Mugabe - Tsvangirai talks must involve the people

TANONOKA JOSEPH WHANDE | Friday July 25, 2008 00:00

We already feel betrayed, no matter how you look at it. Mugabe had time to think out things and plan accordingly and if Tsvangirai is not careful, these talks are going to polarize his party and he might find himself estranged from his followers.

Tsvangirai has already succumbed to one of Mugabe's most potent tools: secrecy, a trait that makes it easier to lie, which he has done over the years.

While I concede that talking to the media a little too freely might, at times, hurt delicate negotiations, Tsvangirai appears to want to go it alone without involving what ZANU-PF refers to as 'other stakeholders'.

And that, I am afraid to say, is extremely dangerous. Tsvangirai should have demanded the presence of other freedom fighting organizations and people so that should Mugabe play his tricks, which indeed he will, there will be others to assist and support Tsvangirai.
Mugabe is excluding other interested parties for a reason. And Mugabe's spinner of tall tales and his incorrigible mouthpiece, Bright Matonga, is waiting and Tsvangirai is going to spend a lot of time denying 'information that has been leaked to the press' yet he will be alone in defending himself while people's trust in him will be taking several hard knocks.

Going through the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which they signed, I was amused to note that nowhere does the MDC question Mugabe's legitimacy or show intention to pursue that salient issue.

The MDC went on to sign the MoU despite the fact that Mugabe is still holding over 1500 MDC officials in his jails on trumped up charges. Why not do first things first?

Why didn't Tsvangirai demand, as a pre-condition, the release of his 18 elected Members of Parliament? It is this kind of behaviour that will start gnawing at Tsvangirai's trustworthiness and it is going to be only a matter of time before ZANU-PF pounces and uses such things to discredit Tsvangirai within his own followers.

I read with regret that 'state-sponsored violence is to be monitored by the Tsvangirai MDC in the next two weeks, in order to test ZANU-PF's sincerity while talks to resolve the country's political crisis are in progress'.

In other words, those now under arrest are not important enough but the MDC needs to start counting fresh victims. Doesn't Tsvangirai need to consult with his legitimately-elected officials or he believes that his lone decision making is good enough?

This thing is already upsetting me and I can see Tsvangirai taking a risk he needs not take. That is why a party leader has advisors: to advise and consult with.

Didn't Tsvangirai find it necessary to demand that those thousands of people displaced by ZANU-PF thugs and who cannot access their homes even today be allowed free access to their residences? Is he not representing them?

What is the MDC fighting for if not such basic things? SWRadioAfrica, for example, quotes a BBC report broadcast on Monday, the day Tsvangirai and Mugabe signed the MoU, showing 170 opposition activists and officials hiding in a makeshift camp in the woods just outside Harare.

'They have been there for more than two weeks,' the report said, showing a young MDC activist in a clinic with deep flesh wounds on his buttocks who said he had been assaulted for refusing to join in celebrations of Robert Mugabe's runoff election victory.

The MDC itself concedes that many others are still in hiding. But, apparently, such incidents are just little inconveniences that do not play a part in MDC negotiations.

They don't put people first. They are in a hurry to share power and to rule. I find it the height of hypocrisy and negligence that the MDC insists to the media that talks cannot take place while their officials and supporters are in prison and violence on innocent people continues but go on to sign MoUs and schedule more talks for next week, while those people who showed their resolve and stood by the party are now hiding in the bush with Tsvangirai, their leader, feeding on sumptuous meals with the very man who has chased them to hide in caves and behind rocks.

The MDC is already behaving like ZANU-PF where the people are considered to be of no consequence.

The undertakings faced by both ZANU-PF and the MDC cannot be left to political parties alone. People and civil society must, of necessity, be involved at the highest level and if Tsvangirai does not heed such simple terms of political intercourse, he will find himself alone not very long from today. And ZANU-PF is watching him.

People are tired of being abused, neglected and used. People know what they want and they want a voice in everything that is happening to them and to their country.

The animosity between political parties has nothing to do with people, yet it is the people who are being killed as they sustain the political strength of their parties. That has to stop.

These talks should be held in the open and people should be allowed to submit their input. Remember the Pearce Commission of the early 70s? That is exactly what we should see being done with this exercise in Zimbabwe today.

For these politicians to take each other to dinner and agree not to say a word to the media and to the people sounds like Tsvangirai is ready to be used.

In May 1972 the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary told the British Parliament that the peoples of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) stood at the crossroads between two destinies and could either accept a compromise settlement or 'suffer total racial polarisation and civil war'.

The Pearce Commission was set up to ask opinion from every citizen available if they accepted the Anglo-Rhodesian Agreement.

I also gave evidence and, like everybody else, said I did not accept the 'proposals'.
Tsvangirai should not just agree to certain things as 'trade-offs.' That is dangerous.

Open the damn talks and discussions to the people. They are the reason why politicians are meeting. Everyone must be afforded to come forward and give their input.

Zimbabweans of all persuasions were afforded such an opportunity once and they were successful in sending a big 'NO' message to the British.
Open these talks to the public, after all, it is our future and our lives on the table.