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Itai Dzamara

Benny Tsododo Correspondent
The alleged disappearance of one Itai Dzamara is a sad development that is traumatising to his family and friends; however, the opportunistic reaction of opposition politicians and civil society groups to his plight is not only unsettling but plainly heartless.

Opposition political groups have pounced on Dzamara’s misfortune to score cheap political points and revive their moribund political entities.

Like vultures they are circling to pounce on any morsel of political expediency availed by Dzamara’s plight.

Without allowing Government the opportunity to investigate the alleged abduction, opposition groups and civil society organisations colluded to impetuously accuse State security agents of being responsible for the alleged abduction.

Using conjecture inspired by political expediency, these groups totally ignored Government’s sincere condemnation of the supposed abduction and the subsequent assurances to investigate the matter.

To the floundering MDC-T party, the Dzamara mystery became a window of opportunity to play to the gallery of Western donors to beg for the reinstatement of its funding.

It is not a coincidence therefore that as the MDC-T and other opposition groups were escalating the Dzamara mystery, Tsvangirai immediately flew to the United States of America on the so-called diplomatic offensive to “hold high-level talks with US officials”.

The MDC-T believes it has hit a political jackpot.

Not to be outdone, civil society groups latched onto the bandwagon of political opportunism.

The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights made a High Court application, ostensibly to compel Government to investigate the alleged disappearance of Dzamara.

This bid ended with High Court judge Justice David Mangota ruling that the Minister of Home Affairs, CIO Director-General and the Zimbabwe Republic Police Commissioner-General “shall do all things necessary to determine his (Dzamara’s) whereabouts including advertising within 12 hours of the granting of this order on all State media outlets including radio and television”.

All these hassles would have made sense had Government refused to investigate the matter. But prior to the High Court ruling, Government had publicly condemned the alleged abduction and given clear assurances that it would deploy its security services to fully investigate the matter.

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, on March 11, registered his unreserved disgust at the alleged abduction saying it was “barbaric”.

It is unfortunate that Government continues to be presented as being responsible for the alleged disappearance of Dzamara and is being urged to release him.

However, there is nothing new in this political mischief and misrepresentations since they squarely dovetail with a myriad other false regime change shenanigans to project Government as perpetrating human rights abuses and failing to guarantee the safety for its citizens.

It also fits into a worn out propaganda offensive to cast the country as having degenerated into a police state.

The major part of that blitz is to slander the security services so as to cause their replacement with others that are pliable to neo-imperial machinations.

This dislike and vilification of the security services has been ongoing with the MDC-T openly calling for an overhaul of the security sector through what it termed security sector reforms.

The current smear campaign against the security agents over the Dzamara case should be read against this self-serving backdrop.

Also with the alleged murder of Boris Nemstov in Russia playing in the background, it should be noted that it has become fashionable worldwide for Western supported opposition groups to blame their governments for any misfortune that befalls their activists.

In all fairness, we urge the public, political parties, civil society groups and all other interested parties to desist from passing unsubstantiated judgments. Let’s give Government space to freely conduct investigations into the supposed disappearance of Dzamara.

In our case, what is heart wrenching is that opposition groups are trying to shamelessly cash-in on the misfortune of Itai Dzamara, with Morgan Tsvangirai likely to come back from the US with fat dollar cheques to further his party’s narrow and barren political causes.

Now that the police have appealed for information on the whereabouts of Dzamara, we hope the vocal opposition parties and civic groups will troop to the nearest police stations to present the evidence they supposedly have against State security agents on the alleged abduction of Dzamara.

Failure to present such information would expose them as political predators that are drooling over the Dzamara case to raise funds for their phony democratic activities.

In all fairness, we urge the public, political parties, civil society groups and all other interested parties to desist from passing unsubstantiated judgments. Let’s give Government space to freely conduct investigations into the supposed disappearance of Dzamara.