Canada says Sanctions will remain on Zanu-PF

Mnangagwa rigged the recent elections and is therefore illegitimate. It is now four months since the rigged elections and if he thought he was going to get away with it; he was wrong. 

“In 2008, Canada adopted Special Economic Measures Act (Zimbabwe) Regulations with respect to Zimbabwe. These measures prohibit arms trade with Zimbabwe, and impose sanctions against listed Zimbabweans and entities. These measures will remain in place until there are positive shifts in Zimbabwean policy that result in improvements in human rights, democracy, freedom, and the rule of law” Canadian ambassador to Zimbabwe, René Cremonese, told the Independent is a recent interview. 

Rigging the has been a tough and very expensive task for President Mnangagwa but rigging the economic recovery, without which his continued stay in power is impossible, is proving to be mission impossible. 

Full marks to Mnangagwa, he did not need anyone to tell him the importance of attracting foreign direct investment as the only way to revive Zimbabwe’s comatose economy. He hit the ground running with his “Zimbabwe is open for business!” mantra which he adopted soon after last November’s military coup. Sadly, for him, he did not have the intellect to realise that investors are shrewd lot; they would not take his word for it, they would want to see his words backed by action.

Mnangagwa promised to hold free, fair and credible elections, it was the ultimate assurance that Zimbabwe was no longer pariah state ruled by corrupt and lawless thugs. He failed to keep the promise.

Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta friends had risked life and limb to wrestle power from Mugabe in the November 2017 coup; many had people doubted if the coup plotters would risk losing it in turn in a free and fair elections. The doubters were proven right. 

The July 2018 elections were whole flawed and illegal. There were glaring irregularities such as the denying of 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote; the failure to produce a verified voters’ roll although this is a legal requirement; etc. 

The elections have been condemned as “biased, unfair and falling short of accepted international standards” - diplomatic language for the elections were rigged and therefore Zanu PF is illegitimate. All the western nations has retained the economic sanctions they had imposed on the Zanu PF regime, as noted above. 

The greatest pressure on the Zanu PF regime to step down is coming from the sanctions but from the country’s worsening economic meltdown. The flood of investors the regime had hoped for in response to the “Zimbabwe is open for business!” clarion call has not materialised. The shrewd investors and lenders did not miss the rigged elections, etc. and have shied away. They do not do business in a pariah state.

As soon as it became clear that Zanu PF had rigged the elections, thus confirming the country’s status as a pariah state, all hope of a meaningful economic recovery evaporated. There has been panic and chaos in the country’s economic and financial market caused by shortage of foreign currency, fuel, food, medicine, etc. and the fluctuation of the Bond Notes against the US$. The new Minister of Finance, Professor Mthuli Ncube’s ill advised comments have not helped.

“It is the economy, stupid!” The Catch phrase helped former US President Bill Clinton win the elections. The phrase is having the opposite effect on Mnangagwa, the economy is sealing his doom! 

In his epic poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, describes a sailor who shoots a friendly albatross and, as punishment for his barbarism, is forced to wear the large bird’s carcass around his neck.  

The worsening economic meltdown is the albatross round Mnangagwa’s neck, his punishment for blatantly rigging the elections.

Zanu PF is imploding, the factional dog-eat-dog infighting in the party is tearing it apart. However the party is as determined as ever to hang on to power and so whilst the party is sinking into the abyss it, nonetheless, still retains its strangle hold on the nation. 

Zanu PF is sinking into the abyss and dragging the whole nation down with it. We must not and cannot allowed this to happen. 

Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta must be forced to step down a.s.a.p.; the regime rigged the elections and is therefore illegitimate. Whatever happens the regime must not be allow to remain in office to the 2023 elections. Whilst the party remains in office it will never allow and meaning democratic reforms to be implemented and the nation cannot afford yet another rigged elections in 2023!

By Jeff Kurai Chakanyuka

“You would agree that the harmony in any country depends on acceptance and respect of the separation of powers between the executive, legislature and judiciary. The country works best when that separation of power is respected. In that context, I would have thought that you agree that the pronouncement of the highest court should be accepted and respect by everyone,” Chief Emeka Anyaoku told Nelson Chamisa and Zimbabweans at large on Monday 26 November 2018. 

“The point you made about dialogue, can take place and should take place but all within the context of the accepted Con-Court pronouncement!”

It is all very well for Chief Anyauko to be pontificating about harmony; the separation of powers between the executive, legislature and judiciary; etc. but to what end and purpose if none of these things are applicable in the real Zimbabwe we live in. Of all the people, he knows that Zimbabwe in not a democratic nation.  

As former Secretary General of the Commonwealth, the Chief knows that Zimbabwe had to hurriedly resign from that club in 2003 to avoid being booted out. Still, CHOGM issued a statement confirming the indefinite suspension of Zimbabwe following the member’s meeting in Nigeria, Chief Anyauko’s own country of birth! 

Ever since last November’s military coup to remove Mugabe from office President Mnangagwa has made overtures to have Zimbabwe readmitted back into the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth had its own election observer team headed former Ghana president John Dramani Mahama. Their report, like a string of other reports, condemned the elections as unfair and blatantly biased in favour of Zanu PF.

"The first was the heavy bias of the State print and broadcast media in favour of the governing party. The second was use of incumbency privileges in a manner that unduly disadvantaged opposition parties," former president Mahama told reporters. 

Commonwealth Secretariat has disbanded the team to spear head Zimbabwe’s readmission; this is a club of nation who accept and respect the rule of law, the freedoms and rights of the citizens including the right to free, fair and credible elections. They would not want to welcome back a vote rigging rogue state in their midst, especially one they had expelled for repeatedly failing to hold free elections and other human rights violations.

It is therefore shocking that someone like Chief Emeka Anyauko, who cares and understands the importance of such key democratic tenets as holding free, fair and credible elections; the separation of powers between the executive, legislature and judiciary; etc. should lecture MDC Alliance leaders and the people of Zimbabwe at large on the same. But fails to do the same to Mnangagwa and his junta; the people with the power and authority and whose heavy boot of oppression is on the neck of the nation, has been these last 38 years and counting!

Zimbabwe is not a healthy and functional democracy just as President Mnangagwa does not have mandate to government the country because he blatantly rigged the elections. So why all this charade of pretending Zimbabwe is a democracy when we all know it is not. Why do you want the world to endorse Mnangagwa as president when he is illegitimate?

Mnangagwa’s legitimacy will not come from Nelson Chamisa and his MDC Alliance friends’ public acceptance of his election victory but from the majority of ordinary Zimbabweans voting for him in a free, fair and credible elections. The 30 July 2018 elections were NOT free, fair and credible and therefore Mnangagwa is illegitimate and no amount of dirty horse-trading between MDC and Zanu PF can ever change that reality.

Chief Emeka Anyauko, it would have been better for this nation  if you had never set foot in Zimbabwe. The people of Zimbabwe welcomed you on the belief you are a man of honour and will speak truth to power. There is nothing more obnoxious than he who comes in the name of the poor, oppressed and downtrodden but only to betray them by betraying the truth!

Chamisa appear before Commission

"A Commission of Inquiry into the August 1 shootings that occurred after the July 30 harmonised elections will resume today with MDC president Nelson Chamisa expected to testify,” reported Bulawayo 24.

Chamisa and the rest of the opposition were warned repeatedly not to take part in the recent elections until democratic reforms are implemented to make sure the elections are free, fair and credible. He would not listen, claiming "MDC had stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!" The stringent measures did not work against ZEC for Justice Chigumba and her fellow commissioners blatantly disregarded the law to secure a landslide victory for Zanu PF. 

They knew the plaintiff's, Chamisa, request to have the ballot boxes opened was denied. Although the Judges could and should have demanded to have the ballot boxes opened, particularly since they were the ones insisting on primary source evidence. They did not make any such demand because they knew the same chaos, irregularity, illegalities, etc. found in the evidence before the court would also be found in the sealed ballot boxes. 

It is fair to say the Con-Court started from the outcome, they had to confirm Mnangagwa as the winner, and so they task was to find a plausible excuse to justify their judgement. They would reject the damning evidence presented to the court by both the plaintiff and the key defendant, ZEC, on the grounds that it was not collaborated by primary source evidence - a convenient legal bolt hole! 

It should be remembered that it was the same Judiciary that had ruled the the 15 November 2017 military coup was "legal, constitutional and justified"! Of course, it was naive to expect justice from a judiciary that is corrupt to the core!

It would be a real surprise if the Motlanthe Commission was not biased, corrupt and incompetent. No one in their right mind expects the Commission to accomplish much other than gloss over the shooting and the serious matter of the rigged elections, which triggered the protest. But that is all beside the point. 

BY JEFF KURAI CHAKANYUKA

" 800 000 jobs CREATED" says Mangwana

“President Emmerson Mnangagwa's first year in office has been very successful to the extent that his main thrust has been to deal with fundamental issues like, firstly, the fundamentals that improve our democracy, as well as economic fundamentals that will ensure there is an economic turnaround with regard to national aspirations as per vision 2030, whose aim is to turn Zimbabwe into an upper middle income country,” said Nick Mangwana.

Everyone who is anyone has dismissed the recent elections as “bias, unfair, uneven playing field” and one of two have even called them for what they are “rigged elections”. Even the Zanu PF’s own Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission has confirmed that the regime rural voters were abused by the party leaders, traditional leaders and other operative who distributed state supplied food aid and agricultural inputs in a partisan manner reducing the rural people to nothing but serfs beholden to the landlord, Zanu PF. The regime blatantly rigs the elections and its apologist claims that the Mnangagwa has improved the democratic fundamentals! 

As for the regime improving the economic fundamentals that is just a foolish notion. On Wednesday Minister of Finance, Professor Ncube, was talking of finally removing the green bombers, Zanu PF Youths who have been some of ghost civil servants. Mnangagwa promised to do this last year, why has it taken a whole year? He is laying off one lot of blood suckers only to take another lot on the civil service payroll in the form of laid off cabinet members, permanent secretaries, etc. who have been “redeployed” on full pay and benefits. 

The real tough corruption cases such as the wholesale looting of diamonds in Marange and Chiadzwa is going on untouched. Mugabe said the country lost $15 billion in diamond revenue. Not one individual has ever been arrested and not one dollar recovered because many of those involved in this grant state sponsored robbery are senior member of Mnangagwa’s government! 

“Investment is happening, but it is not happening overnight.  Right now, 800 000 people have got jobs in a short period and it shows that this is not a joke,” said Nick.

He did not say who are the employers of these 800 000 workers because both the employers and employees are all a figment of his imagination. 

You can get away with serving mutton and claim it is lamb but not so with the hot chilli. Zimbabweans know the country's economic meltdown is getting worse and not better!

Since the 30th July 2018 disputed elections, the Zimbabwe economy has been in turmoil with serious shortage of foreign currency, food, fuel, medicine, etc. The regime has had to borrow money to fill the foreign currency shortage but this is only a temporary solution. The long term solution is for serious cash injection from investors and lenders. Sadly there is no hope of any meaningful direct investment in Zimbabwe, not whilst the country remain a pariah state.

As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs the country will never know political stability or register any meaningful economic recovery. Every one knows that Zimbabwe is a pariah state and all that happened in last November’s coup was an internal quarrel wit😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅hin the party resulting in some individuals being booted out of the party without changing the nature of the party. 

Zanu PF remains a party of corrupt and ruthless thugs who number one priority is to retain absolute power at all cost! Zimbabwe under Zanu PF will remain a pariah state, period.

BY JEFF KURAI CHAKANYUKA

Ncube's budget will tax the poor to death

On Wednesday 21 November 2018, Professor Mthuli Ncube, Zimbabwe’s minister of Finance, presented his maiden national budget. There are many things one can say about the budget, I will just say five things:

1) ”The spike in prices of goods and services appears to have receded, confirming that the main price hikes were a spontaneous response to uncertainty and confidence issues,” he said.  

What he should have gone on to say he had created most if not all the uncertainty with his ill-advised and downright foolish statements. He said Zimbabwe was going to phase out the Bond Notes only to contradict that a few days later. 

He then said “market forces” will determine the value of the Bond Notes relative to the US$ and other foreign currencies only to say the opposite a day or so afterwards. This caused serious panic in the economic and financial markets with the Bond Notes : US$ exchange jumping from the official 1:1 to as much as 10:1! 

If Zimbabwe had been a healthy and functional democracy, Minister Ncube would have been forced to resign; Zimbabwe is Banana Republic and so he stayed. If anyone thought the above admission showed the Minister had learned his lesson the next statement shows he had not!

2) "The 2 917 Youth Officers who still remain on the payroll, are being retired and the posts removed from the establishment, by end of December 2018,” he said.

"At its 38th Meeting of 5 December 2017, Cabinet re-affirmed its decision to terminate employment contracts of 3 188 Youth Officers as previously resolved.”

President Mnangagwa had made a big song and dance about ending corruption, mismanagement, etc. that had become endemic under Mugabe’s reign. Now the nation learns that it was all hot-air the few Zanu PF youths laid off were those belonging to the rivalry G40 faction. 

Even if the regime finally act and laid off these Zanu PF youths, commonly known as the green bomber in reference to their traditional green uniforms and are nothing more than green flies laying life nuggets on the wounds of the sick nation; nothing much will change. 

The nation is painfully aware that President Mnangagwa has “redeployed” most of his former cabinet members, permanent secretaries, etc. on their last salary, perks everything. Only those considered to be G40 members have been laid off. In other words the nation is shedding off one set of blood sucking ticks only to inherit another! This is just a revolving door!

Lift targeted sanctions says Ramaphosa

Zimbabwe is in serious economic and political mess and there are many who have taken to shouting “Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” only to help spread the panic!

“Ideally, the key thing is to establish ways of making positive contributions rather than criticising without proffering solutions,” argued News Day stoically, only to muddy the water its proffered “solution”.

“However, Mnangagwa must not wish Chamisa away. He’s a potent opposition political leader, who was voted by nearly half of the voting population and space must be created for him if the country is to achieve its economic goals or Mnangagwa’s 2030 vision.

“It does not make sense for that matter — be it Mnangagwa, Zanu PF, Chamisa or the MDC — to deny the legitimacy question or insist that sanctions on Zimbabwe should remain when other leaders, like South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, are arguing Zimbabwe’s case at meetings with other key Western economic block demanding that they should lift the embargo against the country.”

It is disappointing that some many people are still confused about the sanctions particularly those whose principal task is to inform and educate the populous. If the Rabbi of Rob is at sea then so too are his followers!

Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown was not caused by the sanctions but rather by the criminal waste of human and material resources through gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. How can any nation sustain, much less prosper, a $15 billion revenue haemorrhage from diamond industry alone especially a nation like Zimbabwe whose GDP is a mere $10 billion.   

The corollary is equally true; it is naive to expect the country to register any meaningful economic recovery until the nation is cured of the cancerous tumours of mismanagement and corruptions. And the medicine to cure the cancer is to implement the democratic reforms and hold free, fair and credible elections.  

It was President Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta who corrupted the country’s democratic institutions; hence the need to now implement the reforms; to imposed the de fact one-party dictatorship and consolidate the party’s iron grip on absolute power. Implementing the reforms will dismantle the party’s patronage system which is central to its retaining a tight grip on power but also the root cause of the mismanagement and corruption; hence the reason the party has resisted implementing reforms and holding free and fair elections.

The Americans have gone to town explaining the linkage between holding free, fair and credible elections and the lifting of sanctions. 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote, there was no free public media, the regime failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll for Pete’s sake, etc. The conclusion is self-evident, Zanu PF failed to hold free and fair elections and therefore why should the sanctions be lifted?

It is bad enough that reporters in News Day are still, after all these years of the issue being discussed at length, failing to get their heads round the sanctions debate; it is a great national tragedy that someone as esteemed and political powerful as Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Republic of South Africa, is himself lost at sea too.

In 1986 a number of nation imposed economic sanctions on Apartheid ruled SA, just as sanctions on white ruled Rhodesia. The majority of blacks in SA and Rhodesia supported the imposition of the sanctions as a necessary measure to force meaningful political change. So President Ramaphosa believed sanctions were necessary to end white tyrannical rule but not necessary to end black tyrannical rule?

It is no secret that SA is not exactly a model nation with a booming economy and everything running smoothly; the country has blundered from pillar to post from one corruption scandal to another. Yes, SA is nowhere near the political and economic mess one sees in Zimbabwe; still there is plenty for South Africans to start worrying about.

On the issue of lifting sanctions on the Zanu PF vote rigging

thugs, President Ramaphosa is hopelessly out of touch with 

reality.

BY JEFF KURAI CHAKANYUKA

Zanu PF's OWN commission confirms abuse of aid

There is a mountain of evidence already proving that Zanu PF rigged the recent elections and still more damning reports and evidence continue to come in. Last week the Commonwealth Election Observer team released their report, it said the elections were “biased and unfair”.  Today it is the country’s commissioners, Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC), to condemn the elections.

“They (ZHRC reports) uncover a systematic use of food aid and agricultural inputs from the State as a tool to persuade the recipients to support Zanu PF, the ruling party; and/or to punish persons, otherwise entitled to aid and inputs, for being or perceived to be, or to be related to, supporters of opposition parties,” reported The Zimbabwean.  

“Methods varied, but a common one was for a ZANU PF party official to take over the distribution of aid and inputs from (State) officials, resulting in ZANU PF supporters getting preferential treatment and others either no aid at all or less than ZANU PF supporters.

“The reports unearth a structure involving District Committees, Ward Councillors, local ZANU PF chairpersons and traditional leaders [mainly headmen] who together were involved in the distribution of food aid and often demanded or expected loyalty to the incumbent party.  The reports reveal a neglect of duty on the part of these community leaders.”

EU Observer Team too has said a lot on abuse of rural voters by Zanu PF operatives during the elections. “While political rights were largely respected, there were concerns regarding the environment for the polls and the failure to achieve a level playing field,” EU said in its report, released three weeks ago. 

“Observers widely reported on efforts to undermine the free expression of the will of electors, through inducements, intimidation and coercion against prospective voters to try to ensure a vote in favour of the ruling party. Such practices also included direct threats of violence, pressure on people to attend rallies, partisan actions by traditional leaders, collection of voter registration slips and other measures to undermine confidence in the secrecy of the vote, manipulation of food aid and agricultural programmes and other misuses of state resources.”

The ZHRC reports have “a long list of recommendations, addressed to the following:  complainants and concerned members of the public; to ZANU PF and other political parties; ministry of this and ministry if that; etc., etc.” And for each one of these addressees the reports gives recommendations “regarding the need for better administration, control and monitoring, etc., etc.” 

This is very disappointing!  After 38 years of rigged elections each followed by countless pious reports by busy-bodies like ZHRC repeating the same pious recommendations which the regime ignores; it is all tediously familiar.

The rural voters, at the coal face of this political abuse, have been denied their freedoms and basic human rights all their lives; first by the white colonial regime and now by Zanu PF. They have lost faith in all such empty niceties as ZHRC recommendations! Many of them have long accepted the abuse by Zanu PF officials and thugs as a matter of course just as they have accepted their position as the down trodden serfs.

The only to end this whole macabre circus is to reject that those guilty of blatantly rigging elections should ever again be allowed to get away with a slap on the wrist! We must dismiss the ZHRC and their pious recommendations with the contempt they rightly deserves! 

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess because the country has been stuck, for 38 years and counting, with a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF regime. The regime routinely rigged elections hence the reason the nation could not remove it from power regardless of it tyrannical and ruinous reign. 

Whilst we have routinely, especially in the last two decades, demanded free, fair and credible elections; it was all lip service we did not mean it. Because Zanu PF has, again and again, contemptuously disregarded our demands and blatantly rigged the elections; we have done nothing about it time and time again. This time, we must do something to end this curse of rigged elections.

President Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta rigged the recent elections, they have no mandate to govern and they step down.

We need to appoint an interim administration to implement the democratic reforms to take away Zanu PF’s dictatorial powers to abuse the rural voters, amongst other things.

The only acceptable democratic mandate to govern Zimbabwe is from majority vote of free voters and not from povo reduced into mere serfs by intimidation and coercion. To allow the recent election result to stand will be to reward Zanu PF for its continued treasonous abuse of rural voters. The abuse must end and end now!

BY JEFF KURAI CHAKANYUKA

Expansion of democratic space boasted Mnangagwa

Mupakati anokubirwa nomutsitsi; akakupa chisvanda, anopendedza nyika!” (A tyrant robs you by the bushel full; if he gives away a bowl, he will make a big song and dance of his generosity!) So goes the Shona proverb. It says all that needs to be said about this Zanu PF dictatorship!

Officiating at a police graduation ceremony last Thursday, Mnangagwa appeared to have the planned MDC demonstration in mind when he warned that people must not abuse their freedoms.

"The advent of the new dispensation and the Second Republic saw the expansion of democratic space in our country, as enshrined in our Constitution. This culminated in the holding of peaceful, free, fair and credible harmonised general elections,” President Mnangagwa said last Thursday.

"However, it is regrettable that some retrogressive, unpatriotic and selfish individuals are bent on abusing the democracy we now enjoy.”

1. Yes, this year’s elections were relatively peaceful - up to 1 st August shooting dead of seven unarmed civilians following the post elections protest - compared to the wanton violence and barbarism of the 2008 elections. President Mnangagwa knows only too well of the madness of that year as he was the Zanu PF pointer man behind it all. He has gone to town about how he has reined in the war veterans, party thugs and the various security services personal behind the violence in the past elections. To hear him talk about it one would think peaceful elections is not a right but a privilege we should all be forever grateful to Mnangagwa and his Second Republic for!

2. President Mnangagwa can claim the elections were free, fair and credible as often as he wished; the cold reality is he rigged the elections. EU, the Americans, the Commonwealth and even the British, who had supported him ever since last November’s coup, had no choice but to admit the elections were rigged. Whether President Mnangagwa likes it or not, his regime does not have the democratic mandate to govern the country, it is illegitimate. Worse still, Zimbabwe’s economic recovery will never happen because no serious investors will do business in a pariah state governed by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. 

3. The shooting of the protestors soon after the voting day was a timely reminder to the nation that the relative peace up to voting day had exercised Zanu PF’s patience. The party’s patience snapped at the sight of protestors and armed soldiers were deployed with instructions of shoot to kill just to remind the nation that Zanu PF is still a party of violence ruling by fear and not the democratic mandate. “Zanu PF ndeye ropa!” (Zanu PF is a party of blood!) as the party members have often sung out boastfully!

4. As this talk of “unpatriotic and selfish individuals bent on abusing the democracy” is just an excuse to justify the regime resorting to the same tyrannical measures Zanu PF had used all along. The so called Second Republic, the new dispensation was a myth shrouded in smoke and mirror. Two events, the rigged elections and the shooting of unarmed civilians, have exposed the lie of the Second Republic. Last November military coup changed nothing much other than replacing Mugabe with Mnangagwa who is “Mugabe mark 2”, as British MP Kate Hoey rightly called him.

5. President Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta are committed to one thing above all else, that Zanu PF must remain in power at all cost. “Zanu PF ichatoga! Igotonga! Imi muchingohukura! Nokuhukura!” (Zanu PF will rule! And rule! Whilst (those calling for free elections) bark! And bark!) Was the first thing Mnangagwa said to reassure his party members soon after last November’s coup. Zanu PF has established a robust political system to effectively deny the people their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free elections and even the right to life. The party has certainly robbed povo by the bushel full and it sure makes a big song and dance of every bit of freedom or right the regime gives away, even if be for a short period. 

6. If we are serious about reclaiming our basic freedoms and rights, about Zimbabwe holding free, fair and credible elections and restoring good governance and putting the nation back of a firm track of economic recovery; then we demand the implementation of all the democratic reforms. We must reject the bowl Zanu PF is offering us and demand the bushel full the regime stole from us!

BY JEFF KURAI CHAKANYUKA

Chiwenga deployed soldiers and gave order shoot to kill

“There is a good catch to all this. At no time did Mangota aver that the commander of the Defence Forces, Valerio Sibanda, was approached and participated in deploying the soldiers. Nor did the judge mention the commander of the Zimbabwe National Army. It would seem, therefore, that Chiwenga made the decision without involving the two people in charge of the army. It would always be weird for an acting minister to leapfrog the army generals,” wrote Tawanda Majoni, in Zimeye.

“The last time the law spoke, the president was the ultimate authority in the deployment of the army. His signature must accompany military deployments, so to speak. According to Justice Mangota, Mnangagwa did not deploy the soldiers. Since Chiwenga did and Mnangagwa didn’t, the former has a case to answer. It means he violated the constitution and broke subsidiary laws.”

 Another excellent article, thank you Tawanda. 

If Justice Mangota has already established who was responsible for deploying the soldiers and giving out the order of “shoot to kill” then one has to ask why bother with the Commission of Inquiry? 

If the truth be told, many people had already come to the same conclusion that VP Chiwenga had deployed the soldiers without consulting Mnangagwa. This was not the first time the VP had taken a very important decision without consulting the President - we all remember his summarily dismissal of nurses because they had dared to go on strive earlier this year. 

So President Mnangagwa has appointed a Commission of Inquiry to run for months on end at great national expense to establish something that a normal Court was able to establish is a few weeks. What a waste!

Since the Commission of Inquiry had already been establish the Commission should have been given the power to rule on the matter before any other body. 

Even is President Mnangagwa was the one who had issued the order to shoot, he still has authority and power to appoint a commission of inquiry. Justice Mangota should have confined himself to address the question of whether or not it is reasonable to assume the Commission would still be sufficiently independent to establish the truth without overreaching and telling the Commission what that truth is!

It is not as if Zimbabwe’s Courts are themselves the bastions of justice one would expect in a healthy and functional democracy given they have played their part in helping Zanu PF tighten its dictatorial grip on the nation. In a recent Con-Court challenge of the election result the Judges acknowledge there were serious electoral flaws in the process from the evidence submitted before the Court. And yet the Judges ignored all this evidence on the shaky grounds that it was not collaborated by the “primary source evidence” in sealed ballot boxes. 

The Judges conveniently ignored the plaintiff’s assertion that they had requested the sealed boxes to be opened but the request was denied. The Judges could have ordered the sealed boxes to be opened but chose not to exercise their power and authority. 

And so the Judges’ decision to declare Mnangagwa the winner of the elections was based on the assumption that the evidence in the sealed boxes bespoke of a free, fair and credible election contrary to the evidence they have seen but chose to ignore. 

Every respectable Election Observer team’s report has confirmed the evidence the Judges ignore and condemned the elections as flawed and illegal! 

By Jeff Kurai Chakanyuka

Commission of inquiry is diverted attention from the rigged elections

If the truth be told, I have not paid much attention to the antics 1st August Commission of inquiry chaired by former President Kgalema Motlanthe of SA. I had expected the commission to be a farce, a complete waste of time and resources, I was wrong. 

It has turned to be a complete waste of time and resources, yes, but worst of all it is political decoy delivered with flare and gusto. The primary task of the commission was to draw public attention away from the rigged elections and they have certainly done that; President Mnangagwa must be very pleased with the results!

It is all very well to hear former Zanu PF Chipangano thug, Jim Kunaka, confirm that last November’s military coup was indeed a coup detat and why it was necessary.

“A coup was held in November last year because the old guard had been outwitted by the G-40 team. They had to use guns because they had been completely outwitted,” said Kunaka.

“I know everything about the Zanu PF culture of violence. Remember I was a senior member of the ruling party.” 

It was comical to hear Kunaka being denounced in turn by his former comrade, Lewis Matutu. 

“Jim Kunaka has conceded perpetrating violence against the opposition and killing people for political gains live on TV before the commission of inquiry. All this was done under the oath. It is the duty of the law enforcement institutions to apprehend him and be charged under the laws of the land. He should not be allowed to get away with this!” said Matutu.

“If he was given instructions as he alleges, he must name those who gave him such orders if they do exist. Let him name those that were working with him. He just complicated his life because mhosva hairovi (crime does not rot like meat) he must be held accountable.” 

But that is just it, Kunaka can name those who gave him the instructions to kill; just as the individuals responsible for the shooting of the seven civilians behind this commission on may be named; what difference will that make! In the 38 years of Zanu PF tyrannical rule, over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans have been murdered in cold blood to establish and retain the de facto one party dictatorship we are groaning under. 

In 99% of the cases the murders were never arrested even when many people had named. In the odd case where the criminals were arrested, tried and convicted; they were granted the ubiquitous presidential pardon, for Zanu PF thugs only of course, without ever spending a single night behind bars! 

Indeed, one can go so far as to say this Commission of Inquiry’s primary purpose is to divert the nation’s attention from President Mnangagwa and his junta’s treasonous act of rigging the 30 July 2018 elections and the disastrous consequences of the worsen economic meltdown that followed. And full marks to all the commissioners, they have played their assigned roles with flying colours. 

Zanu PF thugs have carte blanche powers to do whatever they considers necessary to secure their own and the party’s strangle hold on power. Last November’s coup was high treason the regime got Justice George Chiweshe to rule is “legal, constitutional and justified”. 

The junta has just successful blatantly rigged the elections with the assistance of the corrupted ZEC. The whole election process was flawed and illegal, the regime even failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll. 

The election results were challenged in the Con-Court. The Judges ignored all the evidence put before the court, proving beyond doubt that the elections were rigged, because the evidence “was not collaborated by primary evidence in the sealed ballot boxes”, they argued. 

The plaintiff’s request to have the ballot boxes opened was denied and the Judges themselves never asked to the boxes be opened. So, the Judge’s decision to endorse Mnangagwa as the winner were based on the assumption that the primary evidence in the sealed ballot boxes would have proven the elections were NOT rigged. 

Of course, it was a nonsensical judgement. What was the point of asking the parties to this case to submit sworn affidavit if the judges are going to ignore that evidence and then conveniently ignore the opportunity to examine the primary source evidence they are insisting on! 

The primary purpose of the Con-Court in the above case was to help the Zanu PF junta gloss over the glaring irregularities and  illegalities and judge rigged elections free, fair and credible. 

Of course, the regime knew that it had rigged the elections and many people would be furious about it. The regime, whose murderous thugs had clearly strained at the leash to keep the peace throughout the campaign period, unleashed the thugs at the protestors. The shooting dead of the seven civilians was meant to reminder all that the party would not tolerate any protests against the rigged elections. 

The Motlanthe Commission; just like ZEC, the Con-Court, etc.; is a toothless dog with neither the bark nor bite. It is not the The commission will not name the individuals who pulled the trigger much less those who deployed them and gave the order of “Shoot to kill!” It is not in the commission’s remit. 

Even if the commission named everyone of those involved here we can be certain of one thing this will do nothing to help restore the individual freedoms and human rights much less put right the immediate problem of rigged 30 July 2018 elections!

Indeed, it is now clear that the commission of inquiry was a cynical decoy to take attention away from the serious issue of the rigged elections and the economic meltdown that followed.

Last year the regime organised the 18 November 2017 street protest, carefully stage-manage theatrical to allow the public to let out some steam and it worked like a charm. This Motlanthe commission is yet another carefully stage-managed performance that has too worked like a charm.

The seven shot dead must be turning in their graves, joining the over 30 000 murdered by the regime who are spinning by now, angry the opportunity the shooting presented to demand meaningful democratic change has clearly been wasted, once again!

By Jeff Kurai Chakanyuka