A Response to Muponda’s Smoke and Mirrors

A Response to Muponda’s Smoke and Mirrors

by Tsanga Tutankhamen Shanga: 25th May 2009

I am totally surprised that the editors of The Zimbabwe Mail newspaper published Gilbert Muponda's rambling, error-riddled and disjointed piece. Clearly this was a piece put together without any serious forethought or modicum of effort to do basic background research – so much for the much-advertised Gilbert Muponda Research Institute. Publishing it is an insult to the readership of said cyber newspaper. That is what the facts say, just the facts, sir.

Firstly, as the owner of a whole raft of cyberspace newspapers, one would think that Gilbert Muponda would by now know that the letter purportedly written by Gideon Gono has since been exposed as a fake. According to reports, Morgan Tsvangirai has never received the letter nor has Gideon Gono acknowledged writing such a letter. If anything, Gono is on recording distancing himself from the letter that has received a lot of unnecessary bandwidth. Furthermore, it is reported that Gono is so livid about the letter that he has gone to Robert Mugabe so that the authorship of the letter can be verified and subsequently exonerate Gono from it scurrilous contents – George Charamba is the suspected culprit.

Secondly, Gilbert Muponda has at his disposal paid scribes and, I assume, real journalists who he could dispatch to engage in real investigative journalism. What we have, instead, is a man too preoccupied with promoting flummery. Any visitor to the Muponda-owned Zimbabwe Daily cyber newspaper will witness the on-going disintegration of a once mighty news fountain into a sexually racy paper. If truth be said, it is not a paper at all; it is more like a substandard Hugh Hefner’s rag.

Thirdly, Gilbert Muponda is fond of churning out half-baked opinion editorials, the most vapid and meretricious op-eds this side of Emperor Nero. To show his lack of spine, he will not let readers respond to his tropes. This is a tacit acceptance on his part that he is a man of limited thinking skills beyond what he learnt – probably by rote - from his economics textbooks. As a matter of fact, one respondent called him out by pointing out that his economic editorials were nothing but chunks lifted roots, trunk and branch from basic economics books then patched together. This is the man who is desperately trying to piggy-back his grievance on a fabricated affray between Gono and Tendai Biti. Muponda makes his case with stunning certitude saying, and I quote; “[T]he Governor is clearly threatening Minister Biti with arrest.” How Muponda draws such a clear-cut conclusion despite evidence pointing to the contrary is beyond me.

Finally, on the issue of Gono’s branding of Muponda’s business practices as verging on the criminal, Mr Muponda need not waste time trying to make his case in public fora. He faces charges of illegal, nay, criminal financial activities not very dissimilar from what David Butau faced. Like Butau, Muponda fled from the wrath of Zimbabwean law under the pretence of fleeing from political persecution by the Mugabe Regime. To his credit, David Butau went back home as soon as the environment was temperate enough. Guess what, he went to court to answer the charges levelled against him by Gono. David Butau was acquitted.

Muponda masquerades as a political refuge. Clearly he is not. Muponda is a fugitive wanted for financial crimes. Why not go home and face the charges like Butau bravely did? If he is innocent, as he protests, and I think the man doth protesth too much, let him have his day in court. Taking Butau’s case as a precedent, Zimbabwean jurisprudence affords Mr Muponda the platform.

Let me categorically state that I am not a fun of Gideon Gono. Like any patriotic Zimbabwean, I loathe Gideon Gono. However, I am not one to say because Gono has said and done evil things so everything he does is evil and every charge he makes is malevolent. It is apparent that Muponda is attempting to seek exoneration in the public court by exploiting Gono’s notoriety and insinuating that Gono’s charges against him are evil political mechanizations and, therefore, have no legal merit. We call such obfuscations smoke and mirrors. Such a line of defense will not work even in a village court.

Flashback: Mugabe Looks Gift Horse in the Mouth

Mugabe Looks Gift Horse in the Mouth
Harare Tribune: 29th January 2009
by T. T. Tsanga

It was American Civil War General William Tecmuseh Sherman who said, and I quote; “To the winner belongs the spoils.” He was wrong. Sherman’s aphorism is not always an absolute certainty particularly when it comes to African politics. Mugabe’s behaviour following the historic March 2008 election in which he and his ZANU-PF were booted out of office is a prime example of the flaw in Sherman’s observation. The winner does not always hog all the spoils.

That Mugabe lost the election is beyond a shadow of doubt. The humiliating rejection by the Zimbabwean electorate notwithstanding, Mugabe wants all the spoils. After losing the election, a stark fact that he has acknowledged, Gushungo wants to hold onto key ministries to ensure the perpetuation of his grip on power as well as the immortalization of his beloved ZANU-PF. It is futile. Reports of Mugabe’s lack of decorum during the series of SADC meetings point not to arrogance. It was primal fear on display. The shadow of political death is slowly and ominously creeping upon Mugabe and his party. Vultures are circling above Mugabe, waiting and watching as they plan to pick off power, take Gideon Gono’s reported presidential ambitions as an example. These are people who want power just for the heck of it. The Zimbabwean people know it and do not want any part of it.

After winning the election under very tough conditions, the MDC is within its right to demand all the ministries it wants. That demand is in compliance with the decree and mandate of the Zimbabwean people. One man, Robert Mugabe, cannot and ought not be allowed to wilfully negate that mandate accorded by the people of Zimbabwe. He does not have the authority to nullify the will of the nation. The president of the Republic of Zimbabwe serves at the pleasure and consent of the Zimbabwean people. I have said this before and I will say it again; Zimbabwe is a REPUBLIC NOT A MONARCHY! In a republican government, the president is the servant of the governed not their master. Since Zimbabwe is a republic, Mugabe cannot be its potentate even by proxy. He may have come back from Mozambique with some misconception that he was a chief but he is most definitely mistaken if he is of that view.

As a servant of the people of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe’s custodianship of the nation on behalf of the people had to be appraised at regular intervals. The Zimbabwean people did just that. They reviewed Mugabe’s performance during his custodianship of the nation. The report card was not pretty. It read like a dispatch from a trench-warfare front. Mugabe and ZANU-PF have 29 years of shocking, mind-numbing and abject failure. It was as if they were on vacation for 29 years, as Sibangani Sibanda aptly put it. They are so incompetent they can never be trusted to run even a village grinding mill much less a ministry. On second thought I have to admit that I am mistaken, they will run the grinding mill alright, straight into the ground!

That is what Mugabe’s record during his tenure in office tells anyone who cares to make a casual inspection. He is very good at running things into the ground, especially those inherited from better performers than him. Tanonoka Joseph Whande of The Zimbabwe Times rightly described the manner in which Mugabe frittered away the economic legacy inherited from Ian Smith as an unparalleled act of betrayal.

On assuming power, ZANU-PF was hell bent on changing name plates on roads and building, and renaming towns, cities, mountains and rivers. It seemed as if independence was reduced into a mundane exercise of changing names and nothing else that required more physical and mental exertion beyond that. As prototypes of the ineptitude that is characteristic of ZANU-PF I will cite two examples. After renaming Andrew Flaming Hospital to Parirenyatwa Hospital, a once highly respectable institution was left to decay into a shell that it is now. The city of Harare had an efficient public transport in the form of Harare United Omnibus Company operating out of Belvedere. ZANU-PF took over the company and, overnight, the company was run into the ground through corruption and sheer incompetence. Similar disasters have been visited on everything that Mugabe has touched. The man has the reverse Midas touch. Everything he touchs instantly turns into a pile of worthless ash.

By reducing independence to an effortless exercise of renaming national landmarks and mismanaging thriving economic institutions thereafter, Mugabe and ZANU-PF are responsible for reducing his beloved revolution into a mockery. As Reason Wafawarova intimated, Mugabe’s inability to deal decisively with corruption is the genesis of the mockery. Sanctions have very little to do with it. They can wail all they want about sanctions until Hell freezes over but the fact remains unchanged, Mugabe and ZANU-PF are responsible for the Zimbabwean mess.

Ian Smith had sanctions but he found a way around them and kept the country running despite simultaneously dealing with a debilitating war, ditto the Afrikaner regime in Apartheid South Africa that used sanctions to become self reliant. Smith and Botha faced sanctions like men because they cared for the countries they were running whereas Mugabe chooses the path of least resistance, denouncing the imposition of targeted sanctions ad nauseum, because he does not really care.

Evidence on the ground condemns Mugabe for his incompetence and lack of care for his compatriots. Based on the evidence alone, he does not deserve to run anything beyond his family. If reports are to be believed, Mugabe’s own family does not really respect his abilities to preside over even a traditional burial ceremony in his own village. It is quite damning evidence pointing to the lack of respect he commands from those who know him best. Shouting down an uncle during the burial of a family member is incontrovertible proof that the man has little honour left and does not take that kindly. A person whose power is disjoined from respect lacks authority no matter the size and number of troops and death squads at his or her beck and call.

Mugabe, a man now bereft of honour even in his own village, has presided over an incompetent but eager-to-murder entity called ZANU-PF, does not deserve to run anything in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean people know this. Tsvangirai and the MDC are to be commended for trying to extending the olive branch to ZANU-PF and offering Mugabe some semblance of respectability to his hollow presidency. Tsvangirai and the MDC are too generous. Mugabe, true to form, has mistaken that magnanimity for weakness and spurned the offer. That is the problem.

Mugabe can ill afford to pick and choose what he wants and what crumbs to toss at the MDC. Beyond the ever-shrinking cover of military personnel, he has nothing else. Mugabe and ZANU-PF cannot bank on ordinary army grunts to protect them. If he believes that soldiers will slavishly obey his command then he is gravely mistaken. When ZANU-PF gave starving soldiers elephant meat, it pacified them for a while. A soon as they discovered that elephant meat did not taste anything like chicken, they went to Gono’s farm to borrow some in an act of blatant rebellion.

That is a very an ominous sign and if there are thinking people in ZANU-PF, they should be worried stiff. Soldiers preoccupied with looting shops, engaging in The Great Chicken Robbery and stealing maize and fertilizer are not going to fight anyone’s silly war meant to protect a few corrupt fools. I am afraid these acts of indiscipline are just a taste of what is to come. It is getting worse, with voodoo economist Gideon Gono right in the crosshairs.

It is Gono today but the next target of the fury of the soldiers is anyone’s guess. Clearly, Mugabe is in a pickle and he knows it. It is the very source of his intransigence. Constantine Chiwenga can puff out his chest and challenge the Yankee military machine to a fight but it is all wind. It is one thing to beat starving peasants and a totally different prospect facing a war machine that is the American military.

Mugabe is banking on Tsvangirai and the MDC to bail him out of the troubles he is facing from his own soldiers through what Eddie Cross rightly pointed out as the GNU Ponzi scheme. Tsvangirai and the MDC do not walk on water and their presence in Mugabe’s government is not going to solve the myriad of problems created by Mugabe. Mugabe and ZANU-PF are the source of the problems and it is inconceivable that they would be part of the solution. The problems facing Zimbabwe will only be solved by Zimbabweans.

The paramount point that should be impressed upon the arbiters of the Zimbabwean crisis is that the Zimbabwean people are not prepared to toil for a nation run by people who hoard donated fertilizer and seeds for personal gain. Tsvangirai and the MDC have the good will of the Zimbabwean people but Mugabe does not. When he had it, Mugabe abused it through his penchant for use of brute force and the unbridled corruption of his cartel. Without that good will, nothing will solve the problems, not even the gold bars in Fort Knox. The bad state of the world economy militates against Mugabe. No country is going to give him money, or let Gono use non-Zimbabwean currency, so that his corrupt underlings can salt it away and his wife can go on shopping junkets; the more the surprising aspect of ZANU-PF’s hard headedness. They are up against it. Mugabe and ZANU-PF are up to their ears in the hot soup they brewed. If they will not budge, the MDC should leave them to stew in it.

An incompetent, improvident and dishonourable man that looks a gift horse in the mouth should have that horse taken away from him on the spot. He is an ingrate and does not deserve the horse! Instead of offering him posts that he does not deserve and ministries that his party is incapable of running, Mugabe and his supine supporters in SADC have to be told that the MDC runs the whole shebang or the MDC will not run anything. That is the kind of clarity that is needed. Motlanthe can gnash his teeth all he wants but, as the hapless Thabo Mbeki put it, Zimbabwe is not a province of South Africa. Neither SADC nor Zuma has the right to impose Mugabe and ZANU-PF on the people of Zimbabwe. For presiding over a corrupt regime, Mugabe and ZANU-PF are the enemy of the people as wisely pointed out by Reason Wafawarova. Satan cannot man the Gates of Heaven.

Flashback: Conte's Cowards

Conte's Cowards and Clowns: Will Our Zimbabwean Syndicate Learn Anything?

by Tut Tsanga; 25th December 2008
As a Zimbabwean, I cannot help but get gripped by the events unfolding in Guinea. Another evil African despot has bitten the dust and there is jubilation in the streets. Strange, is it not, that the death of a man who claimed people had given him an overwhelming mandate to rule over them has resulted in the very same people running into the streets as they excitedly toi toi in the dusty streets of the slums of Conakry, singing songs of joy while waving flags and palm fronds?

Lansana Conte, the criminally incompetent and widely despised dictator of Guinea is dead after unpardonably abusing the wonderful Africans of Guinea for almost a quarter of a century. Guinea is a country endowed with vast mineral resources, boasting more than a third of the world's known deposits of aluminium-source bauxite, diamonds, recently discovered oil, in addition to a rich and proud history. The people of Guinea are a hardworking lot that will go to incredible lengths to better their lives, like these kids studying under street lights - at least they have electricity and no raw sewage flowing in the streets of Conte's fiefdom, unlike a certain fiefdom in Southern Africa whose name I will not mention.

Like most African countries, God gave Guinea everything except sensible political leadership. Little wonder when African leaders die people celebrate, a phenomenon, until recent times, alien to our culture. When an evil man dies and people thank God the almighty, we should not accuse them of being out of cultural bounds.

I recall Lansana Conte saying some lame excuse to justify his seizure of power. It was in 1984 and I was in secondary school when aged uber African nationalist, Sekou Toure, died while receiving medical attention in New York. It was touching because I considered Sekou Toure a bona fide African anti-colonial hero instead of another pathetic but destructive African nationalist-turned-despot. Like his great-grandfather, the Guinean nationalist had stood up to the French who, in turn, vindictively destroyed everything, including toilets, they could not ferry back to France. Sekou Toure was a nationalist who had told the French to take their wares and shove them into part of their anatomy on which the sun never shines. It was music to my ears then. I was a young Communist Manifesto thumper, an ardent listener of Mugabe's radio addresses. In my teenage years little did I know that these terrible African nationalists are only good at crippling nations and keeping people fettered in poverty bonds.

Conte took over from the despotic African nationalist Sekou Toure. Unlike Sekou Toure, Conte was not a nationalist but a shameless opportunist. Like his fellow dictators, Lansana Conte thought of Guinea as his fiefdom and its entire natural resources God's gift to him and his cronies. Without surprise, he had an elaborate patronage system whereby foreign companies were given mining concessions, deals that greatly benefited Conte's cronies to the debilitating exclusion of everyone else. For his iniquities, Allah should toss Conte's soul into hellfire. It will make Iblis happy, he who rules and fans the fires of that terrible pond.

Frankly, as he stared death in the face, Conte was reduced to running a crime syndicate while using state apparati like the military, the secret services and judiciary to cower everyone. As old age and illness sucked life out of him, the vultures that comprised his patronage system picked up everything including power. Dictator Conte only provided political cover for the heads of the military services and their civilian handlers.

In 2007, Conte, described as a hopeless chain smoker, diabetic octogenarian, was under pressure to relinquish power. Despite worrying reclusiveness and rumours of his senility, the leeches that benefited from his presidency insisted he was still in charge. He was adept at organizing sham elections. Conte had a retinue of misguided and politically stupid women dressed in party dresses emblazoned with his putrid image singing his praises despite the obvious ineptitude of the man. Now, he would not have been a quintessential African dictator if he did not have these pathetic women praising him for non-existent governing skills, would he?

Like I stated in another op-ed, the patronage system has its limitations. It is like a feeding trough, as time progresses, more and more people who had initially benefited from the patronage system are pushed away until only the most powerful politicians and heads of military services are allowed to feast on the slops. Sooner or later, those pushed away will voice their displeasure and finally seek retribution. A decade ago, beneficiaries of Conte's patronage system should have seen the writing on the wall. When, in 1996, several thousand soldiers mutinied and ran riot in the streets of Conakry, it was a sign that positive change was needed. The denizens of the Guinean political order dismissed the soldiers as malcontents. Guinea has witnessed riot after riot after riot by disgruntled young soldiers. It is complete foolishness for any government to think it can pacify hungry and disgruntled young soldiers.

Conte and his mafia gang were doomed from that moment onwards. Conte had a Damocles sword hanging over his head. Immediately after rigging an election, his convoy was attacked by what he dismissed as unknown gunmen. For crying out aloud, these were not unknown gunmen, they were the same soldiers who he had dismissed as malcontents in 1996. When a cartel is presiding over a country that has an army with thousands of malcontents in its ranks, that cartel is bound to meet a terrible end.

The funniest thing is that Conte was painfully aware of his mortality, a coward that lived in absolute fear of death. His crime syndicate is proving to be just as cowardly. After Captain Camara seized power from the Conte crime syndicate, all the Conte Mafiosi were ordered to present themselves at Alpha Yaya Diallo barracks or risk hunted down like the rapacious wild animals they are. The consigliore of the cartel, Ahmed Tidiane Souare, tried to make some noise, probably from a cave in the Fouta Jallon mountains, to the effect that the Camara Junta was not in charge but the game was up. Yes sir, the once powerful crew is trooping its way into the Alpha Yaya Diallo barracks with tails tucked between legs.

Not only was Conte leading a pack of cowards but it is turning out they were more than that. They are a pathetic lot. Upon making his way into the camp, the previously vituperative prime minister is now singing a total different but very comical song. We have the circus clown, Ahmed Tidiane Souare, telling the previously unknown Captain Camara, and I quote; "We are at your complete disposal. We thank you once again for your wisdom, Mr President." When had Souare thanked Camara before? And, please pray tell while we are at it, what wisdom are we talking about here? Souare is begging for dear life, it seems. Anyway, it seems as if the army generals who had tried to puff out their chests in an act of defiance may have been put in their place by the no-nonsense young officers.

That is some remarkable transition for Captain Camara, id est moving from being part of an army previously derided as a pack of malcontents to a wise president. It is an equally massive climb down for the hapless Ahmed Tidiane Souare, who had insisted that he was in control. Of course, army tanks rumbling through the streets of Conakry and unbridled joy of the citizenry made a mockery of Souare's proclamations. It was just bluster. These are the cowards and clowns that were terrorizing the defenseless people of Guinea.

Africa is replete with these pests and the events in Conakry must make this festive season uncomfortable for the continent's other evil rulers and their acolytes. When the evil die, people will not mourn but flood into the streets to celebrate.

With all due respect and apologies to all the dogs, Conte's carcass deserves to be buried like that of a dog. Moreover, I do not wish his crew a merry Christmas. For only this one Yuletide, I gladly play the Grinch. No sane person will mourn if there is a summary chopping of the heads of all the Conte Junta fat-necked members who rigged elections and drove the country into half a century of poverty. It would send a very loud and clear message to all the continent's cowardly fat-necked criminals who live lavish life styles, gather funds to visit death upon the defenceless and consigning the living to breathing noxious air, drinking water teeming with cholera bacterium and eking out a miserable living through picking maize grain on roadsides.

Flashback: Mugabe Reduced to a Pitiful Beggar

Mugabe Reduced to a Pitiful Beggar

First Published in The Harare Tribune
by T. Tut Tsanga; 11th January 2008
So, it is official, is it not? ZANU-PF’s Look-East Policy is dead. As Robert Gabriel Mugabe heads to Russia, begging bowl in hand, no one can doubt that it is a tacit acceptance that the foolish Look-East Policy has failed. That awful policy was doomed to fall flat on its face right from inception. As I have stated in a previous op-ed, the Chinese communists are not only über patriotic and ultra paranoid, they are also congenitally selfish and treacherous. Anyone in control of his or her mental faculties would have known that the Chinese are never to be trusted. Only lunatics would trust a nation that feeds its own children milk deliberately laced with poison. That is exactly what Mugabe and his collection of sycophants and psychopaths did, trust the Chinese. Folks, it is unvarnished lunacy.

The circle of lunatics surrounding Mugabe should have known that the Chinese would throw them out of the boat. When he tried to go to Beijing for the Olympics, Mugabe was told not to show up. He was as welcome as a skunk at that gathering. It is clear that the Chinese are tired of Mugabe and his syndicate. If the Chinese have intelligence officers in their Zimbabwean colony, the brazen public appearance of Chinese military officers at Gwanzura Stadium on the 18th April of 2008 tells us they have, it is possible that they have relayed the message to Beijing to let our Chinese communist colonial masters that they are betting on a dead horse.

The Chinese must know the extent of the internal rot that is eating away at the core of ZANU-PF. Yes, they may want the platinum, iron ore, precious metals replete in Zimbabwe and the newly discovered diamonds but they are also smart enough to know that Mugabe is now more of an unwanted burden than the tolerable nuisance they have brooked for years. He may not even be worth protecting anymore. Whatever Mugabe has to offer them, the Chinese have probably figured out the rewards are not worth a bucket of warm saliva. Even the pitilessly exploitative Chinese have their limits, you know. They can always cut new deals with governments with cleaner hands. There is no gain in propping up a regime in a terminal state.

To the Chinese, Mugabe and ZANU-PF were always as disposal as baby diapers – you use them once and discard them. With the Beijing Olympics over, China does not need to kowtow before an aging Third World tin-pot tyrant to get metals required for the construction industry. The Chinese demand for metals has plummeted since the end of the Olympics. This has been followed by a concomitant fall in the market value of metals.

That the Chinese have all but abandoned Mugabe is now quite apparent. With Zimbabwe desperate for help to fight cholera, our Beijing colonial masters donated a whooping U$5000 000! Yep, you got that right, China donated a grand total of half a million US dollars. Given the magnitude of the cholera crisis, the Chinese donation was not only an insult but the final nail into the coffin containing the carcass of the Look-East Policy.

Mugabe is in direr political straits than faced by the late despot and election-rigger, Lansana Conte, of the Republic of Guinea. Just as Conte’s terrible regime faced one mutiny after another from disgruntled army grunts, so has Mugabe’s miserable regime. When young Guinean soldiers faced starvation, they went on riot. Conte’s regime was in denial. The rioting soldiers were dismissed as malcontents. Instead of presiding over a government, in his last years, Conte was reduced to running a crime cartel under the pretext of being president. This is repeating itself in Zimbabwe where soldiers have gone on rampage only to be dismissed as unruly elements. Feeding them elephant meat does not help. The soldiers are not chained to their jobs and, sooner or later, will tire of the whole mess and leave.

Nothing lasts forever, as the Bible says. To everything there is a beginning and there is an end. There is no ubiquity in time for mortals or their hold on power or wealth. Formerly powerful empires have been created and crumbled. What luck would pathetic African dictatorships have? As soon as an opportunity to get rid of the criminal gang offered, Guinea's mafia was booted out. The foolish generals who had propped Conte were fired; probably the sickening kind that slavishly vows to salute only their benefactor. Aboubacar Sompare, among Conte's belligerent noise makers, of which ZANU-PF has many like Comrade Chinamasa, suddenly tucked his tail and started addressing the leader of the "malcontents" as Mr President and praising the young man for his wisdom.

Mugabe's regime is as doomed as Conte's cartel and, in light of that, the trip to Russia is a waste of time. It is nothing but a desperate flailing of the arms. As Hatirabwi Nathaniel Masikati has noted, ZANU-PF is very desperate. I do not see anything that Russia stands to gain from giving Mugabe U$2 – U$5 billion. Putin is more interested in finding investors for Russia rather than engaging in a worthless wild-goose chase in a far-flung decaying Southern African country. Mugabe may have mistaken Russian’s seemingly pro-Mugabe votes in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for support of what he is doing. Since he is badly advised by idiots like Brighton Matonga, Mugabe has drawn such a conclusion. It is erroneous. Spiking America for its encirclement of Russia with missiles is the primary, and most likely, the only motive of the Russian votes in the UNSC.

Russia does not need natural resources, contrary to Mugabe’s belief. It is a huge country and has just about every natural resource in great abundance. Right now the Russians are trying to make sure the price of crude oil is U$70 per barrel. If the price is lower than this, a huge gapping hole is left in the Russian budget, which would entail cutting funding for social but politically sensitive programmes. Every winter Russia closes its natural gas spigots to get money it is owed. Moreover, the fact that the ruble is in a freefall does not help Mugabe’s cause. Russia needs every ruble and may not have any spare change to throw into a beggar’s bowl.

If the hope is to use the Chiadzwa diamond fields as an incentive to attract Russian investors, someone needs to tell Mugabe not to waste his time begging for Russian aid. Any idiot with access to a computer and the internet will tell you that Russia is now the largest producer of diamonds ahead of Botswana. Mugabe’s advisors need to familiarize themselves with such minutiae but then, between running flower farms and selling diesel on the blackmarket, they do not have enough time for such trivialities. The trouble with Mugabe is that he always likes to surround himself with a cocoon of idiots, most of whom would not be able to tell the difference between a hole in the ground and the hole in their posterior.

Mugabe is a hostage to his own self-generated misfortunes. He is surrounded by functionally illiterate lunatics and crooks, none of whom really cares for the welfare of Mugabe and his family. They will not tell Mugabe the truth otherwise someone would have told him that running around the world to beg for help brings with it the putrid smell of mortification. A beggar has no dignity.

It is the younger members in ZANU-PF that have reduced Mugabe to a pitiful beggar. They are only too happy to see him humiliate himself before the eyes of the world because they think of Mugabe as a human shield against the righteous anger of the nation that seeks retribution for their transgressions. Mugabe needs to stop begging but the devious elements within ZANU-PF will not let it happen.

Clearly, Mugabe is at his wits’ end. Lewis Lapham saw this coming way back in 2001 and dismissed Mugabe’s rhetoric since it was completely divorced from reality. Mugabe had just given a firebrand speech at the United Nations Millennial Conference in which he characteristically denounced the hegemonic flexing of economic and military muscle by western governments and vowed to resist as a matter of principle. “Principles unsupported by the energies of a sustainable economy stand only at the whim of somebody else’ politics or money,” dismissively said Lapham in his book, Theater of War, Cleopatra’s Nose chapter. Running around to look for money vindicates Lewis Lapham’s pointed dismissal of Mugabe’s speech and grandstanding. It seems that no country wants to underwrite Mugabe's principles anymore.

Be that as it may, all this pitiful and ultimately futile begging is not necessary. Instead of wasting time launching bromides touting the ill-defined African Solutions for African Problems policy or the poorly formulated Look-East Policy, Mugabe ought to realize that there is only one clear and only viable alternative to his begging trips. He needs enough courage and manliness to cede power to Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC as mandated by the Zimbabwean electorate. It is the Zimbabwean Solution to the Zimbabwean Problem.

A transfer of power, however belated, will give Mugabe some degree of honour. Almost one year may have elapsed since the Zimbabwean poeple declared their quest to transfer the custodianship of the country into the hands of Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC but it is never too late to do the right and honourable thing. It is far better than begging. It does not take a n’anga to realize that.

I will conclude by reminding Gushungo that our forbearers left, for posterity, two admonishments instructive for this critical moment in our nation’s history, id est, kutonga madzoro – leadership is not a personal monopoly, it has to be relayed to others when the time comes – and, kumuzinda hakuna weko – the seat of power is nobody’s permanent residence. Members of your own family know this hence the reported attempt by your nephew, Patrick Zhuwao, to topple you from power. Some will tell you otherwise but these are the same people who have reduced you to a pitiful beggar and used, and are still using, you as a human shield for their selfish reasons.

Flashback: Tsvangirai Conscripted to Resurrect Political Cadavers?

by T. Tut Tsanga; 3rd February 2009

When your enemy is destroying himself, do not interfere. With ZANU-PF tittering on the brink of collapse under its own weight, Morgan Tsvangirai and his national committee did just that; incomprehensibly offer a lifeline to Mugabe and his band of unrepentant subordinates. Boy, no wonder the geriatric dictator was in rapture after Morgan Tsvangirai pulled an Esau, selling his political birth right for a mere plate of beans.

Mugabe may have been thrilled but his young and hitherto arrogant lieutenants are still nervous the whole thing may come tumbling down. The crowd at Talk Zimbabwe have been chewing fingernails. Take Garikai Chengu’s opinion editorial as an example. Chengu is tremulous over the discontentment over the GNU by some MDC functionaries as well as some quarters of the new media. Comrade Chengu is afraid that the disgruntled faction may break away and form a "nefarious" opposition. Comrade Chengu’s choice of words shows a disturbing trend. It tells us that ZANU-PF will not change its ways despite the new dispensation that calls for such changes. Members of the MDC leery of working with ZANU-PF are evil, charges Comrade Chengu.

Comrade Chengu, it is your visceral vituperations that are at the very core of the distrust and disgruntlement of the MDC elements. Chengu and his ilk are terrified this may mark the inception of a new opposition, sponsored by the Western powers, and the continuance of ZANU-PF’s death march. It is hoped that such elements have the moral fortitude to refuse inevitable overtures from western sponsors, prayerfully posits Chengu. Is Chengu preparing to call such an opposition a puppet of the West should such an opposition emerge?

This reflexive showering of abuse at those who disagree with the ZANU-PF agenda shows that there is no scintilla of remorse within ZANU-PF. Like Comrade Chengu’s op-ed, all the words emanating from the ZANU-PF noise machine are laced with familiar venom. There is no contrition whatsoever coming from the demolishers of Zimbabwe. On the 30th of January 2009, Talk Zimbabwe had a mocking title which read, and I quote; “Bennett quietly slips into Zimbabwe.”

Contrast that piece of cheap ZANU-PF propaganda with the report in The Zimbabwe Times. Ntando Ncube tells us Roy Bennett was welcomed at the Harare International Airport by an immigration officer who, upon inspecting Roy’s passport, said, “Oh, it’s you Mr Bennett, welcome back.” As an exclamation point, Ntando’s piece has a picture of the Lion of Chimanimani fearlessly and confidently walking in the streets of Harare in broad daylight, with a smile to boot. It is a picture worth a thousand words. That is not the image of a cowardly man quietly slipping into the country. The insinuation being that Bennett slinked his way back into the country like a wanted fugitive. Of course Bennett is only a fugitive in the minds of scoundrels that attempt to hide behind a façade of false patriotism.

It is not just the venomous-tinged rhetoric coming out of the ZANU-PF propaganda noise machine that causes people like Masimba Musodza to register understandable pessimism. The action on the ground, as of this writing, points to the leopard not changing its spots but its inherent predilection for goat meat is proven immutable with each passing day since the co-option of the MDC into the Mugabe-Mutambara suicide machine. ZANU-PF supporter, Nyarai Chidemo, writing from the comfort of the Scottish Highlands, urges Zimbabweans to focus on rebuilding the ZANU-PF wreckage that is Zimbabwe. It is quite significant that her co-columnist at Talk Zimbabwe, Brett Nyakudirwa, says it is time to beat swords into ploughshares. Brett has to be commended for this very instructive call.

Since it is ZANU-PF that has all the swords, the onus is upon it to beat the swords into ploughshares. We do not have to wait for six months or however long Mugabe wants to assess the sincerity of ZANU-PF. Mugabe and Mutambara can show the world they are serious by acting right now. I suggest the following;

• Free all the activists in detention. Up until Jestina Mukoko and all the activists under illegal detention are released without any delay or preconditions, the reservoirs of discontentment will get deeper. Ms Mukoko and company are political prisoners;
  
• Drop the trumped up charges against Tendai Biti;


• For championing the abduction of well-meaning citizens, Didymus Mutasa must be severely punished if wary elements are to be reassured;


• Unless ZANU-PF Chairman, Comrade John Nkomo, immediately releases all the farming equipment to the peasants for whom said equipment was acquired, there is no reason to believe that Mugabe has suddenly become sincere;


• Constantine Chiwenga must publicly account before the nation what happened to the donated maize seed and fertilizer the distribution of which was entrusted into his hands. Chiwenga, as expected, failed to reign in thieving soldiers and ZANU-PF members of parliament. The nation will face starvation despite the brisk rain and availability of resources. Chiwenga must be held accountable. He must be fired from the Armed Forces of Zimbabwe if Mugabe and Mutambara’s overtures of unity for the good of the country are to be taken seriously;


• Emerson Mnangagwa reportedly presided over the murderous JOC junta in the aftermath of the March 2009. He must be brought to book because he is likely to do it again based on his reported record in the Gukurahundi Genocide;


• Practitioner of voodoo economics, chief priest Gideon Gono, must be fired and sent to the knackery for stupidly thinking that looping off zeroes and printing worthless paper money will revive the economy and provide funding needed to take care of HIV-AIDS, cholera, paying school teachers etc. As long as Gono grows fatter and fatter as RBZ governor, with Mugabe’s approval, no one is bound to believe or accept the GNU. There are signs of Gono doing as he pleases and a sure sign that the GNU is doomed anyway;


• Those who ordered and carried out the murder of Tonderai Ndira and those who perished during the post March 2008 Genocide must be identified and punished. People of good conscience cannot permit criminals that murdered Zimbabweans in cold blood and left their bodies in the wilderness so that wild animals and birds could pick off flesh from their remains go unpunished. It is an abomination and the guilty parties must pay according to the mores of our customs – endai munoripa ngozi dzevanhu vamakaponda asi vasina chavakakutadzirai! Zvenyu zvekuti wafawarova inhema chete chete, mucharidza fengu mukasaripa;


• ZANU-PF ethnic cleansers, from Gukurahundi to the Cholera Plague weapon of mass destruction, must be hauled from the corridors of power, put on trial not at The Hague but the site of their crimes and punished to the fullest extent of the law. These characters are reportedly filthy rich and can afford to make monetary compensation to the families of their victims.

The country knows the identity of all the wicked people behind the Gukurahundi Genocide, Murambatsvina and Mavhoterapapi Ethnic Cleansers and those who have used the cholera plague as a biological weapon of mass destruction to farther the series of ethnic cleansing agenda. We should think of the elite that have emerged as a result of Mugabe’s patronage not as African nationalists to be admired continentwide but as a new ethnic group not restrained by any traditional strictures or rule of law from committing the most abhorrent atrocities on fellow compatriots. Only from that perspective can we begin to understand why the same cast of characters, our own wabenzi, has been deeply involved in all acts of ethnic cleansing.

Comrade Mugabe and Comrade Guseni Mutambara have been conscripted into accommodating Tsvangirai, a man both of whom loathe with a passion, by dire circumstances on the ground. What about the fate of the ethnic cleansing wabenzi? Mutambara has nothing to say about them. All he wants is money to help him consolidate power and it is not looking good on that front. Like the doofus he is, Comrade Guseni gave away the game at Davos. After spending an inordinate part of 2008 lecturing the West, the tactless doofus demanded that the very same West provide money to buy food for Mugabe’s increasingly desperate soldiers who are starving in the barracks. These are the same goons that thoughtlessly went on rampage, burning crops last year, just after the epic rejection of Mugabe from power and the complete humiliation of Comrade Guseni in Zengeza West.

Like a Pentecostal preacher, Comrade Guseni Mutambara had a few choice words for Gordon Brown and Barrack Obama, the only people likely to inject life into the comatose country that is Zimbabwe. Arthur, how can you be so stupid? First you rip out a sermon tearing apart your would-be benefactors and then pass the collection plate. The only thing worse than a choosing beggar is a congenitally insolent beggar. By barracking likely donors at every opportunity, no country will fund Comrade Guseni’s devious ascendancy to power and the man knows it.

Let us face it, ZANU-PF in tandem with SADC blackmailed Tsvangirai and the MDC into bailing Mugabe out of his troubles. Mugabe and ZANU-PF resolved not to let any help be given to people dying of cholera as long as they did not get the so called government of national unity. Bona has the luxury to go to a Chinese school but no other Zimbabwean child was be permitted to go to school as long as Bona’s father was not getting rescued from his follies. Education is not a privilege but a right. Anyone who threatens to destroy the nation’s children by sending soldiers to shut down schools is nothing but a treasonous snake. Snakes are not very pleasant creatures. The sticking point remains; who will fund the revival of Zimbabwe?

Mugabe and Mutambara want Tsvangirai to go out to beg for money, hat in hand. The success of the SADC-mediated Mugabe-Mutambara political Ponzi scheme hinges on monies generated using Tsvangirai as their ATM card. This presupposes that the sources of the much-needed money are stupid enough not to see the Ponzi scheme for what it is; a means to resurrect the post-rigor mortis political cadavers of Mugabe and Mutambara. It is going to be a tough sell.

Obama is struggling to get his economic stimulus package through and Mr Brown’s treasury will have to borrow £300 billion to stave off an economic depression. South African President Motlanthe promised to help rebuild Zimbabwe but this is the kind of a joke that could make a cow laugh. How can the ANC do for Zimbabwe what it has failed to do in South Africa? With member countries like Malawi bracing for trouble and non-members like Kenya facing starvation, SADC is quickly realizing the Herculean and futile task of helping Mugabe retain power and help him rebuild the country at the same time.

Thus helping Zimbabwe, as belligerently demanded by political cadaver Mutambara, is looking like a pipe dream with each ticking second. The political cadavers will inevitably be buried, as noted by Professor Makumbe, and people of good will hope Tsvangirai is not the proverbial stupid fly that goes into the grave with said cadavers. The success of the resurrection of the cadavers depends on the sincerity of Mugabe, which is as high as the belly of a snake. If Mugabe behaves true to form, and there are signs points to that according to the Bloomberg report, Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to join Mugabe and Mutambara will increasingly look more like a capitulation than pragmatism.