Open message to MDC supporters (March 18, 2003)

REF: THE QUEST FOR POWER versus THE QUEST FOR DEMOCRACY

My dear brothers and sisters:

Please accept my sincere encouragement for the stand that you took on the face of a widely recognized electoral fraud process orchestrated by the illegitimate Mugabe regime and visited upon the long suffering people of Zimbabwe during the last Zimbabwean presidential elections.

Please note that history teaches that all in good time your courage, commitment - and patience - will be vindicated.

Of-course there is always the option of pursuing an expedient short-cut to power by making a deal with the devil.

But then again there is the high road option: taking the long and often difficult high road, if the freedom of the people –– as opposed to the lust for power –– is the imperative.

And as always, history and the people of Zimbabwe will in the end be the best judges for that.

But for now we invite you to search your consciences and allow yourselves to be guided by what is right for the people of Zimbabwe, if you truly believe that a government of the people by the people for the people is worthy of all the sacrifices and moral conscience associated with the high road.

That, in our view, is the short and long of it; in these difficult and troubled times for our country and our region when the oath of public office is increasingly being betrayed by serial offenders who pass for legitimacy and good governance NEPAD style.

Yours truly,
Thabo Siziba

N.B: this message was published by the Zimbabwe newspaper, The Standard, on Sunday, 23 March 2003. Heading for the article was, “The high road is fraught with sacrifices”.