Mugabe must now be removed through People Power
Freeafrica (March 28, 2005)

Photo: AP/Wide World Photos
Street Protests in the Philippines
Tens of thousands of Filipinos took to the streets in January 2001 to demand the resignation of Philippine president Joseph Estrada after his impeachment trial was suspended. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was the vice president, replaced Estrada on January 20.

It happened in the Philippines, It happened in Georgia, It happened in Ukraine and now it is happening in Kyrgyzstan. It’s all summed up as “a Revolution”. People’s power at work. Massive uprisings organized by strong opposition democrats leading people through a spectacular peaceful take over of parliament (The People’s House). It is when people are exhausted of other legal channels, for example constantly flawed election processes, breakdown of the Judiciary systems that are meant to shield people from all forms of injustices including by politicians; and when people are continuously maimed, starved, murdered, children used as frontline soldiers against their unarmed communities and women raped, that the pain becomes so extreme to bare only one more option seems apparent; or could it be just the one more option that is peaceful and non-violent? There is of course always the armed struggle, but usually such an option is too far fetched for a people that knows no guns and knifes except those that have been carried against them. Advocating for such violent takeover of power would not even be to the interest of the victims, more especially in this day and age of globalization and inter-State dependency.

However, having looked at and examined the above examples, one wonders when the people of Zimbabwe will themselves mobilize enough to sweep Mugabe and his gangsters out of the People’s House. It is obvious that elections will never work in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and actually one wonders why heavily massed political parties such as Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) continue to legitimize Mugabe’s presence in Zimbabwean politics by partaking in electoral contests against him. What the MDC with its Morgan Tsvangirai are trying to prove with their involvement in Mugabe’s elections is hard to understand. Not to say, it is only the MDC that has decided to take part in these March 31st Parliamentary Elections, but as facts put it, the MDC has a great majority of supporters in its struggle to free the Zimbabwean people from tyranny. If only the MDC leadership was real and genuine in its entire causes, which are now somewhat vague to many analysts and observers including some party electorates themselves. These skepticisms about the party’s focus and causes have on occasions resulted in reported splits and confusions within the party’s leadership as they try to understand one another about what way to lead on. Poor planning, inconsistency and lack of focus seem to fail the MDC from bringing Mugabe and his Zanu PF to the ground. One day Tsvangirai says Mugabe is an illegitimate leader whom he does not recognize per the last stolen elections, the next day he says Mugabe should be indicted for violating international Human Rights Laws, the next day he says he is not participating in any of Mugabe’s elections, and so the saga of confused stances against Mugabe and his Zanu PF continue by the MDC. As for the other political parties taking part in these ‘elections’; inside observers have indicated time and again that a great number of some of these ‘political parties’ are Zanu PF branches pseudonymed specially to create a false democratic electoral process wherein “Zanu PF” remains the landslide winner against an opposition impression.

Mugabe is playing his cards ‘right’, at least for his own selfish gains. It is now up to the people and the institutions they use, to figure out Mugabe’s game and challenge him vigorously at it. Reliable sources have estimated that at least more than half of Mugabe’s military and police forces are now holding on to their atrocious posts for none other reason than the fear of not belonging to any alternate real challenge. These military officers and state police have starving families too. They just follow orders to get the next meal of the day. Now, if Zimbabwe’s opposition strong hold were to really campaign strongly for People Power to take place in Zimbabwe, such vulnerable civil servants should not be looked upon as an enemy to the people. The opposition should find a way of creating programs and campaign strategies that would give better hope to these civil servants that Mugabe is feeding and using against the masses. Remember what happened in Georgia…The police and the army ended up on the right side of the struggle for a revolution. Zimbabwe’s scary armies and policemen are no unmovable stone. Once the opposition finds a language that addresses specifically them and their needs versus what Mugabe is giving them, chances are that Mugabe could be up for a great surprise. Thomas Paine, in his book, Rights of Man, writes “For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it”. Our people in Zimbabwe are now being driven to ignorance against their rights to wish for freedom. The enemy tyrant is now starving them into submission –– a case in point recently reported by the Guardian newspaper of South Africa dated, March 26, 2005 in an article titled: “Vote for us or starve, Mugabe’s party tells villagers”, one villager is quoted as saying "They said there is no way they are going to give me food that belongs to Zanu PF unless I repent by coming to join Zanu PF and denouncing the MDC,". This is just a drop in the ocean of the kind of abuses and other perpetrations of violence that Mugabe and his Zanu PF rogues are instilling upon innocent civilians of Zimbabwe. We now read and see so often that people in Zimbabwe are now too caught up in the struggle for survival that they have thrown the baby with the bath water. Well painful as its sounds, and as it may be true, somebody or some force has to revive the spirit of our people. Life cannot be allowed to continue like this. When you find people slowly submitting to inhumane standards of living as if after-all it is really what they deserve. I was so pained and frustrated recently when I spoke to a friend of mine back home and I asked him about the accessibility of transportation from Mpopoma, a township in Bulawayo to the city center and he said to me “Thabo! People are walking” and in the local Ndebele language he added “sebekubona kuyimfanelo ukuhamba ngenyawo”, meaning that they now see it as normal to walk. The distance in this case is about a 20minutes drive by car and it pained me to hear someone being made to walk such distances everyday from 4am to work and back home at night, sometimes with no hope of having a descent meal for super, saying they now find it to be normal life.

In Zimbabwe’s case I also ask myself; what has happened to the power of expatriates? Zimbabwe has an estimated 3,5 million citizens outside the country mainly because of fear of persecution and the mismanaged economy’s free fall which has resulted in the domino-like fall of all other public and private services that people heavily depend on, e.g. hospitals, schools, banks, transportation etc. Zimbabwe needs an upfront visionary political party that will take up the millions of Zimbabwe’s electorate which is outside the country to steer up a power base that will ignite under Mugabe’s armpits. The will is with the people, it’s just the driving force that’s lacking. And the sooner these facts are realized by a serious opposition, the sooner Mugabe will be most likely found hiding in an ant-hole similar to what his common-practices friend, Sadam Hussein was found in.

One last point to mention here is that, it is very important for our people of Zimbabwe to be constantly reminded that “What is happening to them is wrong and criminal and they should never submit to it”. In the back of the mind, there should always be that understanding and reminder that one is being abused. It is then, that the will and power of rising up will soon surface from within the masses.