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Tafara Shumba Correspondent
The heart of every Zimbabwean missed a beat on November 14, 2015 when a Chitungwiza man, who happened to be a zanu-pf member, gruesomely murdered his two friends before taking his own life over a yet-to-be-established reason. May their souls rest in peace. Proud Mupambwa axed to death Marko Masenda and LIoyd Jambawo at Manyame Park in St Mary’s high-density suburb, Chitungwiza. Mupambwa later reportedly killed himself at St Mary’s Police Station. It is sad that while the nation was taken aback by the unfortunate event, some social miscreants sought to profit from it.
It has become a tradition for the MDC-T and its partners in the media and civil society to capitalise on such ill circumstances for political expediency. They used the same scheme in 2013 when a 12-year-old Headlands boy, Christpower Maisiri, died in an inferno. The MDC-T persuaded the boy’s father to make up a story that fingered zanu-pf as a way of accruing financial and political benefits. A high profile convoy from the MDC-T attended the burial just to portray itself as knights in shining armour.
Again, the “disappearance” of Itai Dzamara, an MDC-T activist has been heavily politicised by the MDC-T which fingered zanu-pf. Despite this show of sympathy, the MDCT is failing to assist Dzamara’s wife who has fallen on hard times.
This time around, the MDC-T and its cohorts in the regime change project are so impatient that they could not wait for the conclusion of police investigations to ascertain what happened. The sad event has already been sensationalised and the world is already being nourished with half truths aimed at proving a non-existent point.
Screamers of newspapers only saved to scandalise zanu-pf with the evil intention of inviting international backlash on same. The agenda being set is, “here is what we have been telling you that zanu-pf is a violent party, see how it is devouring its own children.” Really?
The Standard newspaper that broke the news on Sunday had a screamer that went; ‘Two axed to death in zanu-pf fights.’ The paper went on to allege that the murder was motivated by factional misunderstandings as the assailant and his victims were alleged to have been deeply divided along factional lines.
Indeed, the three were zanu-pf district officials and the revolutionary party has condemned the killings. It is, however, mischievous and shortsighted to see the hand of zanu-pf in a clearly criminal case.
The fact that the person who committed the crime was arrested by police under the zanu-pf Government should suffice to show that the revolutionary party upholds the rule of law and does not wink at violence of any form.
It is unfortunate that the criminal belonged to zanu-pf and that does not hold the party accountable for his behaviour. As much as Mupambwa belonged to zanu-pf, he also belonged to a religious group and many other social groupings. Can we then say the church that he belonged to is a violent church? Can the other social groupings that he belonged to be held responsible for Mupambwa’s behaviour?
Of all these groupings, why pick on zanu-pf? zanu-pf has no policy that allows the spillage of blood for whatever reason. In South Africa, people are murdered everyday but the media do not hunt down the political parties that the criminals belong to. It is only Zimbabwean media that do so, simply because the criminal was a mere district executive.
A party is like a woman’s womb. The same womb produces a pastor and murderer. It is myopic to blame the womb for the omission and commission of the murderer. Any party has both good and bad members. Every party has its own social malefactors. As much as zanu-pf had the likes of Mupambwa, the MDC-T had its own Learnmore Jongwes.
In July 2002, Jongwe, a high profile MDC official then, stabbed to death his 23-year old wife, Rutendo Muusha whom he accused of infidelity. The same media did not link the murder to the MDC. Instead, they sympathised with Jongwe whom they portrayed as a victim of political machinations. The media and the MDC went to the extent of blaming Rutendo whom they accused of being a Central Intelligence Organization operative.
For political expediency, sympathy was shifted from the victim to the assailant. Today, the MDC-T considers Jongwe as one of its heroes and martyrs as if he died for the cause of that party. Overnight, a villain was turned into a victim and subsequently into a hero by a political party that does not respect human life.
Despite all this, the MDC was never held accountable for Jongwe’s heinous crime. There were all the reasons to apportion blame on MDC, considering how it defended Jongwe and attempted to portray his subsequent suicide as national political tragedy.
There are many other scoundrels in the MDC-T whose behaviour can cause collateral damage for that party. Morgan Tsvangirai’s sexual misdemeanours when he was in the inclusive government shocked the nation. However, his behaviour cannot be a true reflection of the MDC-T as a party. It would be unfair to paint the whole MDC-T with the same brush because there are sexually upright members in the party.
There are people in the MDC-T like Job Sikhala and Prince Dubeko Sibanda who have been accused of serious crimes, but they cannot be a microcosm of the party. So in the same vein, Mupambwa is not zanu-pf and zanu-pf is not Mupambwa.
Online Reporter