Maravi

(HERALD) CNN, Morgan is no Zim hero

CNN, Morgan is no Zim hero

EDITOR — On Saturday I watched with utmost disgust CNN’s news coverage of Morgan Tsvangirai’s return home. It was nauseating, the way the coverage tried to portray his return as heroic by saying he has returned home despite an "assassination" plot! The CNN anchors asked their correspondent in Johannesburg why Tsvangirai was returning despite the "threats". What the world was not told was that Tsvangirai was complying with his master’s orders issued through US ambassador to Zimbabwe James D. McGee.

The South Africa TV channel etv covered it but CNN ‘‘missed’’ it, and I wonder how such a big network could ‘’miss’’ that. The Herald has reported it and if CNN were as objective as they purport to be, they would have asked their correspondent to comment on that embarrassing issue.

Right-thinking people see through CNN’s duplicity that no matter how loud or often they sing ‘‘hero Tsvangirai’’ the man is no hero. Even those who were with the NCA in its formative stages will confirm that Tsvangirai was pushed into that position by donors. He knows it.

It took cajoling and all forms of convincing for him to accept to lead the NCA.

He did not have the guts, which is why the Zimbabwe Council of Churches fostered the NCA. What is worse than Tsvangirai’s cowardice is his selfish attempt to gain political mileage from the plight of displaced people in South Africa, turning his visits into rallies and blaming the Government for the actions of misguided South African lumpens?

Is Zanu-PF ruling in Mozambique that has had to receive 20 000 of its displaced people? Is Zanu-PF at the helm of Zambia, Malawi and/or Nigeria?

What Tsvangirai did not address was the fact that the majority of the displaced are economic refugees, who fled the sanctions he grovelled for.

We all know it.

It’s just that Uncle Toms like McGee and their media embeds who are told what they want to hear the minute a microphone is thrust in front of a respondent, do not want to acknowledge it.

Some of the economic refugees can say anything to support applications for visas to the US if given an opportunity.

Right now some have already filed asylum papers to UK on the basis of SA xenophobia!

What Tsvangirai avoids is how the loss of tourist markets, the negative publicity Zimbabwe gets from the likes of CNN has driven our best waiters and chefs to fast food joints in SA. How people now live in worse conditions in South Africa than they do in Zimbabwe just to earn a rand.

Despite the poverty levels, how many in Zimbabwe live in those tin hovels that people fleeing SA live in?

What Tsvangirai fails to highlight is how the skewed global economy, championed by the US through lopsided trade agreements, has driven the majority of Africa into worse conditions that they had 10 years back.

Tsvangirai and his MDC-T do not even address the question of household food security assured by ownership of fertile land through the land reform programme.

Instead, MDC-T focuses on turning every Zimbabwean into a professional donor beggar working in one NGO or another or receiving "aid" from the West.

How will MDC-T change people’s lives, realistically speaking, so that there is sustainable progressive development in Zimbabwe so that people do not have to trek down south for "jobs"?

How will MDC-T ensure household food security so that fathers and mothers are dignified by bountiful harvests, matara akazara chibage, instead of being disgraced by standing in a donor food queue?

Zanu-PF has shown that real heroes are people who are masters of their destiny. No messiah will come from the West. McGee needs to tell Zimbabweans that if they do not use the land, they will suffer.

Rumbidzai.
Harare.

Labels: CNN, COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, ZIMBABWE

posted by MrK @ 4:36 AM