Sunday, July 30, 2006

IF YOU HOUGHT TSVANGIRAI WAS WASHED OUT

The campaign for the Zimbabwe presidential election expected in early 2008 is on.

No, there was no formal announcement by anyone but events in Harare in the past week suggest the fight is on and, once again, it is going to be President Robert Mugabe of Zanu PF and Morgan Tsvangirai, representing a coalition of the opposition parties.

Isn’t Mugabe supposed to retire in 2008, you may ask. And, oh, who chose Tsvangirai as the candidate for what opposition coalition?

It is no rocket science really.

Mugabe has been making the same moves he has made over the last 26 years to announce, indirectly, that he is not gonna let anyone or anything make him lose Zimbabwe house to any opposition leader, particularly Tsvangison.

He has put loyal army personnel in key positions in most strategic institutions, he has since announced an intention to pay war veterans more money and millions of taxpayers Zimkwachas have been allocated to strengthen the National Youth Service (Green Bombers) which we had been made to believe was being disbanded.

To top it all, the president has employed his oldest and most effective trick. Berate his ministers. Call them useless and corrupt and even initiate their arrest and trials. Remember the likes of Kumbirai Kangai in 2000, Chris Kuruneri in 2004 and now Brighton Matonga and possibly other ministers, are in the firing line.

The trick works wonders. Ministers get arrested, ambitious party cadres campaign hard in the hope to fill vacated positions and the masses say; “Ndiva Mugabe chete vanogona”. Before you know it, its another 6 years of Gushungo rule.

On the other hand, Tsvangirai is getting smart by the day. He knows that more than anything, his only chance at grabbing Zim House from Cde Handiende is to lead a united front of all opposition parties.

Contrary to earlier reports that he would boycott a church organized coalition building meeting, he turns up and once he got the chance to stand on the podium, he invites his biggest rival, Arthur Mutambara of the other MDC faction, for an embrace.

My God! It worked like magic. Mutambara was soon gushing that he would have no problem deferring to Tsvangirai. Anybody still thinks Tsvangirai is not intelligent?

TO READ MORE OF MY WRITING, PLEASE VISIT; www.torontosun.ca/News/Columnists/Madawo_Innocent/
http://www.catholicregister.org/
http://www.durdesh.net/issue002/page24.pdf
http://www.canadiannewcomermagazine.org/
http://www.thecanadian.ca/
http://www.zimcanada.com/
http://www.jexcanada.com/

MDC LAWSUIT COULD DAMAGE COMMUNITY




















MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, A COMMUNITY IS VIEWED THROUGH THE CONDUCT OF ITS LEADERS AND OPINION MAKERS. IT IS IN THIS LIGHT THAT I HOPE THE FOLLOWING STORY WILL SERVE AS A CAUTION TO THOSE OF US IN IT AND A WARNING TO THOSE WHO MAY FIND THEMSELVES IN A SIMILAR SITUATION.

So, here goes:

Something very disturbing is happening among us, the Zimbabwean community in Toronto. A fight of sorts between politicians and journalists, no less.

A fight that has a potential to damage personal reputations and community harmony in a foreign land.

The vice chairman for MDC Toronto, Mr. Andrew Mudzingwa is suing journalist Mrs. Mazvita Irene Mlambo for alleged damaging statements published on the MDC Toronto Yahoo Group.

According to a letter of intent to sue, sent to Mrs. Mlambo by Mr. Mudzingwa’s lawyers, Levine, Sherkin, Boussidan – Barristers, the MDC leader was particularly ticked off by Mrs. Mlambo’s assertions, on July 1st, 2006, that he was “involved in fistfights at parties” and “pilfering funds and benefiting himself”.

The letter stated that Mr. Mudzingwa will seek “general damages, special damages and aggravated damages together with interest and costs arising from your actions”. The journalist was given seven days from July 25th, 2006, to make “a clear and unequivocal apology and retraction” if she did not want the lawsuit to proceed.

Mrs. Mlambo is seeking legal advice.

Under normal circumstances, this matter would be stuff that makes interesting reading and the writer and readers alike would gleefully follow the whole saga as it unfolds. Except, this is really a sad example of how we, as a people excel at throwing pot shots at each other and rubbing each other with mud.

In fact, I am as much part of this saga as the two antagonists and I will explain how.

Sometime in January, in my capacity as a journalist, I asked a Mr. Cornellius Msimbe of MDC Dallas, what he thought of the split of the party in Zimbabwe. My idea was to find out how MDC members in the Diaspora were affected by the split and how they were reacting to it.

Mr. Msimbe contacted Mr. Andrew Manyevere, the chairman of the Toronto MDC to find out who I was. Despite that we lived as neighbours in Dallas and that my wife, was in his executive, Mr. Manyevere said he did not know me and he went on to call me such names as “prostitute”, “unclean” and “enemy of the people of Zimbabwe”. He went on to state, in the MDC Toronto Yahoo Group, that he was going to launch an inquiry into my activities.

A concerned MDC member forwarded Mr. Manyevere’s statement to me. I did the responsible thing, I e-mailed Mr. Manyevere seeking explanation – I never got it.

I also wrote to his executive, through vice chairman, Mr. Mudzingwa, seeking a clarification of my crime and why an Inquiry was being launched into my activities – I never got a response from him either.

Many, within MDC Toronto, urged me to sue for the same reasons that Mr. Mudzingwa is suing Mrs. Mlambo –defamation and possibly worse. I did not do that out of respect for Mr.Manyevere as an elder and also because I knew that I was far from being a “prostitute”, “unclean” or an “enemy” of anyone.

But then, sometime in June, Mr. Mudzingwa used the same MDC Toronto Yahoo Group to praise certain journalists at my expense. He implied that they knew journalism better than me because I wrote about faults in MDC Toronto.

Again I was urged to sue, but I did not even so much as react, again because of respect for Mr. Mudzingwa’s views and also because I know my trade and my work speaks for itself.

However, Mrs. Mlambo did not take kindly to Mr. Mudzingwa seeking to divide journalists and particularly for the MDC’s top leadership’s propensity to target me. She did not have to do this, but somebody had to defend our profession and she stood up for us.

Mr. Mudzingwa may feel that he has a right to sue Mrs. Mlambo and surely nobody can begrudge him that.

However, I just need to remind Mr. Mudzingwa that when he accepted his position in MDC, he should have known that all sorts of things will be thrown at him and a lot of his decisions and judgement willbe questioned, sometimes in not so charitable language. He, as a community leader should learn to accept some of these criticisms as a source of inspiration in his leadership role.

At stake, more than anything, is our reputation as Zimbabweans. We stand to lose more with this unnecessary fight than we can gain, individually or as a community.

TO READ MORE OF MY WRITING, PLEASE VISIT; www.torontosun.ca/News/Columnists/Madawo_Innocent/
http://www.catholicregister.org/
http://www.durdesh.net/issue002/page24.pdf
http://www.canadiannewcomermagazine.org/
http://www.thecanadian.ca/
http://www.zimcanada.com/
http://www.jexcanada.com/