Monica Cheru-Mpambawashe Lifestyle Editor
A week before he could complete the first term of his grade two at Hurumutumbu Primary School in Mutoko this year, Panashe Chaza died after a short illness. “At first we thought it was just a headache. Then three days later he took a turn for the worse. I hired a kombi which charged us US$10 to take my son to Huyuyu Clinic (about 12 Kilometres away). When we got there we woke up the nurse who tested his blood and said it was malaria. She gave him an injection and said that we needed to take him to Mutoko Hospital immediately.

“The driver said he wanted US$70 and I called my husband who told us to proceed to the hospital but Panashe did not make it,” stoically recounts Elizabeth Chirinda (26).

Chirinda is just one of five women who have buried their young children within a week in a 30 kilometre radius. In her case, she knows exactly what killed her son, with many other deaths being suspected of having been malaria.

According to emedicinehealth.com, malaria is caused by protozoan of the genus Plasmodium. The site also says that P. falciparum: which is the most life-threatening species of malaria, is particularly common in sub-Saharan Africa.

Recently Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr Paul Chimedza said that malaria fatalities in the country had gone down from 5 000 deaths per year a decade ago to less than 300 deaths per year. A recent report from the ministry stated that malaria had killed 26 people in week 14 of the year and of these only three fatalities were in Mutoko.

He, however, admitted that in border areas like Mudzi which is a neighbour of Mutoko, the disease still remains highly problematic. Investigations on the ground reveal that the problem could be of a bigger magnitude than even the ministry realises.

The grassroots leadership and ordinary people in Mutoko South dispute these figures saying far more people, especially children, are dying. They say the problem is not with the ministry but the system. They say the statistics provided only reflect the information of those who seek official medical attention, while those who die at home remain uncounted.

Councillor Trust Kachidza (32) of Ward 29 in Mutoko says that as far as he is aware there is no official system for capturing data of deaths which occur at home in the rural areas unless foul play is suspected and the police are brought in.

“The villagers only have to inform the village head (sabhuku) then they bury their dead. The village head will accompany them to the registry offices to testify that the deceased really died on the stated date so they can get a death certificate.

“In the case of children, very few people bother to do that yet these are the ones who die most. So those deaths go unrecorded. And the other problem is that even for adults who die at home and are just buried with no post mortem examination, no one knows the cause of death even if we suspect that it could be malaria,” Councillor Kachidza said.

Mr Manasa Tafirenyika (61) head of Village 99 said the problems that are keeping the disease in the area are manifold. He said that teams that traditionally get on the ground to spray mosquito breeding grounds in the last quarter of the year have lately been doing a shoddy job.

“In November last year I was informed that a team would be coming to this village. I gathered the committee that I work with and we spent the appointed day right here at my homestead waiting for them. They never turned up.

“I only heard a few days later that they had passed through a few homesteads where they did a desultory job. There have also been allegations that they exchange the sachets of insecticide for chickens with some villagers who then use the chemicals to spray various crops.”

Mr Tafirenyika senior, father to the village head said that although his home had been sprayed, he doubted the efficacy of the whole exercise.

“In the past when a room was sprayed, all creepy crawlies like cockroaches, flies and other bugs would all die. But this time around there was no perceptible effect, which makes me believe that they used a watered down solution, or even just plain water,” he explained.

Nicodemus Chaza, father to the late Panashe stated that the spraying team never visited his homestead which is low lying and surrounded by tall grass. Councilor Kachidza also said that not a single house in the whole of Village 98 where he resides was ever sprayed in 2013.

In separate interviews, Mr Tafirenyika, Councillor Kachidza and acting headman Mr Zinhanga who resides in Village 16 all said that the problem of malaria in the area is exacerbated by the strong presence of the Johanne Masowe church members who generally refuse to have anything to do with conventional medicine and believe in praying away all ailments.

“It is not a secret that the Johanne Masowe people generally ignore all injunctions to get treatment,” unequivocally stated Mr Zinhanga.

“Whenever these people see cars they run off to hide in the bush so their children never get immunised. One man, Marirevhu lost three children in one day from what we suspect could be malaria. But there is no way to verify that,” he said.

The three community leaders pointed out that while everyone has a right to practice their religion freely, it is important to note that this right becomes problematic when it endangers children and other people.

“How can the disease ever be eradicated when we have people who insist on harbouring it year after year by refusing to get treated?” Mr Tafirenyika posed the rhetoric question.

Mr Zinhanga also said that villagers have suffered allergic reactions to the treated mosquito which discouraged use.

“It is hot sleeping the nets. People got burns on the face. But we keep on encouraging everyone to use them, bury matamba fruit shells.”

He also pointed that since all villagers have been resettled there are greater distances between homesteads which may discourage the spraying teams who cover the areas on foot from due diligence.

An elderly woman who asked not to be identified said part of the problem is that for most people clinics are not easily accessible.

“The clinic is more than 10 kilometres away and the kombi goes early in the morning and returns late at night or sometimes you do not have the money for the fare. Then sometimes you are referred to hospital in Mutoko or Nhowe, which all charge a lot of money. So most people end up staying at home because they just cannot afford to get treated,” she averred.

Mutoko is only a case in point, with similar problems bedevilling areas like Mudzi, Manicaland and the Zambezi basin and other malaria prone zones.

Until the responsible authorities are prepared to tackle these head on, the eradication of malaria will remain a dream.

Calls have been made by various players to have a unified health delivery system that addresses all challenges holistically instead of channelling scant resources towards tackling one disease at a time.

• monica.mpambawashe@zimpapers.co.zw

Barack Obama

Tom Peters
An article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) last Sunday revealed that the Pentagon has devised a range of “military options” to intervene against China in territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. The options, described as “muscular” and “provocative,” include “increasing surveillance operations near China”, deploying nuclear-capable B-2 and B-52 bomber aircraft, and sending an aircraft carrier into the Taiwan Strait in response to any Chinese “provocation”.

The article was published amid President Obama’s four-country tour of Asia, during which he pledged to support Japan in any war with China, signed an agreement to give US forces far greater access to bases in the Philippines, and strengthened military integration with South Korea. The tour was aimed at assuring US allies that Washington remains committed to its “pivot to Asia”—the military encirclement of, and preparations for war against, China.

In the Philippines, Obama declared that “our goal is not to counter China”. His administration, however, has encouraged Japan and the Philippines to aggressively pursue their territorial claims against China. Last November, Washington denounced Beijing’s declaration of an air defence identification zone covering the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, which are claimed by China and Japan, then flew B-52 bombers unannounced into the zone.

Plans for war against China are far advanced. The Pentagon’s strategy, known as AirSea Battle, envisages a massive assault on China’s military infrastructure, using missiles, warplanes and warships, which could easily escalate into a nuclear war. The US and Japan are preparing for this eventuality by building anti-ballistic missile systems, using the supposed “threat” of North Korea as a pretext. The plans also include a naval blockade of Chinese shipping through South East Asia.

An article on Monday in the Financial Times entitled “US spreads military presence in Asia” provided further details of the US military build-up against China in Asia. After citing the new US-Philippine basing agreement signed on the same day, it pointed out that Pentagon officials have raised “the prospect of some sort of temporary presence in other countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia”. The FT also noted refurbishing World War II airstrips on Pacific Islands such as Tinian and Saipan in preparation for a war with China.

Chillingly, the article began by noting that Tinian was the airstrip from which the Enola Gay took off to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945, and by implication, could be used in a nuclear war with China.

The WSJ reported that the Pentagon’s latest “action plan” is intended to address “concerns” held by Washington’s “closest allies in Asia” over the Obama administration’s willingness to confront Beijing.

The article notes that under the Pentagon’s new protocols, “any new moves . . . by China to assert its claims unilaterally would be met by an American military challenge intended to get Beijing to back down.”

It states that “provocative” actions “can be taken without risking a shooting war, officials say, citing intelligence that suggests there are divisions within the Chinese military establishment about how to respond.”

In other words, the US would deliberately provoke and threaten the Chinese regime with a military assault, gambling that Beijing will “back down” and accede to US demands.

While the WSJ ludicrously pretends that the Pentagon’s military strategy is “designed to avoid war, not push the US into war,” reckless actions such as deploying aircraft carriers to the sensitive Taiwan Strait would have extremely unpredictable consequences.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton’s administration sent two aircraft carriers to the Strait during a tense confrontation between China and Taiwan. Since then, China’s military has developed long range “anti-access/area denial” (A2/AD) missile systems, specifically to deter naval vessels from the Strait and elsewhere off China’s coast in the event of a conflict. Last year, Beijing responded to Taiwanese military exercises on the Penghu Islands by stationing hundreds of thousands of troops along the Strait, as well as hundreds of warplanes and 1,000 tactical ballistic missiles.

The WSJ itself noted that Chinese leaders told a visiting American delegation in February “that they didn’t take US warnings seriously.”

A “former administration official” who took part in the delegation told the paper: “Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re convinced by our muscularity . . . If we think we’re ready to pull the trigger but they don’t think that we’re ready to pull the trigger, that’s when bad things happen.”

These comments underscore the immense danger of war that is being driven by Washington’s military build-up and its willingness to “pull the trigger” against China or Russia. – wsws.

Vladimir Putin

Barry Grey
In the wake of new sanctions against Russia imposed by Washington and its G7 allies in Europe, Canada and Japan, the rebellion in eastern Ukraine against the US puppet government in Kiev has spread, plunging the country closer to civil war and increasing the danger of a military confrontation between the Western powers and Moscow.

On Monday, the day the US outlined stepped-up penalties targeting Russian officials, oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin and companies linked to Putin’s inner circle, pro-Russian militants captured the city council building and police station in Konstantinovka and demanded a referendum on autonomy from the regime in Kiev.

The same day, a demonstration by pro-regime Ukrainian nationalists in Donetsk was broken up by anti-government protesters, sending 14 people to the hospital. Later in the day, Gennady Kernes, the mayor of Kharkiv, was shot in the back by an unknown assailant. He was moved to an Israeli hospital, where he remains in critical condition.

The Ukrainian Defence Ministry announced that one Ukrainian soldier was killed by an explosion in the Donetsk region and another wounded.

On Tuesday, a crowd of people numbering between 1 000 and “thousands”,  according to various reports, stormed the regional government building in Luhansk, an industrial city of nearly 500 000 residents situated 25 kilometres west of the Russian border.

Activists proclaimed the “People’s Republic of Luhansk” and announced plans to hold a referendum on autonomy on May 11, the same day the neighbouring “People’s Republic of Donetsk” plans to hold its own referendum.

Militants then took over the Luhansk regional prosecutor’s office and the regional television centre, and some 20 gunmen opened fire with automatic rifles on the local police headquarters, demanding the police surrender their weapons.

Also on Tuesday, protesters raised the flag of the Donetsk People’s Republic in five more towns and villages. The two regions, Luhansk and Donetsk, make up the bulk of Ukraine’s heavily populated industrial base in the Donbass coal-field.

The responsibility for the civil conflict in Ukraine and arguably the greatest crisis in Europe since the end of World War II rest overwhelming with the United States and its imperialist allies in Europe, beginning with Germany. In announcing the new sanctions on Monday, the Obama administration formally accused Russia of violating the four-party agreement reached April 17 in Geneva to defuse the crisis over Ukraine.

This charge only underscores the hypocrisy of the official Western propaganda on Ukraine prior to and since the February 22 coup that toppled the pro-Russian government of President Viktor Yanukovych and installed an ultra-nationalist regime pledged to join the European Union and impose IMF-dictated austerity measures on the Ukrainian working class. The putsch was led by the US-backed neo-Nazi paramilitary Right Sector and the fascist Svoboda party, whose representatives now occupy prominent positions in the Kiev government.

Washington knew that the installation of a rabidly anti-Russian government in Ukraine, a former Soviet Republic and current home to Moscow’s main naval base with access to the Mediterranean Sea, would provoke a response from Russia. That has taken the form of support for a separatist rebellion in Crimea and incorporation of the peninsula into the Russian Federation.

The Geneva meeting came after a failed attempt by the Ukrainian military to smash the protests and occupations in the east, following a secret visit to Kiev by CIA Director John Brennan. That the US signed the agreement in bad faith was quickly demonstrated by the visit of Vice President Joseph Biden to Kiev and a second military attack on eastern Ukraine protesters that followed within hours of his departure. That attack killed eight people.

According to a statement released on Monday by the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Kiev government has deployed 11 000 troops in southeastern Ukraine, plus 160 tanks, 230 armoured personnel carriers, at least 150 artillery systems and “a large number of planes.”

At the same time, the US and NATO have launched an unprecedented deployment of military forces to former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact nations, bringing Western military forces right up to Russia’s western borders.

The only voices of dissent from within the political and media establishment to the administration’s incendiary policy are those attacking Obama for not taking a more confrontational line. The Washington Post ran an editorial on Tuesday dismissing the sanctions announced on Monday with the headline “More half-measures”.

A number of Republican politicians are demanding that the administration announce a programme of arms shipments to the Kiev regime. In an interview in Beijing with the Financial Times, former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: “I personally would hope there would be a much more robust deployment of American forces” to Eastern Europe.

Two opinion polls released this week attest to the broad popular opposition that exists to Washington’s war-mongering policy, despite a relentless barrage of anti-Russian propaganda from the media, and the utter disregard of the ruling elite for the democratic will of the population.

While the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin is signalling that it wants to ease tensions and find some basis for accommodation with the West, Washington is giving no indication of a desire to reciprocate. – wsws.

A Washington Post -ABC News poll found that Obama’s approval rating has fallen to 41 percent, down from 46 percent through the first three months of the year and the lowest of his presidency. Only 34 percent approve of his handling of the Ukraine crisis, while 46 percent disapprove.
While the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin is signalling that it wants to ease tensions and find some basis for accommodation with the West, Washington is giving no indication of a desire to reciprocate.
Late Monday, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, in a telephone conversation with US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, reiterated Moscow’s denials that its forces are behind the rebel groups in eastern Ukraine. According to the Russian Defence Ministry, Shoigu urged Hegal to “tone down the rhetoric”.
The Russian defence chief told Hagel that Russian troops near the border with Ukraine had returned to their barracks after the Kiev government said it would not use military units against “the unarmed population”.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday that Moscow had no intention of invading or annexing eastern Ukraine. “We have absolutely no intention, and I stress it, to repeat the so-called Crimean scenario in Ukraine’s southeast,” Ryabkov said in an interview.
The Pentagon confirmed the telephone call between Shoigu and Hagel, but spurned Moscow’s conciliatory gestures, saying Hagel had demanded that Russia cease “destabilising” Ukraine and had warned against “continued aggression.”
Senior US and European Union officials were scheduled to meet yesterday in Brussels to discuss the next steps in the confrontation with Russia. Washington has been pressing the Europeans to take a harder line against Moscow.
Later this week, President Obama will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the White House. – wsws

IN HAPPIER TIMES . . . Sungura ace Alick Macheso and his estranged wife Tafadzwa Mapako

Elton Dzikiti
Have we lost our moral compass so much that when an allegation is made that a child is being sexually abused by their parent, there is no national outrage of note? Have we become so cold to such cases that we don’t even bat an eyelid?

As a society, we should be judged, and judge ourselves, by how we protect the young, the weak and the  vulnerable.
An allegation that a child has been subjected to serious sexual abuse should prompt an immediate and thorough investigation — regardless of the circumstances, in this case a pending dissolution of a prominent musician, Alick Macheso’s marriage.

Where are the women’s groups?

In my view, they should be picketing relevant authorities, demanding action be taken to ensure such a heinous crime, if true, does not go unpunished and that the child or children affected, receive the protection they rightly deserve.

Why are we not hearing from ministers expressing disgust at the allegations and giving assurances to the people that this, and other vile practices, will be investigated regardless of the supposed stature of the people involved?

Ordinary people have become disillusioned with politics in recent years and it’s easy to see why. Everyday issues of ordinary people have become confined to the peripheries of public discourse that people have come to expect inaction when an immoral and or illegal activity pertains to a household name or “connected”  person.

If on the other hand this had been an accusation made against a politician, there’s no doubt this would have been front page copy – and that is at is should be.

This case should not be allowed to go unreported.

This is a story that should be occupying the front pages of newspapers in the country – and not the non-event that is the supposed infighting of a political party.

Journalists should be elbowing each other to get a byline exposing this story.

Instead, we have got the papers carrying a glowing report on the musician performing in Mutare at the weekend when the story really should be “why hasn’t he been arrested yet”!

We should be brave enough to demand that he first clears this allegation before we give him column inches.

Let’s be honest about this: if true, this is a simple case of paedophilia and should be condemned in the strongest terms possible, and we should see the wheels of justice turn. Society should ostracise anyone who seeks to harm children in the name of sexual gratification disguised as some unfounded voodoo practice. Period.

Traditional healers should be weighing into this too as this is supposedly being done in the name of traditional “witchcraft”.

Record companies and music promoters should be moving with haste to suspend their association with the musician until the issue has been settled.

It is unbelievable that at a time such an accusation has been made, the media is reporting that the Zimbabwe National Council for the Welfare of Children recently hosted a workshop for journalists to talk about children’s rights and protection!

So why has the Zimbabwe National Council for the Welfare of Children remained mum about such a high-profile allegation?

If they need to raise their profile as an organisation worthy of their name, then surely this allegation against the sungura musician is something they should be picking up.

They should be phoning all the journalists who attended the workshop, and demand that part of the deal (in accepting per diems that would no doubt have been given at the workshop) was to put into practice what they learnt! Otherwise, this council isn’t relevant and should disband forthwith. Meantime, who’s looking after the interest of the voiceless children being sexually abused – allegedly?

The late Eddison Zvobgo

John Manzongo  At the workplace
Today is Workers’ Day, a day meant to celebrate the most important asset in any productive nation worldwide.
With many workers having nothing to smile about on their day, May 1 seems to have lost relevance and its importance. There simply is no Workers’ Day to talk about except that it is just another day where workers get to rest during the week.

For starters there are no vibrant workers’ unions or workers representative committees to talk about. The ones that exist are aligned to certain political parties, secretly serving the interests of the powerful members of society.

In our case there are two main trade unions, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU), which are aligned to two opposing parties.

One really wonders why, if the interest of trade unions is to represent workers, the splits and why representatives align themselves to political parties? Who really is powerful – the representatives or the workers?

Why are workers being dragged into something that does not benefit them at all?

It is always said united we stand, divided we fall.

Workers really need to consider this saying if they ever want to regain the power and recognition that they so much deserve.

With a divided workforce, employers secretly rejoice for they know that there is nothing meaningful that can come from divided people.
I know many workers cherish the old days. Back then, workers from different parts of the country would flock in their thousands to celebrate their day.

Being a worker those days was just great. Salaries would sustain workers until the next payday but today the salary “vanishes” before one even gets paid.

I overheard some workers discussing yesterday how they were finding it difficult to raise school fees for their children when schools reopen this month.

It’s not only fees that workers are worried about, there are also groceries, rent, transport, utility bills yet there is no sign that there is going to be a change in their situation.

Today what sort of message are they going to be told that can change their plight?

Back in the good days, I recall that May 1 would have a lot of entertainment lined up, where workers were treated to real- life dramas of what happens at their workplaces. The Honourable Minister of Labour would bring a message that would liven up the hearts of workers but nowadays, no such thing exists.

Workers who negotiate for better salaries and better working conditions are now treated or viewed as enemies.

Employers quickly jump to accord such elements harsh penalties whenever they are caught on the wrong side of the law. This is a way of silencing them.

In many Western countries there is virtually no worker to talk about yet in Africa we still enjoy a lot of job opportunities, in Europe many jobs are now computerised or are reduced to self- service.

I noted with great concern that in one of the European countries, the workplace is fast dwindling, many jobs are now computerised or mechanised.

For instance, there are no longer fuel attendants at service stations, it’s self-service, tollgates are electronically controlled.
In one media institution I noted that the only place where workers are needed is the news gathering, writing and sub-editing. The page inserting up to packaging and loading of the newspapers is mechanised.

The workplace of today is characterised by poor working conditions, poor wages, exploitation of contract workers, students on attachment and abuse of workers pension and medical aid contributions. Many companies are exploiting workers just because the job space is fast dwindling.

Some workers are not covered by company social security schemes. Female contract workers tend to be highly vulnerable to abuse at the workplace by male bosses in the hope of retaining the contract or getting a permanent position in the near future.

Many companies are mainly concerned about getting positive results from their workers without trying to find out what workers expect from the company.

Revelations of monthly salaries amounting to over US$230 000 stand out as one the greatest scandals ever witnessed in our country a few months back.

Companies are looking at ways of how they can minimise employment costs and this has seen them merging departments.
In converged workplaces, employees are seen doing one or more tasks while remaining at the same salary level but the company will be making wide profit margins.

When signing employment contracts, many workers are usually too excited and barely read through the small print before putting pen to paper.

There is always a clause that says: “The company reserves the right to assign you any other duties as might be necessary.” This clause not only empowers the employer but also weakens worker’s bargaining powers. Under a situation of convergence it makes sense that workers’ salaries are raised by at least by 50 percent because it is the same workforce that is used to do duties that might have required additional workers.

I know Government has a lot on its hands to be closely monitoring what is happening at the workplace, even its own workers. Their intervention is greatly needed to ensure that our nation can return to the old days where workers were so much valued.

I recall how the then Minister of Labour, Eddison Zvobgo, intervened in a strike involving farm workers at a certain white-owned farm.
I recall how in that video clip, he personally instructed the white farmer on what he did not want as the minister responsible for workers.

johnmanzong@gmail.com <mailto:johnmanzong@gmail.com>

The announcement by the City of Harare that it will launch a low-cost medical aid scheme for residents is wonderful but the major question is whether this programme will deliver on its promises.The director of health services for Harare, Dr Prosper Chonzi, on Tuesday said that city authorities are in the process of applying for a licence from the Ministry of Health and Child Care to implement the scheme, which will see residents contribute as little as US$3 per month to ensure access to medical services provided by the municipality.

The scheme will target low-income earners, particularly in the informal sector, most of whom are currently forced to find cash for medical services — including in emergencies —thus compromising access as costs are high and cash is short.

Other cities are considering similar programmes.

Most medical aid programmes currently cost more than US$50 a month for a family of four. Thus they favour the formally employed who are cushioned through concurrent subscriptions by their employers.

Many Zimbabwean urbanites turned to self-employment on the back of massive retrenchments under the IMF-initiated Economic Structural Adjustment Programme in 1992.

Other factors later worsened the situation and it is noble for the city leaders to come up with ideas on how to include the populace that has been sidelined.

While no one can argue with the vision, questions arise on whether the reality will match the dream or if we will see this turn into yet another money generating programme that appears to only benefit those at the helm of the city’s affairs.

Will these people have the willpower to use the money generated by members’ contributions for the stated purposes or will it be diverted to other uses which bear no value to the intended beneficiaries?

We feel that we are justified in raising this pertinent question on behalf of the residents of this city.

When it comes to service delivery the city leaders are quick to whine about lack of funds. But the same impediment seems to miraculously dissolve when money is needed to fund fabulous packages for people, — some of whose sole value to the city would appear to be only the ornamental decorations of their vaunted certificates on their office walls.

The current crop of city mothers and fathers has demonstrated a deplorably deep regard for their own comfort and luxury at the expense of the ratepayer.

Dry taps, uncollected garbage, vandalised amenities and ruined roads have become the hallmark of our once beautiful city as the chief administrators concentrate on buying luxury vehicles, going off on exotic holidays and sending their offspring to prestigious schools. To succeed, the medical aid scheme needs massive buy-in from the residents and this can only come if the targeted people are confident that the programme will benefit them.

It is unlikely that too many people will feel confidence in entrusting their money and health to the current city leadership, especially in light of the scandals that have been exposed at Town House and at major medical aid organisations.

Perhaps it would be wiser to have the medical insurance scheme established as an independent body with the contributors having a fair say in the administration of their funds.

The Flip Side with Kuthula Matshazi
SOME Zimbabweans are worried about the events happening in the mdc factions where the leaders and supporters have been crossing floors, beating and counter expelling each other. All these things are unfortunate because, especially violence, they are not part of the democratic ideals that the mdcs say they value and uphold.
However, the current situation was inevitable. What is happening now is that the political process is correcting itself much like in business where a market corrects itself when stock prices decline after a temporary sharp rise in prices. The sharp rise is usually temporary and driven by mass psychology on the part of investors who anticipate gains. The mass psychology drives the stock prices high until a certain point where buying slows down.

At this point, some investors will feel that the stock has reached premium price, triggering a sell-off in order to gain a good profit. As investors dispose of the stocks, shares start to tumble and a market correction occurs.
From the analogy above, the first thing to notice is that the investors have a common objective of making an immediate return in the form of profit.

However, what they lack is a shared broader purpose of preserving market equilibrium or foster steady growth in stock prices, which is in sync with the real economy.
Like the mass psychology that characterises the market, the then mdc brought together people from different walks of life under the objective of removing President Mugabe and zanu-pf from power. The problem with this mass psychology is that it was not based on a shared ideology that articulated a viable policy framework should President Mugabe and zanu-pf be taken out of power.

The various parties put little or no ideological compass to guide their politics. All the groups ignored their differences just because they were united by one temporary idea, like profit for investors, removing President Mugabe and zanu-pf from power. As the movement started facing challenges associated with a maturing party, such as the need to articulate a viable policy, not the “Mugabe must go” mantra, and competition for positions, underlying differences emerged. As differences emerged, there was little or no ideological foundation to hold together the divergent groups that constituted the mdc.

A group that had spiritedly called for the ouster of zanu-pf and President Mugabe for the supposed trampling of democracy principles under the much publicized democracy agenda was exposed as a sham. Morgan Tsvangirai who was the face of the so-called democracy agenda was, in fact, guilty of closing democratic space. It is reported widely that Tsvangirai was engaging in undemocratic tendencies, such as operating a “Kitchen Cabinet” and sending his people to beat any person who was perceived to be challenging his leadership.

Of course, it is known that this caused the 2005 split with Professor Welshman Ncube, as well as, the formation of several factions. The split ended up with mdc-t, Ncube retaining the legal name of the original mdc, then Job Sikhala formed mdc 99, while Arthur Mutambara, after a fall out with Ncube formed his own mdc.

Meanwhile, the original mdc’s key partner, the National Constitutional Assembly, a one issue organisation, the writing of a new constitution, broke away from the mdc-t accusing it of undemocratic tendencies such as violence and for supporting the approach adopted in developing the current Constitution.

Cracks had been showing. But buoyed by strong showings in one or two elections, the marriage of convenience retained some semblance of sustenance, until the July 2013 where the opposition parties suffered a heavy defeat to zanu-pf. Whether the splits were good or bad, it highlighted fundamental differences existing among these groups. Members of the mdcs were breaking along values, beliefs social standings, etc.

The renewal team, which is calling for Tsvangirai to step down, is generally run by professionals and academics, while that of Tsvangirai maintains generally blue collar leadership and support. There is another general pattern that emerged where one party, especially the MDC-T uses violence as a means to deal with dissent while the renewal team and Ncube prefer engagement.

The splits demonstrate that there was no ideological congruency among all these various civic and political groups and individuals at inception of the original mdc, but a collective motivated by merely removing President Mugabe and Zanu-PF from power and then taking over. It should, therefore not be a surprise to see the mdcs further break into different factions. It is an inevitable evolutionary process that the party needs to go through as it further matures.

The challenge is to manage it effectively. The fragmentation process will likely end when all mdcs supporters have aligned themselves with camps that share similar characteristics.

Stephen Mpofu Correspondent
The politics of giantism now taking centre stage is driving the future of this world into greater peril with international diplomacy, and therefore dialogue, being shoved in the shade by Western imperialism, as demonstrated against Zimbabwe and other smaller nations
When Big Brother wields hammers and big-headed knobkerries over a fly navigating its territory to find better ways of survival – witness illegal Western sanctions imposed against the land reform programme in Zimbabwe – this means that small nations that refuse to kowtow to more powerful states will be forced to walk on tiptoes to avoid being blown up by landmines strewn over their land as punishment for making Big Brother unhappy.

As alluded above, the continuing pursuit by the United States government of regime change in Zimbabwe as punishment for implementing land reform is the case in point here, as elsewhere where smaller nations act in ways that are seen to be against the interests of Western imperialism.

That, instead of sending a congratulatory, goodwill message on this country’s 34th anniversary of independence, Washington decided to add more Zimbabweans on its sanctions list – an act of enhanced aggression showing that it remains unrepentant.

[That some Zimbabweans, many of them with their ancestors,  were dropped from that iniquitous list is not anything to celebrate as they were not supposed to be on it in the first place.]

But for the US to have continued to impose sanctions on skeletons in graveyards in Zimbabwe, as though afraid that the dead might resurrect and cause more harm to mighty America, if any at all, demonstrates the callousness and impunity of the people in power in that country.

What boggles the mind more, however, is the freezing of the bank account of Zimbabwe’s diplomatic mission in Washington – since unfrozen – after the Zimbabwean Government lodged a protest with the State Department there.

If that act is not open aggression against a sovereign state, and a violation of international law, this pen wonders what that action deserves to be called.
Now let us suppose that the Zimbabwean Government reciprocated by freezing the USA embassy bank account in Harare, America would probably just stop short of sending an army to force our Government to reverse its decision.

But what is certain is that the world Press would publish embassy upon embassy of words with invented adjectives denouncing our President and his Government for doing exactly what the Americans did and for which quiet praises must have been showered on it.

When the West imposes sanctions on smaller nations, say, by withholding aid for the latter’s rejection of homosexuality as has been the case with Malawi and Uganda, one wonders just what brand of civilised standards about which Western countries including America hug themselves.

As a matter of fact, this pen wonders what future is in store for generations to come with sanctions, a dialogue of the tongueless, now increasingly replacing round table discussions to resolve conflictual situations developing around the globe.

One can only conclude that, as Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa poignantly said in Bulawayo the other day that, nations caught up in conflict zones where America and company have interests will have to spend lifetimes tiptoeing around sanctions-landmines planted by Big Brother.

Words to describe such a world will have to be invented by lexiconists.
But what a weird world, then, to which humanity might be headed!

Nelson Chamisa

Lloyd Gumbo Mr Speaker, Sir
“JUST what is wrong with our young parliamentarians? They are busy making headlines for the wrong reasons when the youths expect better representation.
“If they are not in the news for allegedly raping minors, they are said to be going berserk and testing their firearms shooting in pubs sending patrons scampering for cover,” said a church-mate commenting on recent reports that some young MPs had been arrested for various offences.
He was not finished: “They went to Parliament to make sure youths have a voice but they are not raising issues affecting this constituency like unemployment.”

In the run-up to the July 31, 2013 harmonised elections and those of 2008, the main political parties deliberately included a number of youths in their ranks as parliamentary candidates.

This was done to spruce up not only their rank and file nor to create fiefdoms but to give young people a voice in national politics.
In this regard, quite a number of youths made it into the legislature among them Annastancia Ndlovu, Justice Mayor Wadyajena, Solomon Madzore, Kudzanai Chipanga, Felix Mhona, Dexter Nduna, Melody Dziva, Thamsanqa Mahlangu and Costa Machingauta.

Cde Dziva

But are young MPs their own persons and do they have a vision?
Are they key drivers of change from old ways of doing things or they have joined the bandwagon of tired politics?

Granted, there are some young legislators who have made a mark but too many of them are still to find their footing as they are still to make their maiden speeches, almost nine months into the life of this Parliament.

Wadyajena has done fairly well chairing the portfolio committee on Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment on his debut appearance in the august House.
His committee made up of mostly youthful MPs has made some incisive enquiries into the skewed manner in which young people benefited from the fund.

But the question is where are the other youths to bring significant change in discourse during debates?
Do these youth MPs bring anything exceptional in our politics?

If truth be told without fear or favour, our youth MPs need to up their game because most of them have not shown that they are cut from a different cloth.
Let’s face it; there are some seasoned parliamentarians who failed to attain better education because they were fighting in the liberation struggle and did not then improve themselves academically after 1980.

As such, those legislators can be forgiven when they make streetwise debates but such grace can never be extended to born-frees who had all the time to go to school given Government’s education policies since independence.

One would have expected our young MPs to revolutionise the way debate is conducted in Parliament given that some of them attained reasonable education qualifications.

We would have expected them to be vociferous, well-intentioned, clear in analysis and show remarkable qualities in the way they conduct themselves in and outside Parliament, but are we getting this?

Have these young MPs managed to articulate young people’s issues in Parliament?
Have they brought life to the august House or are they already tired, barely nine months into the first session of the Eighth Parliament?

Temba Mliswa

It is unfortunate that most of the young MPs are expending energy on the wrong things.
They heckle, shout and make unnecessary interjections and falling in the folly of polarisation that has defined our politics since the turn of the millennium.

Instead of making well-researched and informed contributions in Parliament, they are busy shooting from the hip, abusing parliamentary privileges to target their factional opponents or those from the other side.

Granted, some of our young MPs have sent shockwaves, mentioning the “untouchables” as having been complicit in corruption but as long as those contributions are influenced by factional and political emotions then we are not going anywhere.

Most young MPs are not happy with the way corruption cases have been handled since the cat got out of the bag because it appears impunity of corrupt officials continues unabated.

But should one see a hyena behind every bush even if there is nothing amiss?
There are also some young MPs who are going all out to be seen to be making contributions in Parliament in the hope of being appointed ministers.

Let’s face it, it’s not about being outspoken but what comes from the mouth that counts.
Some young MPs command respect in both the ruling party and opposition because they are prolific on the floor and they do not just stand up to waffle but to make well-informed contributions.

As such, almost every MP gives them an ear when they are on the floor because they know something of substance will be said.
Madzore acknowledges that there are some young MPs who have done well while others are still learning the ropes.

“I have not witnessed a rise in motions that affect young people but there are good young debaters like Settlement Chikwinya, Annastancia Ndhlovu, Nelson Chamisa and Temba Mliswa though he is not very young,” he said.

“These are prolific debaters but to be honest, I find most young MPs are more on the silent side because they are observing how debate is done. But let’s be honest, it would be too early to say whether the debate has been enriched.

“I find the committee on Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment where I am a member to be more valuable because that is where we tackle issues of youth development.

“But it is also important to note that, yes we may be young MPs but we did not go there to represent the youths only because some of us were elected by the elderly and the youths so we are there to represent all their interests,”  he said.

It is clear that a few of our young MPs have fallen for the folly of just wanting to go to parliament for their ego and once they are there are more interested in what they get out of politics.

As a result, some people will ask whether our young MPs are closing their eyes to their constituents or just do not have the capacity.
Some may argue that it is because of the whipping system but how come other young MPs are still able to debate?

Mr Tsvangirai

Simon Allison Guardian Correspondent
THERE was a time, not too long ago, when Morgan Tsvangirai personified everything that was good about Zimbabwe. He was tenacious, fearless and determined to challenge the authoritarian one-party state that Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF was intent on creating. He rallied the masses, campaigned vociferously, stood firm in the face of threats and intimidation and vicious personal attacks. He represented a Zimbabwe that refused to be bowed into submission; one that knew the difference between right and wrong, between democracy and kleptocracy. He wasn’t just the leader of the opposition; in many ways, he was the opposition, and he gave Zanu-PF a serious run for their ill-gotten money.

In fact, he didn’t just scare the ruling party, he beat them fair and square in the first round of those 2008 elections. Zimbabweans wanted change. They wanted Tsvangirai.

For the veteran opposition leader, those heady days — days when the opposition was a genuine force, when the end of Mugabe’s reign seemed to be within touching distance — are long behind him.

We all know what happened next. Mugabe and his Zanu-PF thugs, terrified of losing their empire, unleashed a carefully targeted anarchy at anyone who showed the slightest sign of dissent. Many of Tsvangirai’s  members were beaten; still more were locked up on spurious charges. The same was true for all opposition parties.

Unable to cope with the onslaught, the MDC made a deal with the devil himself, agreeing to join a unity government in which Zanu-PF held all the big cards (ie. control of the police and security forces, as well as the presidency). Tsvangirai was relegated to the hastily-created and largely ceremonial role of Prime Minister, in which he spent five years trying to make nice with Mugabe. To no avail; he was given little say in the running of government, often left out altogether of cabinet meetings.

In this time, he cut a strangely muted, inconsequential figure. He seemed to have lost the fire in his belly. Power had tamed him. While other opposition figures were making real headway in government, Tsvangirai was more often in the headlines for his messy love life, or for his obvious affection for the trappings of office.

By the time the next elections rolled around, in July 2013, Tsvangirai had lost much of his appeal. The opposition, led by his faction of the MDC, fared poorly.
Even though widespread reports suggest that there was some element of vote-rigging from Zanu-PF, it probably wasn’t necessary; voters returned to Mugabe’s fold in droves, giving him undiluted control once again.

It was a failure of epic proportions for Zimbabwe’s opposition — and specifically for the man who leads it. Now, Tsvangirai is facing the consequences.
Last week, a significant faction within the MDC-T declared that they had unilaterally suspended Morgan Tsvangirai as party leader. The statement released in support of this position was damning.

In it, Tsvangirai stood accused of stifling dissent, ignoring party structures, corruption, rigging internal elections, and creating his own cult of personality. He was responsible, they concluded, for “the complete Zanufication” of the party.

The statement was signed by none other than Tendai Biti, for years Tsvangirai’s most loyal lieutenant, with the support of 136 MDC-T Guardian Council members. Not enough to form a quorum, admittedly, but more than enough to explode the myth of an opposition party united for Zimbabwe and against continued Zanu-PF rule.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Tsvangirai has faced internal dissent. The existence of several other parties claiming the MDC name, most notably the one led by Welshman Ncube, attests to this. But this time it’s different.

For one thing, Tsvangirai himself is much weaker. Although he still commands considerable support, he no longer has national appeal beyond his core constituency — as the last election results showed so clearly.

He’s also compromised by his time in office; no one can forget in a hurry all the hugs, handshakes and smiles with Mugabe, as necessary as those may have been at the time.

Worse for Tsvangirai, there is at least a morsel of truth in the accusations against him. In particular, he is damned by his decidedly Mugabe-esque manoeuvre of altering the MDC constitution to allow himself to run for a third term. The last thing Zimbabwe needs is another leader who doesn’t know when to leave office.

For another, Zimbabwe’s opposition is particularly vulnerable at the moment. It too has been compromised, and found wanting by voters. Disorganised and divided, it is incapable of providing a genuine check on the government.

Instead, it serves as a fig leaf which allows Zanu-PF to extol the virtues of Zimbabwean democracy while effectively enforcing a one-party state. In addition, there is an argument to be made that a weak, divided opposition is worse than no opposition at all, because it prevents other, more effective opponents of the regime from emerging.

Tsvangirai has, of course, vehemently denied the charges against him, likening his “suspension” to an attempted coup. He maintains that he is still the party leader, and that the dissenters do not have the authority or the numbers to enforce their edict.

Perhaps, though, if Tsvangirai cares as much about his country as he says he does, he should take their concerns to heart. Truth is, Tsvangirai has had his chance to take on Mugabe, and he’s lost.

The longer he remains in office, the happier Mugabe will be, secure in the knowledge that Tsvangirai’s combative style and diminishing influence will be unable to unify the opposition against him. Zanu-PF will never be defeated by an MDC faction.

The only chance the opposition has of successfully challenging the ruling party is to recognise that there is strength in numbers, and strength in unity.
Petty political differences must be set aside in pursuit of the greater good. Morgan Tsvangirai has taken his eye off the prize, confusing his own future with Zimbabwe’s — that’s why he must go, to make space for a leader who will put Zimbabwe first. — The Guardian.

Gerald Maguranyanga Traffic Friday
MADAM Elsie Mujanga, time does fly indeed. Not many days ago, you assumed reins to the big office of a vital national police placement. It is hardly believable that you’re a little more than 100 days old heading the key police traffic office.
Which means you are due for your first performance assessment?
Yours is a fundamental public office liable to scrutiny; so mine and other voices are entitled to heckle you and to voice our objective opinions — friendly and angry – on the perceived good or bad performance of your senior office.

Your activities and decisions directly affect every Zimbabwean; personally my family and this regular driver. At a time like this, as the noises about road safety and the deaths too, steadily spike, I wanted us to faithfully take stock of how you have fared thus far and what your current performance promises in the future.

But first things first: Traffic Friday is troubled at the heartbreaking demise of toddler Neil Mutyora, who has untimely passed after being fatefully caught up in the line of fire, of the now regular, traffic police-kombi skirmishes.

To me, his awful death represents more irrefutable evidence of how cheap life is in Africa. As all the accusing and conflicting arguments fly around, let’s never forget that a flesh-and-blood human being has needlessly lost his right to life. Imagine the uproar and the swift consequences to small and big careers, if that travesty had occurred in, say, New Zealand or the UK?

May Neil Mutyora’s soul rest in peace. I pray it is the last such cheap death in preventable circumstances.
Traffic police should always work unimpeded, but in light of the disastrous modus operandi, fresh considerations must be given to the police’s enormously unpopular windscreen-smashing and spike-throwing methods which may have to be bettered.

An online Herald survey starkly reveals that the Mutyora case has been spectacularly bad PR for the police. Notwithstanding, Traffic Friday will never shower the retard kombi drivers with insincere glory.

Madam top cop, this column, Traffic Friday, fingers ever crossed, keenly waits to see how you, the Officer Commanding National Traffic, will deal a decisive and strategic body blow to the relentless road carnage. You seemingly have, several months on, no operable answer to the notoriety of kombis.

Since your assumption of duty, the unbelievable chaos continues un- abated. In fact, judging by events of recent days, the kombi infamy and disrespect for the traffic police has worsened. Under your direct watch! Is it business as usual in your lofty office Snr Asst Comm Mujanga?

The Easter death toll has progressively spiked, comparing the 2013 numbers to this year’s. That should not be the case. Prior to the holiday, we were warned that traffic police, would be “out in full force”. It means your full-force thing is not working. The risen Easter toll interrogates the efficacy of that policing method, whatever you name it. That is an unclean stain on your CV madam.

I recall, in my congratulatory public letter to you, humbly echoing that yours was a burdensome and time-sensitive task. Your mission reminds me of one great school motto:“Tot Pacienda, Parum Factum” – indeed “so much to do, in so little time” declares the Prince Edward School slogan!

Please allow me to highlight a few heartfelt thoughts from my previous public letter to you, wherein I opined on certain vital matters expected of you to expeditiously tackle: “Your brief, as the commander of National Traffic, is clearcut … Zimbabwe has a sobering Road Traffic Accident (RTA) crisis, painting a sorry picture of widespread driving lawlessness. I believe that your demanding assignment is to provide intelligent team leadership and enthusiastically monitor the consistent execution of operations by your subordinates.

Your prime target, indisputably, is halting the utter carnage that rules-and-reigns today. No point in reminding you that commuter omnibus drivers (many of them too young and inadequately licensed) invent most of the RTA trouble…” Do you remember that ominous warning Madam Mujanga?

Traffic Friday continued, “… please add to your challenges, pedestrians that unthinkingly wander all over the road, disregarding traffic light signals, crossing the road wherever and howsoever… Sadly, the very simple act of crossing the road, in Zimbabwe, can turn out to be a deadly endeavour, but it need not be so.

“… At the heart of curbing the carnage on Zimbabwean roads are two critical players; the driver and the cop. The driver has generally shown he doesn’t want to play ball, so that leaves the cop with her famed long arm of the law, to impose approved behaviour.

Deadly road crime cannot be tolerated any longer, not under your oversight madam. It is astonishing that the whole might of the police has seemingly ignored the infamous Avondale-City-Avondale pirate taxis and many other notorious traffic hotspots, to the absolute detriment of order on the roads

”Well, Madam Mujanga, here we are, still talking about the notorious illegal commuter pick-up hotspots in the city with no positive change whatsoever. Under your fresh watch top cop!

“How you will deal with the internal corruption is your baby … Just one rotten apple can spoil a whole basket of good fruit.’’
Madam, Traffic Friday is pissed off by MOST of your traffic cops; they publicly act too buddy-buddy with commuter omnibus drivers. It is strange to see a policeman/woman lovingly holding hands with a kombi driver, laughing out loudly like long-lost friends, yet at most times, the kombi and its driver are a crime scene!

“The fishy business of a kombi conductor hurriedly jumping out and clandestinely transacting with the police behind his vehicle smells of rotten intent. In many police precincts around the world, cops serve you seated in your vehicle… Such clean cops address you boldly, loudly and respectfully; proudly exercising state authority, without fear or favour…”

What practicable measures have you instituted to neutralise the noisy touts that brazenly hang in numbers onto the back or open door of a moving, passenger-ferrying commuter omnibus? Not much hey, judging from what we witness daily in Harare. How does your office uncaringly tolerate the authority and dignity of the police being dared so publicly, with little consequence to the sick kombi lawbreakers? Masikati machena!

Kombi crews have audaciously kidnapped and even killed cops in their line of lawful work, if my memory serves me right. They have downgraded their wickedness into killing “members of the public” right in the CBD, and yet you police lovingly slap the evil- doers on the wrists?

I fully agree with renowned journalist Joram Nyathi, in his no-holds-barred Sunday Mail article that it was time to take the cop-kombi fight (that’s what it is) to another level. But can you Madam austerely lead that? So far, I am not convinced. Remember, “So much to do, so little time!”…

(This letter concludes next Friday.)
Holidays or no holidays; let’s keep the driving ‘happy, happy!’

Gerald Maguranyanga moderates Road Safety Africa, on www.facebook.com/RoadSafetyAfrica, an interactive community page that solicits ideas to curb road traffic accidents in Zimbabwe and Africa. Feedback: WhatsApp only please: +263 772 205 300.

Edward Snowden

Joram Nyathi Group Political Editor
TOMORROW is World Press Freedom day. A few journalists and editors in Zimbabwe are in the dock for infringing various pieces of legislation related to their work. Propitiously, though, the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services has set up an independent panel of media practitioners to inquire into the state of the media in the country. The panel, Information and Media Panel of Inquiry, is on the ground as I write. Perchance, IMPI might win the battle to have the pernicious legislation expunged.

The offending legislations are aippa and posa, both of which are familiar territory to most media practitioners.
In short, aippa requires journalists to be accredited and media houses be registered with the Zimbabwe Media Commission.

My main interest for this piece is section 15 of posa.
The section deals with publishing or communicating false statements. It prohibits and criminalises the publication of a statement by a person who knows the statement to be false, or who does so but does not have reasonable grounds for believing the statement to be true.

The statement in question must be prejudicial to the state to the extent that it “promotes public disorder or endangers public safety; affects the defence or economic interests of Zimbabwe; undermines public confidence in the security forces; and disrupts essential services”.

I must concede that journalists have a point about the criminal penalty. There should be other remedies, especially for the journalists.  Yet the grounds raised as prejudicial to the state are very serious.

The First Amendment to the American Constitution is often cited as a lobbying platform against any attempts to abridge press freedom. Rarely are issues of context and circumstance ever explained. One is left to speculate that there must have been so much patriotic fervour and a rare brand of journalists then that even politicians felt entirely safe in the hands of the media.

Yet uncertainty about the enemy without so abounded that the same politicians found it necessary to have a nationwide armed militia to thwart any possible British mischief. That liberal gun policy still haunts the US today.

No doubt Zimbabwe’s plural media is still nascent. Our democracy is still delicate. The enemy who lost the guerilla war is still in the trenches.
While there might be debate about “public disorder” or “essential services”, I don’t think there is similar latitude about the “defence or economic interests” of Zimbabwe. We still have political parties who call for and media who back those calls for economic sanctions on the country to achieve certain political ends.

I don’t know if that is not criminal.
I raise this point deliberately so that we separate genuine issues related to press freedom and freedom of expression from dangerous political demagoguery disguised as freedom of expression.

Julian Assange

Calling for sanctions on your country is a form of freedom of expression which seeks to destroy the country. It hurts everybody and cannot be treated any less.
That is why the Americans have their own Patriot Act. If they didn’t, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden would be free men today.

What worries me most is not the penalty. It is more the discourse around it.
The law is essentially about exercising great responsibility by the media. It tacitly acknowledges the power and reach of the media. It acknowledges its influence on our daily lives. This is to say that influence can be used positively or negatively, with grave consequences. It’s like a motor vehicle with a full tank on the road. Yet the discourse in some media circles is to say we should be left to do as we please. It is our right; it is guaranteed in the Constitution. Even those offended who seek civil redress in the courts are accused of stifling media freedom.

One guy actually protested that freedom was being “given in instalments as if we don’t know what we are doing. Is that why people went to war?”
No doubt if every reporter or journalist knew what they were doing and were as diligent in reporting facts as facts, editors would sleep well at night. And there would be fewer apologies in the newspapers. Which is not the case now.

Freedom must come with the responsibility to respect and protect the interests and rights of fellow citizens until such a time that the same rights and interests are legally withdrawn by the courts through due process.

Recently the Speaker of the National Assembly Jacob Mudenda caused a furore in the House after he cautioned members from making wild and damaging allegations against fellow legislators and members of the public. He said members should not make allegations which they could not substantiate.

That injunction was immediately tainted with a political spin.
Some MPs protested that they were being gagged from exposing corruption.

Cde Jacob Mudenda

The media took up the hyperbole. Mudenda was accused of trying to censure Parliament, to limit debate, to protect certain interests, etc.
That’s typically Zimbabwean.

The Speaker’s import was lost in the self-righteous din.
Nobody could be bothered to make a distinction between freedom of expression and the freedom to malign, freedom to expose the truth and freedom to manufacture malicious conjecture against opponents or party rivals.

Yet the Speaker’s message was simple: everybody has a reputation and a family name to defend and protect. Everybody has a right to personal dignity which cannot be soiled under parliamentary privilege.

Some of the people who were being named without cause had no platform to respond. Yet the damage caused by their being associated with perfidy could not be erased and would live in print forever, regardless whether an apology was made later.

The danger with information, correct or malicious, is that we lose control of it once it leaves our hands. It simply flies away and we have no way of calling it back before it can cause irreparable damage. It is like an angry SMS sent to the wrong person.

Once we lose control of that information it means anyone can use it the way they want. Researchers can take it as a record and quote the source, believing the sloppy source to be a credible publication. And I doubt that there is a publication which doesn’t want to be taken seriously.

We all want to be taken as a medium of record; why don’t we want to invest the necessary time and energy to protect our integrity?
Prevention is better than cure. And the Speaker rightly stood his ground because he was standing on a sound principle.

My point at the end of it all is that rarely is a law passed which is purposelessly malicious because it will inevitably fail in the courts.
Which is to say, generally journalists who are responsible, do a diligent day’s work and check their facts and have empathy, rarely fear a law simply because it threatens a jail term.

That probably explains why beside generalised calls for media and security sector reforms by the MDC formations, there was never a concerted effort during the subsistence of the Inclusive Government to press for the repeal of Aippa or Posa — Gonese’s feeble private Member’s Bill aside.

Here I am stressing issues of accuracy and empathy so that we all imagine ourselves at the receiving end of inaccurate or malicious reporting. Would we justify it because it is freedom of expression?

Press Freedom Day today comes when Zimbabwe has a number of publications to choose from and stakes are higher on accuracy, credibility, balance and fair play.
Perhaps very soon we shall have more TV and radio stations, making even greater demands on our talents and principles.

Even the imploding MDC-T demands fair coverage on its deathbed.

Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions members march in an empty Gwanzura Stadium during Workers Day commemorations in Harare yesterday. — (Picture by Justin Mutenda)

YESTERDAY, May 1, was Workers Day, a day set aside to celebrate the key component of any functional society, its workforce who drive production in all sectors.
Workers Day, which has its origins in the historical struggles of workers and their trade unions for fair employment standards and worker rights, went largely unnoticed in Zimbabwe, serve for the few workers in formal employment who got some time off to be with their families but it was business as usual in the vibrant informal sector where owner/operators went about their business undeterred by the calendar event.

While as we report elsewhere in this issue, the umbrella trade unions, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and its rival the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions organised some events in various cities and towns, these were poorly subscribed, and for good reason.

Workers have largely lost faith in the quasi-political organisations that many use as springboards to national politics rather than championing the cause of workers.
Some of the unions see Government not as a partner but an adversary which is why one of the unions, the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, was beating its chest yesterday after its career secretary-general Raymond Majongwe was invited to address Workers Day celebrations in Botswana under the theme, ‘”Unleashing a progressive labour agenda through regime change.”

Many of the workers who lost their place in the formal sector are now doing their own things as owner/operators reflecting the massively transformed political economy of Zimbabwe.

What was destroyed by the decades-long sanctions regime is a foreign-owned, foreign dominated economy. It was never ours.
What is emerging in its place is a nascent Zimbabwean economy built on emerging, albeit small businesses, which are the building blocks for a genuine, black Zimbabwean wealth-creating middle class in the coming years.

All they need is the requisite support to grow their businesses in the context of the progressive policies of indigenisation and economic empowerment.
To this end we salute Government for its empowerment policies and urge it to continue supporting and promoting the growth of the small businesses in line with the vision of Zim-Asset, which seeks to develop an empowered society that owns the means of production.

We also urge workers to reclaim their unions so that rather than taking an adversarial approach to Government, they can become partners in growth, and in so doing help not only improve the lot of the worker but also grow the economy for the benefit of the worker.

Workers Day need not continue to be a non-event, but should be a day of celebration in a progressive, indigenised and empowered economy.

Bishop Manjoro
TODAY I will be talking to you on a season not to be missed and how one donkey seized his season headlined news and broke records to date!
There are different seasons in life that come and go. Just like in nature we have winter, summer, autumn and spring. It’s not every day of the year that is winter, No, other seasons also come in and to every season in life there is a thing.

No-matter how dark your family, finances, health, business or future looks like, to every season there is a thing.
So was it with the historical donkey in the Bible, which all its life was considered useless, bound to a tree yet when its season and time came, it was freed and had the honor of transporting the King of kings, and Lord of lords, the Lord Jesus Christ, into Jerusalem!

Are you considered a nobody? God is about to do something with your life! This is your article; there is a purpose why you are here. Winter comes and winter goes! ‘And saith (Jesus) unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, wherein never man sat; loose him and bring him. And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this?

Say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straight away he will send him hither.  And they went their way, and found the colt tied by the door without in a place where two ways met; and they loosed him. And certain of them that stood there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt? And they said unto them even as Jesus had commanded: and they let them go.

And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their garments on him; and he sat upon him. And many spread their garments in the way: and others cut down branches off the trees, and strawed them in the way.

And they that went before, and they that followed, cried saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord’, Mark 11:2-9. Friend, no-matter how useless, ordinary or empty your life may seem or look like, there is a purpose why you are here.

God does not waste time creating junk or failure, there is a purpose long set before you were even born. A donkey is regarded as a useless animal.

But this one donkey had a purpose.

You are where you are because you have not yet discovered your purpose. When purpose has come; the people that looked down on you, will look up to you. Don’t look down on anybody because you don’t know who they are.

Even if you are sited in church or anywhere and you see someone ordinary, very quite seeming unimportant at all, if it’s in church they doesn’t sing or what but you see them every day — leave them like that. Be careful.

The day they get to their purpose something will go different. You may knock on their door one day and say, ‘Good morning sir or madam!’

Don’t look down on yourself and never look down on anybody.

You may be doing nothing today but you will be doing something tomorrow.

Yes, you will be somebody tomorrow.

Nobody was born driving a car or having a thing. The donkey was a nobody yet Jesus sent for it that it carry him into Jerusalem. The king of kings has a plan and a purpose in you no-matter your background or how people see you. Be encouraged and refuse to feel inferior. Press on to your purpose in God, O hallelujah!

However, you also need to be careful in this season not to be missed. It’s not everybody who rejoices when you begin to climb up the ladder.

There are people who get hurt or offended in your success, in your coming out of poverty, in your blooming marriage and family, in your thriving business but don’t worry. When the disciples were untying the donkey, they were asked what are you doing loosing that donkey?

They didn’t panic or get afraid, they just said, the Master needs it! O hallelujah!

Have you been tied in barrenness, purposelessness and mediocrity all your life? The Master needs you today! He wants you free. He wants to sit on you and use you for the glory of the Kingdom of God. Once told Jesus want it, they couldn’t say a word and the donkey went for the greatest time of its life and did what no other animal or other donkey ever did — it carried Jesus!

Friend, tell yourself my time is now, I am special, important, useful and somebody! God is going to use the nothings of this world to do the impossible. If you are considered useless begin to rejoice, God is coming for you, he is going to use you.  He is going to use your hands to do the impossible! O hallelujah! I like it, I like it.

Once untied the donkey didn’t fight, jostle, run or get rude, No; he obediently followed. Herein lieth a secret — obedience is a key to success in life!

Obey the Word of the Lord and you will become somebody in life. Don’t listen or get distracted by the crowd that is shouting! No. The donkey didn’t know where he was going but at least he was happy to be free from where he was tied. You may not yet be exactly there, where you want to be in life but you say to yourself, ‘At least I can put on a tie and have three pairs of shoes; eat liver in our home, and manage to do some things?’

Those few things are ushering you into your purpose and greater things in life. He takes you from glory to glory. Don’t be discouraged. Take note also that when God blesses you with a good life, children and anything in life he doesn’t just bless you for nothing, No!

When he blesses you, he blesses you to become a blessing to others.

He tells Abraham, I am going to bless you and all the nations of the world are going to be blessed through you. Blessed to be a blessing!  Don’t miss this season — a season not to be missed! Let your purpose, business, family and the future you desire be untied and released in Jesus name.

For with God all things are possible, Mark 10:27.

Jacob Zuma

Geoffrey York
Twenty years after South Africa’s liberation from the shackles of apartheid, Musa Novela scoffs angrily at the romantic notion that the black majority has triumphed over racism and injustice.
“The struggle wasn’t about being able to marry white people or go to the bathroom with white people,” he says. “The struggle was about the land. And the land is still not in the hands of the people.”

Mr Novela (28) is one of the thousands of ordinary South Africans who have joined a new radical left-wing party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which threatens to shake up the country’s politics.

With its revolutionary promises and its big campaign rallies across South Africa, the new party could pose a serious challenge to the future of the ruling African National Congress.

While the EFF has little chance of winning South Africa’s national elections next week -polls suggest it will finish in third place, with perhaps 5 percent of the vote – its emergence is a sign of growing discontent with the persistently high rate of unemployment and poverty in the post-apartheid society.

Those rumblings of discontent are a foreshadowing of forces that could eventually topple the ANC in elections down the road.
The ANC, the liberation movement of Nelson Mandela and other heroes, has never quite fulfilled the left-wing promises that helped bring it to power in 1994.

Instead it has awkwardly straddled the line between socialist rhetoric and pro-business policies, trying to reassure the foreign investors and major corporations that could have fled after the ANC took office.

While polls predict that the ANC will win another majority in the May 7 election, the party is increasingly under attack from disenchanted South Africans who expected a more aggressive policy of redistributing wealth and land after the death of apartheid.

In its early years in power, the ANC set a target of transferring 30 percent of South Africa’s agricultural land to the black majority. But it refused to confiscate the farmland, preferring to negotiate deals with willing sellers.

As a result, only an estimated 7 percent of farmland is owned by blacks today.
The ruling party has also rejected calls for the nationalisation of big mining companies and banks – another key promise of the EFF party, which is led by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, a firebrand who gained national fame for his nationalisation demands.

“The ANC has failed dismally,” says Mr Novela, wearing the trademark red T-shirt and beret of the EFF, inspired by Che Guevara and other Marxist revolutionaries.
“There are a lot of similarities between the ANC and the apartheid regime,” he said at an EFF protest march on Tuesday.

“The apartheid regime used to strangle our people with racist policies, and now the ANC is strangling people with its economic policies. They are all in favour of big business, protecting big business to make big profits, while the people get poorer and poorer.”

The left-wing challenge goes beyond the EFF. The traditionally pro-ANC trade union movement has splintered, with some unions becoming more radical – a trend that has sparked a wave of labour unrest in recent years, including a devastating strike by platinum miners that is now in its 14th week with no end in sight.

Even within the ANC, there is rising discontent from its leftist factions.
Ben Turok, an 86-year-old former communist who has served as an ANC Member of Parliament for nearly 20 years, this month published a scathing critique of how the ruling party has drifted away from its ideals.

Mr Turok helped to draft the 1955 Freedom Charter, one of the touchstones of ANC historical principles, which called for South Africa’s national wealth to be “restored to the people”. But today, he says, the ANC is in disarray and confusion.

“There is a pervasive sense of disappointment with the character of the ANC today, its loss of direction and the slippage from its historical mission,” Mr Turok writes in his new memoir.

Instead of fulfilling its progressive economic ideals, he says, the former liberation movement has fallen prey to “careerism, patronage, corruption and the abuse of power”.

Many of the ANC’s members have displayed “greed” and “a new spirit of acquisitiveness”, he says. – Globe and Mail

THE Herald has redeemed journalism. One read with absolute disgust shallow media reports on the ongoing saga and leadership tussle within MDC-T, eternally wondering when the better deserving reader would finally get justly served by our media. The wait has been long, with respite only coming yesterday through a headline story in The Herald dedicated to this contest. The MDC-T’s “national council” is not a secret. Its membership is known, as are the legal parameters within which it meets, ponders issues and then decide. To then have two rival factions, each claiming a commanding lead founded on separate votes from the same organ comprising the same membership, and with our media obediently reporting both results and claims as a correct record, takes obeisantly journalism to a new low.

Morgan Tsvangirai

We was rigged!
Tsvangirai, we are told by the media, expelled Biti following an overwhelming 162 out of 167 vote in the 176 MDC-T national council. A few days later, the same media reported that the MDC-T national council, presumably the same one, voted 136 out of 138, to expel Tsvangirai and his acolytes. Until yesterday, no comment followed both reports whose interpretive value was borne out by the fact of turning both results into pot-boilers in subsequent stories on the same matter. Clearly the first line of history had been written. And rigged! Pity unto our children who shall turn to this for guidance and knowledge. Is this not breathtaking? More interestingly, MDC-T, the party which claims July 31 elections were rigged, is rigging its own vote and processes! And doing so in tragi-comic ways. Here are the key questions.

The questions they would not raise
Firstly, are we still talking about the same 176-strong national council of MDC-T? Or is it about some self-serving offshoots from it? Secondly, is it within the bounds of possibility that a divided MDC-T would still retain an undivided, even-handed national council which is at the beck and call of both rivals? Which is to say as an organisation the MDC-T is not divided, but is only suffering two leadership personalities entangled in a personal feud of zero implication to the whole organisation?

Thirdly, where an organisation gets conflicted, does it not stand to reason that the behaviour and performance of its underpinning organs becomes a subject of interest and scrutiny? Why has this not been so? Lastly, where a dispute boils down to the constitutionality and procedures of actions, surely journalistic emphasis shifts to an assessment of processes, procedures and their integrity? How does the same institution meet twice in different venues, at different times, at the behest of different leaders, but on the same matter, all to give different results carrying see-saw fortunes for the two contestants, all without arousing media scepticism in both results, heightened media interest in the integrity of these rivalling processes?

Juvenile journalism
Far from exposing the MDC-T and the way it manages its affairs, the current leadership tussle in the MDC has put the national media on trial. And the media are not doing too well at all in that dock. Such a spectacular willingness to suspend disbelief, itself the essence of journalism, raises key questions about our media and their editorial leadership. And not just in respect of leadership contest in MDC-T; but in respect of major shifts in the bearing of national politics whatever causes them.

Look at the shallowness with which the issue of Zanu-PF succession is being handled, compare it with the way the leadership tussle in MDC-T — itself an expression of succession in the one branch of national politics – is being handled, and tell me whether what comes through is not juvenile journalism. And of course the hallmark of journalism still to break a voice — isati yaputudza — is fascination with unexamined “pressa”, personalities and meaningless sound-bites. Such journalism can’t recognise that the only handsome face in journalism is that of a satisfied reader who must be well served through a never balancing equation of non-belief between scrubs — sorry scribes — and inveigling sources out to hoodwink journalists.

Media dilemma
Looking at media outputs on the MDC-T leadership story, one detects a clear dilemma in the newsroom: between a recognition that a post-July 31 MDC-T cannot continue to be the same or to run on the same ideas, style and leadership on the one hand, and an equally compelling commitment to resurrect, protect and present intact a human symbol of oppositional politics by way of Tsvangirai. If the MDC does not reform after the July debacle, its extinction is assured, something the media do not want. But to acknowledge the need for reforms is to challenge Tsvangirai’s leadership, something the media are not yet ready to do. After all it was the same media which built the persona which Tsvangirai wields, built it for well over a decade and half.

Tendai Biti

Truth of static base
What July 31 did was to make an introspection unavoidable. It underscored and highlighted the fact that MDC peaked in 2000, before freezing in its tracks thereafter. So too did Tsvangirai’s leadership. As a cursory look at election results for subsequent years will show, MDC’s support base between 2000 and 2008 did not shrink, did not rise. It remained uneasily static. What buoyed the party’s prospects, or made them steady and unchanging, were the turbulent failures in Zanu-PF, climaxing in the 2008 “bhora musango” debacle. But in the absence of a real trouncing of the MDC, there would have been no trigger for this kind of introspective analysis which the MDC lacked while badly needing it, indeed which today threatens to wash away both Tsvangirai and Biti.

Post-colonial in post-liberation politics
And come to think of it, beyond figures which the media are always simplistically fascinated with, there were key issues which confronted the MDC right from soon after the expiry of its aura of novelty. I will just raise one. From its very inception, but possibly belied by the aura of newness, MDC faced an existential question of what form sustainable post-colonial politics assume in a post-liberation Zimbabwe. As many will readily agree, just fashioning post-colonial politics is a tough proposition in itself. Doing so against enduring values of a liberation war symbolised by a governing liberation front doubles the conceptual load. Add to all that the fact of Western, specifically British, patronage founded on a bitter desire to challenge new-found sovereignty, and you realise the load on the small back of MDC was bound to make it bent treble.

Enter Zvinavashe’s strait jacket
The enduring nature of this issue not only comes from the MDC formations’ continued reliance on Western support, but also from a spectacular failure to deal with the liberation factor and the fact of its immanent presence in the national political ethos. And this factor is not about to go away. Zanu-PF successfully used the constitution-making process to implant this in the country’s supreme law. It is now cast in stone, thereby creating a strait-jacket on political leadership.

What started as a controversial statement from the late General Zvinavashe, has now become a national shibboleth. A more politically adept Tsvangirai would have used inclusive politics to deal with the issue of liberation in a manner which would have given closure to it. He did not. Today Biti is trying to grapple with the same issue by embracing the liberation war, even though perfunctorily. Welshman Ncube sought to do the same by associating with figures from the struggle, including the likes of Dabengwa and Mzila. And where you have a wily opponent like Zanu-PF which is so able to raise issues from the past to delegitimise opponents, this is one matter which will not go away any time soon.

Sanctions which shrunk MDC
The trouble with our aligned media is that this whole debate around the key issues which the MDC should have confronted at birth, or soon after, for it to move beyond a blend of stone-throwing student politics and ineffectual stay-away politics of trade unionism was swept under the convenient carpet of votes and their numbers. While elections are won on statistics, parties are made or built on factors.

If you add the fact that the ruinous sanctions which the MDC invited and supported killed industry, it could not have been too difficult to visualise an MDC soon to face membership anaemia as many workers either got laid off or “in-formalised”. The Thursday ZCTU Workers’ Day commemorations with its pitiable attendance drove home this paradoxical relationship between MDC-favoured sanctions on the one hand, and the dwindled growth prospects for the MDC-favoured ZCTU.

It required a leadership of exceptional vision to see the downside of this blunt weapon, a blunt weapon upgraded to a weapon of choice because the foreigner wanted it , wants it, and because MDC thought it was also a weapon of least cost. And all this at a time when Zanu-PF was busy growing its peasantry backbone through land reforms!

Confronting issues of an epoch
I have decided to debate this matter to highlight the absolute lack of grasp of issues which, judging by Simukai Tinhu’s latest piece published  in the British Guardian, appears to be blighting even our intellectuals as well. To read the current leadership impasse in the MDC-T as a leadership wrangle between Tsvangirai and Biti is not just ahistorical; it is to overlook the key existential questions which remain outstanding, and whose resolution or failure thereof will always make or break leaders in that organisation, or in any post-colonial, post-liberation political formation in the country. And there is nothing new in that. What made leaders from the days of NDP in the 1960s right up Lancaster in 1979, was the whole issue of how to dislodge settler colonialism.

Writing for the British
Greater misconception builds if one believes, as does Tinhu, that Tsvangirai ever wielded “personal power”, let alone entrenched it. I suppose Tinhu is writing for a British audience whose government has had a lot to do with the MDC from inception. For the British, the whole question then boils down to who leads its project here, a question Tinhu thinks he can answer for them. Yet here back home, the issue is precisely the British factor which won’t go away, and what it does to opposition politics in the national context, and to opposition leadership types and options within the MDC itself. Frankly, the issue of personalities is a British, American and western one.

Here the real challenge is to correctly interpret July 31 and give the country the waiting-politics it deserves given its peculiar post-liberation sensibility. Whilst Tinhu thinks it is either Tsvangirai or Biti — and while clearly hoping it would be Biti — for the national politics it is the fact of a terminally declining MDC badly distracted by personalities from re-examining the entire foreign premises of its politics. Its rallies are poorly attended; ZCTU, its mother body is atrophying; all its organs are shambolic. What matters is whether the current conflict re-invents oppositional politics away from foreign influence. Such a question cannot find resolution simply in choosing between a dumb or clever minder of British and western interests here. This is Tinhu’s pitfall, which is why for him it is about giving British interests here a popular face and a thinking head, and hence the partnership he says is needed between the two contestants.

No gift to Zanu-PF
Much worse, the hand of the donor has been brazenly shown, giving a sense of having been strengthened. The one uncanny result of the so-called leadership contest as it unfolds is how it is vindicating Zanu-PF’s allegations of a foreign government-dependent and funded MDC. In desperation, the hand of the foreigner has become more visible, more directing, with rival factions openly competing for its stroking and its funding. The way British and American officials have thrown caution to the wind in trying to paper over MDC cracks shows the depth of their involvement in opposition politics.

The MDC has become a key vehicle for the realisation of western foreign policy goals in Zimbabwe. The issue for the west is getting the best manager for project. It shall be these western interests, not the personalities of Tsvangirai and Biti, which shall determine the leadership outcome. I hope Tinhu takes note. Much more, and this escapes both the local media and Tinhu, turmoil in MDC can never be “a gift to Zanu-PF”. A liberation movement and national party like Zanu-PF will be exercised by the depth of resurgent western politics in the national body-politic, and how this factor attenuates our collective claim to sovereignty. This is an unwholesome reality bedimming claims that we have ousted the white colonial in our national politics. Much worse, as 2008 showed, the west often uses an oppositional entrepôt to destabilise a liberation movement by undermining its cohesion, and by diluting its agenda. That means that while the mayhem in MDC might be away, it is not far off.

Beyond plebiscites
Illustratively, and this is not apparent to Tinhu, the few months of leadership wrangle in MDC-T have spurred the West to attack and undermine our sovereignty more directly, more aggressively. The past weeks have seen definite acts of hostility from the West. It is as if the West, led by Britain and America, have decided to act for the opposition, while gaining more time to reorganise it. There is a determination to sustain the anti-Zanu-PF, anti-Zimbabwe momentum. July 31, we are being told through hostile Western actions, was a mistake for which we Zimbabweans must rue, and which must be rolled back before any rapproachment can be contemplated. After all, a plebiscite alone can no longer satisfy democracy as visualised by the West.

This is why the Brotherhood are out in Egypt; why Ukraine is under an oligarch; why Venezuela’s Maduro must still go even after winning elections. To meet the western test, plebiscites must integrate the vote and protection of western interests. And where the two cannot balance, western interests must gain the day. A good day for Zanu-PF is when our politics extirpate the West from our body politic. Tsvangirai could not do it. Biti will not do it given his donor-darling status. This is why he can never present a better alternative to Tsvangirai anymore than does Tsvangirai to him. The issue is to found new politics, new politicians. The present contest is a far cry from that.

Icho!

nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw

Mr Mwonzora

Fortious Nhambura The Interview
Confusion is again reigning in the MDC-T. The party is on the verge of another split nine years after the 2005 split. Accusations of mismanagement and lack of democracy have been levelled against party leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai by secretary-general Mr Tendai Biti and deputy treasurer- general Elton Mangoma and others. Our Senior Reporter Fortious Nhambura (FN) spoke to Tsvangirai faction spokesperson Mr Douglas Mwonzora (DM)on the problems in the party and the way for forward.

FN: Your party seems to be headed for a split again. What is the problem?
DM: There is a possibility that the party will split but throughout history political parties in a revolution have split. If you go to Zapu, they split into Zanu-PF and Zapu and even there, there were other smaller fragments of Zapu. After Independence, we also saw Zanu splitting into ZUM, and then we saw Zanu-PF further splitting into Zapu headed by Mr (Dumiso) Dabengwa, ZUD headed by Mrs (Margaret) Dongo, UPP headed by Daniel Shumba.
So this is not new phenomena. It is to be expected but what matters to the MDC is where the people are. We have absolutely no doubt that the majority of the MDC members and the majority of the people of Zimbabwe are with president Tsvangirai.

We have had a group of people who apparently don’t want to face congress; a group of people who do not want to take leadership through a democratic process.
It started with Mr Mangoma’s letter, urging the leader to resign. But preceding that letter was a meeting of four people; Honourable Mangoma, Honourable Biti, vice president (Thokozani) Khupe and president Tsvangirai held at the behest of Mangoma and Biti. At that meeting, they tried to push the president to resign and initiate a process of leadership change.

The rest of the Standing Committee disagreed with that approach and the bottom line of the Standing Committee was that leaders in the MDC are elected and removed in a particular away. In this case we elect and remove our leaders via a congress which involves not the four people that they wanted to involve but which involves the owners of the party; the people of Zimbabwe. So that is the basis of the problem.

Then we had a situation where secretary-general Biti convened a meeting that he called a meeting of the National Council at Mandel (Training Centre). Again meetings of the National Council are held in terms of specific provisions of the party constitution. And in terms of the clause 9.1.2G of the constitution of the MDC, the National Council is convened by the president. Needless to say Mr Biti is not the president. In terms of clause 9.3.1H of the constitution of the MDC, it is the national chairman who chairs this meeting. Mr Biti’s meeting was chaired by someone else – the secretary to the Guardian Council – therefore the meeting could never have never been legal.

Also the National Council of the MDC has a specific composition. For example, the constitution is specific: The National Council is made up by all members of the Standing Committee; it is also made up by all the national executive, all members of the management committees of women and the youth assembly. Nine members, including the chairperson, from each province and three representatives of Parliament and representatives of the Guardian Council. These have specific numbers.

FN: What was wrong with the council that endorsed your suspension at Mandel Training Centre?
DM: Now in the case of Mr Biti’s meeting at Mandel, out of the 13 members of the National Council, there were three, there were two actually, Mr Madzore and Mr Biti himself, and Mangoma was under suspension. So if we add Mangoma, three out of 13.
National Executive: out of 54 people, they had eight people. Then the Youth and the Women Assembly Management Committee have eight each, making it 16. Out of those 16, they had three. The provincial representatives are 108 and they had 25. The Guardian Council has 28 members but they had one, Mr Sipepa Nkomo himself.

So the total number came to 33 members of the National Council, genuine members of the National Council out of 195 (Editor’s note: The Guardian Council says the National Council has 176 members).

Thirty-three members out of 195 by any objective standard cannot be regarded as a sufficient number to make decisions. However, in order to suspend a leader of the Standing Committee, you need two- thirds majority of the National Council. Unfortunately, this figure can’t be attained in that.

So looking at the composition of the council itself and the manner in which it was convened, the manner in which it was chaired, it can’t be a legal council and Mr Biti being a lawyer knows or ought to have known this. Now one of the absurdities also is that Mr Mangoma, Promise Mkwananzi, Last Maengahama and Jacob Mafume were all under suspension from the party but they sat in the National Council to decide the lifting of those suspensions. So it’s like a person sitting in judgment over their own case. That can’t be legal. Mr Mafume is not a member of the National Council. He does not belong to a ward executive, to the district executive, provincial executive let alone national. The rest were members of other political parties, members of Welshman Ncube’s party were there. The National Council of the MDC, by comparison, is like the Zanu-PF Central Committee, not every cadre can be a delegate there.

FN: It seems the same issues are coming back again. 2005 we had the same situation where the secretary-general of the MDC then, Professor Welshman Ncube, and vice president Gibson Sibanda raised the same issues against Mr Tsvangirai that Mangoma has raised. Are all these guys wrong?
DM: Certainly, they were not raising the same issues. The issues raised by Welshman Ncube and Sibanda are related to the voting in the National Council and this had to do with on which side the majority was. Welshman’s allegation was that president Tsvangirai had gone against the majority. President Tsvangirai, on the other side, was actually saying that there was a tie and that there was a casting vote.

So it was a factual dispute. It centred on the strategic value of getting into the senatorial elections. History was to prove president Tsvangirai correct because in his opinion, which was correct, participation in the Senate would have a strategic dampening effect on the MDC. The avoidance of the Senate election in 2005 saw the MDC performing much better in 2008. But the fact that people make allegations against a leader is not a new thing. What is important is that those allegations have to be proven. It is easy to make allegations, to try to soil somebody’s reputation but what is important is are those allegations substantiated? That’s number one. Number two, what do the masses say?”

When Mangoma raised those allegations in the standing committee, he was listened to. The allegations were debated the allegations were dismissed by the standing committee voting nine to three. Only one member of the standing committee agreed with him and two, Solomon Madzore and Tendai Biti did not express an opinion.
When the same issue was discussed at national executive level Mangoma actually exonerated the president in the national executive. Fortunately, there are minutes to that effect.

So if they resuscitate the same allegations in respect of which they exonerated the president, it means that there must just be some ulterior motive and this normally happens when politicians are fighting.

FN: I want to believe in 2005, Professor Welshman Ncube said Mr Tsvangirai is dictatorial. Mr Mangoma brought the same issue that the party leader lacks democracy. And when they went to their Mandel meeting that suspended you, your leadership, they also said that you were not listening to the people and that you were dictatorial. How do you comment to that?
DM: Firstly, the issue of dictatorship does not feature in Mr Mangoma’s letter to the president; that means it’s an afterthought. It is something that is being raised in furtherance of whatever they are now doing. Hon Mangoma and Hon Biti wanted to effect leadership change of the MDC in a meeting of four people. President Tsvangirai has said this must go to congress.

Hon Mangoma and Hon Biti don’t want to go to Congress. They don’t want to subject themselves to the wishes of the people and want to be given leadership of the party in a boardroom. President Tsvangirai has said that any leadership change should happen at the congress and should involve the people. These other gentlemen do not want to involve the people. They want to take over leadership in a boardroom and we had to respectfully disagree. Where you have a leader who says let us go back to the people, you have a democrat. Where you have people who want to use their powerful posts in the party, their finances to take over leadership, then you have what we call elite capture. President Tsvangirai is against elite capture.

FN: Mr Mwonzora, your faction and that led by Biti claim to have quorate National Council meetings. I then don’t know how you managed to do it, when you have just one National Council.
DM: What that shows you is that one meeting was fake and this is objectively verifiable. Whether a meeting forms quorum or not is something that is objectively verifiable. The National Council members of the MDC do not change. They were elected in 2011 so what one needs to do is to go to the various minutes of the National Council meetings over these years from 2011.

The identity of the delegates must be the same. Now in the case of Biti’s meeting, the people who came to Mandel are different from the people who have always attended National Council meetings from 2011 to 2014. In the case of the meetings we held at Harvest House, you will see that the delegates are consistent from 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

We have gone a step further. At the meeting of the National Council of 29 April at Harvest House, the members of the National Council filled affidavits on whether they had been invited in Mandel or not and those affidavits are there. So we have 167 members of the National Council who were not there at Mandel and the list is there. And the list can’t be compared to the historical list of the National Council so it’s objectively verifiable.

The difference between Biti’s group and ourselves is that we are saying we have a list of people who attended. Biti’s group does not want to disclose their list. All they want to talk about is the number 138. But 138 persons doesn’t necessarily constitute a quorum, it must be 138 delegates of the National Council not 138 of anyone which is their meeting. So this is objectively verifiable and members of the National Council themselves have now written affidavits to say “We were on this meeting, we were not on that meeting.” We invite the Press, especially the public media, to come and inspect the registers.

FN: So in other words you are saying you are prepared to avail the register of people who attended?
DM: Yes, we are very, very prepared.

FN: Mr Biti made serious allegations against Mr Tsvangirai, ranging from violating the party constitution to embezzlement. If I might ask, you as the people who are standing with Mr Tsvangirai, why are you standing with Mr Tsvangirai in the face of such damaging allegations?
DM: Allegations are not fact. We know that the allegations are false. There are two officials in the MDC who deal with finances on a day-to-day basis; that is the treasurer-general and the secretary- general. The mandatory signature is the treasurer-general’s, deputy treasurer Mangoma in the absence of (Roy) Bennett. To say that any other official had his hands in the money is factually incorrect. Mangoma actually exonerated the president.

The main advisor on the constitution from time to time is the secretary-general. And every time we made a decision he was present and every time we made a decision, he never raised anything. He surprised us by holding a press conference, but he should have raised it in the meetings. After that has been said and done, the main violator of the constitution is the secretary general who convenes a meeting he is not supposed to convene who asks people to chair meetings those who are not supposed to chair. We support president Tsvangirai because he is the choice of the people chosen by congress. He has an undoubted mandate to run the party up to 2016 or up to the next congress. We support the idea that in changing or retaining leaders we must involve the congress. If at congress president Tsvangirai is voted out, our allegiance will go to the next president but right now he is the president of the party we know that the allegations raised against him are not factually true and they are being raised by people who want to take leadership outside the democratic process.

FN: Are you saying all is well in your party?
DM: We are with Mr Tsvangirai because he is the legitimate leader elected by the people and for us it makes sense as politicians to be on the side of the people who elected both ourselves and Mr Tsvangirai at congress. And we will be with him up to the congress and if people vote him out, we will be with the next president if we are voted in. The people who have gone out are the people who are afraid of congress, they know that if we go to congress, they will lose. So the people who staged Mandel fear congress, people who remained do not fear congress. I feel I have authority because I was elected and I feel that the next thing I have to do is to subject myself to the will of the people. Not be given leadership by some arrangement at Mandel, I do not want that. But you must also realise that 10 out of 13 members of the standing committee have remained with Tsvangirai. Three out of 13 have gone with Biti and these three are totally unpopular people in the party.

FN: Who are the nine who have remained with Mr Tsvangirai?
DM: Vice president Khupe, national chairman Lovemore Moyo, deputy national chairperson Morgen Komichi, deputy national secretary general, who is now acting secretary general Tapiwa Mashakada, organising secretary Nelson Chamisa, deputy national organising secretary Abednico Bhebhe, deputy secretary for women Theresa Makone, secretary for information and publicity, myself. That means its nine out of 12, the other one is Bennett. Three out of 13 which is Biti, Mangoma and Madzore have gone, the other one Bennett has not said anything.

FN: Biti and others are saying you have no mandate to recall MPs from Parliament because you are not the legitimate leaders of MDC-T. What is your comment? Have you written to Parliament seeking their expulsion from the August House?
DM:  I just wanted to add that the leadership position or campaign for leadership in the MDC is not linear, is not mathematically defined for example to say if you are organising secretary, the next post is secretary general or if you are vice president the next post is president, it’s not always like that. One may decide to remain where they are or to take any other post that is available. The good thing is that at our congress all positions are up for grabs and in my own view honourable Biti should have waited to contest at congress.

FN: Biti and others are saying you have no mandate to recall MPs from parliament because you are not the legitimate leaders of the MDC-T. What is your comment? Have you written to Parliament seeking their expulsion?
DM: The first thing is that Biti has written to Parliament and raises five fundamental issues, i) Number one that it is the secretary general of the party who can write to Parliament on any issues including recall, ii) Section 129k applies when a member of the party crosses the flow to another party, iii) that the section applies when a member voluntarily terminates membership of the party, iv) that the MDC is under curatorship, v) that the members can on be recalled by the citizenry and not by their political parties. All the five points are wrong at law. Firstly the leader of the opposition in Parliament is not Mr Biti, it is deputy president Khupe and chief whip is Innocent Gonese and this is recognised by the standing orders and rules of the house. So the people who officially communicate party position with Parliament are the two. By his letter Mr Biti is staging a coup d’état in Parliament where he is seeking to replace Madam Khupe, again unelected. The law is clear that the party writes. It envisages a situation that the subject of recall may actually be the secretary general himself. Now according to Biti’s letter himself if he is to be the subject of recall he has to write the letter himself. To show that what Mr Biti is saying does not make sense we can ask the following questions. (i) What if the subject of the recall is Hon Biti himself, will he write the letter? (ii) What if the subject matter of the recall is a member of the Biti faction or his partners in crime, will he write the letter, (iii) what is Hon Biti does not agree with the majority of the party leaders on recall, will he write the letter? Secondly he says that it only applies to floor crossing. No the law says if the membership is terminated, if the member ceases to be a member of the party. One can cease to be a member of the party in three ways; this can be by resignation, crossing the floor or by expulsion. If a person is expelled from the party why should he or she continue representing that political party in Parliament, it does not make sense. He says that MDC is under curatorship and that again this is totally false. The Zimbabwe law does not allow parties to go under curatorship. Also the MDC constitution does not allow curatorship. If an organisation is under curatorship it cannot be under curatorship of its own members. In this is the case, the guardian council is made of members of the party and cannot therefore manage it. If the MDC is under curatorship was is Biti speaking on its behalf.

So the letter to the Speaker is legally flawed, legally so incorrect that the speaker must ignore it. The duty of the speaker is to interpret the law not to be guided by some interested person who is afraid of a recall. When he wrote the letter we had not recalled anyone. We will exercise the right of recall of those people who have ceased to be our members because Mr Biti went to Mandel, announced a new leadership of a party he called MDC-Team, he has formed his own political party. In terms of clause 5.10 our (MDC) constitution he ceases be a member of our party and he is recallable together with those nine MPs. We are not going to back down from our decision to recall because the affected person has written a letter to the Speaker. We urge the Speaker to look at the law himself and not be given unsolicited legal advice by an interested person.

FN: So when are you sending the letter to Parliament?
DM: Because we are a party of justice those MPs will have to show-cause why they must not be recalled. Soon we will be approaching the Speaker with our decision to recall certain MPs; it may be nine of them, one of them, some of them.

FN: Your party has claimed a hidden hand as behind the implosion in the organisation (MDC, Zanu-PF and western donors). Why then should you be trusted with national leadership if, as you claim, you can be so easily infiltrated and manipulated?
DM: Well the point is not whether we were infiltrated or manipulated. What is the issue is what forces are at play. We have said that the meeting at Mandel is a culmination of elaborate covert operation involving state security, Zanu-PF, other parties and a few malcontents to destabilise the MDC and also to debrand president Tsvangirai. We know that Zanu-PF for example is afraid of meeting president Tsvangirai in 2018. So we maintain our statement. President Mugabe during independence pleaded on behalf of these rebels, that it was their freedom to do what they were doing in the MDC. That is uncharacteristic of Zanu-PF and President Mugabe in particular. Why, because we all know how President Mugabe dealt with rebellion in Tsholotsho and to hear the same party pleading for the people who were transgressing in our party opened our eyes and confirmed to us the reality of the situation.

FN: Will there ever be a day you can take responsibility for your own problems, why do you always attribute everything to Zanu-PF?
DM: Yes there is. We have taken responsibility for the action for which we responsible for but sometimes we have to blame. For instance Hon Mangoma’s assault everyone condemned the MDC as being behind the attack. The MDC security department submitted pictures of the assault and a video showing how Mangoma was assaulted and by whom? The person is very clearly indentifiable from the video but the police are not interested. We have supplied the pictures to the police but they do not want to arrest this person. Why the police are not interested in this person boggles the mind but to us it opens the mind. The second is the bomb at Biti place. Why is it that no one has been arrested yet?

FN: You have been quoted saying the party is broke and it’s now time to fund your struggle as you put it. Who was funding you before and why?
FN: The MDC is a party that follows the laws of the country. The law relating to the funding of the party is the Political Parties Finance Act which spells out how a political party must be funded. Over the years we have been funded by Government because of our membership in Parliament. But the Government has not released the money to us. What that means is that the MDC is unable to sustain its workforce and for that reason we can only raise money legally through the membership of the party. That is why we asking our members to donate. This is in order to sustain the party and pay the workers.

The report by London-based Chatham House, “Zimbabwe International Re-engagement: the Long Haul to Recovery” that the country’s economy is “not a total disaster” is superfluous. Most sane Zimbabweans are aware of that because they live that reality.
Though the report conveniently omits the ruinous sanctions manifest in ZTDERA that sees ofac continue intercepting the revenue of Zimbabwean companies it, however, makes an important acknowledgement on the country’s economic recovery blueprint, Zim-Asset, that the document was produced in consultation with key stakeholders, including business. There is a misperception by some Zimbabweans, itself a product of our badly polarised politics because of the forces opposed to zanu-PF’s land reform and black economic empowerment programmes, that Zim-Asset is a partisan project and that supporting it is the equivalent of endorsing Zanu-PF policies — regardless of their merit.

This has resulted in opposition parties and their cohorts in civic society standing akimbo and sneering about “tongai tione”.
The Chatham report points out clearly that Zanu-PF remains the dominant force in Zimbabwean politics at the moment and that it will remain so for a long time.
It urges the opposition and civic society to “reform and adapt” or render themselves irrelevant going into the future.

And already, reports emerging from Workers’ Day celebrations held on Thursday, show the myopia which has become the hallmark of local opposition political parties and so-called workers’ representative bodies, particularly the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

While most serious-minded Zimbabweans are putting their heads together to deal with the issue of deflation caused by a pervasive liquidity crunch across all sectors of the economy, embattled MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the ZCTU are calling for demonstrations against the Zanu-PF government.

Rather than thinking in terms of economic recovery, painful though this is likely to be, Tsvangirai wants to deliver a coup de grace on what remains of it and make sure Zimbabweans have no jobs, no food and the country grinds to a halt.

Typical of the man of no ideas, it’s always either he is calling for personal inclusion in the Government or he is contemplating some plot to undermine it.
Never does he have a positive contribution to say: “If we did this, we believe the economy could do better.” It’s no coincidence that senior members in his own party have turned against him.

He has nothing useful for Zimbabwe.
The Chatham report notes key problems afflicting the region, not just Zimbabwe, and says these must be addressed urgently to stem potential widespread social unrest in the near future. It cites growing social inequality and poverty, food insecurity and youth unemployment.

Were it not for resource constraints, Zimbabwe should be beating its own chest. All these issues dovetail neatly into the Government’s land reform policies which have benefited thousands of rural people, whether women or youth, witness what is happening at the tobacco sales floors.

Issues of food security and youth employment find concrete expression under Zim-Asset’s Food security, nutrition and poverty eradication clusters.
Moreover, Government has consistently supported the SME sector in urban areas as part of its empowerment programmes.

These are the shoots of the new economy sinking its roots in the corpse of the rotting racist Rhodesian economy.
Thus in terms of human development on a broader scale, Zimbabwe is already a step ahead.

What is needed is to mobilise resources to fund these programmes.
That calls for a convergence of effort by all Zimbabweans, knowing that we have a shared destiny despite our political affiliations.

Make A Difference Bee
There is something sweet about enjoying the fruits of one’s sweat.
There is honour in reaping where one has sown.
For this reason workers wake up early every day to catch the train, bus, kombi or whatever they use as a mode of transport to get to work.
People work hard daily because they know that if they do not work, their families will not have enough to eat.

They know that not working translates to poverty.
I am referring here to honest, law-abiding workers of this country, who still take pride in putting in an honest day’s work.

Those people who can serve a company loyally for years without ever stealing or short-changing their employers.
When I was a girl, I could see an elderly man riding his bicycle to work the same time daily for 15 years.

I later discovered that he was a messenger.
He loved going to his place of work, polishing his shoes and bicycle daily.

There are many workers who still value their jobs as much today. Whether there is still dignity in working, however, is another matter.
The thought crosses my mind daily as I pass through some sections of Mbare on the way to work.

In Mbare, people start moving as early as 4am with some going to place orders for vegetables and produce that they sell throughout the day.
At the popular Siyaso, others can be seen joining different wires and pieces of metal.

Vendors can also be seen spreading out their share of used and new clothes, which often includes underwear.
As this happens, you also have the public transport operators, private motorists and haulage truck drivers also jostling in the maze of traffic so they can get to their destination — which is their different places of work.

I am not privy to how much is earned from all these different trades people engage in, but clearly they would rather work, even if they take home peanuts.
Everybody derives true value and satisfaction from working and getting rewarded for it.

That is why, even in these difficult times, where jobs are hard to come by and workers often go for months without getting paid; many still do what they are supposed to do — work.

That is why there are men and women, who sweep someone’s yard, look after someone’s baby, drive around someone, clean toilets, and pick rubbish from the streets as well as several other tough and non-glamorous jobs.

Even in these days when we have some people awarding themselves vulgar salaries and bleeding companies dry, the workers do not boycott duties.
They still trudge along because working is what a person does. Others have even become their own employers, after realising that work is not going to just come on a silver platter.

That is the story prevailing at Mbare Musika and many other places in the country where daily,  thousands of men and women are already up and running in the early hours of the morning.

It is truly amazing that whichever direction you come from in the mornings and in the evenings, the city does not go to sleep. People will be working. Whether the work involves selling airtime recharge cards, take-aways, fixing someone’s hair or nails, selling cars, cooking sadza by the roadside, selling newspapers, speaking on radio or penning an article — it is the workers’ sweat that keeps the country going.

This is why I could not help but think of the plight of the worker for this instalment.
Many workers today are not secure. They lose jobs just like that.

Several companies have closed shop since the year started.
Many others are just hanging on by a thread. Salaries are poor; and very few are paid based on experience and qualifications.

We have teachers, nurses, doctors and several workers in the civil service whose incomes are just but a mockery when held against the important and difficult jobs they do.

Many workers today take jobs beneath their qualifications and expertise because they know that it is better to earn something than nothing. Some have taken the route of self-employment as Government always encourages but the going has not been easy. The capital to start a business does not come easy.

I could not help but think of how critical is it to retain the dignity of workers as Zimbabwe joined more than 80 countries across the world to commemorate Worker’s Day on May 1.

Unlike the elderly man I saw as a little girl, most workers commemorate the day now amidst rising confusion and uncertainty about what the future holds for them.
Many of them commemorated the day without a single clue as to when their pay will come.

Many more commemorated the day without any idea where school fees for the children for next term will come from.
While that man on the bicycle from my youth, before ruinous western sanctions took their toll, owned a house and put his seven children through school from his  job as a messenger, today a whole host of workers commemorated May Day with no clear plan in sight of when and how they will ever own a house so that their families do not have to move from someone’s house each month.

Many others commemorated the day holding on to useless medical cover, which does not guarantee them access to health services, as was the case in the day of this messenger.

Others used the opportunity created by the day to do some side-business of selling this and that, as workers have become known for.
Some were thinking of the many years of service they put into a company only to walk out with nothing in severance pay.

Surely, after putting in years of work; there must be a difference. There is need to do some homework on the part of all stakeholders involved to bring back the dignity of workers? Surely, a difference will come out of it?

btonhodzayi@gmail.com

IN HAPPIER TIMES . . . Alick Macheso with son Alick Junior is flanked by wives Nyadzisai (left) and Tafadzwa

Roselyn Sachiti Features Editor
AT the height of their whirlwind romance, and as the nation talked about the extra-marital affair given that the man was married, he penned a chart-topping hit titled ‘’Tafadzwa Nyarara (Tafadzwa keep your peace)’’, in which he lauded himself as her knight in shining armour who will protect her from harm.
And now that the embers have apparently gone cold, Tafadzwa has refused to keep her peace and is washing dirty linen in public.
She told the media that  while the nimble-footed artiste satisfied them musically, he found the going tough in the sack as he was not well endowed likening his manhood to a mopane worm (dora).

Not only that, this dora was apparently inserted into the mouth of the couple’s son and wriggled till it discharged therein as the artiste claimed that was the way to treat sunken fontanelle (nhova or inkanda).

The artiste is naturally livid.
He wants paternity tests, as he suspects that given his estranged wife’s opinion of his manhood, he did not sire the two children with her.
Tafadzwa insists he, Alick Macheso, is the father.

She says matters came to a head in their marriage when Macheso twice inserted his privates into their son’s mouth and ejaculated to “treat” the child’s sunken fontanelle (nhova) and also tried to do the same on their baby girl.

The first incident is said to have taken place in the presence of Macheso’s first wife, Nyadzisai.
The jury is still out as to whether Macheso did what he is accused of doing or if it’s Tafadzwa’s way of getting back at him?

Does such a practice even exist?
We went to his rural home in Mapuranga Village under Chief Musana, Bindura, where he resettled, to find out if this is how the community there treats sunken fontanelle.

There, too, people are similarly stunned. They have questions and want to know what happens to their “hero” next.
They follow developments closely.

His mother, Emilia Macheso, says she did not treat his fontanelle that way.
Tafadzwa’s claims shock her and are outrageous as far as she is concerned.

“I used traditional herbs to treat Macheso’s sunken fontanelle and those of my other four children. We did not do such absurd things she is claiming. And now I even go to the clinic if a baby has problems with the fontanelle.

“I stay here in the village with my other two sons and their wives. Those three – Macheso, Tafadzwa and Nyadzi – know each other well.
“I have no idea if they go to traditional healers, and prophets to treat sunken fontanelles, it’s their choice. I have only heard of such a practice from newspaper stories,” she says.

Naturally, she is unhappy and says what is happening to her son, including the demand for paternity tests, is embarrassing.
She last saw Macheso in Harare last month when her granddaughter, Sharon, was customarily married.

“They sent a car to take me there. I only spent a night and returned home. No one told me they were facing serious problems. They kept me in the dark. Who between Macheso and Tafadzwa is talking about the fontanelle?” she asks.

Macheso has not been to his rural home in two years, she says. The last time he passed through was when he was returning from a gig in Shamva, she adds.
She says she has heard most of the details of the issue on radio and from fellow villagers who read newspapers.

Now she, too, wants to know if her son will go ahead with the paternity tests.
She hopes to hear new information each time she turns on her radio since Macheso, Tafadzwa and Nyadzisai have not informed her of the latest developments.
“Tafadzwa and Macheso would come together long back. Then Tafadzwa and Nyadzisai would visit. Then they all stopped visiting,” she recalls.

She also explains how frantic Tafadzwa and Nyadzisai were when they visited her a few weeks ago and only stayed for an hour.
It was not an ordinary visit: Tafadzwa’s baby was not feeling well, she had a fever and diarrhoea, and was vomiting.

“Maybe this is when all the drama started. They asked me to look for traditional medicine to cure the baby. I went into the bush and brought some roots which we used on the baby. As soon as they got medication they left, they never sleep here whenever they visit. Their recent visit lasted one hour,” she says.

Even on this hasty visit Nyadzisai and Tafadzwa did not say anything about Macheso allegedly inserting his manhood in his kids’ mouths.
But just a week later, she heard of the break-up on radio.

She is worried about her son’s image and does not know how to get in touch with him to hear his side of the story.
“I did not call Macheso because he does not have a phone. They have my number but they never called to tell me what has been happening. Their break-up and all that has been happening worries me, but now I do not care much, they have not told me,” she says with a distinct tone of resignation.

Even if she is angry, she does not take uncomplimentary remarks about her son from neighbours lightly.
“I tell them off because they do not know the real story but want to be gossips. I tell them to keep that knowledge in their homes.

“I want Macheso to tell me what is happening, period,” she asserts.
The daughter-in-law who usually calls her, she reveals, is Nyadzisai.

“I will even use airtime worth US$5 talking to him and his wives . . . I will deal with the three.
“I will put my son aside then first deal with the two wives separately. I do not want people who stress my child.

“When Macheso decided to marry Tafadzwa, I also had a terrible time as they had serious problems with Nyadzisai who did not want the new wife. As time passed, I saw them getting along very well. What has gone wrong now?” she sighs.

She is hurt by all that has been happening but will not come to Harare.
“I am hurt. It’s better to be in the village because my blood pressure will go up when I get close to the action in Harare. I just pray.”

Just a few kilometres from their village lies Chabwino Farm, where Macheso grew up.
We went there in search of answers on the issue of the sunken fontanelle.

There we met Loveness Kutambura (57), a traditional healer at Chabwino Farm, who assists many babies with sunken fontanelles.
She says: “Yes, it’s possible, a father can use his manhood to cure a child’s fontanelle.”

Kutambura, however, says this is done differently from the way Tafadzwa claims Macheso did.
“I have helped many people cure their children using the proper way. No father is supposed to put his manhood into his baby’s mouth,” she explains.
According to Kutambura, the ritual is carried out before sunrise and by a father who is not promiscuous.

She says the mother holds the baby while the father performs the ritual usually soon after birth.
“The father takes his manhood and slides it from between the baby’s eyes to the middle of the head. He then slides the manhood from the back of the head to the middle. Then, the father slides the manhood from the left and right ears also to the middle of the head.

“This should be done by a father who is clean. If done by a promiscuous father, a baby could become seriously ill and even die.”
She says not many people still treat their babies’ fontanelles that way.

“Most parents who come to us now tell us if they want us to use holy oil or traditional herbs to treat the fontanelle. That practice of a father doing it is fast fading. Maybe they are doing it behind closed doors.”

She outlines the symptoms of a sunken fontanelle: “The baby’s mouth turns whitish and you also see a line. The baby’s body temperature rises and he or she vomits. Some have lumps on their gums long before their teething time. If you see such symptoms then you know the fontanelle has sunken.

“Some also have a lump the size of a finger tip on the throat. You can feel it and rub it while still small. It can grow the size of a boil if not treated early. This type is dangerous as it may burst while the baby is breastfeeding. The puss from the fontanelle can go into the baby’s stomach causing death.”

Another traditional healer, Sekuru Mwale of Epworth, says if indeed Macheso put his private parts in his son’s mouth, then it is wrong.
“We do not do it that way. There is a proper way that does not involve such heinous acts,” he says.

Mbuya Emma Matupa (60) – also of Chabwino Farm – was married to a Malawian national. Her husband never used his manhood to treat any of their nine children.
Says Mbuya Mutupa: “I went to faith healers and also used traditional herbs to treat my children’s fontanelles.”

As the drama unfolds, many questions still beg for answers.
Only Tafadzwa and Macheso know what exactly happened. For now, it is Tafadzwa’s word against Macheso’s.

Feedback: roselyne.sachiti@zimpapers.co.zw or fsachiti@yahoo.com or roselyne.sachiti@gmail.com; rosesachiti.blog.spot.com