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Morgan Tsvangirai

Benny Tsododo
History has many a time proven to humanity that things once thought unimaginable have later become reality. Back then, it was unimaginable that doctors could establish the sex of an unborn child, but with the evolution of scanning technology parents can now know the sex of their child prior to birth.

Similarly, in the realm of politics in Zimbabwe, no one could have imagined Morgan Tsvangirai preaching the gospel of sovereignty. It is known that such nationalistic vocabulary is the preserve of President Mugabe and his revolutionary ZANU-PF party.

President Mugabe has time and again unequivocally asked Western powers to desist from meddling in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs. His famous remarks, directed at the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair that, “Keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe” refreshingly became the hallmark of his undiluted defence of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

To think that Tsvangirai would one day tell his erstwhile funders in the West to stay out of Zimbabwe’s political architecture looked unimaginable and ludicrous. But as history has proven, the impossible sometimes becomes possible and the MDC-T leader was reported to have told off his Western founders and funders at a rally held in the populous suburb of Budiriro.

On the fateful day, Tsvangirai was quoted as saying: “We have our friends out there. We are surprised by people who say we want that one to lead the party. Is that the work of diplomats?” This was Tsvangirai’s Damascene moment. Stung by the unremitting interference in the internal matters of his disintegrating party by the Western diplomats, Tsvangirai told his handlers to keep away. He invoked the principle of sovereignty and drew the line saying: “Why can’t you just write and send to your countries? We want to tell the diplomats that we are united as a party.”

Those endowed with fertile imagination could hear the dejected Tsvangirai fuming and forlornly telling the Western envoys that, “Keep your EU and US, and I will keep my MDC-T”. Tsvangirai has tasted the sourness of foreign interference and as a result has involuntarily taken lessons on the inviolability of sovereignty.

All along the MDC-T and its backers have derided ZANU-PF’s pious supplication for sovereignty. They scornfully treated it as a propaganda gimmick to mask the revolutionary party’s alleged mismanagement of the country. Tsvangirai continued to invite foreigners to meddle in the country’s internal matters. Among other seditious things, he unashamedly invited foreigners to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe. The MDC-T leader also supported the formation and funding of the so-called civil society organisations by Western countries.

He allowed the foreigners to trample on Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and attempted to foist them as kingmakers who could install him on the presidential throne. It was not known that Tsvangirai would at some point invoke the sacred international principle of sovereignty to shield his party from the intrusive westerners trying to play kingmaker in his crumbling  party.

However, Tsvangirai’s invocation of sovereignty is rather misguided since it is tantamount to a child asking a parent to disown him/her. It is an open secret that the MDC-T came from the loins of the West. The beleaguered party was conceived by the West as their vengeful response to Zimbabwe’s land reform programme. It is their brainchild and they hold the birth patents and the maternal wherewithal to effect leadership changes they deem necessary. That is the bane of being a non-indigenous political party.

Quite predictably, the Westerners are not willing to cut their umbilical cord with the MDC-T. Instead, hard on the heels of Tsvangirai’s impotent attack on them, they obstinately issued Press statements reprimanding Tsvangirai for stoking violence in the MDC-T.

In a veiled message directed at Tsvangirai for bashing Elton Mangoma and his leadership-renewal acolytes, the Canadian Embassy in Zimbabwe said: “We call on political parties to demonstrate leadership by taking resolute actions to speak out against violence and intimidation. This includes engaging in open dialogue and demonstrating respect for diversity of views.” Similar statements were issued by the US and the Australian embassies in Zimbabwe.

Nonetheless, what is worrying is that during his Damascene moment, Tsvangirai remained fork-tongued and only pleaded for the sovereignty of his party while in the same breath inviting the West to maintain their interference with Zimbabwe’s body politic.
Tsvangirai should learn that the adulteration of his party’s sovereignty by the West is simply a mirror of the much larger defilement of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty by the same hegemonic nations.

In this regard, Tsvangirai said: “What you (Westerners) can do is help the people of Zimbabwe to have democratic change.” In other words, Tsvangirai was saying to the West, “Keep your EU and US and I will keep my MDC, but you can have Zimbabwe.” True to his sellout trademark, Tsvangirai still wants the West to determine the political destiny of Zimbabwe in the name of “democracy”.

Where in the world has the West assisted any nation to achieve his utopian concept of “democracy”? Is it selective amnesia or pure inanity that Tsvangirai is oblivious to the effects of Western “assistance” in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and now Ukraine? Who in his normal senses would invite such deleterious “assistance”?

No matter how daft one is, no one could fail to see the destabilising, destructive and divisive effects of Western “assistance” to the aforementioned nations. No one in his/her right senses would talk of party sovereignty disregarding national sovereignty.

Tsvangirai should learn that the adulteration of his party’s sovereignty by the West is simply a mirror of the much larger defilement of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty by the same hegemonic nations. The pinch his faction is feeling because of the effects of meddling by the West is a microcosm of the corrosive effects sanctions and other Western-sponsored punitive measures are having on Zimbabwe.

On a global scale, it was not only mind boggling but laughable to hear some senior US and EU politicians calling on Russia to respect the “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Ukraine. Really, who could have guessed that these incorrigible warmongers could be acquainted with these international principles?

Like the Tsvangirai case in Zimbabwe, the invocation of the international principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity by the West is not only cynical but profane.