Online Reporter
Isdore Guvamombe
Reflections
Well, this is critically serious. I was born in Rhodesia during the war and saw, from a very tender age, corpses, injured people, burnt homes and little every excess that goes with war.
Each time I read or watch a war story on the screen I cringe. Trauma is the proper diction, without hyperbole.
Some of the scenes of Rhodesia still haunt me, no matter how I try to shrug them off. The gruesome scenes have been with me, jam-packed in my mind and following me alongside my shadow, everywhere. Yes, everywhere and little everywhere else, I go.
I belong to that generation born during Zimbabwe’s liberation war and has, thereafter, witnessed too many wars the world over — some of them justified some not — and this worries me day and night, when I reflect.
Yes, I belong to that generation that has seen wars kill people — among them innocent women, men and children and today, the world evolves around wars, from Goma to Gaza and Kiev, Crimea, Krasnodar Krai, and Volgograd Oblast, among others.
War by its nature kills people. War by its nature, destroys critical infrastructure. War, is war. It is dangerous.
Some wars are necessary, some are obviously unnecessary.
But wars have an element of provocation and people must know when to end. Humanity must know when to end.
SADC
Outgoing Sadc chairperson President Mnangagwa and his East African counterpart William Ruto have been clear about silencing the guns in Eastern DRC.
The two daddies of the region put all their efforts into solving a war that threatened to displace millions of people and kill thousands, others. In fact, the war had already killed and displaced many.
They applied their minds and wisdom, practised restraint and respect for humanity and at the end made serious headway.
Theirs is leadership much needed to serve and save people and bring lasting peace. That they sought a lasting solution is a real legacy issue that will transcend across generations to come. The two invested time and thought processes. We all know that DRC is a complex country, with complex political theatrics, but they worked on it.
We also know the DRC is vast and has vast local and international interests. That makes it a conundrum of competing political and economic interests.
Imagine how the DRC would look today if they had not worked on silencing the guns.
By all measure, the daddies did a good job.
Moscow, Washington and Kiev via Alaska
The world has been waiting with bated breath as efforts to bring peace to battered Ukraine, gather momentum, albeit Kiev’s out-of-sorts leader Volodymyr Zelensky playing an underdog role.
At the core of the efforts are two daddies — Russian President Vladimir Putin and American leader Donald John Trump — and several “children” in the European Union, clinging precariously to the verges of Trump’s trouser bottom, toddler style.
The way the end game is being played on the Ukraine war is leaving the “small boys” in European Union and NATO having to play catchup.
The daddies are at work, fully respecting each other and giving credence to why their countries are too powerful.
Just the dignity and mutual respect shown at meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska, compares to the circus at the Oval Office when Zelensky visited. It is telling. Trump was not as theatrical when he met Putin as he was when he met him. He toyi-toyed with Zelensky, knowing he was playing with his cheeky puppet.
While Trump ran over Zelensky like an angry dad whipping an errant son into line, on Putin he showed great respect and composure, while not hiding his excitement at finally meeting the Russian leader.
It is a tale of two Trump characters. There is a Trump who appeared before Zelensky, and a Trump who appeared before Putin. Two different people. The world watched. The world saw and the world learnt that it was not simply about Ukraine peace deal; it was two daddies working out the future of the world.
Putin has shown commitment to silencing the guns in Ukraine. Trump has shown great interest, of course against the grain of his allies in NATO, to bring peace to Ukraine, to silence the bombs in Kyiv.
But the war in Ukraine was avoidable from the beginning of Zelensky had applied his mind and not accepted being used a pawn by western Europe and the Joe Biden administration.
Today he is in a mess. His country is badly damaged. It needs rebuilding. The peace deal is being crafted with little if any input from him. He is no longer in charge. He is also illegitimate as his legal term expired.
He is now just a pawn and being knocked around like football. The daddies are at work.
Trump has ruled out deploying any soldiers to Ukraine as a security guarantee. Russia is still strong.
Then to the Sahel
Poor French President Emmanuel Macron seems not to know what hit him in the Sahel, because he ignored calls for a sane, escape from colonialism.
In the Sahel region, a new revolution is sweeping across former French colonies and new independence beckons, against the piecemeal, French chicanery, disguised as independence.
Progressive political cadres are working on a new Africa and are getting fair and equal treatment from new friends like Russia, a country without a history of colonising others.
Russia has no colonial hangover and the new crop of politicians there are finding it exciting to enjoy equal opportunities and fair play.
France left it a little too late. They still colonised the region and at the same time parroted about democracy, good governance, human rights and other Western propaganda fantasies.
When you look at it, the French are really cruel and insensitive; they are pumping billions of dollars they are stealing from their former colonies in the Sahel into funding a war in Ukraine.
The Sahel is largely inhabitable and requires serious investment in order to develop the lives of the people there and yet their wealth is being used to fight a war on the side of Ukraine. Now, who does that?
Are Africans in the Sahel not people? Do they not have blood?
Tel Aviv and Gaza
In modern world history, no leader has killed more people than Benjamin Netanyahu. Poor Benji has blood all over his hands. Gaza is the current Golgotha. It is the real place of killing. Netanyahu is not stopping. No one is stopping him. Only Donald Trump might.
Netanyahu is killing Palestinians like he is killing flies. He has no mercy. He is still pumping bullets into their bodies. He is bombing hospitals and schools and the world watches.
Peter Tanyanyiwa