Zimbabwe: Struggle fatigue is setting in!
Ken Mufuka
ALTHOUGH I am a patron of the Zimbabwe Global Forum, an organisation of Zimbabwean exiles, I have never encouraged people to flee from their country. I fled in 1984 because I could see clearly, having lived in Jamaica, that the Zimbabwe policies would lead to a confrontation with imperialists and capitalists which we could not win. The details are uncanny.
Today, I feel discouraged, and I realize that we have all been duped by Mukuru. Fatigue is setting in. I will no longer discourage those who want to flee.
Jamaica nationalised some agricultural land which belonged to the British sugar company Tate and Lyle in order to empower the brothers. The new farmers stood by the roadside selling each two pieces of sugarcane.
Jamaica ran out of sugar and vegetables which were imported form Florida. How ridiculous can people be? Needless to say, the Jamaican dollar dropped form two to the US dollar to 45.
And guess what, teachers sometimes went unpaid while the prime minister was in Britain negotiating with the imperialists he had cursed back home. There are now more Jamaicans living in New York than in their homeland. So what else is new under the sun?
What is new is our complete idiocy in refusing to appreciate that people who bring about such disasters are bull-headed, there is nothing to negotiate about. The government of national unity confirms the president for five years. We are definite idiots.
Secondly, the arrangement of sharing power leaves the day-to-day government in the prime minister’s hands and Council of Ministers. Such an arrangement can only work in Britain where the prime minister will advise the Queen on whom to appoint as the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The wise prime minister can achieve this consensus by whispering in the Queen’s ear first, and if the Queen were to object, he would suggest another name.
In Zimbabwe, the prime minister-designate travels to Swazi-land on a scheduled airline while the president has gone to the same place in a state-hired plane. The prime minister has no passport. He visits France on an indigent passport issued by the French to United Nations refugees.
Tell me, am I the only idiot in Zimbabwe? If the prime minister is on government business, trying to find support for starving Zimbabweans, should the president not give him his blessings?
If he does not, how then is the food to be distributed in Zimbabwe, and who will sign the cheques?
Many of our readers have cursed out brother Professor Arthur Mutambara about his view of the sharing of ministerial posts. Brother Mutambara is not very likeable; he called Sister Violet Gonda “slow” to her face, which is not very nice.
Mutambara is correct about the division of posts. The issue of who sits on the Home Affairs chair is a small issue, it does not concern the Southern African Development Community (SADC) or the African Union (AU) or the United Nations (UN). It is making a mountain out of a molehill.
With trust between the parties, surely the Home Affairs minister is subordinate to the prime minister and his actions must be approved. Likewise, the police commissioner the flag of Zimbabwe and the Republic for which it stands, not the prime minister’s person.
The problem is not about the position of Home Affairs, it is about trust. But that problem is endemic in the structures of government.
Whether we like it or not, we have been completely made fools of because we have failed to accept the obvious. Zimba-bweans are blaming South Africa, SADC and the AU for failure to force Mukuru to be reasonable.
The plain fact which has escaped those who have ears but don’t want to hear is that Mukuru is admired in some quarters in South Africa. It is the Idi Amin syndrome.
Thabo Mbeki supports Mukuru because he genuinely believes that he is a victim of imperialist chicanery. Any nationalist will have up to 20 examples of imperialist chicanery at his finger tips.
Do you know that Nelson Mandela was betrayed by the American CIA through use of a telephone at Rivonia farm in 1962? In 1960, Sir Alec Douglas Hume asked the American CIA to kill Patrice Lumumba.
In a land dispute with the Boers in 1876, Sir Theophilus Shepstone ruled in favour of the Zulus, then joined the Boers to destroy Zululand.
Why is it so difficult to understand that Pan-Africanists like Mutamabara, Mukuru, Museveni, Kabila, and Mbeki have reasons to dislike the imperialists?
Unless we accept the fact that liberation will not come from SADC because the majority have no sympathy with our struggle, we are swimming in darkness.
The idea that every day we must watch as the Zimbabwean police beat up nurses and doctors and they run away like scared children must be revie-wed.
In South Korea, the riot police are heavily armed against students, but it has never been a cake walk when those students go on strike.
Parliament should meet urgently. A moment of silence must be observed while the names of the saints like Chiminya, Chironga and others who died on our behalf are read. Their sacrifices are already considered as in vain.
As the white population dwindles, Zimbabwe will be regarded as another dark country in Africa.
President-elect Barack Obama will intensify sanctions already in place. On April 4, he “underscored the rejection of the failed policies and widespread suffering caused by Robert Mugabe’s repressive rule”.
On June 25, he said the Zimbabwean government was illegitimate and “lacks any credibility”. He also said he had spoken with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai to share “my concern and . . . to express my admiration for his efforts”.
On July 1, he said he felt saddened by the fact that Zim-babwe opposition supporters are “silently hunted, tortured and killed”.
What then is to be done? The world is in a state of fatigue. Liberation cannot come from SADC, or the AU or from France, or from Obama. Tyranny must be challenged by those suffering from it.
l Ken Mufuka is a patron of the Zimbabwe Global Forum, an organisation of over one million exiles. He welcomes suggestions from readers and can be reached at kenmufuka@yahoo.com
