Six reasons not to baulk at envoys’ defections

Tichaona Zindoga
Not many people would say they saw the defections by former Zimbabwe’s ambassadors to Australia and Germany coming – at least for plebeians like us.But when it emerged that Jacqueline Zwambila, our (and can it be said guardedly) envoy to Australia, had applied for asylum there, a move taken also by Hebson Makuvise in Germany, it was not earth-shattering.

It was like some dark nook of the mind had always provided for that kind of mischief. There are plenty of reasons, too. First, it should not be surprising because the foundational claims of the asylum applications are basically well worn and well known: the applicants seek to project Zimbabwe as a hell hole to which nobody should be compelled to return.

It has been the story for over a decade, which not only fed the egos of the host Western countries as messiahs but also helped advance their cause for regime change in Zimbabwe which they predicated on the removal of the bad guys in President Mugabe and his Zanu-PF.

It should really be surprising that this outdated trick still obtains today; only it’s not. Australia may still need that feel good factor, while the opposition still relishes that place in the sinking sun of publicity.

Did one newspaper not announce excitedly last week that the spotlight was back on Mugabe because of the Zwambila fiasco, or something to that effect?

Second, Zwambila and Makuvise are veritable nonentities in Zimbabwe’s politics and life in general. Look at it this way: what positions and what roles did the two play in opposition politics in Zimbabwe in the heady late 1990s and before the Inclusive Government?

Not many people will profess knowledge of the duo, even among the MDC-T faithful. What is known is that these people were careered through the back door, the one seemingly to keep away and placate, the other in a nepotistic arrangement that would grow stinker by the day.

The duo would simply have next to nothing to do back home. Home would be very bleak, scary even. Zwambila is quoted in Australia as saying that after the reversal of July 31 she saw ‘’doom, a black cloud’’.

‘’I knew then it was the end of my term,’’ she said.
This is what would really turn the bowels inside out, not President Robert Mugabe. Related to this, and by way of the fourth point, it must be pointed out that the party called MDC-T is in trouble and faces a bleak future.

After being trounced on July 31, problems affecting the MDC-T are three pronged (at least): a crisis of leadership, donor fatigue, and crisis of confidence.

It is not a house that one would want to return to, especially those people of little political substance like Zwambila and Makuvise.
They would be hungry and broke; confused and rejected even if they would find their way into leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s kitchen cabinet.

It will be recalled that Tsvangirai himself was seen to take steps for a soft landing when it became increasingly clear that he was headed for a disastrous July 31 plebiscite.

That is why he took steps to secure a house and cars. Zwambila and Makuvise may not have had such a luxury. They are doomed.
The fifth point is that the two, separately, are said to be facing criminal charges, which if they are sincere and bona fide citizens, should face because their innocence is assumed before proof of guilt.

The courts of Zimbabwe have given fair hearings, and even acquitted real opposition stalwarts on serious charges like treason. This writer is not privy to the National Prosecuting Authority and may not speak on its behalf but allegations have been leveled against Zwambila to the effect that she has not been able to pay a domestic worker.

Makuvise on the other hand is alleged to have helped his relative Tsvangirai misappropriate and double dip into funds that were meant for the purchase of Tsvangirai’s official residence when he was premier.

The envoys may understandably have developed cold feet. The sixth point – and the scariest and most disappointing of all – is that the duo is showing to have not outgrown party activism to become true national envoys.

They were never in the first place. The system that MDC parties would nominate people for ambassadorial positions was flawed in the first place. This is the bitter harvest from the Harvest House.

In other words, Zimbabwe may have wasted a fortune in appointing these party activists without any consideration for the national interest.

Can Zwambila have truly represented President Mugabe down under, for which she was to be called “Her Excellency”? She, like her MDC-T ilk, excelled in nothing.

And they remained MDC-T ambassadors rather than national emissaries.