Solidarity with other progressive forces panacea to march towards real democracy

Press Statement 24 October 2009

Communities Point believes that only solidarity with other progressive forces can bring meaningful change where people are struggling for democracy. Having been founded by comrades who were founding members of the Movement for Democratic Change and its predecessors in opposition politics in Zimbabwe, we have long held that the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe need be protracted.

The current status quo in Zimbabwe is a vindication of our collective fears that the people of Zimbabwe would be short-changed in elitist agreements that would forestall the concerted march towards real democracy.  However we have realised the inescapable truth of the complicity of all the forces in the Government of National Unity, both MDCs included, in forestalling this march towards democracy.

The existing political cultures in all the three parties to the GNU have always been countervailing to a real march towards tangible democracy. Without prejudice to the liberation struggle we think the current petit bourgeoisies’ leadership of ZANU PF has distanced itself from the aims of the people based struggle by its single-mindedness in the promotion of aristocrats and political dynasties. We have seen the clear attempt to position an organisation, ZANU PF ahead of the State. Examples abound which are evidential to this sighting: the Open Door Policy of ZANU PF that pardons those who have at one point been labelled enemies of the State and Party only extends to them if they are willing to “repent” and re-join ZANU PF but we have seen people who could otherwise been useful to the country pushed to the peripheries.

In the Movement for Democratic Change we are seeing the gullibility of the people of Zimbabwe played at. We have seen the Party consulting people only for the sake of it and only whenever ZANU PF refuses to budge. MDC uses Zimbabweans as a blackmail bait to get what it wants from ZANU PF but when the table has been sorted the MDC leadership invites those with identical genotypes and those with almost the same DNA sequencing to their table. In the GNU we are seeing an MDC that has failed to position itself beyond the stereotypes that have been stuck to the ZANU PF Government in particular and African leadership in general which puts nepotism ahead of meritocracy.

The recent appointment of Ambassador Designate to Germany Hebson Makuvise, who was virtually unknown to any MDC activist anywhere in the world until two years ago, ahead of known activists such as Grace Kwinjeh and Emily Madamombe who have better credibility in the mind of any truth-seeking person in Zimbabwe, is a complete betrayal to the trust that people have invested in the change agenda that the Party ought to represent. Hebson Makuvise lacks the merit and the experience held by both Emily Madamombe and Grace Kwinjeh but he has the correct genetic set-up which identifies him with PM Morgan Tsvangirai’s maternal DNA. As an uncle of the Prime Minister the position goes to him, something even ZANU PF did not do so openly.

MDC UK and Ireland Deputy Representative Emily Madamombe (right)-Flickr

To make matters worse we saw the appointment of Reverend Chisvo, another handpicking that some say is influenced by religious affiliation. The MDC appointments circumvent around Mhondoro, Njanja/Buhera, Chivhu, and the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe and in Matebeleland those who have allegiance to Lovemore Moyo, most of whom are Moyos themselves. Both Makuvise and Lovemore Moyo are implicated in corruption involving the misappropriation of party cards’ money. Moyo’s glutton even extends to extravagance in hotels in Zimbabwe without even looking at the strife that the people around him are going through. All previous Parliamentary Speakers lived either in rented accommodation or their own houses.  In fact Cyril Ndebele, the best among them, lived in a relative’s house before maybe acquiring or renting his own house and he came from Bulawayo which makes us wonder why Moyo is that special. Although he has the right to be gluttonous at least he must use his conscience and look at where the country is. Nelson Chamisa once accused ZANU PF of kleptomania, “stealing very little things”, it is kleptomaniac for Lovemore Moyo and Hebson Makuvise to have taken part in the stealing Party card money.

We have also seen the attempt by the MDC to silence internal opposition; it’s sad that the letter that terminated Emily Madamombe’s appointment as Deputy Chief Representative in the UK and Ireland was only served on her when she decided to add her voice against alleged corruption involving the Party’s UK and Ireland structure and some very senior members of its National Executive. The clear evidence is that the position of the MDC UK and Ireland Chief Representative had been there to accommodate Morgan Tsvangirai’s uncle and when he had acquired a better position, all was accomplished and the post was abolished. That the same Grace Kwinjeh who opened all these diplomatic avenues in Europe and with her own funding most of the time, left to starve and to her own peril, arrested, imprisoned, humiliated, tortured, praised and venerated when her services where still needed, labelled brave, intelligent and hardworking is suddenly lacking in experience, unintelligent and not fit for an ambassadorial appointment must send shivers down the spines of those looking for genuine change. The same Emily Madamombe who organised funding for the party in Zimbabwe from very meagre resources when the party coffers were dry is suddenly a nuisance and undeserving of any appointment. I doubt that some of us will even be mentioned in dispatch!!!!

If MDC was an army the best rank Grace Kwinjeh, an influential commander during a liberation struggle, would have been awarded in a post-liberation integrated army would have been a medal for her service and would not even have been a private in that army! Imagine if Brigadier Mutasa [the wife of Minister Mutasa], who was deservedly made a Lt. Colonel at independence for her part in ZANLA after Nyadzonya, had only received an independence medal and be declared “persona non grata” in army barracks.

Its early days yes, but it is the correct time to voice our concerns, the country can no longer afford costly experiments such as nepotism just because it is being done by people we identify as our heroes. True heroism is accountable, it looks beyond our regions, our totems and our tribes and emphasises on correcting marginalisation. It looks at Esigodini and such other areas, left behind during the war of liberation, penalised during the Gukurahundi era, forgotten during the Unity Accord years, voted MDC but forgotten soon after. The only meaningful thing they got from independence is an FM Antenna which they got together with Madzivazvido and Copper Queen and an unending advert about this “achievement”.

With this kind of attitude it will not surprise us if Zimbabweans start asking Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC who they have in mind for the Reserve Bank Governor and Attorney General as it seems they are preoccupied with appointing for the sake of aristocracy and to prop up their dynasty and that the noise that we hear from them is only for the purpose of fulfilling nepotistic allegiance and has nothing to do with Zimbabwe and merit. Communities Point challenges Zimbabweans to challenge such shameful appointments as they are the recipe for disaster in future. Zimbabwe is where it is because a liberation party that we trusted abandoned its principles because of the comfort they were receiving in the very warm blanket of governance, a decision not to challenge MDC when we still have time to do so will lead us to the same situation we are in ten years from now. We have now taken a position to challenge this kind of behaviour regardless of who does it, and this will not spare those we have in the past identified as our own friends in the struggle because they seem to be distancing themselves from the core principles of the struggle.

ENDS

JULIUS SAI MUTYAMBIZI-DEWA: COMMUNITIES POINT

[email protected] or 07529705413 or 07984254830