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Hebert Zharare and Innocent Ruwende
THE Rhodesian lobby in the MDC-T, smarting from the heavy drubbing the party received in the harmonised elections, has resolved to boot out embattled party leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai from the helm and launch a campaign of violence and destabilisation against Zimbabweans who rejected their brand of politics on July 31.
The MDC-T was whitewashed by Zanu-PF countrywide managing a paltry 49 seats out of the 210 National Assembly constituencies while Zanu-PF amassed 160 seats with the remaining seat going to independent candidate Mr Jonathan Samkange, who pitched for but failed to land the Zanu-PF ticket in Mudzi South.
President Mugabe romped to victory garnering 61,09 percent of the vote to Mr Tsvangirai’s 33,94 with the other presidential aspirants sharing the remaining 4,97 percent.
So devastating was the scale of the MDC-T defeat that some sections of the Western media called on Mr Tsvangirai to quit with the party’s ex-Rhodie contingent also coming out strongly against Mr Tsvangirai’s continued leadership.
MDC-T national executive member, Mr Ian Kay, who was booted out of Marondera Central by Zanu-PF Mashonaland East provincial chairman Cde Ray Kaukonde, and the self-exiled MDC-T treasurer Mr Roy Bennett yesterday told the Sunday Times of Britain that they planned a campaign of violence beginning with demonstrations on Wednesday this week pursuant to setting up a government in exile to launch acts of terror against the Government.
“He (Tsvangirai) should only carry on if he acts more positively and is more proactive. He should be calling for rallies and leading more visibly. The silence is disturbing,” Mr Kay said.
Mr Bennett concurred saying: “Very shortly you are going to see the arrest of MDC leaders and the imprisonment of MDC supporters around the country. The MDC needs to get its leadership out of the country, form a government in exile and then take these guys head on with a full-blooded revolution.”
The ex-Rhodesian service man, Bennett, claimed that there was enough pro-MDC support within the military to overthrow the “small clique” that he said supported President Mugabe in the army and police.
Zanu-PF spokesperson Cde Rugare Gumbo said any efforts to promote insurgency and banditry would be thwarted.
“It will not take them anywhere. The Rhodesians tried in the 1970s, there is no way they will come back. They can try but they will be suppressed.
We will take serious measures. The MDC-T is confused, they do not know what hit them and they don’t know how to mount a serious political challenge. The notion of insurgency and banditry won’t work,” he said.
He also described as nonsense and hogwash claims by MDC-T officials that Zanu PF was targeting to arrest 100 people, among them politicians, journalists and civil society leaders who are against the Zanu-PF leadership.
“There are no intentions to arrest anyone unless they have committed a crime. The police will deal with such cases,” said Cde Gumbo.
Politburo member, Prof Jonathan Moyo concurred saying the party’s resounding victory had driven the MDC-T and its backers bonkers.
“Zanu-PF’s emphatic and unprecedented electoral victory has engendered a nationalist outlook and disposition which is reminiscent of the heroic freedom spirit of 1980. This development has awed and shocked our erstwhile British colonisers and their Rhodie kith and kin who have become dangerously desperate in their ill-fated attempts to dilute and derail the impact of the people’s historic victory in the just ended elections.
“First we saw the British Ambassador in Harare, Deborah Bronnert, going live on Sky TV to incredulously claim that some 10 000 voters had been assisted to vote in one constituency where allegedly some 17 000 votes had been cast.
Ambassador Bronnert’s ludicrous and unsubstantiated claim, which among its many absurdities sought to mislead the world into thinking that it is illegal for elderly, illiterate or physically impaired voters to be assisted when the practice is common to democracies around the world, was promptly regurgitated by Morgan Tsvangirai in his election petition lodged with the Constitutional Court last Friday.
“This was followed by a maliciously provocative piece in the Times in London which invoked the name of the MDC-T’s Gift Chimanikire as the evil source to falsely claim that Zimbabwe had entered into a secret deal to export uranium to Iran. The idea was to use the supposed ‘good reputation’ of the Times to peddle a lie about Zimbabwe similar to the lie that triggered the invasion of Iran under false claims that it had weapons of mass destruction.
When the lie about a secret uranium deal with Iran instantly went up in smoke with Chimanikire disowning the Times story as it was hitting the Press, the British spooks and diplomats behind the operation to dilute and derail Zanu-PF’s resounding electoral landslide pulled another trick out of their dirty bag this time using good old Rhodies Roy Bennett and Ian Kay to use the same Times newspaper in London to reclaim the MDC-T as a violent Rhodie party.
“It is very clear from the latest offering from The Times that some official interests in the British establishment are bent on using Rhodies like Roy Bennet and Ian Kay to foment violence and chaos in Zimbabwe through the MDC-T. What remains to be see is who in the MDC-T still has the suicidal appetite to be used by British spooks and Rhodies like Roy Bennet and Ian Kay to swim against the people’s electoral tide overwhelmingly expressed in favour of Zanu-PF in the July 31 elections,” Prof Moyo said.
University of Zimbabwe political scientist Dr Charity Manyeruke said no one would be allowed to negate the gains of the liberation struggle.
“We struggled for our independence, so much blood was shed in the process and for anyone talking about going back to war they will be negating the gains of the liberation struggle that will not be tolerated,” she said.
The route being proposed by the Rhodesian element in the MDC-T has been travelled before by other Western conceived movements in the region with disastrous consequences for the people concerned.
Dr Jonas Savimbi fell in a hail of bullets when his Unita movement refused to accept the results of the Angolan elections choosing to go back into the bush, with analysts saying Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama, who recently decamped to the Gorongosa mountains to launch sporadic attacks on civilian targets, was inviting a similar fate.
Online Reporter