MDC Dealt Heavy Blow By One Of Their Own

Mugabe blames every ill bedevilling Zimbabwe on sanctions. And now he is getting the help of MDC officials in "exposing" Tsvangirai and the MDC as the people who crafted those sanctions. There really is no Unity Government in Zimbabwe any more

Harare, Zimbabwe, 24 September 2009

An MDC official has told the nation on television and radio that the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA) passed in the United States Congress some years ago was actually written by the MDC Executive at a hotel in Nyanga.

Gabriel Chaibva, who subsequently broke away from the Tsvangirai MDC with Welshman Ncube and others, says some of the MDC officials present protested at the move. Munyaradzi Gwisai, a virulently anti-Mugabe member of the Socialist International and an MDC MP for Highfields at the time, is said to have walked out of the meeting in protest.

"I was there when ZIDERA was crafted in Nyanga by the MDC. At that point, Munyaradzi Gwisai stood up in protest and told everyone present that the MDC had been taken over by the US and Europe and business was no longer controlled from Harvest House," said Chaibva.

For those of you who do not know, ZIDERA, which was signed into law by George W. Bush, specifically directs US officials at the IMF, World Bank and even the African Development Bank to block any applications for finance and credit lines by Zimbabwe until the president of the United States decides otherwise.

I am told that, in a strategy almost certainly crafted by Jonathan Moyo, ZANU PF is now going to start explicitly asking for the travel bans to stay and shift focus to such sanctions as ZIDERA and EU sanctions on Zimbabwean companies.

I dare say it would be a diabolically clever move, because it will disarm the west and the MDC to hear Mugabe say he does not want the travel ban against him and his people lifted, but that he wants credit lines and aid to help the Inclusive Government.

State media has been replaying Chaibva's comments of late, commenting that the revelation "puts paid to denials by the MDC that it did not call for sanctions." They drafted the sanctions, state media points out.

Like I told you last week, Mugabe sees ZIDERA as the root cause of the economic ills of Zimbabwe.

This rise in the volume on sanctions and ZIDERA specifically signals without a doubt that this Inclusive Government is all but dead.

This is campaigning, basically. Tsvangirai, ZANU PF now knows, can not get those sanctions lifted no matter what he does and I am afraid that the originally strategy by Mugabe as I explained here last year is now unfolding.

That strategy was to get Tsvangirai in government and then tell the nation that the "sanctions" against Zimbabwe were nothing to do with human rights abuses but had everything to do with Land Reform. Mugabe intends to tell rallies that Tsvangirai was simply used and that even if they elect him as president, they would still suffer under sanctions until land taken from whites is returned to them.