via SA snubs Biti’s letter of shame by Munyaradzi Huni Sunday Mail
Efforts by the MDC-T to push for new facilitation by South Africa through a letter written by the party’s secretary-general, Mr Tendai Biti, have failed while clandestine moves by the party to form another GPA-like creature called the Zimbabwe Political Parties Dialogue have crumbled as Zanu-PF has refused to be part of the opposition charade.
On September 23 2013, Mr Biti wrote a letter to the South African Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Vusi Mavimbela, claiming to be submitting a dossier detailing what he termed irregularities in the July 31 elections that were won resoundingly by Zanu-PF and President Mugabe.
However, the South African Embassy in Harare yesterday told The Sunday Mail that there was nothing more to say about the July 31 elections as “Sadc’s stance is South Africa’s position regarding the elections . . . Nothing has changed and we have nothing more to say about those elections.”
This has put paid to the purported diplomatic onslaught that the MDC-T thought could be triggered by Mr Biti’s letter which was also written in the hope that it could be used to influence the region and the whole continent and give momentum to claims by Britain, EU and the white Commonwealth that the elections were not free and fair.
Both Sadc and the AU endorsed the July 31 polls, that President Mugabe won by over 61 percent and that saw Zanu-PF recapturing its two-thirds majority in Parliament, as free, fair and credible.
MDC-T spokesperson Mr Douglas Mwonzora yesterday refused to comment on the matter, referring The Sunday Mail to the party’s deputy secretary-general, Mr Tapiwa Mashakada, who was not reachable. Mr Biti was also not reachable.
A Sadc diplomat based in Harare who is familiar with the developments but spoke on condition of anonymity for diplomatic reasons said: “If anyone in the MDC or among the donors that support or are using the MDC to push their agenda under the claim that the elections were not free and fair in the hope of triggering a new facilitation process through South Africa and Sadc, they are flogging a dead horse.
“Any notion of Sadc or AU mediation in Zimbabwean politics after the July 31 elections is pure day-dreaming. People should not forget that President Mugabe is now the Deputy Chairman of Sadc and is set to become chairman in August 2014 for a year.
“This means Zimbabwe will be in the leadership of Sadc for the next three years. This also means any letter or dossier from MDC about the situation in Zimbabwe will land on President Mugabe’s desk for him to decide its fate.”
A Nordic diplomat who has also been following events in the MDC-T closely revealed that Mr Biti’s letter was written in anticipation of a transformation of Jomic into a new GPA-like forum called the Zimbabwe Political Parties Dialogue (ZPPD).
The diplomat is among the influential funders of the MDC-T who together with Rhodies like Ian Kay and Roy Bennett are disappointed with the defeat of the Western-founded and funded party and are calling for Mr Tsvangirai to be stripped of his position as leader of the MDC-T.
According to the diplomat, the so-called Friends of Zimbabwe, commonly known as Fishmongers that are co-ordinated by Britain and the US and which funded and directed Jomic under an MDC-T-affiliated NGO called Zimbabwe Institute (ZI), have been working frantically behind the scenes to give the two MDC formations a new lease of life after the crushing electoral defeat.
It is understood these donors had hoped that election observers from both Sadc and the AU would issue damning final reports which they wanted to use to conclude that the elections were neither free, fair nor credible.
The Anglo-Saxon donors were happy to use such a negative conclusion to keep alive the inter-party political dialogue between Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations in the hope of promoting some semblance of a second GNU.
However, these hopes and plans were shattered by the huge and emphatic Zanu-PF victory and by the final reports by the Sadc and AU election observers which concluded that the elections were free, fair and credible.
Reports say it is against this backdrop that the donors resorted to their plan B which was to try and achieve the same objective of getting Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations into post-election dialogue, on the ashes of Jomic whose mandate and existence ended on August 31 after the contracts of all its employees had been legally terminated.
In a surprise development, the Jomic staff remained in office beyond the termination of their contracts in apparent expectation of the formation of ZPPD which had been scheduled for December 1 2013.
Apparently, according to information gathered by The Sunday Mail, Mr Biti’s letter to the SA government was written with these developments in mind in the hope that President Zuma would entertain the letter and thereby justify the formation of ZPPD as a GPA-like forum for dealing with and resolving the allegations raised in the letter.
In addition to the allegations made in the letter, it is understood that the MDC-T was also banking on using the recent acts of political violence against Zanu-PF such as the bombing of the party’s Highfield offices and Jongwe Printers and the killing of the son of a Zanu-PF official in Manicaland to justify the setting up of a political forum for dialogue between Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations.
The MDC-T was even laying the ground for the formation of this ZPPD as in its “Jomic Plan for Staff exit and disposal of Assets: October 2013,” the part was proposing to allocate 25 vehicles from Jomic to this ZPPD.
Said the MDC-T: “ZPPD is formed on the basis of political parties in Parliament, which have been the same parties in Jomic. ZPPD will adopt the core activities of peace building, conflict resolution and inter-party dialogue. Jomic/ZPPD are discussing the proposal.”
The party even suggested that five vehicles from Jomic should be given to the MDC-T-aligned Zimbabwe Institute while trying to cover up its machinations by also donating other Jomic vehicles to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Zimbabwe Gender Commission, Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, National Peace and Reconciliation Commission, Judicial Services Commission, Zimbabwe Media Commission and some mission hospitals.
The Sunday Mail understands that the ZPPD proposal from the MDC-T and its donors came up for discussion at Zanu-PF’s Politburo last Wednesday and was roundly rejected with contempt.
Contacted for a comment about the MDC-T moves to form the ZPPD, Zanu-PF national secretary for administration Cde Dydmus Mutasa said: “Kana vachida dialogue ngavaite zvavo.
“We cannot go to their dialogue to rubbish Zanu-PF.
“If they had something constructive they would have also consulted us, but all they want is to rubbish us and we are not part of that.”
COMMENTS
‘Whites’,’Anglo-Saxons’, Rhodies’, you really are a mindless buffoon.It shows the level of intelligence, level of envy and level of IQ of you, mugabe and zanu supporters in general that you still harp on about whites.
In case you missed this fact, your country has been run (into the ground) for the last 33 years by blacks………………….and what a great #@$/^ job you’ve done! ha ha
Like mugabe,you are not sophisticated enough to understand how to run a modern economy and you still rail at white people because you just can’t understand how ‘Rhodies’ built the best economy in Africa whilst funding a war and handed it over to you lot who destroyed it in 10 years! Take a long hard look in the mirror ‘Comrade’
Rhodesia was the Jewel of Africa that was given to Mugabe on a platter by “white Anglo Saxons from the “white” Commonwealth and all that was needed was to maintain this Jewel, well as we have all seen and experienced Mugabe and his thieving Zanupf comrades
have reduced Zimbabwe to yet another failed African state and made paupers of the population, Zimbabwe is the laughing stock of Africa from the equator down and nothing short of another war is going to change things.
don’t try to educate it does not work
MDC will not find any political accomodation in Africa until they stop using the Western schedule to run their party.
I think MDC must make a real realistic check on their outlook. Why is it that their leadership is not taken seriously by African Heads? What type of rapport where they going to have if for example they had been voted into power? Why is it that that MDC failed to lure the army leadership on to their side? If indeed these guys have a dream of leading the country, they have a lot of confidence they need to foster with a lot of constituences. I am not saying that having the Western world as friend is bad but its best to be respected within Africa and your country’s security sector
Don’t you think that it is African leaders who do not want democratic change of power? Look at the continent and think which leader will not work against self by supporting opposition ascendance to power.
is there a better schedule?How do you create jobs and keep the vast majority of the population off the streets and content.By the looks of things it is with the western money schedule!!
Munyaradzi Huni doesn’t write the kind of proffesor language…..akadzidza kupi kuziva zvaana Anglo saxon…..iwe Johnathan, ibvapo mhani
Africanson,you must know reality.African countries have a mutual constitution of not supporting opposition parties.For youto say MDC never got the army on their side is not true.Remember you are talking about a military that got diamonds, farms and looted diamonds both in Zim and DRC.fOR THEM TO COME TO THE OPEN , is danderous.Foryour own information all the junior army officers are in opposition .Their votes showed an overwhelming 80% plus support for the opposition.There are some brigadiers and generals whom I can not name for their safety who promised not to lift any gun for the people should they protest.The hierarchy is well known.
Look at the issue of Renamo in Mozambique,the Frelimo promised equal opportunities to both armies as a ceasefire agreement.Now , its more than 10 years after ceasefire and the Renamo fighters are totally forgotten.The liberation parties only want to rule, alone, without check and balances that’s why ZANU PF swallowed ZAPU , a credible party and more intelligent that it.
Biti however must know that we are dealing with a dishonest SADC, that is fighting political survival in their backyards.The way to go is heavy mobilisation by means of flyers, sms,word of mouth and all forms of piliticising.Remember ther the communist system of rule was to disempower the logic of the masses and then indoctrinate them with inferiority beliefs.In China , men were staying in hostels, far detached from wives and children.That reduced the influence of family to the ideological framework of man.So people indoctrinated with communist ideas are glued to those fallacies.It took a brave man like Gorbachev to split USSR so that countries could smoothly develop wthout being tied to a central oppressive regime of Moscow.So my dear Biti , let us know that we need to need to uproot slavery communist mentality within our people.This can be possible also by fiercely passing a motion of liberating TV,Radio waves.We were in Mudzi and Dande, peasants were happy that ZANU had won.On their looks, they were the poor of the poorest.Those people need to be told poverty is not allowed by any scale.They need to know that someone else is causing that.I had a chat in Nembudziya with women at a well.Simply telling them that while they walked kilometres for unsafe water, some are ordering water from London, which they say to hell with.Hypocrites.I won some votes.
LETS EDUCATE THE PEOPLE AND LEAVE DEBATES IN PARLIAMENT FOR ZANU WILL NEVER AGREE TO A CONSENSUS
Biti does not talk or act like a lawyer really. He is just embarassing himself. One is tempted to believe those who say that he is nor well physically. Cant he see that there is nothing that SADC can do now? What would Zuma or Kikwete do honestly? There are many fools around hey!
I am a scientist and not a journo but I am wondering just how long the article is all on heresay. The auther did not at all substanciate his facts. Maybe that is why I am a scientist, we go by facts; this guy gave us none. Now I ask, does he really think we need SADC or AU to know that the elections were rigged? Are we that dumb? Why did SADC scate around the fact of free and fair? Why only say “credible”?
Africanson dont pretend as if u dont know the difference between Democrats and Dictators.u want Mdc to join dictators ,the army is mining diamonds and pocketing the money so u expect them to support Tsvangirai’s party .i think yo are a Zanu suppoter u want to discredit Mdc pretending to be neutral go hang Mdc wl never disappear soon as u wish
The truth we all know , we can try to run away from the truth but it prevails. 33 years in power and ndopatasvikapano….going where others are coming from.
Scapegoat are so many asi chikwadi we all know. In the fullness of time. …IT WILL BE OVER.