IF someone visiting from another planet had not been at Great Zimbabwe during the 21st February Movement celebrations last Saturday, he/she would likely have believed the mischief in the private media that President Mugabe has ‘lost’ control of his supposedly imploding ZANU PF.
In truth, his address at that grandiose affair put paid to that perverted and inept notion.
In Masvingo, the Golden Boy of Zimbabwean and African politics was at his usual best; displaying his nimble artistry and sending the message to the world that he is firmly in control.
Yes, this was the occasion of his 92nd birthday, but it was also a platform to correct some recent wrongs, allay some misconceptions and lay once again ground rules for the operations of ZANU PF and the multitudes he represents and leads.
He did not disappoint.
Somewhere in the middle of his speech in Masvingo was a morale-boosting revelation that Western countries are once again behind the destructive factionalist activities currently bedeviling ZANU PF.
Having defeated the British and Americans on several fronts and occasions, it was a morale booster that the roots of emerging offshoots of disunity within the party are being watered by the two Western powers.
With President Mugabe at the helm, yet another defeat is in the offing for the British and their equally non-conformist cousins across the Atlantic.
This is Robert Mugabe, the ultimate Pan-Africanist and a true champion of black empowerment.
He cannot stand aside and watch detractors, working in cahoots with the West devour his beloved ZANU PF party.
“The British and Americans, in their cunning ways as usual, have also utilised such opportunity to offer huge sums of money to individuals both within and outside the party so as to cause factionalism, which has greatly affected the youth, especially as of the recent past,” said President Mugabe.
In the ZANU PF 1980 People’s Election Manifesto, the promotion of national consciousness and the unity of the people in pursuance of our aims and objectives was tonic for development.
It still is.
“We should be united,” said President Mugabe.
“What has gone wrong?
“The people showed that they are rallying behind us in 2013.”
And Zimbabweans, especially those within ZANU PF must never forget the following events of March 2007.
From March 2006, right up to March 2007, Morgan Tsvangirai and his faction of the now almost moribund MDC, embarked on a whirlwind tour of Zimbabwe’s cities, all the time making it clear this was a build-up to the annihilation of ZANU PF.
An indicator of the rising Western belief in the inevitable success of Morgan Tsvangirai’s new strategy was a major prognosis published by Harvard’s African Policy Journal which projected the unseating of President Mugabe as foregone, urging the West to ‘urgently prepare for a post-Mugabe era’.
The American government and other donors were ‘warned’ against being ‘caught flat-footed’ by this change.
At the presentation of a ZANU PF ‘destruction study’ in Johannesburg in May 2006, Tony Hawkins, a University of Zimbabwe Economics lecturer and advisory figure for most scenario-building models on Zimbabwe, underlined both his expectations and frustrations:
“In political democracies, prolonged economic decline almost sparks political change, through the ballot box or more radical confrontation on the streets,” Hawkins said.
He lamented that political change in Zimbabwe remained elusive, stressing there is no ‘tripping point’.
The following month would see well-funded opinion surveys meant to gauge whether Zimbabwe had reached a ‘tipping point’ so the MDC could begin its mass action programme.
The most notable of these studies was done by the Western-funded IDASA’s Afrobarometer which revealed that Zimbabweans were disaffected and were increasingly blaming their leader for their woes.
By September 2006, MDC and its Western backers were confident enough to want to test the waters.
In an indicative report, Geoff Hill of The Washington Times reported on September 13 2006 that the ZCTU would initiate a strike action ‘that will serve as a measure of the dissatisfaction with (Mugabe’s) rule’.
From then on, media focus fell evenly on MDC mobilisation efforts, worsening social conditions, claims of (imaginary) fissures within ZANU PF over succession and alleged disgruntlement within the military ranks which both the British and American government visualised as the basis for a ‘rapid transition’ to a post-Mugabe situation.
In all this, while the MDC was being used as front to these activities, the reality was that it was in fact Britain and America pushing the agenda.
The strategy, as noted by President Mugabe in Masvingo, is now being adopted, with youths being the focal point.
But that will bear the desired result.
Could Zimbabwe be another Congo?
No!
In the words of Ludo De Witte, once it had become clear that Patrice Lumumba could not be dislodged through conventional political means, America, alongside Belgium and the UN, “removed politics from Parliament and put in the street, where balance of power is played out in a brutal fashion, in numbers of soldiers, battalions and weapons.”
Unlike Lumumba, President Robert Mugabe is not about to be sacrificed.