Monday Meeting

BUGALO A. CHILUME | Monday March 19, 2007 00:00

And in Tsvangirai, the West chose well; with a limited intellect he was to prove to be putty in the hands of the puppet masters. The expectation was that with an economy in free fall, voters would turn against Mugabe. The plan was perfect; the snag was in its execution. Of critical significance, the West arrogantly flouted the fact that Tsvangirai was their man. For an Afrikan electorate with memories of a brutal white minority rule still fresh, it was political suicide.

This is the reason why in all the four presidential and parliamentary elections held since the plan was hatched, Tsvangirai failed to unseat Mugabe. Since MDC was not rooted in the aspirations of Afrikans, it could not survive the repeated electoral losses as a united party. Leadership squabbles over the sharing out of donations led to the party splitting into two separate factions, to the utter dismay of their Western masters. The split of MDC marked an end to the West's attempt to topple Mugabe through the ballot box. With MDC in disarray, politically, Tsvangirai is a spent force, but too much had already been invested in him by the West to just let him go; so he has to be used somehow. Plan B was then hatched: to make Zimbabwe ungovernable so that the West can invade Zimbabwe on the pretext that it is restoring peace and stability under the ambit of the United Nations.

For the execution of this plan, Tsvangirai is now being used as a political thug to incite riots and general unrest. Leading the plan's execution is the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, who, in January this year is reported to have ordered rival MDC factions and a sprinkling of like-minded civic groups to unite under the so-called Save Zimbabwe Convention in order to drive the violent campaign. Dell is also reported to have pledged US$1m for the initiative.

The campaign of violence started in earnest in February when MDC tried to hold a rally at Zimbabwe Grounds in Harare at which MDC thugs went on an orgy of violence in which millions of dollars worth of property was reported to have been destroyed. This prompted the police to impose a three-month ban on all rallies, political gatherings and demonstrations in Harare in the interest of peace and stability. However, the West was undeterred. Within weeks MDC attempted to hold another political rally in Harare in wilful defiance of the police ban.

To circumspect the ban, it tried to disguise it as a prayer meeting convened under the auspices of Save Zimbabwe Convention. The rally, in terms of the law was illegal, and the police moved in to break it up. In response, Tsvangirai unleashed yet another orgy of violence. According to The Herald, 'when the police sealed off the venue, MDC youths ran amok looting shops, destroying property, mugging civilians, and assaulting police officers and innocent members of the public, prompting police to use live ammunition to disperse the marauding youths who did not even heed police warning shots.' It was during this mle that MDC leaders were arrested and detained for inciting violence, which continued for a number of days, spilled into other towns and included the petrol bombing of police stations and the stoning of commuter buses by MDC thugs.

Following the detention of the ring leaders there was the usual barrage of criticisms of Mugabe and his government by the West and their Afrikan hangers-on, nothing new really, but it warranted a comment from Mugabe: 'When they criticise the government when it tries to prevent violence and punish perpetrators of that violence we take the position that they can go and hang'. And in response to the defiant position adopted by Tsvangirai and company, he warned: 'if they do it again, we will bash them again'. We await with abated breath the West's next move in its campaign of violence in a country whose people are already suffering at the hands of the West.
 bugaloc@yahoo.com