What a shameless lie
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/
Written by The Editor
Friday, 06 May 2011 16:46
After a decade in which political violence has become a byword for elections
in Zimbabwe, Police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri and his officers
were only last week able to identify the chief culprits behind the mayhem
that passes for elections in this country.
But what boggles the mind the most is not that it has taken the police 10
years to identify the enemies of peace who have assaulted, looted, raped,
tortured and murdered in broad daylight at every election.
According to the latest police records as reported by The Herald last week,
it is not the Border Gezi youths, partisan army and CIO officers that are
behind most of the violence and human rights abuses that have come to
characterise our elections.
It is, in fact, the victims of violence — the MDC-T — that according to
police statistics top the national violence record. And most of that
violence was actually committed by one MDC activist against another, the
police claim.
And what an insult to the victims of violence some who — like Tonderayi
Ndira, who was murdered in 2008, or Tichaona Chiminya and Talent Mabika, who
were petrol-bombed to death in 2000 – paid with their lives for daring to
oppose President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) party.
“The MDC-T is topping the national violence record despite the party’s
claims that its supporters are on the receiving end of political violence in
the country…. acrimonious factionalism and skirmishes marred the MDCT
provincial elections as party members jostled for positions,” the Zanu
(PF)-controlled newspaper reported last Thursday.
The point of the story was quite clear: cast the MDC as inherently violent,
while at the same time shifting attention from the real authors of violence
who even today continue to harass and abuse innocent citizens as punishment
for not supporting Mugabe.
Of course, the grand objective is to propagate a false narrative to fool
Africa and the international community at large that those who yesterday
ordered Gukurahundi and Operation Murambatsvina, and have kept camps full of
murderers and rapists masquerading as a national youth service brigade are
in fact the victims. What a shameless lie!
For the record, we oppose violence whether it is politically motivated or
not. We believe violence whether committed by the MDC or by whoever must be
prosecuted and punished accordingly. Those that committed violence during
the run-up to the MDC congress must be brought to book.
But by the same token ‘Comrade’ Chihuri must also target all whose hands are
dripping with the blood of innocent Zimbabweans including those – you know
who – that have boasted publicly about holding degrees in political
violence.