"Urgent Need To Monitor Upsurge In Violence In Zimbabwe"

Robert "The Solution" Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai at the launch of something they called "National Healing" barely three months ago. MDC-T supporters dismissed reports here of continued militarisation of the countryside as sour grapes from Mavambo and Simba Makoni supporters. They dismissed all our warnings as not true and said Mugabe is finshed. SADC should leave them to their Solution and not respond to any reports of camps in the countryside or any other reports now being promoted as fact by the MDC-T and its supporters, the very same reports dismissed as false when we exposed here.

Harare, Zimbabwe, 04 November 2009

The Open Society Initiative, a South Africa-based NGO, has called on SADC to immediately send a delegation to Zimbabwe to monitor reports of an upsurge in violence in the country.

This is coming a bit late. As far back as four months, we warned on this very blog that JOC had deployed 2000 armed personnel into the countryside (200 per province). But at that time, Morgan Tsvangirai was still in the "Mugabe is the Solution" mode and I was accused by MDC-Tsvangirai supporters of only wanting to get attention for the party I support, Simba Makoni's Mavambo.

We also warned that there villagers were still being terrorised in the countryside, that the bases set up in June last year for the presidential run-off were still there. Again we were shouted down. The MDC-T was holding meetings in Uzumba Maramba and Pfungwe (ZANU PF stronghold), we were told by overzealous and out-of-touch MDC-T supporters. Like their leader, they know best, even if they are thousands of miles away in London and Minnesota and Johannesburg.

Morgan Tsvangirai subsequently confirmed all this detail in his "disengagement" statement. Now, all of sudden, the MDC-T wants us to feel pity for them?

So, I personally am tempted to say SADC should ignore these new calls. The MDC-T and their supporters denied the reports of these developments because they were too busy enjoying money and positions. They dismissed the truth because it was not convenient to their new-found best friend, Mugabe, who Morgan maintained was "The Solution".

But, of course, we are talking about the lives of Zimbabweans here. It is unlikely that Mugabe will agree to the deployment of a team to monitor violence.

But this is really going on.

Only yesterday, Dr Makoni was at a function where a priest from the Mt Darwin/Shamva area confirmed that reports of intimidation are pouring in. In fact, the priest, whom I can not name for his own safety, revealed that just last week, Jabulani Sibanda, Mugabe's hatchet-man (he railroaded Mugabe's nomination for candidate for the office of President at the December 2007 ZANU PF Congress) was in the area, saying that this time around, there will be "short sleeve, long sleeve" (the practice of either cutting off the hand (short sleeve) or the arm (long sleeve) that was prevalent during the presidential run-off). He told the villagers that they will just put a bullet through the head of anyone seen supporting Tsvangirai

And MDC-T supporters insist that the process of "change" is irreversible because Morgan Tsvangirai is called "Prime Minister"?

He still is the Prime Minister of the government even as this is happening to MDC-T supporters. Only now, there is no Simba Makoni, as there was in the March election, to sow stem the violence. Now, it is only Morgan and Mugabe, head to head. Let us hope that, in the next elections, Makoni will be present again to ensure that there is no electoral violence as he did in the March 2008 election. It is simply the man's sheer moral authority that ensured that.

So, what next? If Mugabe will not allow these monitors to come in (and he will not), what is next?

Well, the thing is, SADC knows that Mugabe will not allow this to happen,so they will not even bring up the subject with Mugabe. They will avoid the subject just so they avoid the embarrassment of having to be turned down. I am sure even those making these noises know this.

And, even if, by some miracle, SADC teams were to come in, the intimidation will not stop. The majority of our population live in the rural areas. The dollarisation of Zimbabwe's population, together with the 90% unemployment, mean that even more people have migrated to the rural areas.

SADC can not cover the whole countryside. The people will also know that SADC will have to leave at some point. And when they do, there will be hell to pay. So, the history of violence will still work for Mugabe.

The only way to stop the violence is organic, home-grown, as was shown by Simba Makoni in March last year. This is also the main reason why reconciliation and national healing, despite the high-sounding words from Mugabe and Tsvangirai, will never ever come about if supervised by these two. They both lack the moral authority internally (within Zimbabwe) to do this.

But, as Morgan Tsvangirai insists that Mugabe is The Solution, let him work with the solution and see how far he can get. The people of Zimbabwe can not continue to be held hostage to the ambitions of Tsvangirai. They can not continue swallowing the tripe Tsvangirai is the one and only person who can end all this.

He has shown that he can not. He says only Mugabe, who is The Solution, can end it. But Mugabe does not want to do that.

So back to Square One.

Something will give. It has to. But it will not be because of SADC of AU or United Nations. It will come from Zimbabweans themselves. That day is not too distant into the future, as Morgan Tsvangirai discredits himself in the eyes of voters everyday.