will never forget the first time I ever saw Chinga-Maitiro written in big white letters right across a country road in Mash East. It was like a charge of electricity, the current of hope passing through the body politic. I remember too how proud we felt in those early days when we saw Morgan Tsvangirai, getting off a plane at Harare Airport, no security guards and carrying his own luggage. A Man of the People we said to each other, he wont let us down. He understands the reality of life for ordinary people. And when we saw him, beaten and bloody after the cops and CIO had so brutally mistreated him and other top MDC people, we knew that they were sharing the peoples suffering. It wasnt difficult to understand why we all loved him and the MDC, he was one of us and the party was the voice of the people, our voice.
How different it is now! We can hardly distinguish between the Zanu PF politicians and the MDC ministers as they tell us that all is going well in the Inclusive Government. This week it was the Secretary General of the MDC, Finance Minister Tendai Biti who was calling for the lifting of the ban on Zimbabwes diamonds. Its hurting ordinary Zimbabweans he claimed but carefully made no mention of the continued detention of Farai Maguwu whose bail appeal has once again been delayed. And what about the newly appointed MDC Co-Minister of Home Affairs, Teresa Makoni? If anyone should be taking up Maguwus case it should surely be Teresa Makoni. Instead her first official business was to assist Didymus Mutasa to locate his son. Defending her action in an interview on SW Radio, Makone claimed it was her duty as a Co-Minister in the Inclusive Government to assist anyone who came to her for help, be they Zanu PF or MDC. Sounds fair enough, you could say but then we remember all the MDC local activists thrown in gaol and beaten during the current Constitutional Outreach exercise. Didymus Mutasas complaint that his son was being held in appalling conditions rings pretty hollow when we consider how many MDC activists are being held in similar conditions. Top MDC officials like Biti and Makone say and do little or nothing to help them. Why is it that the MDC is turning a blind eye to Zanu PFs continuing violence, preferring instead to tell us that all is well with the Inclusive Government.
A report by the Bar Council which includes the Bar Human Rights Committee, the Commonwealth Lawyers Association and Advocates Sans Frontiere issued this week and entitled A Place in the Sun spelled out in no uncertain terms the true state of affairs in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has failed to stop extra-judicial killings they claim. Abuses go uninvestigated, there is a culture of impunity on the part of the police, the army and the intelligence services. The majority of the senior judiciary are still compromised by state patronage land and other inducements. Magistrates are subject to threats and intimidation. Access to justice is virtually non-existent. That is the reality on the ground as ordinary Zimbabweans know only too well. Meanwhile, the Head of the Prison Service says hes not going anywhere until his boss Robert Mugabe leaves office and Henry Dowa the policeman investigating Farai Maguwus case threatens in court that Maguwu could face two years on bail if he does not allow access to his laptop. Do we hear the MDC raise their voices to defend this innocent man whose only crime as far as I can judge is that he has the knowledge which could expose the criminal behaviour of Ministers and other chefs as they plunder the countrys diamonds?. Does Tendai Biti really expect us to believe that lifting the ban on the diamond sales will stop hurting ordinary Zimbabweans?
The bitter truth we must face is that the MDC has lost its way; where once they occupied the moral high ground and earned our love and respect, now they appear complicit in the agonising slow death that is over-taking the country at the hands of greedy, power-hungry politicians of all parties.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH. aka Pauline Henson author of Case Closed published in Zimbabwe by Mambo Press, Going Home and Countdown, political detective stories set in Zimbabwe and available from Lulu.com.
Post published in: Uncategorized