Zim on the brink

via Zim on the brink – DailyNews Live 14 November 2014

HARARE – It does not matter which way one looks, the signs of Zanu PF-orchestrated anarchy are everywhere in our seemingly cursed country.

There is a deluge of poorly-choreographed votes-of-no-confidence demonstrations against senior party officials that include the country’s embattled Vice President Joice Mujuru and provincial chairpersons.

Stunningly, even our nonagenarian leader, President Robert Mugabe, and his quarrelsome wife, Grace — supported by a party faction operating in the name of Justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa — are participating in this destructive tomfoolery — seemingly oblivious of the negative consequences of their actions on the country.

Now debilitating violence is visiting the country, and our batttered economy is in free-fall. Not even one serious investor — domestic and international —  is willing to risk one penny in the country. And who can blame them when the only thing guaranteed to happen in Zimbabwe is a slew of bad news generated by our heartless rulers.

What with Zanu PF thugs abducting and brutally assaulting their own, as has happened to former Zanu PF Harare provincial youth chairperson

Jim Kunaka this week, as the party’s deadly factional and succession wars get increasingly violent.

In the end, Kunaka was extremely fortunate to be alive, as thousands of opposition supporters have lost their lives in cold blood over the years under similar circumstances.

So bad is the political environment around the country that in Masvingo, as another terrible example, more than 30 anti-riot police officers have been deployed to guard Provincial Affairs minister Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, amid fears of imminent and serious violence being meted against him by alleged war veterans. In the meantime, the restless and abandoned war veterans themselves are at each other’s throats, egged on by none other than Mugabe himself — threatening peace in the country.

Their leader, Jabulani Sibanda, was “fired” by the mere say-so of Mugabe because the popular war veteran disapproved of the apparent “bedroom coup d’état” that appears to have recently taken place at State House. What all this means is that the centre can no longer hold in Zanu PF, which puts the country at risk of becoming a true failed state.

Things are so bad that there are genuine fears even from within the party itself that we will soon witness ordered hits and murders, as well as a complete breakdown of the State and government service.

Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo warned ominously this week that the party’s escalating “anarchical” infighting is reaching a tipping point where Zimbabwe may soon experience uprisings similar to the Arab Spring — the waves of chaotic anti-government protests and armed rebellions that hit the Middle East three years ago and quickly spread throughout the countries of the Arab League, including North Africa.

That is an extraordinary, but sadly true admission by a very senior member of the party of the depths that Zimbabwe has plumbed over the past three decades of Mugabe’s and Zanu PF’s misrule.