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(NEWZIMBABWE BLOG) Tsvangirai and the Mt Darwin exhumations

Tsvangirai and the Mt Darwin exhumations
By Psychology Maziwisa
Politics Last updated on: March 29, 2011

IF MORGAN Tsvangirai’s decision to boycott the anti-sanctions campaign was revealing, his election not to have anything to do with the mass graves unearthed in Mt Darwin was insulting.

Each time Zanu PF does something right, some moron in the MDC has to say that it was staged. Has the time not come for everyone who truly cares about Zimbabwe and its history to get angry and concerned?

For a party that whines about supposed rights abuses and the imaginary erosion of fundamental freedoms to shy away from the site of real and gross human rights violations is the biggest contradiction of the century. Endless and uncorroborated lies have been told about the state of human rights in Zimbabwe yet when genuine and tangible evidence of sickening cruelty is presented for all to see- it is ignored and dismissed as ‘amateur propaganda antics’.

The MDC cannot keep playing politics even with matters that ought to go beyond political persuasion and each time get away with it. We are Zimbabweans first before we are either MDC or Zanu PF and that is the beginning and end of it. Is doing what’s right for one’s country asking for too much? The Government of National Unity provided this country with the best opportunity in 28 years to move forward in unity of purpose and to speak with one voice. Alas, that chance has been missed. The future is not on its way- it has been delayed.

No country can constantly dwell on the past and expect to make progressive inroads into the future. But, then, the past and the future are also inextricably linked. The former informs the latter. It’s a delicate balance. Make no mistake about it, the war of liberation still evokes a great deal of emotion in Zimbabwe- and damn right it should! Tell the Americans to forget about the American war of independence. Tell the South Africans that apartheid was a non-event and that Nelson Mandela’s 27 years in prison were not such a big deal after all. Of course these events matter to them. In many ways they are what make America, America and South Africa, South Africa.

To arrive in Mt Darwin recently was to be greeted by air thick with the stench of death. It was to see SABC’s Thulasizwe Simelane overcome by emotion. About the only thing to save Saviour Kasukuwere, an honourable man blessed with rare virtues and a politician of substance, from succumbing to emotion was the fact that Mt Darwin is his constituency and so he needed to stay strong. Even so he barely could conceal his heartache.

One of the remaining white farmers in the area, Tani as he is locally known, confessed that he had been shocked by the dreadfulness of it all. Put it this way- the place is not one for the feeble hearted.

Suffice it to say over 10 000 ordinary Zimbabweans have, of their own free will, since visited the shrine. Yet Morgan Richard Tsvangirai has refused to pay tribute to our fallen heroes and he is supposed to be the Rt. Honourable Prime Minister of this country? The same politician who will be running for high office come next election? Is he the President of the party whose officials have questioned the authenticity of the entire discovery- insultingly describing the dead comrades as donkeys? Are you kidding me? It’s a bit more than some of us can stomach.

Driving along the Beitbridge-Harare road umpteen times has made me come across donkeys of all shapes and sizes. I know one when I see one and what I saw in Mt Darwin were remains of human beings, brutally murdered by an iniquitous regime- a regime the MDC has time after time said is preferable to President Robert Mugabe’s government. Surely, if this is not symptomatic of clinical madness then nothing is. Whatever it is, Zimbabwe deserves better.

Mt Darwin provided Tsvangirai with a golden opportunity to mend broken ties not just with the departed but also with several of his supporters who had waited on him to correct his past mistakes. He did not take that opportunity, opting instead to embark on a regional tour and ringing false alarm bells about a fictitious crisis. Tsvangirai’s is the tale of a politician unable to prove himself when it really matters. Very seldom has a man with a functioning mind been given so many chances and squandered them all. Come next election he will have only himself to blame.

Meanwhile, Peter Godwin, a Zimbabwe-born but New York-based writer who, therefore, has no clue whatsoever about the situation obtaining on the ground here save for the one time he sneaked into the country in 2008 under the doomed hope of ‘dancing on Mugabe’s political grave’ – describes President Mugabe in his latest offering, The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe as “an African Robespierre – highly educated and utterly ruthless.” Well, if the shutting down of a so-called independent newspaper that had not adhered to registration formalities is a sign of utter ruthlessness then every other government urging conformity with the law is guilty of it.

If President Mugabe’s determination to empower his people by righting past wrongs is a form of utter ruthlessness and if that includes ‘trampling on property rights’ as Peter Godwin and Martin Meredith expediently call it, then so be it. At least President Mugabe does not invade and bombard vulnerable nations- robbing them in broad day light and in the full glare of the world of their lives and resources under false pretences. Mugabe gives his people what legitimately belongs to them. Nor is he a hypocrite. Quite the contrary, he is a man of principle and, sadly, that’s his only crime. The rest is blather.

Moreover, if the death of 200 people in 2008 allegedly at the hands of Zanu PF (bear in mind that the MDC itself has assumed a dreadfully violent complexion in the recent past) was a kind of utter ruthlessness, certainly Peter Godwin would have a tough time describing the genocide that took place in Mt Darwin.

To debate Zimbabwe’s political situation with him in South Africa recently was to be left convinced of a sensible chap, a citizen genuinely concerned about the goings on in his country of birth. After reading his book, however, I’m not so sure anymore. He quite easily belongs to that group of regime change proponents who have unashamedly ventured into the business of fattening their pockets through fact-fabrication. It’s an unfortunate tendency.

As far as Tsvangirai and company are concerned (Peter Godwin and Martin Meredith included), it’s unacceptable for President Mugabe to shut down a supposedly independent newspaper for want of compliance with the law yet it is perfectly acceptable that Ian Smith butchered our people- some of them young children and powerless women- put grenades in their mouths, shoved bottles containing lethal poison down their throats and planted them in drums filled with acid before indecently burying them in mass graves! And these are the same impostors that want to be put in charge of running this country? Sweet dreams!

Labels: IAN SMITH, MASSACRE, MDC, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, RHODESIA

posted by MrK @ 1:11 PM