Zimpapers Logo

Nobleman Runyanga Correspondent

Last Monday, the enemies of Zimbabwe were expecting the country to come to a socio-economic standstill in a stay away protest which was organised by the United States Embassy in Zimbabwe-funded Team Pachedu and another US-funded Western project, the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU).

They cited a number of socio-economic challenges, which the country is facing as grievances. Zimbabweans, however, silently demonstrated to the two organisations and others that they would not be used to sabotage their own country by West-backed sell-out groups.

The protest, which was dubbed #ShutDownZimbabwe, therefore fell flat on its face leaving the organisers and their backers with a lot of egg on their faces.

The flopped planned protest not only gave Zimbabweans a chance to prove that they are their own people, but also exposed the network of organisations and individuals that the West uses in Zimbabwe and the region in pursuit of its imperialistic designs.

Nobody could have described Team Pachedu better than the self-exiled G40 kingpin, Professor Jonathan Moyo. Responding to a tweet by former Minister of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture, Makhosini Hlongwane, on the protests, Prof Moyo described the group as “a shadowy cyberspace outfit of no fixed abode, setup and run by the US government.” And he couldn’t be more right.

US$5m election war chest

Team Pachedu is part of a group of local anti-Government organisations which are funded and used by the US and other Western countries in their illegal bid to unseat the ZANU PF Government which was constitutionally elected on 30 July 2018 and replace it with an opposition one. Team Pachedu’s bid to campaign for CCC by presenting ZANU PF as having failed is now a public secret. The protest came after its bid to malign the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) in February this year by making all sorts of strange accusations against the national election management body using a stolen copy of the voters roll.

Interestingly, the shadowy group became very active early this year after accessing part of the US$5 million kitty, which the US through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) made available for distribution as grants to local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) using the naked lie that it was for entrenching democracy and constitutionalism in Zimbabwe.

Whenever the US speaks of democracy on any part of the world, it will be referring to its own efforts to unseat sitting government and replacing them with its own preferred individuals such as the CCC leader, Nelson Chamisa.

The US$5 million is, therefore, an NGOs’ war chest to fight ZANU PF ahead of the 2023 elections to improve CCC’s chances of landing State power using the polls.

Other local groups which openly supported Team Pachedu’s protest include the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) and the Peter Mutasa-chaired Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC).

The latter outfit is funded by the American organisation, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which availed US$1,5 million for the destabilisation of the country as part of the Western regime agenda activities ahead of the 2023 polls. For this reason, Mutasa had to sing for his supper by supporting the senseless protest. The Washington DC-based NED, describes its aim as “promoting democracy in other countries by promoting democratic institutions such as political groups, trade unions, free markets and business groups.”

The South African connection

The West, especially the United Kingdom, has been dying to use regional countries like South Africa to achieve its imperialistic objectives in Zimbabwe. Debating Zimbabwe in the UK Parliament on 23 November last year, Lord Anderson of Swansea expressed frustration that the UK did not have sufficient clout “to bring effective pressure on Zimbabwe.” He was unhappy that South Africa was not “playing a positive role” in facilitating the West’s bid to replace ZANU PF with CCC.

In view of this background, it is not surprising that the West is now using willing hatchet men like the former Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, Mmusi Maimane to fight Zimbabwean Government in the hope of achieving its regime change agenda objectives.

Maimane is not new to being used against fellow Africans by the West having been used to lead the DA from 2015 to 2019 to woo black South Africans to the white-dominated party, in what former DA leader, Tony Leon described as “an experiment gone wrong.”

Maimane is very useful to Western powers from two fronts. Firstly, he is friends with opposition party leaders in Southern Africa such as Nelson Chamisa of Zimbabwe, Raila Odinga of Kenya and Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia when the latter was still in the opposition.

Maimane was turned back at the airport in Zambia in May 2017 by that country’s authorities when he attempted to visit the then imprisoned Hichilema in solidarity.

He formed the United African Partnership for Democratic Change (UAPDC) in 2018, a coalition of African opposition parties, to aid and abet the West in its bid to replace sitting Governments with its own individuals in the opposition, who would allow them unfettered access to the continent’s resources.

Secondly, Maimane has links with Western and anti-African organisations such as the Washington DC-based National Democratic Institute, or National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), which claims to be  “a non-partisan, non-profit American NGO that works with partners in developing countries to increase the effectiveness of democratic institutions.”

The world, however, knows that the organisation was formed to advance the US’ imperialistic designs. He also enjoys some kind of relationship with the AfriForum, a South African NGO, which advances the interests of Afrikaners in that country. The Boers behind AfriForum are against the presence of Zimbabweans in South Africa and they blame the Zimbabwean Government for the migration of Zimbabweans to that country. They, therefore, also supported the protest calls.

This is the reason why Maimane readily jumped to Twitter to support Team Pachedu’s call for a stay away protest. When the protest flopped, Maimane vowed: “I will even myself go to Zimbabwe to help them campaign against (Government). I am assisting to ensure there is a campaign for change in Zimbabwe. I have been having a voice in Swaziland and in Malawi, it’s not that it’s just Zimbabwe.”

These remarks exposed who the West has been using to plan and stage protests in Eswatini and Malawi. The West is planning for more protests in Eswatini. NDI President, Ambassador Derek Mitchell and NDI Senior Advisors, Gemima Neves Barlow and Sef Ashiagbor held a meeting on 2 February 2022 at Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali, Rwanda where a violent “Eswatini Winter Revolution” in June 2022 was agreed on. But hold on. What have King Mswati III and the abaSwati done to merit this planned instability?

Their sin is having been born in a country with resources such as gold. Information at hand indicates that the Kigali meeting was also attended by Philip Kirsh whose father, Nathan Kirsh holds three gold concessions in Eswatini.

Also present was Jonathan Sokoloff of US private equity firm, Leonard Green and Partners, who are expecting to be paid in gold for funding the operation. AfriForum was represented at the meeting by three officials, Ernst Roets, Monique Taute and Zweli Martin Dlamini.

Given the foregoing background, when Zimbabweans hear calls for protests and the Maimanes of this world jumping in, they should understand the reasons. They should understand the forces, machinations and schemes behind the stunts.

Frustrated hatchet men

When the protest flopped most hatchet men and enablers of the West were disappointed. Foremost in this regard was Team Pachedu itself, which consoled itself by stating that the stunt had worked. It claimed that the reversal of the ZUPCO monopoly and the fact that President Mnangagwa now know of the existence of the ghostly group were indicators of the “success” of its effort. The group was silent about the numerous images and videos posted on the social media, which proved that Zimbabweans had refused to be used. The group adopted the hashtag: #AlutaContinua and vowed to continue with stunts against Government.

Disappointed and frustrated by the flop but buoyed and incentivised by the West’s ready elections war chest, ARTUZ President, Orbert Masaraure, was quoted by the newzimbabwe.com edition of 10 May 2022 saying that “Shutdown Zimbabwe marks the beginning of a new season of peaceful protests. Citizens will keep the regime on its toes demanding solutions to the social-economic crisis. We won’t suffer in silence anymore.”

Perhaps the most disappointed and frustrated detractor was CCC activist, Hopewell Chin’ono. Three days after the flopped protest, he tweeted with disappointment of how “the economy in Sri Lanka collapsed amid massive looting of public funds by the Prime Minister, his family and political allies. Sri Lankans protested.

Prime Minister sent the military. Sri Lankans responded by mobilising more people and burnt property belonging to politicians.”

Chin’ono wished what happened in Sri Lanka had happened in Zimbabwe. Reality, however, showed him that Zimbabwe is not Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka is not Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are not Sri Lankans.

Zimbabweans are uniquely Zimbabwean

Zimbabweans showed the likes of Maimane, Team Pachedu, Mutasa and other detractors that they are a unique people who cannot be fooled into dealing a blow to their economy and livelihoods by participating in causeless protests. They proved to Chin’ono that Zimbabweans are uniquely Zimbabwean. They cannot join their enemies instead of putting their shoulders to the wheel and their boots on the ground to support President Mnangagwa’s ongoing efforts to rebuild the sanctions-battered country.

As the 2023 polls draw near, the country expects more stunts from the usual detractors and their backers. It behoves Zimbabweans to continue to refuse to be part of the West and its local running dogs’ shenanigans. The protests and other stunts are aimed at causing mayhem, which the West would leverage to get the opposition into power through the back door.