Zimbabwe's Morgan Tsvangirai: Echoes of Nkomo

This is Nigel Mutemagau, the 2 two year old toddler imprisoned by the government at a Maximum Security Prison in Harare for some months before his release after an outcry, at his release from that notorious prison.

Now the Unity Government of Mugabe and Tsvangirai has imprisoned a nine month old baby

A nine month old baby has been thrown into jail by the government of Zimbabwe. The baby is there with its mother, a court clerk who is charged with abusing her office by ordering the release of Gandi Mudzingwa and two others.

Perhaps this is as good a time as any to take you back to what I wrote on this blog in November last year as the MDC and its supporters cried that it was better to die than to not be given the ministry of Home Affairs, which controls the police.

I did point out back then getting the Ministry of Home Affairs was irrelevant anyway and the MDC-T was simply fighting over an empty can.

I refered to Joshua Nkomo and the fact that he was told of the arrests of his top commanders, Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku, only after the warrants had been executed. No one had bothered to tell him about any of this, even though he was the Minister of Home Affairs, who, according to law, has to sign those arrest warrants.

I remember a reader here commenting that this would never happen to the MDC-T because they were wiser and times had changed, this was the "21st Century", was a particularly choice phrase from that comment.

So, here we are, in the 21 st Century. Things have changed?

If they have, I have to ask:

Why is the MDC-T Minister of Home Affairs, Giles Mutsekwa, signing arrest warrants for nine year old babies?

To say nothing of authorising the arrrests of court officials who have acted according to law to release the Minister and Prime Minister's own supporters and activists?

21st Century?

The arrest of Constance Gambanga has to do with the fact that the original granting of bail to Gandi Mudzingwa and his fellow prisoners was on April 9 this year. The Attorney General, waited until April 17 before submitting his appeal.

He had objected to the granting of bail and cited extraordinary and state security reasons for 

this. This had the effect of suspending the ruling made by the court to allow the State to approach a higher court with an appeal.

BUT, this appeal had to be made within 7 days of the granting of bail. That's the law.

The Attorney General, however, now says that because there were holidays in between, these should not be counted. Constance Gambanga read it to mean any seven days. Hence, April 17 being the 8th day, she went ahead and granted the defence their request to have the three released.

This is the crime that she committed. I am not sure what crime the nine month old committed. But let's leave that aside for now.

In essence, then, this argument is about interpretation of the law. Does it specifically say "seven working days" or just "seven days"? It appears to simply state "seven days", which means that Constance Gambaga acted according to how she understood this Zimbabwean law.

So then, over what is clearly a difference in opinion on what the law means, the Zimbabwe government is allowing a nine month old baby to be put behind bars?

Morgan Tsvangirai sleeps well at night, knowing that there is a nine month old baby in a flea-infested, filthy and stinking cell simply because its mother interpreted the law differently to the Attorney General?

We know Mugabe has no qualms about this. But Tsvangirai? And his minister of Home Affairs?

Remember, we were told by MDC-T and its supporters that they would never have a Nkomo pulled on them. They were streetwise, much more so than Nkomo. Time had moved on....

And, oh, there was the classic:".....all the policemen are now with Tsvangirai and they would refuse to obey illegal, illogical and anti-MDC instructions."

This idiocy was peddled by people who today remain quiet as the opposition party is disemboweled by Mugabe, soon to be discarded onto the same heap on which ZUM, UANC, Forum Party, Democratic Party, NAAG and many others now repose in eternal sleep.

If this is not so and things have indeed changed, then I ask again: what is an MDC minister doing signing arrest warrants for nine month old babies?