WHO IS TSVANGIRAI TO FORGIVE MUGABE REALLY?

 Mnangagwa and other genocidaires in Zanu PF continue to somnambulate and sleepwalk themselves into their impending doom, they continue to bask in the comfortable, conniving and conspiring “opposition” of Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC-T who have repeatedly promised to forgive Mugabe for Gukurahundi.

Whoever sold to Morgan Tsvangirai the foolishness that he has a right to forgive Mugabe on behalf of Gukurahundi victims and survivors needs to have their head examined by a competent expert because during Gukurahundi, Tsvangirai was a loyal and active member of Zanu PF le­ading the youth wing that over turned Nkomo’s car in Masvingo. Any wonder then that Tsvangirai is so protective of Mugabe when it comes to the massacres? In reality Tsvangirai is a lab creature of Zanu PF’s politics of tribalism and hatred.

Mnangagwa’s indecent words symbolize laughter at the unburied bones of the innocents and the tears of the orphans. Exactly what Mnangangwa means when he talks about “healed wounds” of Gukurahundi boggles the ordinary mind. It is not in the office of the perpetrator to tell the victims that their wounds have healed.Mnangagwa’s mockery of the blood of the innocent civilians who perished in the ethnic cleansing gives weight to the suggestions by the Mthwakazi Liberation Front that Matabeleland and Mashonaland be restored to their pre-colonial boundaries and separate existences. It is clear that justice for Gukurahundi atrocities will not be donated by the perpetrators but it will have to be extracted by the victims.

A combination of courage and willingness to die for justice by the victims, and the efforts of international players like Genocide Watch International, will turn the laughter of the Mnangagwas of our time into tears.It does not cross Mnangagwa’s mind or that of Zanu PF that out there, there are angry orphans who did not go to school, who will never be people again; people who are toiling in exile, enduring disabilities, haunted by memories of the slaughter and as a result do not believe in Zimbabwean nationalism, a nationalism that has only massacred them and not protected them as citizens.

It does not occur to Mnangagwa and to Zanu PF that this which appears like peace in the deprived region of Matabeleland is not peace but silence. Mnangagwa is blind to the truth that Gukurahundi victims know that even if the guns stopped in 1987, the genocide continues in other means. The occupation of Matabele ancestral lands by settlers from Mashonaland; the de-industrialisation of the region; the denial of water from the Zambezi; the killing of the language and culture of the people.

MDC-T activists may see the hand of state security agents behind these embarrassing revelations and would be right complain that their Zanu PF rivals are not subjected to the same scrutiny and exposure. But the MDC-T project promised that it would be different and yet we still do not see encouraging signs in that direction. Instead, we have the totally discomfiting picture of a party leader who treats women with the consideration of a medieval lord; a man who is clearly living it up, showering his many mistresses with expensive gifts and holidays at a time the large majority of the people he promised to deliver from Mugabe’s supposed tyranny continue to live a life of penury.

The more significant point however, was probably made by veteran journalist, Geoff Nyarota, in a recent article for The Standard newspaper when he suggested that Tsvangirai’s embarrassing conduct was unedifying and beneath the dignity of the office of Prime Minister. It may also be suggested that the messy and imprudent manner in which he has conducted his private life is not becoming of one who would be head of this nation; indeed, and to again borrow from Wilde, the masses expect that stupidity and immorality should be the property of ordinary people; their leaders must be people of good character and, when possible, awesome intellect.

Tsvangirai is evidently not gifted with an awesome intellect; and now we know that he does not have a good character either. I still do not have a clear idea of what kind of a country Tsvangirai’s Zimbabwe would be. What I am certain of now, at least and thankfully too, is that I must always tell my daughters to stay well clear of the fellow. But perhaps we are being too harsh with the man; perhaps the people responsible for this mess are the forces behind the MDC project who, in the premature belief that conditions were ripe for anyone/anything to win an election against Robert Mugabe, may have burdened this mediocre individual with responsibilities much too onerous for one so simple; indeed one so rudimentary. Tsvangirai was and remains a simple man who never had any grand designs for his life. He laboured through his secondary education, became a miner and started looking after his family; perfectly honourable.

The MDC-T leader never lived the ascetic and studious life of his bitter rival who read for all of six degrees and must have determined, at a very young age, that he, one day, would win power and retain it with a ruthless efficiency – which he has done. To be fair with him, Tsvangirai did well to become head of the country’s largest trade union body but to seek to propel him beyond that achievement is to promote the man beyond his capabilities and appropriate station in life. We are all for upward social mobility, but only up to a point.

As such, whether or not these revelations are a CIO and Zanu PF hatchet job is not the issue. The point is that if the last three decades have been a nightmare, then this nation deserves something better and it has since become evident that, with Tsvangirai, the ‘anyone-but-Mugabe’ lobby has failed to deliver.