MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai responds to the current cycle of denials and propaganda campaign in Zimbabwe
15 January 2003.
For the record, Zimbabweans and the international community need to know that early last month, Colonel Lionel Dyck came to see me at my home purporting to be carrying a message from Emmerson Mnangagwa and General Zvinavashe.
I gave him an ear and he stated that he was a messenger of the two Zanu PF politburo members. The two wanted to hear my views on the way forward, now that Robert Mugabe had, in Dyck's words, long indicated that he wanted to retire, was being restrained by Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe, and could only be allowed to do so at such a time deemed appropriate by the two and many others in ZANU PF.
I told Dyck that, as we had said in the past, Mugabe's departure was long overdue and that we were prepared to assist in the necessary transitional arrangements to enable Zimbabwe to move forward.
The initiative from elements within ZANU PF to approach me through Col. Dyck was entirely their own affair. Dyck himself confirmed to The Daily News on 19 December 2002 that a group led by Emmerson Mnangagwa and General Zvinavashe with Mugabe's concurrence out of the realization that he has lost all capacity to govern, had sent him.
There is all the evidence that this regime now relies only on violence to force its will upon the people. It is a regime, which rules for its own benefit and impoverishing everybody. How many ordinary Zimbabweans can afford to import food parcels from London and Johannesburg as Mugabe and his poodle Jonathan Moyo are doing? Dictatorial rule is now big business and fabulous affluence for the few families of those who anchor and maintain the dictatorship.
When I told Dyck that we were prepared to assist with the transitional arrangements, I made it categorically clear that this does not mean participating in the formation of a government of national unity or some underhand pact with Zanu PF.
The MDC did not approach ZANU PF, instead it is the Mugabe dictatorship, which has periodically send envoys. Dyck is not the only one who was sent to fly a kite. There have been a few occasions when even men of the cloth have approached the MDC purporting to convey messages from Mugabe.
The MDC has never approached ZANU PF through surrogates and will not do so.
We have stated clearly in the past and would want to state again that the Mugabe regime is irretrievably illegitimate and the only way forward is for it to accept that fact. There is no political solution outside a course that charts the way for a return to legitimacy.
We will never be party to any political arrangement that seeks to sanitize Mugabe's violent illegitimacy, and that includes Mugabe's retirement plans and the so-called government of national unity. We will never institutionalise and expand illegitimacy.
The MDC is not in the business of arranging succession strategies for an illegitimate regime that survives on the basis of a systematic and ruthless subversion of democracy and fundamental human rights and continues to rule through the barrel of the gun.
Our position has remained unchanged since the aborted inter-party dialogue in March 2002. There can be no resolution of the Zimbabwean crisis without a return to legitimacy through a re-run of the stolen the election under free and fair electoral conditions guaranteed and supervised by the international community.
The Mugabe illegitimate regime cannot be expected or trusted to superintend a process towards a restoration of the people's sovereign will.
Mugabe's greatest nemesis remains the economy, which refuses to bend to all his dictatorial formulae. He cannot use on the economy the same weapons he is using to subvert democracy and crush human rights. He cannot rig it, he cannot shoot it, he cannot intimidate it, and although he raped it, the economy continues to deliver and land fatal blows that Mugabe cannot block.
This situation is going to expose the hollowness of Mugabe's cheap and insensitive boast that he will stay and continue to brutalize and cause untold suffering among Zimbabweans.
Right now the country is grinding to a halt through an acute shortage of fuel and Mugabe does not know where the next litre of diesel or petrol is going to come from. The current stocks of fuel and maize were procured with a US$50 million loan secured at the beginning of December from a Cairo-based bank. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has a minority shareholding in this particular bank.
The fuel is being released to the market in small dosages in order to stretch it as far as possible. It runs out at the end of the month.
Thereafter a new line of credit has to be sourced, a difficult assignment for the rogue regime now that all avenues for support have dried up.
The dictatorship in Zimbabwe today is a unique one, which will meet an equally unique ending.
I issued a public statement on the 18th of December 2002 condemning what we considered to be a plan to legitimise the Mugabe regime through underhand dealings.
The media paid little attention to that statement. Three weeks later, this subject re-surfaced with reports that a so-called deal had been struck between Mnangagwa, Zvinavashe and myself. This is not true. No deal was struck. I never met Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe. I met Dyck who claimed to be their messenger. I did not look out for him. He came to me.
In the spin of denials, Zanu PF propaganda and vitriol, the onus is on Dyck and his principals to explain. It has never been our responsibility to speak on behalf of this illegitimate government and its violent political party.
Mugabe and Zanu PF must move beyond what has now become their habitual assumption that the MDC will disappear through violence and a propaganda onslaught.
No amount of demonisation in the public media will bring lasting peace to a country that Mugabe has systematically destroyed in his quest to hold onto power illegitimately.
Mugabe must realise that he is now alone in his stubborn determination to hold onto office. All his lieutenants have virtually abandoned him and maintain an appearance of loyalty out fear.
The machinery around Mugabe is now collapsing fast and leaking heavily. Daily I receive tonnes of information about the goings on in government, in ZANU PF, at State House and Munhumutapa Building from people close to Mugabe seeking guidance from me as the legitimate leader of Zimbabwe whose victory was denied through theft in March 2002.
The latest information to reach my desk came in the form of reports of announcement by Mugabe to his close family members urging them to get ready for life after his 23-year old dictatorship. And, that is soon. One of their number even remarked that he has to start looking for a job overseas.
Mugabe and his cronies need to know that the real Zimbabwean drama will begin to unfold very soon when it becomes clear that we are headed for another serious drought.
Commercial agriculture has collapsed and nothing is happening in the former commercial farms. The entire landscape has been reduced to wasteland, as the new owners fight over farmhouses and farm equipment.
Our goal is not only to end this era of tyranny, but also to begin something completely new. We seek to raise the profile of ordinary Zimbabweans by bringing about positive changes within our citizens through the restoration of their values and dignity as human beings.
We shall build a nation in which problems are tackled with courage and in a constructive manner. If we are to avoid bloodshed and achieve the change we have been trying to secure over the past three years, there is no other way other than through constructive dialogue.
We have an economic rescue plan designed to re-open the closed factories, launch an expansive public works programme to alleviate housing shortages and create jobs, attract new investment and expand employment opportunities.
We will resuscitate mutually beneficial bilateral relations and re-engage the multilateral financial institutions.
Our international partners stand ready to respond to a clear signal from us to come in and team up with us in a determined effort to revive the shattered economy.
Morgan Tsvangirai
MDC President, Harare, Zimbabwe
|
|
You can make a difference
|
|
 |
Make a donation |
|
Support Zimbabwe at an event |
|
Lobby your local Government member |
|
Become a member of the ZIC |
|
