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President mugabe

ROBERT Mugabe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, Constantine Chiwenga, Jonathan Moyo, Ignatius Chombo and so the list goes on. These are merely a handful of the Machiavellian characters that are at the heart of Zanu-PF. Reading the list one thing becomes clear, all of them know how to play the game of power politics whatever the rules.

History has shown us Robert Mugabe play the noble statesman, forgiving whites guilty of grievous crimes and calling for us to beat our swords into nation-building ploughshares. But he has not always been a gentle lamb. It has also shown him in ruthless stripes, publicly declaring white farmers an “enemy” and unleashing a wily scheme of expropriation against them. Zanu-PF knows how to play dirty, if need be.

Dirty Politics

I am particularly interested in getting the MDC to realise that the rules of the game it has set in its fight with Zanu-PF are unhelpful. The MDC has sought to employ dirty tactics to dislodge Zanu-PF.

Gabriel Chaibva (formerly MDC) has publicly admitted that he was part of a meeting in Nyanga that brought together David Coltart, Eddie Cross and other MDC heavyweights to strategise as to how best they could dislodge Zanu-PF from power.
He admits that the resolution was to lobby for the imposition of sanctions in the hope that a speedy demise of the economy would stir up widespread public discontent and lead to a downfall of the Government.

This is an admission by Chaibva, not an assertion by Zanu-PF. If anyone doubts the truth of Chaibva’s words as regards the complicity of the MDC in the imposition of economic sanctions they simply need to read the leaked US diplomatic cables in which Tsvangirai privately advised the Americans to maintain sanctions and to ignore his public calls for their removal. Tsvangirai has been dishonest.
By calling for the imposition of sanctions to better its political prospects, the MDC introduced dirty methods as a legitimate tool in its fight against Zanu-PF.

This would be a useful strategy if Zanu-PF were a benign creature unable to fight back with similarly dirty methods.
It is not. If anything, Zanu-PF thrives in such murky waters. It has the intelligence services at its disposal, counts highly decorated military officers in its ranks and enjoys the patronage of some of the country’s greatest thinkers, many of whom are quietly in its employ. Add to this cocktail considerable financial resources and it becomes clear that fighting dirty with such a party is unwise.

African Leaders Persuaded

Once the MDC began using sanctions as its political tool of choice it gave Zanu-PF legitimate grounds to strike back using its own arsenal of dirty methods. When African leaders voiced concern at Zanu-PF’s alleged brutish methods Mugabe simply presented credible evidence of the MDC working in cahoots with Western nations to sabotage the country’s economy. This effectively painted the MDC as a sophisticated act of Western subversion that threatened national security. Tsvangirai takes great pleasure in dining with pink ambassadors, imagining African leaders unimportant. He is ill-advised.

The West might not hold African institutions in high regard but it cannot act without their endorsement.
Tony Blair admitted in his memoirs that he wanted to remove Robert Mugabe through force but was held back by Zimbabwe’s neighbours, confessing that this was a cause of great frustration for him.

It is against this background that the MDC was outsmarted. Mugabe branded Tsvangirai as a Western project and it was easy for Zanu-PF to justify any and every action against him.

In all this it is important to note that it is the MDC that legitimised the use of dirty methods, not Zanu-PF.
For all the complaints against sanctions, the fact of it is that they have actually proved a powerful political tool both domestically and in Africa.

Pius Ncube

It might be helpful to look back at our history to see the extent of Zanu-PF’s abilities in the dirty methods arena. Consider the “holy” man, Pius Ncube.

Here was a well-regarded man in society who decided to work towards the ends of regime change. It is important to note that he was not an impartial analyst but was an anti-Government agitator.

We all know why that man of the cloth lost all his righteous prestige and was forced to leave the country some years ago. Zanu-PF is not incompetent, it knows how to do these things and it is unwise to provoke it into a mud fight.

Perfidious Albion

The British agreed to fund the land reform programme, this on the sidelines of the Lancaster House Conference.
In 1997, Claire Short wrote an impolitely toned letter to the Zimbabwean Government effectively reneging on the agreement. We do not have a responsibility to fund land reform, she said.

This was a clever ploy on the part of the British to take advantage of the absence of written agreements. They wanted to play dirty. Robert Mugabe had nothing more than a verbal gentleman’s agreement. The British misread Mugabe’s charming and deferential demeanour and thus underestimated his capacity to retaliate in equal measure.

Riotous war veterans and idle youths were given the nod and a wink and they invaded white-owned farms across the country with complete impunity.

Those who resisted met violent ends. Mugabe feigned an inability to restrain them, claiming this was a spontaneous act of protest when, in fact, it was a clandestine intelligence operation orchestrated by Mugabe himself.

The rest is history but what we know is he ended up taking all the land back and paying not a dime in compensation, in the process humiliating the previously highly esteemed white community in Zimbabwe. Claire Short’s attempt to pull a fast one ended quite disastrously for her kith and kin. Mugabe knows how to play dirty if the circumstances so demand.

Ian Smith

Ian Smith

The nationalists began the fight for liberation on civilised terms. They sought to form political organisations and to lobby for their democratic rights. This civility bore no fruit and was rewarded with intensified detentions and ghastly violations against the black generality.

It is Ian Smith and the Rhodesians that elected him that legitimised dirty tactics; the nationalists simply beat him at his own game.
When Zipra fighters shot down a Rhodesian Viscount plane and proceeded to kill the survivors, the Smith regime were outraged. But they had none to blame but themselves.

The nationalists had tried civility and negotiation but this generosity was rewarded with intensified oppression.

The guerillas went on to ratchet up pressure across the country in the farming areas. The instability finally forced Smith to the negotiating table. Ian Smith and his Rhodesian allies had played dirty but the nationalists upped the ante. Having failed to secure concessions from the Rhodesians, Mugabe simply adopted their own tactics.

My point in giving these examples is to make clear to those who wish to use dirty tactics that Zanu-PF is sufficiently equipped to respond in kind. There should be no mistake about this. Zanu-PF will always retaliate and the consequences are often devastating for the aggressor.

For quite a while the British have been having a field day demonising Zimbabwe and painting us in an ungenerous light internationally. The effects of their propaganda — deceptively clothed as benevolent concern for troubled natives — have been devastating to our tourism.

Deborah Bronnert

I suspect the coming information thrust will finally persuade them to unclench their unprovoked fist.

Deborah Bronnert must not underestimate our capacity to molest British prestige in Africa. Things can get quite ugly. Our pursuit of diplomatic solutions must not be read as an inability to wage an information fight using equally dirty methods. As the President intimated a few weeks ago, our patience with the West is wearing thin and our response, when it comes, will be robust.

MDC-T secretary-general Tendai Biti, organising secretary Nelson Chamisa and party leader Morgan Tsvangirai engrossed in the Zanu-PF manifesto before addressing a campaign rally

A call to the MDC

I hope the MDC can be persuaded against their sanctions strategy. They will not win the fight on those terms. Unless the MDC publicly rejects sanctions and sincerely lobbies for their removal with a view to stripping them of legitimacy, Zanu-PF will continue to fight back with its extensive toolbox of retaliatory tactics. It’s a game of tit for tat.

The MDC must recognise that Zanu-PF is not the mindless beast entirely devoid of virtue that it imagines. They have simply encountered the Machiavellian side of Zanu-PF because they asked for it. Opposition minds like Madhuku and Mutambara still disagree with Zanu-PF on numerous fronts but they have realised that the party is actually open to working with others. The MDC must also realise this.

Perhaps then the two can work together for the benefit of the nation.
If the MDC rejects sanctions it will be surprised to discover that Zanu-PF will become more accommodating.

Ndatenda, ndini muchembere wenyu Amai Jukwa