Zimbabwe is not ready for elections

DON-MARTIN ROPAFADZO | Friday September 10, 2010 00:00

Thieves raid a home and violently take everything they find in the house, while the owners are watching.

Being victims who somehow survived a life threatening ordeal, the father, mother and children make a lot of noise to alert everyone in the neighbourhood as they rush to the police to report.

The police spring into action and not only catch the thieves but recover all the loot that had been taken from the house.

With all the loot recovered and the thieves in custody, the police open a docket, but a bystander steps forward from the growing crowd of agitated spectators who want to mete instant justice to the thieving lot. The bystander who had stepped forward whispers something into the ears of both the man whose property had been stolen and into the ear of the leader of the thieving gang.

Then the victim turns to the police officers and says, “It is alright. We are going to share this property equally on our own but if he gives me too little, I will be back to get you for help.”

The man then waves the police away and helps the thief load the loot into a lorry stolen from the gathered bystanders who had come to help catch the thief. He then jumps into the back of the lorry where the thief told him to sit as the truck roars away with the thief in full control at the wheel alone upfront.

Shout as the man at the back of the lorry may, the thief pretends not to hear, knowing full well that the shouting man has absolutely no intention to get off the lorry.

This is precisely the way I interpret how the so-called unity government came into being.

This is the way I view Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC along with Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF.

Clearly I have no option but to succumb to the simple truth that Tsvangirai and his MDC betrayed the people of Zimbabwe.

Having been accommodated into a den of thieves who had stolen their property, the MDC, although reluctant at first, slowly warmed up to the idea of sharing their stolen property with the very thieves who had raided them and confiscated their property. Now, as things get worse, no one can help because the very same people who should be helped are the ones who say all is well. Although talking about his own selfish expectations, Mugabe at least admits that things are not okay but Tsvangirai says they are...until something he cannot hide from the people comes up.

The MDC is deliberately protecting Mugabe and his lieutenants that is why it considers the Ministry responsible for Reconciliation and National Healing to be not as important.

There cannot be any national healing before reconciliation and reconciliation can only come about after perpetrators and victims come together to confess and forgive each other.

MDC is not giving national healing the importance and priority that it deserves because the MDC does not want ZANU-PF thugs to be exposed or punished.

The MDC wants to ignore this sad episode so as for them to have a comfortable stay in this government born out of betrayal of the people.

The MDC is not interested in national healing at a time their own supporters are bleeding not only from older but from newer and fresh wounds inflicted by the same people they claim to be in partnership with.

If the people were important, national healing could have come first. Is it progress for the MDC to ask abused people to sleep in the same blanket with their rapists just so the MDC can say, “Something good is happening and we must be rewarded for our efforts?”

The MDC used the people.

I hear some people say that “things” are getting better in Zimbabwe and wonder what exactly it is that’s getting better.

If the political situation is getting no better then it is a given that nothing is getting better.

I would like to know what has changed in politics and in the governing of our nation since even before this nonsensical government of national unity came into being.

MDC people are still being beaten up.

MDC Members of Parliament continue to be harassed and arrested over flimsy charges.

There is still selective application of the rule of law and this is always against MDC supporters.

Farms and companies are still being seized and taken by ZANU-PF stalwarts.

Just a few weeks ago, people’s homes were once again razed to the ground in Harare and the owners were chased away.

All these things are happening under Mugabe and Tsvangirai’s government and the MDC wants to tell me that things are getting better?

All these atrocities are being committed by the government who use the army, the police and the intelligence services to violate people’s rights. The MDC has sold the people to Mugabe, a dictator who did not even want the people in the first place.

The MDC is now working in cohorts with ZANU-PF.

Last week, Theresa Makone, one of Tsvangirai’s closest advisers and his very own co-minister of Home Affairs, came out in surprising defence of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, saying that the police had turned over a new leaf.

Yes, the new leaf the police have turned is one of defying court orders, just like their president, of violating human rights, of assisting the abuse of civilians and of arresting MDC members who show up at the police station for protection from ZANU-PF thugs.

Pishayi Muchauraya, Makoni South Member of Parliament and the spokesperson for Tsvangirai’s MDC in Manicaland Province, said the police are still supporting ZANU PF militia terror campaigns during the constitutional outreach exercise, despite claims by Makone that the police had turned over a new leaf

“At Bhumira Primary School we had ten uniformed police officers who also had some guns. But what they did is they had to arrest those people who were injured and make sure they are not spotted by some Constitution Parliamentary Select Committee observers. It was the entire MDC executive in the area which was injured, and arrested by the police. The other one who nearly had his eye removed was also arrested upon making a report,” Muchauraya said.

What really is the MDC up to?They are talking a    bout elections next year when Mugabe’s brutal war machine is still intact after having been re-enforced by the MDC’s efforts to have the unity government accepted as a legitimate government whose work has to be rewarded.

In the last elections of 2008, Tsvangirai’s party lost more than 200 people at the hands of Robert Mugabe. Now they are talking about elections again and Mugabe, like any other criminal, would only be too glad to visit the scene of his crimes.

Tsvangirai is ignoring the possibility that the next elections will be worse. He is not canvassing SADC and the international community for proper support and protection for the people.

He is not even whole-heartedly pursuing that those ZANU-PF thugs who killed 200 of his supporters be brought before the courts.

Now he is preparing the ground for Mugabe to kill more of our people just so he can stay put in this disorganised and underperforming government. Tsvangirai and the MDC have sold the people out and the worst is yet to come.