‘Biti in love’: Vigil

LONDON - Vigil supporters were shocked at news reports of Finance Minister Tendai Biti’s fawning comments about President Robert Mugabe. These included:

‘What I have come to realise is that if I have a difficult issue he will unblock it’ . . . ‘I sit with him and talk for hours. You will be surprised at what we talk about. We talk about everything’.

‘We find counsel and wisdom in him. His importance in this country will be seen once he is gone. When he is gone then you will see that this man was Zimbabwe’.

He went on to gush that President Mugabe is ‘a fountain of knowledge and, most importantly, a fountain of stability.’ (see: zimbabwesituation.com/ – Mugabe seductive, calm, unflappable: Biti).

But he admitted that there were other suitors for the hand of Mugabe. ‘I think Prime Minister Tsvangirai naturally respects President Mugabe and that is very important. And he also understands that there are certain decisions that have to be made by the President. . . I do not think anyone in government denies the invaluability (sic) of his wisdom and experience.’

Biti and Tsvangirai are not the only MDC people who have succumbed to the ‘charms’ of Romeo-in-chief Mugabe. There has been a dispiriting succession of them. While we protest outside the Zimbabwean Embassy in London every Saturday year after year we get quislings stabbing us in the back. We were encouraged to receive the following email from Ben Freeth: ‘You at the vigil are all doing such a great job. Well done for your perseverance through the rain and dark and frustration.

I think we all are becoming particularly concerned with the MDC’s apparent sanitisation of the regime by persistently calling for the lifting of the travel and financial restrictions on the few – for what benefit except for those that are inconvenienced?  MDC is not speaking out to the world human rights bodies.

It is not visiting police stations where there are wrongful arrests.  It is not pursuing court cases regarding crimes against humanity.  It is not exposing the massive diamond wealth which has bypassed the people. It is not doing or saying anything regarding the farms that are now idle or the ethnic cleansing that persists.

It has not done much regarding trying to change draconian laws. It is not going around the world bodies with dossiers of what has happened in past elections – and calling for internationally supervised elections. No the MDC appears to be fast being swallowed – like Joshua Nkomo was.Unless we all see some action from them there will not be a great deal of confidence in people wanting to risk their lives again by supporting them and voting for them.’

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