It must be pretty frustrating for the ordinary guy with very empty pockets who has looked up to other people to solve Zimbabwe’s headache, a migraine that has defied the Aspirin that has come in many shapes and forms rendering it nothing but a very useless placebo. Turns out SADC has been such an Aspirin, at least faced with an obdurate headache in the form of Zanu PF. Each time SADC meets to map the way forward concerning the holding of elections, whatever communiqué is issued after such lengthy deliberations appears to be futile in that it has become predictable for the ordinary guy with very empty pockets that President Mugabe will say no one will dictate to Zimbabwe, a sovereign nation, what to do.
Mugabe has said no one has a right to interfere in the affairs of “his” country, effectively saying whatever it is that SADC recommends, he will not accept it as long it does not coincide with his own position, never mind how anti-people that position has been fashioned. You only have to listen to or read statements from party blabbermouth Rugare Gumbo, and you wonder if Zanu PF has any reason belonging to SADC. The ordinary guy with very empty pockets believes Zanu PF belongs to the dustbin of history, I heard the guy say the other day! But then the pan-Africanist shindig bringing together Africa’s “leading liberation movements” here has been cited by Zanu PF loyalists (like that beefy guy Herald guy booted out of Botswana a few years back) as proof that Mugabe is being supported by fellow anti-imperialist spirits in his calls for polls this year. It was then US President Ronald Reagan who said the memorable line back in 1985 after “terrorist attacks by Shi’ite Muslims”: “We are not going to tolerate these attacks from outlaw states, run by the strangest collection of misfits, looney tunes and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich.” Well, the same can be said about these folks!
Finance Minister Tendai Biti and human rights watchers in and outside the country have already said holding elections this year and without any electoral reforms is one sure way to sacrifice people’s lives as a political violence powder keg is sure to explode, recalling of course the 2008 madness where Zanu PF enthusiasts are accused of punishing political opponents with death. It ain’t alarmists who are predicting blood and gore if polls are held without the necessary conditions being set as already outlined by the GPA and as insisted by the MDC, but it is indeed safe to say the world has been warned about the political violence that has already begun in many parts of the country. Imagine then if the polls are officially called? Considering this, no one therefore can be criticised for concluding that this could yet be another African story of dead consciences where people will say they saw it coming but did nothing to stop it before it happened. There are just too many such stories that do not need any repeating.
And the painful bit is that some faith-based non-governmental organisations and Churches are already involved in activities and programmes of national healing where victims of political violence during past elections are sitting together with the perpetrators in search of peace in their hearts. What then becomes of these people in the face of yet more election violence when past scars remain unhealed? And this in a country where 1980s violence continues to hog contemporary political discourse. You just have to listen to Moses Mzila Ndlovu to get the point. And the guy is a government minister!
