“Was the court there when we went to war? I was not invited to the liberation struggle by a court.”
DESPERATE attempts to shore up President Robert Mugabe’s waning political fortunes hit new lows on Thursday last week when police recruits were forced to liken the doddering nonagenarian to Jesus Christ.
“Like Jesus Christ who was crucified by a people whom He saved, you have innocently grappled with all forms of persecution. Your Excellency, the writing is clear on the wall that you are the angel Gabriel sent to deliver Zimbabwe and Africa,” the police graduates at Morris Depot in Harare intoned, while making a pledge before Mugabe who officiated at the ceremony. “Because of you (Mugabe), Zimbabwe is a land of peace and tranquility, equity, equality, freedom, fairness, honesty and the dignity of hard work. You have been attacked for championing the cause of the people, justice and equality, for denouncing racial segregation, immorality, corruption, human rights abuses and violence.”
That police recruits are being used to recite such blasphemous demagoguery shows that professionalism in the Zimbabwe Republic Police force has gone to the dogs.
This sacrilegious hogwash is particularly sickening when it claims that Mugabe, like Jesus, is being persecuted by a people he saved. If anything, Mugabe’s regime has persecuted and oppressed Zimbabweans through intimidation and repression of dissenting voices and disastrous policies that has left the majority of the country’s citizens in abject poverty. The masses are also enduring debilitating cash shortages, joblessness and company closures.
The protests on Wednesday this week against joblessness and the imminent introduction of bond notes show that Mugabe is nowhere near to being the country’s saviour. If any biblical comparisons are to be made, Mugabe, given the suffering he has caused, would be equated to the Egyptian Pharaoh who refused to let the Israelites go. Comparing Mugabe to Jesus is simply ungodly!
Clueless Chimene
That Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister Mandiitawepi Chimene is not the brightest light on the chandelier is a given. She demonstrated this yet again in an interview with our sister paper The Standard this week.
Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister Mandiitawepi Chimene
When asked if by continuing to masquerade as the acting war veterans chair, was she not violating a court order that forbade her to. She retorted: “Was the court there when we went to war? I was not invited to the liberation struggle by a court.”
Her contempt for the courts was further demonstrated when she invaded a farm in Rusape despite a High Court order barring her from such conduct. It is such disgraceful conduct that makes the country a laughing stock and makes a mockery of government’s efforts to lure investment into the country. It shows that she has no understanding of the sanctity of court orders, which makes her folly not only ludicrous, but also harmful to the country’s investment prospects. No sane investor would make any significant investment in a country where politicians like Chimene act like barbarians violating the law with reckless abandon.
Well, at least she had the courage to “grab the crocodile by the neck” last Thursday in public. It was a hilarious charge at Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa who looked dazed in front of thousands of Zanu PF supporters.
Shameful export
Revelations by Higher Education deputy minister Godfrey Gandawa that the labour export policy is at an advanced stage and nearing completion crystalises government’s shameful failure to create jobs despite promising to 2,2 million jobs in 2013.
With no sense of irony, the deputy minister said completion of the policy would promote government investment in human capital. There you have it! After years of fighting the devastating effects of brain drain, the government is now accelerating the haemorrhaging of vital skills euphemised as “brain circulation”, which is nothing short of scandalous.
This is a stark admission that the government has no clue on how to curb the high unemployment rate as a result of company closures, job losses and economic deterioration.
Gandawa’s recent admission that government has no capacity to create 2,2 million jobs proves what we have known all along, that Zanu PF’s election promises are not worth the paper they are printed on.
In fact, its manifesto is full of egregious lies.
Cloud cuckoo land
Apparently, Grace is not the only clueless one in cloud cuckoo land. One of the drawcards in her travelling troupe of performers in the meet-the-people tours Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko was recently in Bulawayo where he urged Zimbabweans to take advantage of the “prevailing peace” in the country to empower themselves through various economic initiatives.
As world-acclaimed dub poet Albert Nyathi once asked “what peace?”. We also ask what peace when war veterans are being teargassed and chased away with water cannons? What peace when journalists are brutally beaten up by police for covering protests by peaceful citizens? What peace when we live in a police state?
And still on Mphoko, evidently it remains a sore point that his liberation war credentials continue being questioned.
“I’m aware that there are some people who go around saying I didn’t participate in the liberation struggle. I left the country to join the liberation struggle on April 4 1964 and returned on January 13 1980, together with the late former vice-president Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo. I worked alongside veterans such as Cde Ambrose Mutinhiri and we were Zipra commanders,” Mphoko said during the weekend while generously “empowering” the city of Bulawayo with a donation of 2 500 day-old chicks.
It is not faceless people comrade Mphoko who are casting aspersions on your war record. Former Zipra military supremo Dumiso Dabengwa has publicly stated that you abandoned Zipra as has war veterans leader Chris Mutsvangwa who stated that you abandoned the rigours and hardships of the war for the marital and hotel comforts in Maputo, Mozambique.
Now we know where Mphoko’s fixation with hotels comes from.
DNA of dictators
The failure to be in tune with the realities on the ground where it concerns the travails and daily tribulations of the toiling masses they load it over seems to be a common thread running through the veins of all dictators. By gathering to fire nine more party members on a wintry Harare Wednesday afternoon, Mugabe and his politburo performed the equivalent of Roman emperor Nero’s fidgeting while Rome was burning.
Amid the socio-political and economic turmoil characterised by cash shortages, high unemployment and restless citizens, Mugabe and his team could only think of striking out at in-house opponents. A classic example of the revolution devouring its own children.
short and sweet …
Mnangagwa throws comrades under the bus
LAST Thursday, G40 all-purpose attack dog Mandi Chimene ruthlessly demystified and exposed Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s cowardice as President Robert Mugabe’s ambitious succession contender when she lunged and tore him to pieces right in front of thousands of Zanu PF supporters.
Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa
Charging like a scorned woman, Chimene launched a flurry of frontal attacks on Mnangagwa accusing him of leading a rebellious faction plotting to oust Mugabe from power using war veterans who two weeks ago issued a Mgagao-like communiqué saying their patron had dismally failed and should now go.
Chimene called a spade a spade; told it like it is. It was brutal. Mnangagwa was visibly cornered like a rat. While some thought he would subsequently say enough is enough after the assault and fight back, he predictably took the easy way out: begging and pledging unwavering loyalty to Mugabe.
After claiming he was unfazed and undeterred by barking elements, the VP — running scared — eventually issued a gutless statement distancing himself from his brave allies.
“I have never at any one time directly or indirectly established, formed, convened or sought to benefit from the alleged grouping, or other such groupings of dubious and libellous character as alleged,” Mnangagwa said.
“I have in no way, either by acts of commission or omission, sought to arrogate power and authority to myself, away from His Excellency the President and First Secretary, Cde RG Mugabe …
“To that end, as I have done for the better part of my life, I re-affirm and pledge as in the past, to defend and stand by the person and legacy of His Excellency, the President and First Secretary of our tried and tested revolutionary party.”
Mnangagwa’s cowardly and pathetic grovelling remarks went on for about 1 395 words. In the process, he threw his war veteran comrades under the bus, Tsholotsho-style. It was an unmitigated disaster for someone who wants power amid such a cutthroat political battle.
Mnangagwa should shape up or ship out.
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