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(TALKZIMBABWE, HERALD) Lynching Gono, the Barabas gospels

Lynching Gono, the Barabas gospels
Caesar Zvayi - Opinion
Sun, 31 May 2009 18:13:00 +0000

WELL, many of us — unless we are braindead — have at one time come across a work of fiction, be it a novel or a movie where an innocent party is intentionally cast as a villain through cleverly woven descriptive techniques aimed at portraying perceived villainy.

More often than not, attention is simultaneously drawn away from the real guilty party who will later be exposed, probably in the last minutes of the movie or the last pages of the book, to give a gripping climax that will endear one to the author or main actor forever.

In this technique, the innocent party is used as a red herring, that is a diversion, to prolong the plot and hike the suspense.

The axiom "red herring" refers to a device where the audience’s attention is drawn away from an item of significance to focus on trivia.

I do not know if this is the sub-plot of that document they call the GPA (Global Political Agreement), or whether the parties to that agreement have taken it upon themselves to major in minor things to divert the nation’s attention from the real issues crying for redress, and which some of them dread to tackle.

Both parties, be it Zanu-PF, MDC-T and MDC, are culpable in this.

MDC-T by trying to reduce the so-called GPA to a document about firing and appointing people, and MDC and Zanu-PF, by agreeing to be strung along like little boys without minds of their own.

The so-called GPA, I say so-called because there is nothing global or solely political about it, is actually a broad-based diagnosis of the challenges facing Zimbabwe.

In fact, the aspect of sharing power between the three parliamentary parties comes a distant number 20, in section XX titled ‘‘Framework for a New Government’’, which is why it is surprising that such a comprehensive document can be condensed to a mere parcelling out of posts between political protagonists.

It, however, is not surprising why some would want to portray the agreement as a ‘‘political settlement’’. This is because in launching their onslaught on Zimbabwe, the Anglo-Saxon alliance deodorised the destabilisation as a ‘‘fight for democracy", and most importantly to them this is not a transition to elections, but a transition from the era of Zanu-PF to the era of MDC-T.

I hope Zanu-PF is aware of this.

It is important to note from the outset that both the parties and the negotiators did not call the so-called GPA ‘‘a power-sharing agreement’’, as some are wont to call it.

And this was for a reason. The document was aptly titled an ‘‘Agreement between the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) and the two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) formations, on resolving the challenges facing Zimbabwe’’.

The phrase GPA was an obsession of Harvest House, and God knows how it found its way into the final communiqué at the Sandton extraordinary summit, and how Zanu-PF was soon singing it like a canary.

* * * * *

It is, however, unforgivable that in a country facing so many challenges, including the indignity of having its President, the entire executive and well-trained professionals taking home a paltry US$100 living allowance, a politician worth his salt would want the whole nation to believe that hounding the RBZ Governor and Attorney General out of office, and politicising the civil service, are the major outstanding issues confronting Zimbabwe today?

Yet we have ruinous economic sanctions that have been condemned by progressive people the world over which continue to hamper the progress of the inclusive Government. And Biti himself is on record admitting this.

We have farmers who should by now be busy breaking the clod to give the nation winter wheat, but who are currently out on a limb wondering how they would get the crop into the ground given that the little savings they had were rendered worthless, when someone, without Cabinet authority opted to pronounce the death of the Zim-dollar when it is still transacting among the commuting public.

We have pirate radio stations that continue spewing hate speech into Zimbabwe to foster political discord. We have foreign governments continuing to bankroll and host the pirate stations, with not even a whimper from some of the parties to the GPA. We have foreigners who think they have a God-given right to direct the politics of our country.

Yet Gono’s would-be executioners have never raised their tongues against such interference.

We have under-equipped hospitals, tottering schools, comatose universities, a depressed industrial sector, you name it, yet Gono, and Tomana, are being pushed as the outstanding issues confronting Zimbabwe today.

Yet the ‘‘crime’’ these men committed, would pale in comparison to the crimes of their accusers.

Men who not only consorted with outsiders to bring our country to near ruin but some of whom helped draft the ruinous US sanctions law, the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, that they still refuse to condemn to this day. Accusers who compiled sanctions lists which they dutifully passed on to Western capitals.

Surely those are worse crimes than fighting the effects of those sanctions which Gono stands accused of doing. In fact, in their culpability, his accusers can’t even find it in their hearts to call a spade a spade where the sanctions are concerned, opting to call them ‘‘restrictive measures’’ or just ‘‘measures’’, as if they do not see the ruin the sanctions have wrought.

It is said those in glasshouses should not throw stones, for if others return fire, they would remain pamhene, pachena chaipo.

* * * * *

Speaking of so-called quasi-fiscal activities, isn’t it ironic that the Westerners, who today gleefully push the anti-Gono agenda are themselves currently engaged in massive quasi-fiscal activities, bailing their corporations that are tottering on the brink of collapse after robbing the common man blind?

Gono did not rob anyone, but instead helped the common man keep body and soul together.

Talk of the farm mechanisation programme, the medical sector facility, the buses that we still use today, BACOSSI, FOLIWARS, PLARP, all those seemingly funny abbreviations that helped us keep our country afloat in the face of a decade of ruinous sanctions. And this is the man that some with bloodied hands believe should be lynched.

Talk of the pot calling the kettle black?

* * * * *

And come to think of it, the very people who want to lynch Gono today were elected on the back of polls driven by quasi-fiscal funds.

They are also driving quasi-fiscal vehicles, and are busy trying to reap credit from some of Gono’s quasi-fiscal programmes.

The dollarisation of the economy started with FOLIWARS not Biti. By the time Biti came, the shelves were already full of goods.

STERP borrows heavily from the national budget statement made by Chinamasa and the subsequent monetary policy made by Gono. It is not the brainchild of one man.

Most importantly, STERP is grounded in previous economic blueprints like NEDPP and NEDP.

The Finance Minister is retracing steps made by his predecessors, the little money flowing in is coming from contacts made at the time some were sentencing Gono to death by firing squad.

Nothing has come from London, New York or Canberra, but a lot has certainly come from Sadc, and the East, regions that were lampooned along with Zanu-PF.

Let’s not beat our own drums when we are still to bring anything to the table.

* * * * *

Let’s not forget that because of the sanctions, STERP is currently a paper tiger as there are no funds to drive the economic revival programme.

The Westerners, who are themselves reeling from bad economics, have made it clear that they will not assist us unless there is evidence of meaningful change, read ‘‘reversal’’ of pro-people policies like the land reform programme.

Read this against retired judge George Smith’s statements to SkyNews this week, where he predicated anarchy in a broke Zimbabwe by year end, and you understand why the West will not be forthcoming with assistance, particularly as they believe the inclusive Government stopped them from cornering their nemesis, Mugabe.

They expect failure and subsequent anarchy, so that they can once again relish dragging Zimbabwe to the UN Security Council in pursuit of regime change.

So what does this mean?

This means we have to be our own liberators, we have to speak with one voice and pull in the same direction.

We have to stop focusing on trivia and concentrate on the real issues in need of redress. Anyone who continues harping on trivia to divert the people’s attention is the real enemy of the people, and has no business pretending to be moving in step with the nation.

It is time to stop euphemisms, and call a spade a spade. Let the anti-sanctions call ring from Shake-Shake building, Harvest House and that little corner of Mutambara’s in Hillside.

Anything less would be a betrayal of the people we all purport to represent.

caesar.zvayi *** zimpapers.co.zw

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This article was first published in The Herald newspaper of Sat May 30, 2009.

Labels: CAESAR ZVAYI, GIDEON GONO, NEOCOLONIALISM

posted by MrK @ 7:48 PM