Maravi

(HERALD) MY TURN with Caesar Zvayi: Banish Legion from our politics

MY TURN with Caesar Zvayi: Banish Legion from our politics
Wednesday, 13 April 2011 16:13

THE Bible tells the story of a madman who resided in the graveyard in the Geresenes region east of the Sea of Galilee. The man was in the habit of assaulting people who passed through the graveyard, and it came to pass that Jesus was passing through one day, when the man, who answered to the name Legion, approached him.

When he saw Jesus from a distance, the man ran and fell on his knees in front of Jesus and shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture me!" For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!" Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many." And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

It so happened that a large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, "Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them." He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about 2 000 strong, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned.

Legion - originally a term for several thousand Roman soldiers - is the name of the multiplicity of demons that Jesus cast out of the mad man. I was reminded of this biblical tale after reading Robert Tozana’s harrowing account of how he almost met his maker at the hands of rowdy MDC-T youths who were being cheered on by high-ranking MDC-T officials during the unveiling of tombstones of MDC-T activists at
Warren Hills Cemetery last Wednesday.

Tozana, who was part of a funeral procession for a fallen tout (Hwindi) at Warren Hills exactly one week ago, says he only survived the attack by feigning death at the hands of the murderous mob that was stoning as well as kicking him all over the body.

Tozana said his assailants openly called for his death and would have had their way if he had not faked death.

The images of Tozana’s ordeal at the hands of the ‘democrats’ from Harvest House were first published by The Daily News, kudos to them for ‘telling it like it is’ for once, though they incorrectly identified Tozana as a Zanu-PF supporter who had come to disrupt an MDC-T event. Tozana is an ordinary Zimbabwean who had gone to the cemetery to pay his last respects to a friend. The question is how many other Tozanas are out there who have to go to the extent of feigning death to save their lives at the hands of the MDC-T, a party that ironically portrays itself as a conclave of pacifists at the mercy of hoodlums from Zanu-PF?

This is the song Tsvangirai, who evidently misread the massive procedural failures at the Sadc Troika in Zambia for a diplomatic coup, has been singing around the region yet evidence abounds that violence, as we have seen even with preparations for his party’s congress, abounds in MDC-T. Infact Tsvangirai’s predilection for violence was cited as one of the reasons behind the MDC split of October 12 2005.

High-ranking MDC officials like Priscillah Misihairabwi-Mushonga and Trudy Stevenson were all assaulted by their own party youths with the latter ending up at Avenues Hospital with head and shoulder injuries.

Other party functionaries like the then MDC security chief, Peter Guhu, gave harrowing accounts of how they escaped death by a whisker at Harvest House as they were set upon by MDC-T youths right before Tsvangirai’s eyes as happened to Tozana at Warren Hills. What makes these accounts chilling, as Tozana narrated is the fact that, high-ranking MDC-T officials cheered the assaults. Tozana accuses Tsvangirai and Tendai Biti of failing to rein in their supporters.

Suffice to say the violence that gripped the MDC over the years was inadvetertently traced back to Tsvangirai’s doorstep by the commissions of enquiry that his party set up whenever disturbances rocked Harvest House.All this is documented and has been reported on, yet Tsvangirai has the nerve to masquerade as an angel of peace casting his Zanu-PF counter parts as ‘‘merchants of death.’’ This is not to say Zanu-PF supporters are angels either, but what sets Zanu-PF apart from MDC-T on this score is the fact that the Zanu-PF leadership admits violence on the part of their supporters when it happens and openly condemns it.

Tsvangirai pretends no MDC-T supporter lifts a hand against a political rival yet we all saw and heard him as early as September 2000 threatening to remove President Mugabe from power violently.

Zanu-PF must not sit on its laurels but must expose Tsvangirai and his party for what they are.The violence is give and take. MDC-T supporters are also responsible for the violent clashes between them and their Zanu-PF counterparts, and as we saw at Warren Hills, against innocent people.

Instead of rushing to misrepresent facts to the region, Tsvangirai must deal with the Legion at Harvest House and expend his energies on the real issues pertinent to the GPA like the illegal economic sanctions that he appears unable to pronounce let alone comprehend. By portraying his party as a grouping of saints instead of condemning the culture of violence that has clearly permeated the party’s ranks, Tsvangirai is burying his head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich instead of showing leadership and walking his talk of peaceful engagement.

The other principals to the GPA are on record condemning political violence, and President Mugabe has called on the leaders of the three main political parties in government to convene at a higher level to find ways of stemming the violence that all parties admitted culpability for in the GPA. The ball is is in Tsvangirai’s court; he must exorcise the demon of violence at Harvest House. It does not even require Pastor Emmanuel Makandiwa, just a show of leadership.

caesar.zvayi@zimpapers.co.zw

Labels: CAESAR ZVAYI, MDC VIOLENCE

posted by MrK @ 3:04 PM