The illegal arrest of the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s office, Jameson Timba, was a dastardly and cowardly act carried out by the Zanu (PF) Repressive Police (ZRP) on the orders of one Jonathan Moyo of the former liberation party. Thank God that, slowly, the judiciary is getting back to a level of political autonomy that can only be described as unheard of since the year 2001.
The High Court judge who heard Timba’s case rightly insisted that the minister be released immediately since his rights had been violated when he was abducted and arrested by the un-procedural ZRP. A sane person would assume that such a verdict would embarrass the ZRP, but the truth of the matter is that the same idiots will do exactly the same thing tomorrow. They are slow learners par excellence. Perhaps that is why they are in the police force.
Timba is alleged to have denigrated the office of the President by contradicting the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces regarding the outcome of the SADC extraordinary summit a fortnight ago. To the poorly schooled ZRP, this was tantamount to calling the aged Commander-in-Chief a liar.
According to these Zanu (PF) hoodlums, this is a punishable offence since there is a draconian law against putting the Dear Leader’s office in disrepute. In other words, even if the President did not tell the truth about what had transpired at the summit, woe betide any mortal soul that dares to say what the invincible said was not quite what happened. This level of enslavement of the coercive apparatus of the state clearly reduces the ZRP to a mere wing of the decaying Zanu (PF) party.
Some of us are aware that Timba’s arrest was a prelude to the arrest of Morgan Tsvangirai, the Prime Minister of this country for the same alleged offence. The police were testing the waters before going for the big man himself. Fortunately, they ended up with egg all over their tunics, and this may have saved the PM from similar treatment. The MDC needs to take note of these negative developments and take measures to protect themselves from now on.
With national elections coming next year or in 2013, the MDC needs to strategise on the best ways of dealing with an embittered dictator who is increasingly becoming friendless regionally and internationally. A dying horse can administer a fatal kick. It is therefore necessary to stay clear of the desperate outgoing rulers since they will seek opportunities to take the people’s party down with them when they finally and inevitably sink.
We all know that several diplomats and SADC officials agreed with the MDC-T officials who attended the Sandton summit. Is it possible that all these people had agreed to mislead Zimbabweans by telling us that the Troika resolutions had been endorsed when, in fact, they had been thrown out at Sandton? Fat chance!
We all know who is not telling it like it was, and we are not surprised at all. Who once said that civil servants would have their salaries raised since the money for that had been found? Was that fellow telling the truth or was he lying. Who was this senior person who once said when the people of this country tell me to leave I shall do so? Did this not happen in March 2008? Did he leave? Did he lie?
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis