BEFORE her disastrous outing in England at Chatham House last week, ZimPF leader Joice Mujuru and Guy Watson-Smith had nothing in common, or so we thought.
But in London, where the West’s politics of destroying Zimbabwe was crafted, a new union between Mujuru and Watson-Smith, the man ‘whose’ land the former now tills, was born.
When Mujuru was in Government for 34 years, the idea of the land issue being central to her politics was easily comprehensible.
Watson-Smith, on the other hand, was just like any other bitter whiteman fervently trying to reverse the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme from which Mujuru won successive elections that propelled her to two terms as vice-president.
At Chatham House, expectations were high for Mujuru; but there is something overwhelming about the anti-Zimbabwe politics that is manufactured at Chatham House.
Chatham House is a cursed place for opposition politicians.
There is a miasma that infuses those who dare Zimbabwe and her policies; it weighs heavily on their shoulders and follows them wherever they go with their anti-Harare projects.
Morgan Tsvangirai went there during the early stages of the regime change programme and was humbled by the cruel load of expectation by the demanding British funders.
So, last week it was Mujuru’s turn to give it a shot against ZANU PF, albeit in foreign lands.
As widely expected, Mujuru not only flattered to deceive with flowery language, but was also, as per tradition, incoherent.
She rambled through what analyst Lloyd Msipa described as a speech ‘that had all the right things written in there, but it was clear she took no part in writing it and it was delivered with such mediocrity’.
That is Mujuru for you and that is a discussion for another day.
What was astounding was her supposed gesture to please her newly-found handlers by offering to compensate Watson-Smith when back home one of her victims, businessman Tawanda Nyambirai has not been a beneficiary of the Mujuru goodwill.
It was her disrespect for the ideals of the liberation struggle which revolved and still revolves around the emotive land issue that defies all logic.
That Mujuru now wants to negate those ideals in order to please whites makes a mockery of the struggle and the party that she represents.
What Zimbabwe needs is an opposition that stands up for what is good for the toiling masses, that which identifies with the general populace.
When leaders toy around with the land issue, substituting the majority from the equation, all driven by an uncanny desire to please our erstwhile colonisers, then we have a problem.
A look at Nyambirai unravels why the land issue remains central to our lives and politics.
In fact, Nyambirai is an angry man.
He, like many Zimbabweans, finds it outlandish that Mujuru, whom he accuses together with her late husband, the late General Solomon Mujuru, of abusing their offices to grab farms belonging to indigenous people would rush to compensate a dispossessed white farmer.
“I am not against the principle of compensation because it is provided for in the Constitution,” he said.
“What I find strange is that they took farms belonging to black people like me but find it prudent to compensate a white farmer whom they took land from,” Nyambirai told The Herald this week.
“She is being insincere.
“For someone who participated in taking farms from whites and now suddenly wants to pretend to be clean and offer compensation when she deprived black people by unlawfully taking their farms and giving them to their relatives (sic).
“That’s hypocritical.
“I am not a politician and would not want to discuss the politics around it.
“But as someone who suffered at the hands of the late General who took my farms and gave them to his relatives, I find it awkward.
“The question that arises is why now when she no longer wields the power that she had when she took land from those people, including myself?”
We are then made to understand why Mujuru now sounds like Tsvangirai, even outdoing the veteran opposition leader.
During a question-and-answer session after her address at Chatham House, Mujuru raised the stakes in the anticipated, but doomed opposition coalition when she literary offered herself to lead it ‘if endorsed’.
Linked with the Watson-Smith US$1,4 million package, it then becomes clear that the coalition (and her) will coalesce around pleasing the West.
Zimbabweans are immediately erased from the matrix.
There is nothing new here. This has been the hallmark of opposition parties across the continent driven by avarice and lure of the British pound as well as US dollar and never about serving the people.
“A coalition is being mooted,” said Mujuru.
“We are already creating a foundation that will allow Zimbabweans to work together.
“I am sure a coalition can be achieved, but some of us, because of our culture, we don’t demand leadership positions, but will be ready to do so if endorsed by the other political parties we are working with.”
Below is a demonstration that buttresses the above point.
“Zimbabwean politics has been dominated by very old people,” she said.
“Mugabe is 92 and both his Vice-Presidents Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko are in their mid-to-late 70s.
“Because of their advanced age, Mugabe, Mnangagwa and Mphoko cannot understand, let alone deliver, the aspirations of dynamic young people who seek a modern Zimbabwe that embraces the world.
“Many young people have turned away from political parties because of this generational disconnect.”
The generational disconnect mantra will be dealt with later, but again Mujuru is way offside on this one.
Her handlers might perhaps serve her well by giving her a list of the average age of presidents across the world.
History has surely eluded this woman.
Let those with ears listen.