Quote of the Day

"[South African] President Thabo Mbeki and his infamous colleague [Zimbabwean President] Robert Mugabe are marooned on an isolated political island, under siege by diplomatic brickbats and flotsam; their old bodies quivering and shivering in cold winds of backlash from Mr. Mbeki’s unpopular proclamation that Zimbabwe is not a crisis situation.

While Mbeki ponders thoughtfully on the next move to restore a badly mutilated credibility, Mugabe conspires with China to fend off a deluge of inevitable popular electoral discontent with Chinese AK-47s, bullets and Israeli water canons. Meanwhile, 18 April Independence celebrations at Gwanzura Stadium was nothing more than a display of military force, a sure sign that the civilian centre can no longer hold at Mugabe’s ZANUpf camp. He is doing want he knows best, defending his political space with stolen ballots and Chinese bullets.

In addition, Mr. Mugabe told us that 'ZANUpf brought democracy to Zimbabwe' and roasted Gordon Brown, as predicted, for attempting to buy Britain’s way back to state house via ‘MDC puppets’. Harare residents were chided for voting for MDC whose agenda Mugabe claims is only one – giving Zimbabwe back to its former colonial power wherefore he vowed the opposition would never ever assume political control of the country as long as he is alive.

Herein lays the contradiction. Mugabe’s narrow perception of democracy is one of a commodity that can be bought, sold and exchanged on the political market place. It is a preserve only for ZANUpf, and therefore anyone who encroaches onto this context must be a sell out. We progressive Zimbabweans would now like to expose this gigantic act of archaic self-delusion. Since 1980, Zimbabwe has been, in Mugabe’s own words, religiously holding elections every five years. He won each one of them up until last month, pumping in millions in USA dollars of state resources in campaigns, materials, publicity, vote buying – all in the name of 'democracy'. In the process – that is from 1985 – thousands of innocent citizens have died in defence of ‘this’ democracy, mostly under the hands of Mugabe’s own repressive machinery.

Therefore, if he accuses the British of racist hypocrisy during the reign of Ian Smith, what does he himself have to show for his ZANUpf brand of democracy in the past twenty eight years of his reign? Moreover the ‘good’ president has completely got his facts wrong. Robert Mugabe was not even part of a rebellion within the Zimbabwe African People’s Union [ZAPU] in 1963 that formed ZANU, but Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole. In 1965, Ian Smith rebelled against Britain by the Unilateral Declaration of Independence [UDI] and later proclaimed that Africans [like Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo] would not rule Rhodesia in a thousand years.

Mugabe then enters the fray long after by deposing Reverend Sithole in a 'prison room' coup, before taking over the reigns from Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front on April 18, 1980. To say ZANUpf shot the Conservative party of Margaret Thatcher out of power in Rhodesia is political gibberish....The second revelation one can make is about the trinity of evil that is colluding to deprive Zimbabweans of true liberty. ZANUpf, the Judiciary and the Zimbabwe Election Commission are a diabolical axis of vampires whose agenda is to perpetuate fascist dictatorship.

So if Mugabe is such a democrat, why are his institutions of governance so frightened by political competition? The more pertinent question really is: has he ever been loved by anyone enough to be voted for purely on a voluntary basis – the essence of true democracy? Of course not!"

— Rejoice Ngwenya, Zimbabwean libertarian and head of Coalition for Market & Liberal Solutions