Source: Chamisa raises ante – NewsDay Zimbabwe August 20, 2019
MOSCOW — Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC leader Nelson Chamisa has announced plans to visit Moscow and Beijing to seek help in settling the political and economic logjam gripping the southern African country, Russia’s Sputnik news agency reported yesterday.
— SPUTNIK / STAFF REPORTER
This follows the police’s brutal clampdown on anti-government protests organised by the
opposition party since last week over the country’s worsening problems.The situation in Zimbabwe has remained tense since July last year when Chamisa refused to concede defeat to Zanu PF leader Emmerson Mnangagwa in a closely-fought presidential race, claiming that the result was rigged.
Zimbabwe’s economy has tanked, and economists say the country is entering hyper-inflation after inflation peaked at 176% in July — the highest in over a decade.
Western powers, on whom Mnangagwa had banked for debt forgiveness and fresh investment, have held back after the Zimbabwe government cracked down on protesters in August last year and January this year.
Rights groups say two dozen activists were killed in the anti-government protests.
Over the past few days, the opposition had to call off its mass demonstrations in Harare and Bulawayo after police issued prohibition orders, which the MDC says are unconstitutional.
In Harare last Friday, hundreds of protesters defied the decision, prompting the police to use tear gas and truncheons to disperse crowds. Nearly 100 people were arrested.
“The (MDC) president is open and has plans to travel to major international centres, including Moscow and Beijing, some capitals in Europe and the West, just to highlight the extent of the problem in terms of how the problem is man-made and how the problem is costing millions of lives and has threatened food security for millions of people,” Chamisa’s spokesperson Nkululeko Sibanda told Sputnik.
According to Sibanda, the economic meltdown in the country is unprecedentedly fragile.
“In just a few weeks, I’m told, we would completely run out of electricity. And we haven’t got money to buy electricity from other countries like we have done in other years when there was a drought.
“The situation has been made worse as in the last 12 months, we have lost about $3 billion to corruption in one transaction. It means that the country doesn’t have money to pay for electricity, the country doesn’t have money to pay for food,” he argued.
Chamisa’s efforts to urge the African Union (AU) and the regional bloc, to heed his party’s distress call, have hit a brick wall after the latter sprang to Mnangagwa’s defence.
Sadc, instead of censuring the Zanu PF leader for gross human rights violations, at the weekend gave him a key role to chair the Sadc troika on defence and security.
Namibian President Hage Geingob, then Sadc leader, early this year after dialogue with the Zanu PF leader said Mnangagwa was working flat out to address Zimbabwe’s socio-economic challenges.
“Since coming to power, the new Government of Zimbabwe has continued with concerted efforts to address socio-economic challenges and transform the economy, particularly through the Zimbabwe Transitional Stabilisation Programme, and to consolidate unity and peace in the country,” Geingob said in a statement.
Sadc blamed some internal groups, in particular non-governmental organisations, which it said have “continued with efforts to destabilise Zimbabwe”, supported by “external forces”.
Sadc and the AU have also backed Mnangagwa’s call for the unconditional lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe, and have not censored government’s violent crackdown on protesters, leaving Chamisa hanging out to dry.
Zimbabwe’s opposition believes that Mnangagwa’s government is not much different from the one of Robert Mugabe, who ruled the country for 37 years.
COMMENTS
SMOKE and MIRRORS!! There are NO external and NO NGO forces at work. It is the vest majority of the people of Zimbabwe who want ZANU PF out of Government . They have proved to be CORRUPT. They have proved to be VIOLENT and they have proved to be GREEDY. Just look at their houses? look where their children go to school? just look at their cars and their planes, just look at the fatness of them and their wives. Mupfumira is being thrown into the public’s scrutiny but she’s small fry. We are talking BILLIONS and BILLIONS and BILLIONS of US Dollars bled from Zimbabwe in the last 20 years. HUNDREDS of BILLIONS stolen from Zimbabwean people when what could have been done was to EDUCATE to MEDICATE and EMPLOY. My heart BLEEDS for what the FAT MONSTERS have done to my once beautiful land and beautiful people. Now soldiers are being ordered to shoot their brothers and sisters fathers and mothers and it will take the will of some Messiah amongst the military, some astute senior officer, who sees that the only GOOD and CORRECT thing to do, the only MORAL AND COURAGEOUS THING to do is ABIDE BY THE CONSTITUTION and immediately stage a coup that gives POWER ONCE MORE TO THE PEOPLE and a real FREE AND FAIR ELECTION. That man will be the Daniel that saves Zimbabwe. Had my father Maj General Jock Anderson gone against Humphrey Gibbs’ wishes in Zimbabwe and jailed Smith and the Cabinet, there would have been NO GUKHURUHUNDI and there would have been no need for men like Mugabe and Mnangagwa. Its time for another Jock Anderson. A Man With the MORAL FORTITUDE to do WHAT IS RIGHT. To facilitate a GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL UNITY and to bring to trial those that have stolen my country.