Of MDC-T’s Strategic Partners and the Truth

Victimised- Mangoma and Biti: Their revelations are
 "jeopardising" the MDC' position with donors who
 had been sold the"Nikuv" myth

LOST in the hullabaloo about Elton Mangoma and the sideshow that Morgan Tsvangirai and his ragtag party is a claim made by their official spokespersons on more than one occasion: namely that Mangoma’s “utterances are jeopardising our position with our strategic partners”. 

Now, most people quickly interpreted this to mean that Tendai Biti’s assertion that the party lost the July 31 elections to a better team were affecting the MDC’s position with its donors.

Indeed, the MDC officials that have been willing to speak at all about this have not dispelled this impression, leading us down the garden path because the truth is more treasonous.

Strategic partners or just causing a headache? : Ian Kay and Roy Bennet 

Is it perhaps the Rhodesian farmers that lost out when we took back our land and were falling over each other to donate money to the MDC? Bennett and Kay? At one time Bennett referred to government ministers in these terms “Mugabe and his monkeys” and not a single MDC person thought there was something slightly wrong with that particular statement.

The MDC is happy to see fellow Zimbabweans insulted in racist terms because they dare not call out racism when they see it. It might upset their strategic partners. When given a chance to nominate people for ministerial office, Tsvangirai decided that the same Bennett was the best person for Deputy Minister of Agriculture! Please. Forget that the man was a fugitive at the time, but we fought two wars to remove these people and their kin from our land and you want to make one of them next in charge of the same land?

Of course, having been absent without valid excuse from the fight for liberation, Tsvangirai does not get how insulting that gesture was to those that took part. Then again, he had strategic partners to please, didn’t he? Who are they again?

The "Embarrassing Uncle" Tony Blair who revealed that the
 British Government is working with the MDC to effect
regime change

I would like to posit that the statement is not about donors at all, but about the EU, the British government and the United States. These are the MDC’s partners in the regime change agenda. It is not in their interests that the people in their countries are told the truth, otherwise they might start asking why it was necessary to maintain sanctions on Zimbabwe when the opposition there was accepting the result of the election.

Zimbabwe as a pariah, Mugabe as a dictator, that lie must be maintained, even when it defies all logic and has no facts to back it up.

I can imagine that there must have been some serious kuchema nokugedageda kwemeno when it became apparent that the Nikuv lie was unravelling.

For someone as close to the top as Biti (and his puppet, Mangoma, if Messrs Obert Gutu, Chalton Hwende and Casten Matewu are to be believed) to come out and say that there was no rigging was a game changer.

It took away the whole basis for the cloud of illegitimacy that they have constructed against our Government. It forces them to deal with the Zimbabwe Government instead of condemning the “Mugabe regime”. A validly elected government cannot be subjected to sanctions. Sanctions needed to be maintained, the strategic partners had to be protected. Mangoma had to be stopped.

There is reason for this conclusion. Only a few weeks back, Cameron was haranguing the EU about lifting sanctions, asking that these be maintained and in the face of failure, finally extracting a concession that they be maintained against President Mugabe.

The reason for that is easy to see: having engineered the siege against our economy since that unfortunate letter from Claire Short in November 1997 denying British responsibility for colonising our country, the British have had no other aim but regime change in Zimbabwe.

In Tsvangirai they have a tried and tested lackey, one that has already shown, by staying behind to serve his white masters during the liberation struggle, that he is a dependable “boy’. Claire Short in her letter referred to her Irish roots, I wonder if they call him “Tsvangson McStupid” behind his back.

We know of course that over the years, the MDC has written to the British government asking them to intervene in our internal affairs. One letter included the curious claim that “We would like to request that the British government pursue diplomatic initiatives to help release of Mr Madzore and other political prisoners in Zimbabwe,” despite the fact that those whose release they sought were being accused of criminal, not political, offences. Diplomatic initiatives, huh? Supplicants pleading unashamedly to their master.

I never heard of such a letter being sent to Togo, or Benin. What is it about the British that makes them so special to the MDC that they have to run to them and cry for help? Of course, the white master responds with sanctions, but no internal intervention, which was what the letters really wanted.

Having failed to gain much traction with those campaigns, the MDC seems to have decided that perhaps it was not being enough of a “good boy” to curry favour with the British and has now embarked on a policy aimed at further convincing them of its loyalty.

That, it seems, involves purging the party of anyone that dares speak the truth, because doing so will jeopardise this aim. Mangoma cannot possibly be kept in the party if the British are to be pleased. Biti saying that Zanu-PF won fairly makes him Mangoma’s puppeteer. It’s a circus, only no-one is laughing.

It has always been obvious of course that the MDC accepts the legitimacy of the elections, even if their posturing to their paymasters says otherwise. Soon after the elections, Tsvangirai went on record claiming that the MDC “would not legitimise government institutions resulting from this election and will not take part in them”.

We were inundated with claims about “disengagement” and “tongai tivone”, the former supposedly involving MDC MPs boycotting Parliament.

MDC MPs took their oaths and are participating in
parliament despite the call for disengagement from Tsvangirai

But Parliament was opened with all MDC MPs disengaging from their leader’s utterances by showing up and taking up committee positions in that august house and generally making a nuisance of themselves by condemning the same institution that they belonged to.

Tsvangirai, it turns out, had said that statement during his proverbial “Foot-In-Mouth’’ episodes, the same condition that leaves him prone to leading with his mouth with no brain behind.

As the fabric of their lies unravel, as every right thinking person’s views on the elections gets confirmed, as they fall over each other to confess, the only relevant question they need to be asking themselves is this: how much money do they owe Nikuv for defaming it’s name?

The British invaded Zimbabwe and forced local people
off their land without compensation and
raped the country of its resources

After the elections, we were told by the British through William Hague that they had “deep and deep concerns” about the poll. Of course, we too have our own concerns. Like we have concerns about them colonising our country for 90 years and raping it of its resources for no recompense. Like we have concerns about them promising to fund the land redistribution process as a ploy to have us accept the willing buyer willing seller rubbish in the Lancaster House constitution only to renege on the basis that, according to Claire Short, “the British Government does not accept colonial responsibility” because, didn’t you know it, its Government included Irish people whose country was also once colonised!

Like we have concerns about them going about trying to sponsor regime change through the MDC, then having failed, trying to get Mbeki on board for a violent overthrow of our government.

I guess our concerns are just not “grave” or “deep” enough to matter.

Daily, the MDC holds rallies at will, in the full view of the Press and cries about lack of political freedom. Daily, MDC supporters congregate around Harvest House and cry about laws against peaceful gatherings and protest. Daily, MDC officials issue invective and vitriol against Government and cry about lack of freedom of expression.

What, pray-tell, do you want to happen for you to be satisfied that you live in a peaceful and tolerant society? Daily, people issue statements suggesting that they will be happy to see our economy fail, and no-one accuses them of sabotage.

The racist Smith regime practiced apartheid, abused
black people, arrested and detained them :
  and some in the MDC have the audacity to say it was better 

We are fed the rubbish that “many say that Smith was better”. Really, who are these many? Smith used to arrest and deport those that criticised him but happened to be white, like Donal Lamont and others. Those with a slightly darker skin were just arrested and detained, and sent to places like Gonakudzingwa.

And he was better? Says who? The strategic partners? And who, pray-tell, are these strategic partners?

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Tinomudaishe Chinyoka is a UK based lawyer and prominent former student leader. He writes in his personal capacity.