Three MDC-T officials died on Saturday afternoon while 12 others were injured after two vehicles travelling on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s convoy were involved in an accident on their way from the party’s 11th anniversary celebration in Gokwe.
Evelyn Masaiti, a former Deputy Minister of Women’s Affairs, was among the injured.
Those who died are Alex Magunda, the party’s district chairman for St Mary’s, Loveless Sango, vice-chairperson of the district, and Innocent Muzuva, secretary for Ward 1 in St Mary’s.
They died upon arrival at Zhombe District Hospital, along the Kwekwe–Gokwe Road.
Police yesterday confirmed the accident that occured near the Empress Mine turnoff along the Gokwe- Kwekwe Road.
The accident happened around 3pm. Tsvangirai and senior MDC-T officials Sunday visited the families of the three deceased party activists in Chitungwiza to express their condolonces.
National Traffic police spokesperson Tigere Chigome said the accident happened after Masaiti, who was driving the other car involved in the accident, attempted to overtake.
But on suddenly seeing an oncoming vehicle, the former deputy minister hastily returned to her lane, resulting in her vehicle smashing the back of a Toyota Vigo that was being driven by a councillor from Chitungwiza.
“The accident happened at around 1500hours on Saturday at the 79km peg along the Gokwe-Kwekwe Road,” he said.
CONTINUES BELOW
“The accident involved a vehicle driven by MP for Dzivarasekwa Evelyn Masaiti which was heading towards Kwekwe with four passengers and followed by a Toyota Hilux that had 13 people on board,” Chigome said.
Chigome said Masaiti tried to overtake but realised there was a vehicle in front which she tried to avoid.
Tsvangirai, who was party of the long convoy, is said to have arrived, 10 minutes after the accident and was part of the people who followed up the injured at Kwekwe General Hospital.
Yesterday, Masaiti was struggling to walk and was being aided by Labour and Social Welfare minister Paurina Mpariwa.
She joined Tsvangirai, Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe, Nelson Chamisa and other senior MDC-T officials in consoling families of the three accident victims.
Lloyd Damba, the MDC-T spokesperson in Chitungwiza, said Masaiti’s vehicle hit the Toyota Vigo and it rammed into a tree uprooting it in the process. MDC-T senior officials consoled families of the deceased party supporters and described them as the “heroes of real change”.
Business almost came to a standstill as Chitungwiza residents joined the MDC-T leaders in consoling the families of the deceased.
Khupe could not hide her grief as she sobbed uncontrollably.
Chamisa, the MDC-T spokesperson, said the three were “real change heroes” and would get party-assisted funerals.
The injured were airlifted from Kwekwe to a Harare hospital with the assistance of the party.
Tsvangirai told mourners that the death of the three party supporters has come at a time when the party was celebrating 11 years of its existence.
“Now the party and the families let us unite to bury our heroes,” he said
Adopted from an article by Moses Matenga which appeared in NEWS DAY
Sunday 12 September 2010
Tuesday 7 September 2010
Preying on the dead
Preying on the dead
REJOICE NGWENYA
HARARE - Sep 05 2010 19:35
In my religion of Adventism, dead people have no influence on the living except lingering illusions of good and bad memories.
Hard-core traditionalists will argue that svikiros and amadhlozi are in themselves manifestations of a busy mysterious world of the dead, when those that have passed on make statements through selected village icons.
Grown men of respectable disposable incomes and social status visit cemeteries, lie prostrate and thank those who lie cold in fresh graves for leaving no stone unturned in punishing family adversaries! Pseudo-Christians even go further to justify voodoo practices by quoting Saul’s Old Testament’s encounter with the late prophet Samuel.
Of course, the devil’s work is on display in all manner and form, but those who have money to discard have found painless avenues — evoking the spirits of the dead.
Drunken vagrants taunt so-called evil spirits by crossing graveyards after dark, but the worst fate to befall them is a nasty fall onto a headstone!
My experience is that one can say the most vulgar things about the dead without so much as losing a single hair.
But of late, we have had high-level graveside theatrics to correct misdemeanours of the past.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is not an Adventist, so he might not know the basic doctrinal fact that dead men don’t give standing ovations even after emotional apologetic eulogies.
And so whatever good intentions he had of what he said about the late Gibson Sibanda, they will count for nothing for eternity, except in the unlikely event that these two both live in the same fashionable neighbourhoods in Heaven.
Sibanda, meanwhile, lies deep in the cold soil of the unfashionable neighbourhoods of Komcondo, Insiza, so he does not, will never know how sorry his former colleague in the struggle is about the MDC split.
The proverbial phrase about turning in one’s grave does not apply, except in the minds of scriptwriters of great film epics like Morgan and the Temple of Self-Doomception.
And yet Tsvangirai for once got his facts right on the split, and if my old friend Trudy Stevenson were there, she would have bowled over in ecstatic and sarcastic French laughter:
“The political developments in this country will never be the same again after the formation of the MDC, but the saddest thing in my life is the split of the MDC,” Tsvangirai mourned.
I personally have had saddest points in my life: deportation from England in 1998 due to poor documentation, breaking a leg in 1981 playing soccer in a dusty field in Kawangware squatter camp, Nairobi, and, of course, being told I was a skinny good-for-nothing boy back in 1973 by the pretty girl next door!
Sadness comes with a price.
At one time in March 2008, we all thought Tsvangirai was president-elect until Mugabe eloped with the election results! Tsvangirai waited for political volcanoes to explode, but the mountains of national sadness remained dormant until Mugabe declared himself a one-band winner.
So much for sadness! Trudy would chuckle: “That’s Morgan for you, waiting for the world to come to his rescue!” Make me prime minister and I could have a sad day once every thirtieth funeral! In fact, I would even be sadder if I buried only one dictator once every 30 years!
Here is more fodder for typical Trudy laughter: “What we said after the split, I regret it. I am sorry Gibson for what we said at that moment, it was a moment of weakness and it was not worth it,” said an emotional Tsvangirai at Sibanda’s memorial service. Hello! Gibson, can you hear me? I said I am sorry, so get out of that casket, let’s hug and go back to Harvest House. This time handilume!
I mean I thought comedy hour was only in the politburo! Luckily, sadness is curable — take one ice cube once a day after every meal. It dissolves fast! What a joke, another moment of weakness, like Umdala Wabo signing the unity agreement under duress or Perence giving orders for the castration of all Ndebele men! Some sad moments are longer than others, but it’s not funny, for if it was, Professor Mutambara would be laughing.
Apologising is not a new phenomenon, but apparently, Mugabe does not have the word in his Shona dictionary. It’s an African man thing. My wife thinks I don’t apologise often enough – but we have not split! Apologising — they say — is a sign of weakness, at least at ZBC and The Herald.
Play Nyatsoteerera as often as you want, who’s listening anyway? If you apologise, the referee will show you the red card. He hates weaklings!
In some quarters, apologies are a delicacy. Fidel Castro apologised for mistreating gays.
The Pope did so on behalf of Irish child molesters, so did the Australians for exterminating aborigines.
Welcome to the apology hall of famers, Tsvangirai.
Tell me, I haven’t seen Bishop Kunonga, Mugabe or Temba Mliswa. Could they have been caught up in the apology logjam?
My wife has a saying: “All men are dogs.” The only problem: would they cross over to exercise their extra-marital conjugal rights with members of the canine race? Her point is that we men are gifted liars.
We even deceive the dead, hoping that those who are alive will believe us. As Akon admits: “You can put the blame on me. . .” Welcome to the apology hall of fame.
Perhaps if Tsvangirai had not said he hates Senate elections and governor posts, Mutambara’s business would be thriving at Sandton City.
For all I care, he would be listed on the JSE – the only African to have discovered a way of tracking dead man’s coefficient of response to apologies via magnetic resonance and levitation!
We all make mistakes, but some mistakes last longer than others! Mr PM, graveyards house coffins, not ballot boxes.
Rejoice Ngwenya is a social commentator
THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE NEWSDAY
REJOICE NGWENYA
HARARE - Sep 05 2010 19:35
In my religion of Adventism, dead people have no influence on the living except lingering illusions of good and bad memories.
Hard-core traditionalists will argue that svikiros and amadhlozi are in themselves manifestations of a busy mysterious world of the dead, when those that have passed on make statements through selected village icons.
Grown men of respectable disposable incomes and social status visit cemeteries, lie prostrate and thank those who lie cold in fresh graves for leaving no stone unturned in punishing family adversaries! Pseudo-Christians even go further to justify voodoo practices by quoting Saul’s Old Testament’s encounter with the late prophet Samuel.
Of course, the devil’s work is on display in all manner and form, but those who have money to discard have found painless avenues — evoking the spirits of the dead.
Drunken vagrants taunt so-called evil spirits by crossing graveyards after dark, but the worst fate to befall them is a nasty fall onto a headstone!
My experience is that one can say the most vulgar things about the dead without so much as losing a single hair.
But of late, we have had high-level graveside theatrics to correct misdemeanours of the past.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is not an Adventist, so he might not know the basic doctrinal fact that dead men don’t give standing ovations even after emotional apologetic eulogies.
And so whatever good intentions he had of what he said about the late Gibson Sibanda, they will count for nothing for eternity, except in the unlikely event that these two both live in the same fashionable neighbourhoods in Heaven.
Sibanda, meanwhile, lies deep in the cold soil of the unfashionable neighbourhoods of Komcondo, Insiza, so he does not, will never know how sorry his former colleague in the struggle is about the MDC split.
The proverbial phrase about turning in one’s grave does not apply, except in the minds of scriptwriters of great film epics like Morgan and the Temple of Self-Doomception.
And yet Tsvangirai for once got his facts right on the split, and if my old friend Trudy Stevenson were there, she would have bowled over in ecstatic and sarcastic French laughter:
“The political developments in this country will never be the same again after the formation of the MDC, but the saddest thing in my life is the split of the MDC,” Tsvangirai mourned.
I personally have had saddest points in my life: deportation from England in 1998 due to poor documentation, breaking a leg in 1981 playing soccer in a dusty field in Kawangware squatter camp, Nairobi, and, of course, being told I was a skinny good-for-nothing boy back in 1973 by the pretty girl next door!
Sadness comes with a price.
At one time in March 2008, we all thought Tsvangirai was president-elect until Mugabe eloped with the election results! Tsvangirai waited for political volcanoes to explode, but the mountains of national sadness remained dormant until Mugabe declared himself a one-band winner.
So much for sadness! Trudy would chuckle: “That’s Morgan for you, waiting for the world to come to his rescue!” Make me prime minister and I could have a sad day once every thirtieth funeral! In fact, I would even be sadder if I buried only one dictator once every 30 years!
Here is more fodder for typical Trudy laughter: “What we said after the split, I regret it. I am sorry Gibson for what we said at that moment, it was a moment of weakness and it was not worth it,” said an emotional Tsvangirai at Sibanda’s memorial service. Hello! Gibson, can you hear me? I said I am sorry, so get out of that casket, let’s hug and go back to Harvest House. This time handilume!
I mean I thought comedy hour was only in the politburo! Luckily, sadness is curable — take one ice cube once a day after every meal. It dissolves fast! What a joke, another moment of weakness, like Umdala Wabo signing the unity agreement under duress or Perence giving orders for the castration of all Ndebele men! Some sad moments are longer than others, but it’s not funny, for if it was, Professor Mutambara would be laughing.
Apologising is not a new phenomenon, but apparently, Mugabe does not have the word in his Shona dictionary. It’s an African man thing. My wife thinks I don’t apologise often enough – but we have not split! Apologising — they say — is a sign of weakness, at least at ZBC and The Herald.
Play Nyatsoteerera as often as you want, who’s listening anyway? If you apologise, the referee will show you the red card. He hates weaklings!
In some quarters, apologies are a delicacy. Fidel Castro apologised for mistreating gays.
The Pope did so on behalf of Irish child molesters, so did the Australians for exterminating aborigines.
Welcome to the apology hall of famers, Tsvangirai.
Tell me, I haven’t seen Bishop Kunonga, Mugabe or Temba Mliswa. Could they have been caught up in the apology logjam?
My wife has a saying: “All men are dogs.” The only problem: would they cross over to exercise their extra-marital conjugal rights with members of the canine race? Her point is that we men are gifted liars.
We even deceive the dead, hoping that those who are alive will believe us. As Akon admits: “You can put the blame on me. . .” Welcome to the apology hall of fame.
Perhaps if Tsvangirai had not said he hates Senate elections and governor posts, Mutambara’s business would be thriving at Sandton City.
For all I care, he would be listed on the JSE – the only African to have discovered a way of tracking dead man’s coefficient of response to apologies via magnetic resonance and levitation!
We all make mistakes, but some mistakes last longer than others! Mr PM, graveyards house coffins, not ballot boxes.
Rejoice Ngwenya is a social commentator
THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE NEWSDAY
Friday 3 September 2010
Violent land reform youth corps wallow in poverty
Friday, 03 September 2010 18:36
MUZA Fredrick’s desperate situation hardly makes him recognisable as one of the vanguards of President Robert Mugabe’s often violent land reform that has seen politically linked chefs enjoying rich pickings.
Now in his early 30s, Fredrick says he was part of youth corps who were at the forefront of evictions that began in 2000, rampaging from farm to farm to displace white commercial farmers who were forced to make way for beneficiaries of the land reform programme.
Today, living on handouts, Frederick’s life has become a daily struggle for survival at Insingisi Farm near Bindura, about 80km north-east of Harare. The returns promised by politicians who encouraged him in the invasions have not materialised and he lives a pauper’s life.
Fredrick and his friends say they have been reduced to casual labourers by Dick Mafios, the new owner who they helped grab the farm. He now pays them US$1,30 a day for occasional jobs.
Mafios, the Zanu PF provincial chairman for Mashonaland Central, is related to Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment minister and MP for Mount Darwin South, Saviour Kasukuwere.
Commercial Farmers Union president Deon Theron said Collin Taylor, the former owner of Insingisi farm, is now in Zambia after skipping the country like most farmers traumatised by the violence accompanying the farm invasions.
Fredrick was part of a militia that invaded the farm in 2000 and stopped Taylor’s labour force from harvesting a ripening citrus crop meant for export to make way for Mafios.
“We arrived in Bindura in 2000 after some politicians approached us and requested that we help them grab land from white farmers,” said Fredrick, explaining how he ended up in his situation. “You know that this was the time when we started taking our land and occupying it.”
“They said ‘boys come and help us take land from the white farmers’ and that is when we joined in from Mt Darwin in our hundreds as youths. We were excited and the promise was that we would also get pieces of land which we could farm on,” Fredrick told the Zimbabwe Independent last week, likening his situation to a hunting dog that is denied the right to even eat the skin of its prey.
“As years went by, no land was given to us until now. If we try to raise our concerns we are told that the bosses are also struggling as they don’t have inputs and so forth. Besides, we will never be taken seriously because the foreman lives in such squalid conditions.”
The married father of two represents the plight of thousands of youths and militant veterans of the liberation war still loyal to Mugabe who were at the forefront of the violent campaign, but have turned destitute after being dumped by the new owners.
Mafios acknowledged that his farm workers had no access to clean water, but denied that youths were taken from Mt Darwin during the 2000 farm invasions. He said he suspected that panners looking for gold along the Mazowe River were squatting at his farm.
“My workers usually get water from the borehole, but for the past two weeks it had not been working and it’s true they had difficulties in accessing clean water,” he said. “However, we will provide them with clean water that we brought in bowsers.”
According to research conducted by the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe, youths and ordinary Zanu PF militia contributed to most of the violence that characterised the land reforms at the farms together with war veterans.
Thousands of militia, some claiming to be war veterans, went on a rampage from 2000 after Mugabe declared his intention to replace white farmers with landless blacks in a land revolution whose haphazard execution left Zimbabwe a basket case.
They burnt houses and property, assaulted –– at times fatally — farmers and their workers, looted livestock and vandalised equipment like irrigation pipes and tractors. Led by the late Chenjerai Hunzvi, the war veterans showed no mercy as they went around farms chanting slogans and singing revolutionary songs while wielding axes and knobkerries, in an exercise that virtually ground agriculture to a halt across the country.
Most of the farms have become derelict, as new owners struggle with finances and expertise needed to keep production levels high.
A visit to the once flourishing Mazowe area shows a sad picture of failure. Once vibrant agricultural fields are in a sorry state with tall grass swamping the wheat crop and citrus trees that used to characterise this area.
Farm workers’ houses are falling apart because of lack of maintenance while sanitation facilities have collapsed. Actual farming is at a standstill, and subsistence farming has replaced commercial, export-oriented agriculture.
“The owner of the farm can’t even provide us with clean drinking water,” said a resident at one of the farms. “Our families drink water from an open source - the Mazowe River which we suspect has raw sewage that flows from Glendale residential. We don’t have any running taps, the boreholes are no longer working. The toilets are worse as they are in a terrible state.”
At Insingisi, like most neighbouring farms, neglect has taken over. Farm workers and the youths who used to terrorise them are wallowing in poverty induced by lack of productivity.
“The owner of the farm lends us a bucket of maize meal at US$4,50 which will then be deducted from our monthly salaries of US$40,” said a farm worker who refused to be named. “But to be given that bucket of maize meal one should have worked for at least 20 days. The money is not enough to look after the families. If we try other alternatives like gold panning we are chased away by the police. So how do they expect us to survive?”
Another resident said most of the new farmers had little knowledge of commercial farming and were hardly in touch with operations at their farms.
“These are not real farmers from what we have seen,” he said. “They come from Harare once in a while and do not take part in the farming. As you can see, tall grass has replaced wheat on these lands.”
Another resident, Patricia Muremo, said a lot had changed since the new farmers settled in.
“People looted and stole irrigation pipes and farming equipment,” she said. “This has really affected people like us who were left behind. Now we feel the pinch, the taps are no longer working and we don’t have clean water to drink or proper food. We use the water in this dam to wash our clothes, bathe ourselves and the children and also to cook and drink. We are lucky to have escaped cholera.”
Wongai Zhangazha
THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE ZIMBABWE INDEPENDENT
Friday, 03 September 2010 18:36
MUZA Fredrick’s desperate situation hardly makes him recognisable as one of the vanguards of President Robert Mugabe’s often violent land reform that has seen politically linked chefs enjoying rich pickings.
Now in his early 30s, Fredrick says he was part of youth corps who were at the forefront of evictions that began in 2000, rampaging from farm to farm to displace white commercial farmers who were forced to make way for beneficiaries of the land reform programme.
Today, living on handouts, Frederick’s life has become a daily struggle for survival at Insingisi Farm near Bindura, about 80km north-east of Harare. The returns promised by politicians who encouraged him in the invasions have not materialised and he lives a pauper’s life.
Fredrick and his friends say they have been reduced to casual labourers by Dick Mafios, the new owner who they helped grab the farm. He now pays them US$1,30 a day for occasional jobs.
Mafios, the Zanu PF provincial chairman for Mashonaland Central, is related to Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment minister and MP for Mount Darwin South, Saviour Kasukuwere.
Commercial Farmers Union president Deon Theron said Collin Taylor, the former owner of Insingisi farm, is now in Zambia after skipping the country like most farmers traumatised by the violence accompanying the farm invasions.
Fredrick was part of a militia that invaded the farm in 2000 and stopped Taylor’s labour force from harvesting a ripening citrus crop meant for export to make way for Mafios.
“We arrived in Bindura in 2000 after some politicians approached us and requested that we help them grab land from white farmers,” said Fredrick, explaining how he ended up in his situation. “You know that this was the time when we started taking our land and occupying it.”
“They said ‘boys come and help us take land from the white farmers’ and that is when we joined in from Mt Darwin in our hundreds as youths. We were excited and the promise was that we would also get pieces of land which we could farm on,” Fredrick told the Zimbabwe Independent last week, likening his situation to a hunting dog that is denied the right to even eat the skin of its prey.
“As years went by, no land was given to us until now. If we try to raise our concerns we are told that the bosses are also struggling as they don’t have inputs and so forth. Besides, we will never be taken seriously because the foreman lives in such squalid conditions.”
The married father of two represents the plight of thousands of youths and militant veterans of the liberation war still loyal to Mugabe who were at the forefront of the violent campaign, but have turned destitute after being dumped by the new owners.
Mafios acknowledged that his farm workers had no access to clean water, but denied that youths were taken from Mt Darwin during the 2000 farm invasions. He said he suspected that panners looking for gold along the Mazowe River were squatting at his farm.
“My workers usually get water from the borehole, but for the past two weeks it had not been working and it’s true they had difficulties in accessing clean water,” he said. “However, we will provide them with clean water that we brought in bowsers.”
According to research conducted by the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe, youths and ordinary Zanu PF militia contributed to most of the violence that characterised the land reforms at the farms together with war veterans.
Thousands of militia, some claiming to be war veterans, went on a rampage from 2000 after Mugabe declared his intention to replace white farmers with landless blacks in a land revolution whose haphazard execution left Zimbabwe a basket case.
They burnt houses and property, assaulted –– at times fatally — farmers and their workers, looted livestock and vandalised equipment like irrigation pipes and tractors. Led by the late Chenjerai Hunzvi, the war veterans showed no mercy as they went around farms chanting slogans and singing revolutionary songs while wielding axes and knobkerries, in an exercise that virtually ground agriculture to a halt across the country.
Most of the farms have become derelict, as new owners struggle with finances and expertise needed to keep production levels high.
A visit to the once flourishing Mazowe area shows a sad picture of failure. Once vibrant agricultural fields are in a sorry state with tall grass swamping the wheat crop and citrus trees that used to characterise this area.
Farm workers’ houses are falling apart because of lack of maintenance while sanitation facilities have collapsed. Actual farming is at a standstill, and subsistence farming has replaced commercial, export-oriented agriculture.
“The owner of the farm can’t even provide us with clean drinking water,” said a resident at one of the farms. “Our families drink water from an open source - the Mazowe River which we suspect has raw sewage that flows from Glendale residential. We don’t have any running taps, the boreholes are no longer working. The toilets are worse as they are in a terrible state.”
At Insingisi, like most neighbouring farms, neglect has taken over. Farm workers and the youths who used to terrorise them are wallowing in poverty induced by lack of productivity.
“The owner of the farm lends us a bucket of maize meal at US$4,50 which will then be deducted from our monthly salaries of US$40,” said a farm worker who refused to be named. “But to be given that bucket of maize meal one should have worked for at least 20 days. The money is not enough to look after the families. If we try other alternatives like gold panning we are chased away by the police. So how do they expect us to survive?”
Another resident said most of the new farmers had little knowledge of commercial farming and were hardly in touch with operations at their farms.
“These are not real farmers from what we have seen,” he said. “They come from Harare once in a while and do not take part in the farming. As you can see, tall grass has replaced wheat on these lands.”
Another resident, Patricia Muremo, said a lot had changed since the new farmers settled in.
“People looted and stole irrigation pipes and farming equipment,” she said. “This has really affected people like us who were left behind. Now we feel the pinch, the taps are no longer working and we don’t have clean water to drink or proper food. We use the water in this dam to wash our clothes, bathe ourselves and the children and also to cook and drink. We are lucky to have escaped cholera.”
Wongai Zhangazha
THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE ZIMBABWE INDEPENDENT
Thursday 2 September 2010
COMMUNITIES POINT STATEMENT ON TONY BLAIR'S BOOK "A JOURNEY"
UK Company registration no 6248305
The World Office, Communities Point, 108 St Thomas Road, Derby, DE23 8SW, United Kingdom phone
0044 7988292795 email: ethnicrecords@yahoo.co.uk
______________________________________________________________________________
COMMUNITIES POINT COMMENT ON EXCERPTS OF TONY BLAIR’S BOOK “A JOURNEY”
PRESS STATEMENT: 02 SEPTEMBER 2010
Communities Point would like to take this opportunity to comment on excerpts from former British Prime Minister Antony Blair’s book “A Journey”: http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6863&cat=1.
Like everyone else we were shocked that he even contemplated invading Zimbabwe militarily during the tenure of his office. Whilst we do not have the locus standii to speak for opposition forces in Zimbabwe as a pressure group that is also mainly opposed to the status quo in Zimbabwe we would like to take exception of the fact that he even thought of such an evil project. Coming from a person who was rejected by more than 4 million of his own people during the 2005 UK Parliamentary Elections we would not be surprised if in fact Mr Blair is “Speaking for Himself” and such evil thoughts do not represent anyone not only in Zimbabwe but also in his own Labour Party and the British people who first voted against him in their millions and rejected his party in the 2010 Parliamentary Elections.
Whilst Communities Point does not rule out the possibility that continued repression and anger may turn Zimbabweans towards an inclination for an armed struggle which may turn out to be legitimate in the face of endless repression, we have never as an organisation or as individuals making up the organisation accepted military invasion by a foreign country as a way of ending the problems in Zimbabwe. Everyone now knows that Mr Anthony Blair has a strange way of saying sorry and coming from a person who has not denied having patted President Mugabe and his government and praised him for being a unifying force in Africa regardless of the atrocities that his government had committed during Gukurahundi and which Mr Blair had full knowledge of the excerpt and the timing of its release must be seen as a joke in bad taste and not aimed at solving things in Zimbabwe http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blair-secretly-courted-mugabe-to-boost-trade-2065557.html. Communities Point did not support the involvement of Angolan militias in the post-2008 Elections butchering of Zimbabweans and we again oppose any military intervention by any foreign force and in support of whoever politician in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are capable of freeing themselves and this is the reason why they have been able to form political parties and groups to oppose the repression in their country.
The fallacies of the Blair mindset continues to baffle many because if at all the evidence on the ground actually shows that if the former British Prime Minister ever wanted to invade Zimbabwe it was surely at the aid of President Mugabe against opposition forces. The following are the facts; (i) during the tenure of his premiership Mr Anthony Blair regarded President Robert Mugabe as a progressive leader and a unifying force in Africa; (ii) it was Mr Anthony Blair’s government that delivered “defender” trucks and anti-riot gear that is still being used in suppressing opposition in Zimbabwe and (iii) and it was Mr Blair and his government who wanted sell F-11 fighter jets [popularly known as tom-cats] to Zimbabwe. Ironically the deal was blocked NOT BY MR BLAIR BUT by the then President of South Africa Nelson Rolinhlanhla Mandela and his Government who argued that Zimbabwe was not safe to have such equipment as they could be used irresponsibly. This makes it clear where Mr Anthony Blair’s sympathies were; not with the opposition, not with the people of Zimbabwe and but with the people who were repressing them. His attempt to assume sentry is an insult on our collective consciences and intelligence.
Zimbabweans do not need friends like these who claim heroics that we never saw and that are in fact detrimental to the aim of having a free, fair and just society. This pursuit predates the assumption of British premiership by Mr Anthony Blair. Even in post independent Zimbabwe the repression by President Mugabe has always been there and opposition to it was led by political parties such as ZAPU, UANC and ZANU Ndonga which all had opposed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Ian Smith and his racist regime. The emergence of other opposition political parties in the 1990s was led by Edgar Tekere a veteran of the liberation struggle, Washington Sansole another veteran and Margaret Dongo, an ex-combatant and all these predated the ascendancy to power of Mr Blair. Contrary to what other sections of our society would want to believe no role has ever been played by Mr Blair in shaping the Zimbabwe opposition as it has always been there. Those political parties that emerged after his ascendancy to power were a mindset in continuum and represent the Zimbabwean culture of opposing what is not right. Opposition is not a novel project to Zimbabwe that was manufactured in Blair’s Britain and exported to the country via willing vectors as what ZANU PF says. It is a present phenomenon in Zimbabwe which even predates our own colonisation.
In concluding we again reiterate that Mr Blair’s views should not be taken to mean the views of Zimbabwean opposition but an element of his own waywardness which has already been rejected by his own people in the United Kingdom. To Mr Blair himself we encourage him to reflect and not to pull the Zimbabwe opposition into the murky waters that his “reputation” has sunk. Instead he should find a legitimate way of apologising to his own people for lying to them on the premise for which he was invading Iraq and to Iraqis for the untold chaos he caused to their country.
CHAIRMAN: JULIUS SAI MUTYAMBIZI-DEWA
mutyambizidewa@yahoo.co.uk or 07529705413
The World Office, Communities Point, 108 St Thomas Road, Derby, DE23 8SW, United Kingdom phone
0044 7988292795 email: ethnicrecords@yahoo.co.uk
______________________________________________________________________________
COMMUNITIES POINT COMMENT ON EXCERPTS OF TONY BLAIR’S BOOK “A JOURNEY”
PRESS STATEMENT: 02 SEPTEMBER 2010
Communities Point would like to take this opportunity to comment on excerpts from former British Prime Minister Antony Blair’s book “A Journey”: http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6863&cat=1.
Like everyone else we were shocked that he even contemplated invading Zimbabwe militarily during the tenure of his office. Whilst we do not have the locus standii to speak for opposition forces in Zimbabwe as a pressure group that is also mainly opposed to the status quo in Zimbabwe we would like to take exception of the fact that he even thought of such an evil project. Coming from a person who was rejected by more than 4 million of his own people during the 2005 UK Parliamentary Elections we would not be surprised if in fact Mr Blair is “Speaking for Himself” and such evil thoughts do not represent anyone not only in Zimbabwe but also in his own Labour Party and the British people who first voted against him in their millions and rejected his party in the 2010 Parliamentary Elections.
Whilst Communities Point does not rule out the possibility that continued repression and anger may turn Zimbabweans towards an inclination for an armed struggle which may turn out to be legitimate in the face of endless repression, we have never as an organisation or as individuals making up the organisation accepted military invasion by a foreign country as a way of ending the problems in Zimbabwe. Everyone now knows that Mr Anthony Blair has a strange way of saying sorry and coming from a person who has not denied having patted President Mugabe and his government and praised him for being a unifying force in Africa regardless of the atrocities that his government had committed during Gukurahundi and which Mr Blair had full knowledge of the excerpt and the timing of its release must be seen as a joke in bad taste and not aimed at solving things in Zimbabwe http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blair-secretly-courted-mugabe-to-boost-trade-2065557.html. Communities Point did not support the involvement of Angolan militias in the post-2008 Elections butchering of Zimbabweans and we again oppose any military intervention by any foreign force and in support of whoever politician in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are capable of freeing themselves and this is the reason why they have been able to form political parties and groups to oppose the repression in their country.
The fallacies of the Blair mindset continues to baffle many because if at all the evidence on the ground actually shows that if the former British Prime Minister ever wanted to invade Zimbabwe it was surely at the aid of President Mugabe against opposition forces. The following are the facts; (i) during the tenure of his premiership Mr Anthony Blair regarded President Robert Mugabe as a progressive leader and a unifying force in Africa; (ii) it was Mr Anthony Blair’s government that delivered “defender” trucks and anti-riot gear that is still being used in suppressing opposition in Zimbabwe and (iii) and it was Mr Blair and his government who wanted sell F-11 fighter jets [popularly known as tom-cats] to Zimbabwe. Ironically the deal was blocked NOT BY MR BLAIR BUT by the then President of South Africa Nelson Rolinhlanhla Mandela and his Government who argued that Zimbabwe was not safe to have such equipment as they could be used irresponsibly. This makes it clear where Mr Anthony Blair’s sympathies were; not with the opposition, not with the people of Zimbabwe and but with the people who were repressing them. His attempt to assume sentry is an insult on our collective consciences and intelligence.
Zimbabweans do not need friends like these who claim heroics that we never saw and that are in fact detrimental to the aim of having a free, fair and just society. This pursuit predates the assumption of British premiership by Mr Anthony Blair. Even in post independent Zimbabwe the repression by President Mugabe has always been there and opposition to it was led by political parties such as ZAPU, UANC and ZANU Ndonga which all had opposed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Ian Smith and his racist regime. The emergence of other opposition political parties in the 1990s was led by Edgar Tekere a veteran of the liberation struggle, Washington Sansole another veteran and Margaret Dongo, an ex-combatant and all these predated the ascendancy to power of Mr Blair. Contrary to what other sections of our society would want to believe no role has ever been played by Mr Blair in shaping the Zimbabwe opposition as it has always been there. Those political parties that emerged after his ascendancy to power were a mindset in continuum and represent the Zimbabwean culture of opposing what is not right. Opposition is not a novel project to Zimbabwe that was manufactured in Blair’s Britain and exported to the country via willing vectors as what ZANU PF says. It is a present phenomenon in Zimbabwe which even predates our own colonisation.
In concluding we again reiterate that Mr Blair’s views should not be taken to mean the views of Zimbabwean opposition but an element of his own waywardness which has already been rejected by his own people in the United Kingdom. To Mr Blair himself we encourage him to reflect and not to pull the Zimbabwe opposition into the murky waters that his “reputation” has sunk. Instead he should find a legitimate way of apologising to his own people for lying to them on the premise for which he was invading Iraq and to Iraqis for the untold chaos he caused to their country.
CHAIRMAN: JULIUS SAI MUTYAMBIZI-DEWA
mutyambizidewa@yahoo.co.uk or 07529705413
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