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Zimbabwe: Ndlovu Must Stop Talking Nonsense
Zimbabwe Independent (Harare)
COLUMN
April 13, 2007
Posted to the web April 13, 2007
A FEW weeks ago Muckraker expressed the hope that Herald columnist Obi Egbuna would receive an appropriate response from presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama whom the US-based media mercenary was trying to rope into his bid to resurrect President Mugabe's plummeting reputation among African Americans.
He now has his reply. On March 29 Barack led the Senate in tabling a resolution, concurrently with the House of Representatives, condemning "the recent violent actions of the government of Zimbabwe against peaceful opposition activists and members of civil society".
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Among those sponsoring the resolution in the House of Representatives were seven prominent members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Egbuna says some will try to find a silver lining to this dark cloud by hoping that if Obama gets into the White House "he will be in a position of power and with his love for his African heritage he will do what is in the best interest of Zimbabwe".
But Egbuna knows, as we do, that that won't happen. One of the most encouraging developments for Zimbabwe's civil society over the past seven years has been the wholesale desertion of African-American opinion from President Mugabe's cause. With the exception of a lunatic fringe of the sort associated with Coltrane Chimurenga and Pan-Africanist mercenaries like Egbuna who are sponsored by this regime to attack the MDC, African-Americans have largely lent their support to Zimbabwe's post-2000 struggle for freedom and democracy. Few of them have any liking for President Bush. But they like Mugabe even less! Egbuna, having been spurned by Obama, now fatuously claims the Illinois senator will, despite his African blood, allow Zimbabweans to "starve, suffer or even die".
"The Congressional Black Caucus, because of the influence of (Donald) Payne (chair of the CBC's Africa Brains Trust) appears 100% committed to attacking Bush on his policies on Iraq but giving him unconditional support in his quest to overthrow the government of President Mugabe and the ruling Zanu PF," Egbuna admits.
So another defeat for the regime's propagandists. What is particularly criminal about the likes of Egbuna has been their willingness to disregard state brutality. How do they justify kidnappings and killings of the regime's critics? How do they justify the attack on Nelson Chamisa with a metal bar at Harare Airport? How do they justify the abduction and murder of cameraman Edward Chikomba? We want to hear from Egbuna, masquerading as a journalist but in reality a blind apologist for a discredited regime.
Which brings us to Information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu who doesn't seem to mind how foolish he looks mouthing the lies the regime feeds him about the MDC.
Morgan Tsvangirai and his senior officers had been to "the United Kingdom and European Union calling for illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe", he claimed in remarks made to the Herald this week.
But he supplies no evidence for his charge.
"It all started when we were repossessing land from the white farmers," he said. Violence by the MDC "reared its ugly head" after the split in the party's ranks, he claimed, as seen by the attack on Trudy Stevenson.
We thought it "all started" when EU observer mission head Pierre Schori was booted out ahead of the 2002 presidential poll. The sanctions that followed were a direct result of the refusal by the regime to be transparent about its electoral process. Unsurprisingly, the EU refused to indulge political violence and institutional manipulation.
And it was useful to have Ndlovu's remarks about the attack on Stevenson following disclosures in the Mail & Guardian that Green Bombers were involved in the assault on the MDC MP. A defector on Thursday gave his account to the newspaper of the various missions National Youth Service trainees had been sent on to test their reliability. It is a shocking indictment of the way state funds are used to get even with political enemies.
The defector said he had been involved in sabotaging the Harare-Bulawayo railway line, disrupting an MDC rally at which Stevenson's arm was broken, and petrol-bombing certain offices and homes.
It won't be difficult for Ndlovu to dismiss the M&G story as the work of Zimbabwe's enemies. But we would be interested to hear from the minister, who owes his parliamentary seat to political patronage, how he explains the failure of the state to bring the killers of Cain Nkala and Patrick Nabanyama to trial. We raised this issue last week. And it needs to be raised again and again every time ministers and Zanu PF apologists accuse the MDC of terrorism.
resident Mugabe had hoped he could use Nkala's case to pin terrorism charges on the MDC. Instead the whole conspiracy backfired when the charges against MDC officials accused of Nkala's murder were thrown out of court as a tissue of lies. This was after they had been detained for over a year by a judge who declined to afford them the freedom to which they were entitled.
We all recall the phoney assassination charges brought against Ndabaningi Sithole and more recently Giles Mutseyekwa in the Mutare case. Now we learn that several of the MDC officials accused of involvement in the recent bombing campaign were in police cells at the time!
Exactly how they sneaked out to commit the crimes has not been revealed.
But Ndlovu must stop talking nonsense. Every single charge of terrorism or conspiracy brought against the MDC in the past has fallen flat on its face. The Herald has on at least one occasion been
forced to apologise for carrying invented stories about the bombing of high-rise buildings and anthrax attacks.
As for the US funding the MDC, which Ndlovu makes a meal of, it now transpires that US ambassador Christopher Dell was in Bulawayo on the day in February when the Herald "revealed" he had handed over a briefcase full of cash at a Harare hotel to Tsvangirai.
Dell points out that if the Herald had bothered to check the National Museum's visitors' book it would have found that he was down there on the day in question.
"They must realise," he said, "that to get the big lie right they have to get the little ones right first."
Ndlovu should take note before he discredits himself any further.
Meanwhile, we would be pleased to hear what progress the police have made in their investigation into Chamisa's assault.
Reports that the state is using hit squads to kidnap, beat and even kill suspected members of the opposition will ensure Zimbabwe is blacklisted for the 2010 World Cup, something any Minister of Information should worry about.
How serious are the authorities about the much-touted social contract? Last week the Herald ran a story headed "state to take action against firms for turning away workers". It contained threats made by Obert Mpofu against companies alleged to have closed down during last week's stayaway.
"We want to identify those abetting the stayaway so that we can confront them and find what their motives and agenda are," Mpofu said. He threatened to invoke "certain measures" against them. They were "sympathising with our detractors," he claimed.
Anybody approached by this malevolent minister for an explanation should read him the riot act about the state's systematic sabotage of the economy. They need to tell him that there is no question of industry or commerce sitting down with ministers who seek to penalise companies who identify with the plight of their workers.
"We want to identify those abetting national collapse," Mpofu should be told. And he needs to be confronted with the truth about his own role in all this.
Did readers of the Sunday Mail have a good chuckle over the newspaper's April Fools Day hoax? Somehow we don't think so. The paper ran two stories in its Entertainment section, one inviting readers to Africa Unity Square to witness an "eye-opening confession" by Makanaka Wakatama about her life, pregnancy and marriage, the other inviting aspiring models to go to Les Brown
pool to audition for a beauty contest.
Those "fooled" by the paper faced disappointment. Neither event was for real.
But did the paper have to inconvenience its "foolish" readers in that way?
Even media houses that are considered serious about news like to "play around with their readers", we were told. But that shouldn't involve wasted bus fares.
The Sunday Mail should stick to its "plots". They provide readers with enough amusement every week.
Muckraker came across an interesting posting on the Internet the other day. It purported to come from an Anglican bishop in Zimbabwe and spoke about the threat posed by neo-colonialism.
It was addressed to churches in the USA but it wasn't signed.
"Our dear Brethren in Christ," it read, "we write this letter in a situation in which we find ourselves profoundly distressed, disturbed, frustrated and in a state of utter disquietude about neo-colonialism and its adverse effects on Zimbabwe.
"About twenty-six years after political Independence, it is sad to note that the former colonisers have not given up."
It looked very much like something emanating from Zanu PF's propaganda department.
Zimbabwe has over the past few years received considerable adverse international media reports, as well as overt and covert alienation by some countries, primarily because of the "inevitable" land reform programme, the bishop claimed. "This was implemented in the country for the benefit of the landless folks," we are told.
No mention of whether the mailer was a beneficiary or not!
Then there are the sanctions.
"It has become common sense (sic) among Zimbabweans, to realise that sanctions against Zimbabwe are essentially tools of the imperialists, functioning as punishment and retribution against the country," he wrote. "Hence, the myth perpetuated by Western nations that the government of Zimbabwe has solely inflicted endurable pain on its people remains a political, economical and social fallacy."
He says he is ready to partake in interviews on radio stations. Also: "We are now ready to meet the Cuban Ambassador to Zimbabwe in connection with the planned visit to Cuba," he said.
"We therefore advise you to facilitate the said meeting and our visit to Cuba."
So who is this not-so-mysterious bishop? Quite clearly he is an apologist for the Zanu PF regime, mouthing their mantras but turning a blind eye to the human suffering their policies have spawned. He is also evidently a Zanu PF mouthpiece in demanding the lifting of sanctions and dishonestly laying blame for the nation's suffering at their door.
He manifestly fails as a Christian witness because he appears unconcerned with state torture and other forms of brutality.
And what role has the Cuban embassy played in encouraging this delinquent bishop?
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Let's hope his American audience is not as gullible as he thinks.
We are sure The Times correspondent Jan Raath was amused by the incompetence of Herald caption writers who in a picture of March 22 purporting to show him "amid slogan-chanting MDC activists" outside the Harare Magistrates' Court, labelled him "Young Rath" of Reuters.
In fact the person featured was Australian ambassador Jon Sheppard. "Young Rath" was not even there!
The accompanying article was written by the paper's Features and Political Editor.
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