By Akbhad Makumbe
THE spate of violent demonstrations that rocked the streets of Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Chinhoyi, Chitungwiza and Kadoma, among other cities’ high density suburbs across the country, were a well-organised plan to cause anarchy and consternation in Zimbabwe.
In shocking acts of terror, protesters indiscriminately burnt fuel stations, police stations, tollgates, police vehicles, commuter omnibuses, buses and private vehicles.
The hooligans barricaded roads, looted and vandalised supermarkets, clinics, city council offices and stormed schools where they beat up teachers.
They beat up and killed one of the police officers who were trying to enforce law and order.
The violent protests called for by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) were well co-ordinated on social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter.
Planning the terror on WhatsApp groups such as Shutdown Zimbabwe Group 1 to 10, 13-14 HRE SHUTDOWN, Shutdown Chitungwiza, Shutdown Zim Embassy Canada, Shutdown Zim Embassy UK and Shutdown Zim Embassy SA, among others, the group administrators called on all citizens to stay away, cause disturbances, malicious damage to property and to commit arson.
The motive, they said, was to make Zimbabwe burn, ungovernable, remove the democratically elected President Emmerson Mnangagwa and replace him with MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa.
Interestingly, many groups were created by foreign cellphone numbers such as +27644275516, +267969781450, +27622320243 on January 13 2019 between 10am and 2pm.
The group administrators hoped by using foreign numbers, local authorities would fail to trace the identities of the owners of the numbers.
Most Shutdown Embassy groups were created by an individual using the number +27622320243, who eventually created other groups before exiting as soon as the groups had the desired number of participants.
One of the groups, Shutdown Zimbabwe Grup 6, was created by a number +263717845768 reflecting the name John Mangwiro whose WhatsApp profile picture is that of the late MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
The violent demonstrations were well-co-ordinated, and the strategy to take their fight to the country’s high density suburbs as the central business district (CBD) demos could not guarantee high outcomes anymore, was well-calculated.
Information at hand indicates that Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC) was co-ordinating the violent demonstrations to effect regime change in Zimbabwe.
Prior to the violence, a series of meetings were held by CiZC first at MDC-T headquarters Harvest House, Southern African Political Economy Series (SAPES) offices, Wild Geese Lodge and lastly at CiZC offices in Belvedere.
The strategy that the meetings agreed on is well-known; violent demonstrations and media manipulation.
The organisation has discovered a new ‘crisis’ following the July 30 2018 elections that saw their ally the MDC Alliance lose.
It is now a ‘crisis of legitimacy’ according to them.
Terrorism: a managed change
formula
It is necessary to put into context that the CiZC-organised violence is part of a well-co-ordinated series of events to take the glow from President Mnangagwa’s current four-nation visit to eastern Europe and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this month.
As part of the managed change formula, there is an online petition on change.org that is asking the international community to ban the Zimbabwean President from attending the World Economic Forum meetings.
The petition was created by a Progress Mukanya and sent out to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, United Nations, European Union, Swiss Government, US Congress, Red Cross, BBC and CNN with a target of 50 000 signatures.
“The president of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has lost legitimacy…the international community must stop propping up a dictator,” reads the petition.
The managed change formula was formulated by the International Crisis Group (ICG).
It was then co-ordinated by Western Governments through a report titled, Zimbabwe: An end to the Stalement.
The terrorism acts are intended to push for the creation of a Government of National Unity (GNU2) between President Mnangagwa and MDC Alliance’s leader Nelson Chamisa.
The other route that the sponsors of the violence are also angling for is a National Transitional Authority (NTA), a plan that the likes of SAPES director Ibbo Mandaza have unwittingly revealed.
CiZC co-ordinator Rashid Mahiya is reported to have highlighted that time was now ripe for a national shutdown to take place.
The latest meeting held on January 11 2019, two days before the violent demonstrations under the auspices of Zimbabwe Civil Society Convergence at Number 10 Longden Road in Belvedere, Harare, was the final nail into the strategy.
The Patriot was told by impeccable sources that 27 regime change quislings attended the nine-hour-long meeting.
The agenda was to call for a national shutdown with pressure groups such as #Tajamuka, #Occupy Africa Unity Square, #This flag, ZCTU, General Consensus, Citizen Manifesto and Concerned Citizen Agenda handpicked to drive the project.
The organisations handpicked have a proven track record of violence and viewed as creme de la creme in the regime change circles.
Tajamuka led by Promise Mkwananzi and Evan Mawarire’s #This Flag made the headlines in July 2016 when they called for violent demonstrations and stay aways.
They have a proven record of mobilising through force and threatening the masses to stay away and demonstrate by burning tyres, looting shops and stoning law enforcement agents.
Citizen Manifesto fronted by Briggs Bomba and Brian Kagoro made the head-
lines when it handpicked disgruntled groups in July 2017 to actively participate in the fresh regime change onslaught which however came unstuck.
The so called ‘disgruntled groups’ chosen to push this agenda included students from tertiary institutions, trade unions, the informal sector such as vendors, public transport operators, resident associations and churches.
To CiZC, Citizen Manifesto has the ideal people to push the terror acts.
It gets interesting.
For instance, while Concerned Citizen Agenda led by Tinaye Munetsi has direct access to MDC Alliance, he is an MDC Alliance official in Chitungwiza.
Occupy Africa Unity Square is led by Dirk Frey.
Frey has a proven record as a regime change activists.
He is part of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) leadership.
Last week’s edition of The Patriot exposed ARTUZ which is fronted by Obert Masaraure as a regime change outfit highlighting that quislings such as Frey have no place at the union.
Frey has no background in teaching and one wonders how he ended up at ARTUZ if the organisation represents what it purports to represent.
Frey was also deputy Chairman of the National Youth Action Alliance, an entity which at some point was vocal in calling for the former President Robert Mugabe to step down.
Frey wrote a letter to SADC and African Union seeking help to have former President Mugabe removed.
Crisis of Legitimacy dream
Last month, CiZC at a week-long workshop at a private lodge in Harare from December 3 to 7 came up with strategies to incite Zimbabweans to revolt against President Mnangagwa and the ZANU PF Government to force a unity Government with opposition political parties or to set up a transitional authority.
CiZC chairperson Rashid Mahiya and a committee member, Pride Mukono, reportedly coordinated the meeting held under the theme: “The Crisis of Legitimacy in Zimbabwe.”
Said CiZC:
“The fact that the polls were presided over by a compromised electoral commission and were characterised by a number of irregularities and that the opposition disputed the outcome of the elections resulted in a legitimacy crisis on the part of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF party.
In as much as the ruling party has often declared that they were overwhelmingly voted into power, the legitimacy crisis is a reality that has also come with negative implications on economic development as well as democracy.”
More than 80 people representing 40 NGOs affiliated to CiZC attended the workshop.
Foreigners who attended the meeting include Nora Rafaeil, an American, Gerald Ordway (Spain) and Martina Zapf (Switzerland).
It is no coincidence that the demonstrations came at a time ARTUZ was being a public nuisance, threatening a difficult year for the ZANU PF Government.
In a statement released last week, CiZC called for another multi-stakeholder dialogue ‘to solve the economic and political crisis’ in Zimbabwe since the July 30 2018 harmonised elections.
CiZC and Citizens’ Manifesto, in statements slammed the Government for seeking to bar demonstrations through alleged repressive means.
“Government, instead of addressing the concerns of its workers, has turned brutal against suffering civil servants and the ordinary citizens. Such a militant approach can only serve to worsen the situation in the country,” the statement read in part.
“Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC) stands in solidarity with civil servants who have embarked on job action following government’s continued failure to improve their welfare and working conditions.
“The demands by the civil servants who include teachers, doctors, nurses and other health personnel are legitimate and we implore the government to desist from commandist approaches in addressing strikes by civil servants.”
This does not come as a surprise as CiZC is well known to be a quasi-political group that has spearheading regime change agenda in Zimbabwe since its ill-fated formation in 2001.
CiZC is an umbrella organisation which directs and controls the operations of over 350 NGOs involved in the regime change agenda project and is supervised by US institutions including the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) which boasts that the formation of the coalition in 2001 was a huge success in that it controlled the issuance of uncoordinated statements by the NGO sector involved in the regime change agenda.
This came after Nicholas Ndebele, who took over ZimRights from Reginald Matchaba-Hove, angered the organisation US handlers after he issued statements that were supportive of the Government of Zimbabwe’s Land Reform and Resettlement Programme.
This led to the formation of CiZC, a pinnacle of control of most civic organisations in Zimbabwe.
USIP report stated:
“Conflicts over strategies, relationships with government and the MDC, and struggles for power within existing organisations have also created a demand for new forms of civil society activism and cooperation.
“The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition established in 2001 is a broad coalition of more than 300 NGOs and 15 national coalitions presently working on various fronts to facilitate the development of proactive and broad based agenda and process for change.”
And since then the CiZC has lived up to its mission following laid down strategies of destabilising Harare and ultimately effecting regime change.
In July 2017 another meeting was convened by another quasi-political group masquerading as an NGO, SAPES in the capital and deliberated on the need to create chaos.
“As International Crisis Group, we follow bloody crises around the world and Zimbabwe is not a crisis concern,” said Piers Pigou, International Crisis Group’s senior consultant for Southern Africa.
In tow was Mandaza who laid bare the purpose of the gathering.
“How can we get back Zimbabwe on to the international agenda as a country in crisis as was the case prior to the 2013 elections,” asked founder Mandaza.
Before the formal launch of the regime change agenda, a US seminar to discuss the strategy for dealing with the ‘Zimbabwe Crisis’ was held at the US State Department in Washington DC on March 23 1999.
The seminar, according to Stephen Gowan, a Canadian based writer, came up with the following strategies for removing ZANU PF from power
Civil society and the opposition to be strengthened to foment discontent and dissent
The opposition to be brought together under a single banner to enhance its chances of success at the polls
Funding to be funneled to the opposition through western backed NGOs
Dissident groups to be strengthened and encouraged to take to the streets.
Investigations show that the US Department of State has been making huge deposits into quasi-political groups such as CiZC masquerading NGOs.
CiZC is a major recipient of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funding.
In 2005 it received a NED grant “to hold monthly meetings on issues of food insecurity, the security forces and the upcoming elections,” and to “organise a media campaign that will seek to provide alternatives to state sponsored media.”
In 2006, the CiZC received US$50 000 from NED to “among other things reduce citizen apathy in Zimbabwe by providing opportunities for public protest and debate”.
On April 30 2009, Casals and Associates signed by Mike Staresinic under grant number CAS033 availed communication equipment worth US$20 110 to CiZC to ‘foster freedom of speech and assembly’.
The equipment included a public address system, three tents, four laptops, one desktop, a laser printer dublex and Microsoft office package.
The US State Department made two separate deposits into a Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition local account on January 23, 2013 (US$264 684) and June 24 2013 (US$187 978,04) to finance the so-called Feya Feya campaign which was designed to lure voters to the MDC-T under the guise of a campaign for peaceful, free and fair elections.
The British Embassy also joined the fray and availed US$156 000 on January 30, 2013 and US$161 000 on February 13, 2013 to Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition for the MDC-T campaign.
Leading up to the July 30 harmonised elections, civil society organisations sounded vibrant enough to convince their donors that regime change was on the horizon in Zimbabwe.
However after ZANU PF election victory they had to manufacture a crisis and have ZANU PF’s victory question.
Last month Linda Masarira and Reverend Anglistone Sibanda revealed that Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition was working hand in arms with the MDC Alliance, through a series of meetings at Harvest House.
“Civil society has been captured by MDC Alliance, they go to Harvest House for meetings to strategise,” said Rev Sibanda.
“More-so just before elections civil society leaders were channeling resources from USAID to fund their colleagues in the MDC.
“It’s not something that is new, it has always been happening just that the rest of Zimbabweans did not know about it”.
Unlike in the past, when civil organisations would act behind scenes, this time around they are in the front lead.
Government must be warned.
Have they become too desperate or they have finally changed tactic?