Mugabe’s silent victims (February 7, 2002)

Zimbabwe goes to polls for the fifth time after independence in what could be once again termed an attempt at democracy. The prerequisite for free and fair elections is free and fair campaigning. The Zimbabwe political climate has always been ugly and deadly to all opposition. With the rule of law gone, state and legal protection disrupted by Mugabe himself, the belief that the coming presidential elections will be free and fair is naïve if not stupid. Has the world suddenly opened its eyes to Mugabe’s cruelties and injustices now? Where has the rest of the world been for the past 22yrs when the people of Zimbabwe were victims of torture, murder and abuse by Mugabe? While he has been carrying out atrocities since his assumption of Presidency, the rest of the world portrayed him a hero and icon of success.

Zimbabwe is in a state of war. More than ten thousand soldiers have been deployed chiefly in Matebeleland and the midlands to campaign for ZANU-PF. Soldiers can never be expected to persuade people to vote. Their language is force and intimidation, even killing those who resist.

Already the so-called war veterans and the notorious CIO operatives including ZANU-PF youth gangsters have done considerable damage in torture and intimidation of opposition parties indiscriminately. Thousands of youths are being given military training, after which they are sent out to play havoc on anti-Mugabe elements in Zimbabwe.

Government spies, informers and provocateur gangsters are spread all over places where Mugabe’s political support does not exist, to spot and locate victims for torture and ‘elimination’. The whole series of election events has been militarised to make sure Mugabe wins the Presidential elections so he can cling to power for as long as he pleases, introduce draconian and austerity laws that his appetite for despotism demands and therefore try to evade any possibilities to bring him to justice.

The military has unprecedently come to his rescue by declaring they would not accept his defeat, thus predetermining the pending election results. Who then can deny that those elections will be shame elections, a waste of people’s good time and money? Where else in the world has such a political stance been displayed by the military? Can such elections be regarded as free and fair? If they cannot be free and fair, why then should they be allowed to go ahead? Why should the international observers monitor stolen elections? What is the point of observing elections which are only seen to be free and fair on the day of the elections when people or voters have been trounced, intimidated and opinionated for months before to vote for a ZANU-PF candidate the defiance of which being death. In principle the elections will not be there in the true sense. They will not be free and fair. The campaigning has already cost lives and still continues to, with impunity and without coherent and positive international intervention strong enough to make Mugabe listen. He must see no alternative to his callous and barbaric gimmicks. While on this point it should be noted though that the positive efforts by the Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth, Mr. Jack Straw and the EU governments are greatly appreciated by the majority of Zimbabweans.

Again, while appreciating efforts by Mr. Morgan Tswangirayi to rid Zimbabwe of its tragedy (Mugabe) by the vote, it should not be overlooked that Tswangirayi seems to also have his own opportunistic gains to achieve. All this is proven by his campaigns that are saturated by phrases of solely removing/replacing Mugabe, without explaining in detail what he himself has in store for the people of Zimbabwe. Never in his entire leadership of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade unions (ZCTU-labour union) did he address such issues as the government’s discrimination and deprivation of education, unemployment, health and infrastructural development against the people of the Matebeleland regions of Zimbabwe, and today he is the leader of the major opposition MDC. and still, he runs away from coming out clear on these injustices by Mugabe. Could it be because he is one of Mugabe’s ex-beneficiaries? The world is yet to observe.

Having been groomed by Mugabe, Tswangirayi has the same system of governance as ZANU-PF. Which is strictly based on a centralized system of governance. For the past 22 years this system has seen Zimbabwe purposely divided on tribal lines, with the people of Matebeleland and Midlands regions being tribally persecuted, politically sidelined and economically marginalized from the rest of the country, and ultimately the rest of the world through media deprivation.

How ever there are other political parties in Zimbabwe with a better vision and strategy. Those that believe in a federal system of governance such as the “Liberty Party of Zimbabwe and ZAPU-2000”, to mention but a few. Mugabe’s national media has forever silenced these parties through systematic marginilization, and now they have fallen victim to even the independent press, which seems to be largely biased towards the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The world has to realise that the solution to Zimbabwe’s crisis is not on the election of the MDC. into power. It is the education and rehabilitation of the people of Zimbabwe to once again realise their freedom to exist in a multi-party state and not a single or double party state as currently being made to believe. Such parties as the ‘Liberty Party of Zimbabwe’ have been in existence for years and to date it is through them that the people of the deprived regions have finally made themselves visible to the rest of the world. After Mugabe and his government killed over 20 000 innocent women, children and men between 1982 and 1988 alone not including those that he murdered thereafter in his bid to wipe out a whole tribe of the matebeles, it should be asked where these people have been all along, and Mugabe and his cronies should answer those questions one day.

By: Thabo Siziba & Mthulisi Ndlovu.

References: http://www.members.aol.com/maggemm/index.html and Catholic Commission for justice and Peace (Matebeleland atrocities)