Appealing to regime’s moral sense complete waste of time

THAT the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) last week unequivocally accused the Zanu PF regime of politicising food aid — denying and starving real and perceived opposition supporters and piling it on its own supporters — was a massive victory for all institutionally-minded Zimbabweans.

Source: Appealing to regime’s moral sense complete waste of time – NewsDay Zimbabwe September 16, 2016

CONWAY TUTANI

And the fact that President Robert Mugabe came out guns blazing against the ZHRC was not in the least surprising because he has been the destroyer-in-chief of institutions instead of being the defender-in-chief of such, despite swearing on the Bible to uphold the Constitution and serve all Zimbabweans without discrimination and exclusion on whatever grounds. This angry criticism can only point to one thing and one thing only: The ZHRC must be doing a thoroughly good job of carrying out its mandate, considering who is attacking it. Keep it up, ZHRC chairperson Elasto Mugwadi and your team! Expose whoever displays such meanness — from the village to State House — for what they are: human rights violators.

During the height of the so-called fast-track land reform programme, when white commercial farmers were being hounded out and even killed, Mugabe said he would simply ignore those court judgments going against the regime even though many of those farmers were on the land legally after being issued certificates of no-interest to acquire those farms by the self-same regime. That was then.

But with the Judiciary’s current strong appetite for justice and fairness, it won’t be another walkover for the regime. Magistrates and judges have shown admirable professionalism and independence. It is not surprising at all because the current invasions of their turf serve only to heighten their awareness of these outrages and they will, naturally, reassert their independence.

And only last month, Mugabe was at it again, declaring: “Mapurisa ndeedu (The police firmly belong to us)”, threatening to unleash them against peaceful demonstrators. That was the cue the police needed to go on a rampage of brutality against protesters. And, of course, this elicited an equal and opposite reaction as angry people fought running battles with the police on the streets.

Earlier, the ZHRC emphatically denounced the shocking police brutality, which even those who do not look at things with a political eye also strongly condemned. It based its findings on evidence, not opinion. Enough is enough. No more sweeping things under the carpet.
This is the right time to reclaim and defend our rights — and who is better placed to do that for us than the ZHRC?

As a result, the Zimbabwe Republic Police has become a thoroughly discredited institution. It could now be even worse than colonial Rhodesia’s notorious British South Africa Police (BSAP), which was in the pockets of the white regime and served their narrow, partisan interests in the same way the ZRP is now at the beck and call of the Zanu PF regime.

But some police officers — both junior and senior — are finding it untenable and against their conscience to continue to carry out unlawful instructions against fellow law-abiding Zimbabweans merely exercising their constitutional rights of protesting against the political and economic rot that has not spared the police themselves.

One such officer reached out to United States news channel, Cable News Network (CNN), this week to register his growing misgivings about what he is being made to do. This is a hopeful sign.

Our compatriots, the war veterans, are also facing a similar situation of invasion of their institutional rights, with the regime threatening to withdraw their allowances merely on the grounds that they no longer subscribe to Zanu PF following their scathing denunciation of Mugabe, calling on him to immediately step down.

After dithering, War Veterans minister Tshinga Dube has refused to be dragged into this institutional minefield of being made to stop what amount to statutory allowances that were in existence before him and will remain after him. Can, for instance, a retired government or non-government employee’s duly-accumulated pension be withdrawn on political grounds? Only those rulers completely without an institutional sense would do that. And to proceed to do that would signal complete madness.

Allowances cannot be contingent on supporting Mugabe or whoever. Allowances are not inducements or gifts from Zanu PF like the stands that the ruling party is dishing out only to membership card-carrying youths in breach of the territory and mandate of institutions like local authorities. They are exploiting idle youths’ baser instincts of acquisitiveness and greed. No lofty values or ideology is involved.

You can tell that Dube’s heart — not to mention head — is not in it. He has been put in an untenable position, where there is no difference between the message and the messenger — that is, institutional chaos — and both are shot. He is being made to do someone’s dirty work. He is drinking from a poisoned chalice. You can read between the lines that he is no fool and this is a most unpleasant task for him.

So, Dube’s measured and tactical response in the circumstances is really commendable. This is in contrast to some of his blind comrades in Zanu PF. Their emotional attachment to the decaying, repressive and corrupt party is so enormous that they suffer from an inability to digest and rationalise opposing viewpoints, vote for opposing candidates, etc.

Furthermore, they are delusional in their belief that their hyper-attention to Zanu PF politics and worship of Mugabe is somehow healthy to them and beneficial to the nation. They are not just partisan, but hyper-partisan.

Now they are threatening to retake farms, whether productive or not, allocated to those “rebel” war veterans. One such affected war veteran, Agrippa Mutambara, told CNN this week that he had to cock his pistol to scare off such would-be invaders on his farm. Would the regime have charged him with murder had a life been lost? I am sure our courts would take all factors into consideration, including gross provocation, in dealing with such a matter As one can see, the regime, determined to remain in power at any cost, is provoking the situation and will only have itself to blame when it paints itself into a corner from which there is no escape.

It’s plain to see that the regime is out to fix anyone and everyone — from the opposition, ZHRC, Judiciary, to war veterans — who doesn’t submit and cringe before it. Revengeful, mean, spiteful, bitter — these epithets aptly describe the regime. It’s frighteningly morbid. It’s scary that we have such people as rulers.

From that, it’s useless to appeal to the regime’s moral or ethical sense, because it doesn’t have any — even a grain of that. The language it might understand is sustained pressure from the ordinary people themselves, who have braved unimaginable brutality despite court-approved demonstrations.

If the regime keeps on disregarding this institutional pressure — which is legal and legitimate — it will have no one to blame when all hell breaks loose and there can only be one loser — itself.

Slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi did not live to tell about the dangers of such extra-institutional, leaderless change.