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Cde Kasukuwere

Tafadzwa Mugwadi Correspondent
BRITISH journalist George Orwell has defined journalism as writing what someone does not want written with everything else qualifying for public relations.

And recent attacks on the Zimpapers family by two Cabinet ministers and Zanu-PF officials, principally Saviour Kasukuwere and Professor Jonathan Moyo, is clear evidence that the group’s titles have printed what these two cadres do not want printed.

The duo, after being condemned by The Herald and The Sunday Mail for their untoward behaviour, have gone on to label the two national papers a security threat. Really?

I was shocked to hear that Cde Kasukuwere, never mind the years he has spent in school and at the University of Zimbabwe, cannot define a security threat to an organisation like Zanu-PF and most importantly the Zanu-PF Government.

I say this in reference to his continued empty threats against scribes from the public media such as The Herald editor Caesar Zvayi, senior political reporter Felex Share. In fact, he has attacked the entire Zimpapers family.

His rants last Friday at a field day on Command Agriculture were not the first ones, but they have reached a dangerous crescendo as a security threat in themselves.

In his wisdom or lack of it, Kasukuwere called Zvayi someone who does not think and goes on to call (Felex) Share a “son of a b***h”. Here is a person whom the war veterans have identified as a security threat himself.

The only “crime” The Herald committed was exposing Kasukuwere’s shenanigans, together with his sidekick Shadreck Mashayamombe, of trying to sabotage demonstrations which were being organised by the Zanu-PF Women’s League.

The sabotage was meant to save the ouster of their allies Cdes Eunice Sandi-Moyo and Sarah Mahoka.

Can one become a security threat for exposing the two’s dirty tricks?

No, Cde Kasukuwere in my eyes and like-minded Zimbabweans, the Zimpapers family is not a security threat but a security advantage.

Indeed, despite the fact that The Herald is a national institution, it should be able to drive the nation towards unity and oneness.

However, oneness cannot be driven by sweeping under the carpet, the dealings of malcontents in Government, who are fond of and bent on creating antagonism and unbridled factionally driven incoherence in the pursuit of policies, throwing esprit-de corps — team work and collective responsibility to the dustbin. The Zimpapers institution was first attacked and threatened for exposing Zimdef-gate because some professor and his cabal believed that as long as you remember to put on a Zanu-PF T-shirt and regalia, you can steal and embezzle with impunity.

As long as you are a Cabinet minister, we were told, you need executive approval and several protocol-related consultations kuti tonyora here kuti minister kana kuti umwe wedu akaba?

Yet ironically, we thought the fate met by Joice Mujuru and Morris Nyagumbo should have taught us a lesson that you can never steal in the name of Zanu-PF because Zanu-PF beliefs and values are contrary to that, just as the east is far from the west.

This is not a secret, but in ink clearly as the sun rises from the east to the west. In this case, exposing this rottenness is not a security threat but a security advantage.

Only those trying to hide behind their shadows start invoking threats to security mantra and banter to shield themselves from blame and shame.

Indeed, it is not surprising that ahead of this election in 2018, where President Mugabe is our declared and right foot forward, we have others that are going about adulterating and molesting his image and that of his family.

I mean the likes of Sandi Moyo, and Mahoka, the now good as gone “Stealing Sisters” anti-establishment grouping that has been undermining the First Lady and the President by going about extorting prophets and unsuspecting businessmen and men of the cloth in the name of the First Family. Is there any security threat beyond that?

Apparently, there is not an modicum of decency in the cause, save to undermine the first family and present it as a voracious and demanding lot, yet the President is known to lead a modest life, unbefitting of the struggles that he has carried us through.

Is there any threat to security beyond corruption? Let me hypothesise that the biggest threat to security in this country is the rotten and corrupt cabal, bent on primitive accumulation; one that confuses broad-based black empowerment programmes with lining their greedy pockets and building unaccountable mansions in a sea of poverty. In that light, is it wrong for The Herald and the Zimpapers family to question what happened to the thousands of residential stands that youths sweated for, and which the President left his busy schedule to commission?

And the President had to say, ‘‘makatengesa kai mi kunana Magaya?’’ And the Prophet, being an upright perhaps, man of God agreed and said Isu takatengeswerwawo and made amends.

Now tell me where Zimpapers became a security threat here? Zimdef lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in what has become known as the ‘Tsholotsho-gate’ or ‘bicycle-gate’, under the guise of STEM coordination.

Can anyone in their sober senses tell the nation that the money was used to purchase motor cycles for village heads and chiefs to coordinate Science and Mathematics education, yet most of them are barely literate and able to coordinate highly technical subjects like that.

Ironically, this is happening in a country where we have highly recommended science and engineering hubs like UZ, BUSE, CUT and NUST and HIT to say the least where students are failing to pay tuition fees to study and realise STEM goals; where there are more lecturers and science teachers to coordinate the programme. Where, indeed, there are 210 parliamentary constituencies in Zimbabwe and Prof Moyo and Dr Gandawa only know Tsholotsho alone.

They even want us to think that Tsholotsho will be the hub or the new capital of STEM education and training in Zimbabwe when an established NUST is even a stone’s throw away. Haaaa? Really?

Now back to Cde Kasukuwere.

The last person I heard vomiting vulgar language on air is Tendai Biti, the estranged former secretary-general of MDC-T ahead of elections in 2013 to a journalist from the same Zimpapers.

Now a Cabinet minister charges at The Herald journalists threatening unspecified actions and calling them all sorts of names. Uhhm, there goes the adage, think before you act. Everyone knows you have skeletons in your cupboard minister and it is a matter of time before you are exposed.

I believe even your own known sworn sidekicks buried their heads in the sand in shame because they equally couldn’t have seen it coming.

Is this the new version of your factional demagoguery? If so, that’s a security threat because it deconstructs the established ethos of our behaviour and culture as Zimbabweans as epitomised in our Constitution, panoti Hunhu ka apa Cde!

I don’t want to believe that your children among other young people were listening to you or at least read about your rants. Kwakutononzi daddy makapenga, hamuite, hamuite? Ah!

The State is the sole protector of individuals’ security and their freedom from harm and threats, real or imagined; the last line of defence and protection for every citizen through its Constitution. The executive authority of the State is vested in the President and delegated to his Cabinet who are also sworn members of the Executive.

To execute is to implement and make things happen, in this case, not essentially as each minister or executive wishes but according to the dictates and provisions of our constitution, the Constitution of Zimbabwe as adopted on March 6, 2013. The security of Caesar Zvayi, Felex Share, Tendai Mugabe, Lloyd Gumbo and their workmates from Zimpapers is included.

If a minister, serving a Government and appointed by the President, which President is the chief enforcer and upholder of the Constitution goes about threatening the security of citizens, in this case journalists, then what message is that minister sending to the President as the appointing authority?

Such a minister is a security threat to the State and the integrity of the President because instead of toeing the line of the President and the Constitution, such person is creating a negative image of the President.

Food for thought Cde, listen to Suluman Chimbetu when he says what you are doing is akin to “kuvhura bara muchimhanya namakarimwa, mavhinga arimo ayoka achakuvhiringai, nokuti muzivi wenzira yaparuware ndiye mufambi wayo!”

• Tafadzwa Mugwadi is a Political Analyst and Consultant in Conflict Mediation based in Arusha, Tanzania. He can be contacted on [email protected]