THE deceit displayed by Western nations in hijacking our ‘mourning’ of Cecil our lion, who was murdered by one of their own and those shown by Didymus Mutasa in the aftermath of his expulsion from the ruling ZANU PF party is similar in many ways.
While Western powers think they have succeeded to fool us that they care about our tourism industry because Cecil was a ‘tourist attraction’, it has not been lost to us they were complicit in the obliteration of the same through the numerous travel warnings they issued against coming to Zimbabwe over the past few years.
The contrast to the outpouring of grief that has accompanied Cecil, the tourist attraction’s gruesome murder by Walter J. Palmer, the Minnesota dentist and trophy hunter who shot Cecil with an arrow and then, 40 hours later, finished him off with a gun, makes their sincerity oddly compelling.
The same way Didymus Mutasa whose expulsion from Government and ZANU PF has ‘finally’ shown him the ‘light’ that the system he served for 34 years is ‘evil and must thus be removed from power’.
In spite of travel warnings from the West against coming to Zimbabwe, some of which were issued as recent as December last year, Cecil was killed by someone from the USA.
“The United Kingdom (UK) has issued a travel warning to its citizens in Zimbabwe, warning they may be forced to leave at short notice, citing an unpredictable political environment as the ZANU PF Congress kicks off,” a local daily told us last year.
In the travel warning, the UK claimed that the political situation remained unpredictable and warned its citizens ‘to avoid large gatherings and demonstrations to ensure their safety’.
“Zimbabwe’s ruling party will be holding their national congress in Harare from December 3 to 6 2014,” the notice posted on the UK government website read.
“You should avoid large gatherings and demonstrations, follow the advice of local authorities and monitor local media.
“If you’re living in Zimbabwe, keep your security arrangements under close review, make sure your travel documents are up to date and readily available and have a contingency plan in place in case you need to leave at short notice.”
In 2008, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) had to scramble for a lifeline after its marketing campaign was thrown in the lurch by travel warnings from key countries, resulting in the cancellations of bookings by international tourists.
The ZTA chief executive officer, Karikoga Kaseke, confirmed that 80 percent of hotel bookings during that year had been cancelled after the US, the UK, Japan and South Korea issued warnings discouraging their citizens from visiting Zimbabwe due to alleged tension and incidents of violence after the March 29 2008 elections.
If we are still the same ‘old, dirty, ugly, dangerous and tension-filled’ country that the West wants us to be, why was Cecil killed by a tourist from America?
We should get very worried when these people, whose resentment for Zimbabwe is legendary, start speaking positively about us, including our animals.
The anger and anguish over Cecil’s killing is a dastard act of dishonesty by those dropping volumes and volumes over our dearest departed lion.
In any case, Western nations have never been known to be genuine and sincere in their dealings with their enemies.
These are the same people who kissed, patched up differences and embraced Colonel Muammar Gaddafi before they hunted him down until they murdered him in cold blood.
We should be worried about such behaviour and be left to mourn our Cecil in peace.
Cecil was our animal.
He never belonged to them.
He suffered with us, alone when those who are now mourning him more than us the bereaved were busy berating our Zimbabwe and discouraging visitors from coming to see him.
Cecil was with us when they beamed images of a country not worthy any tourist’s salt.
When they battered Zimbabwe, they also battered Cecil our lion.
When they shunned Zimbabwe, they shunned Cecil too.
They left him for us in the midst of the global isolation they vigorously agitated for.
We demand to be left alone to mourn Cecil our lion.
There are interesting parallels between Cecil and Didymus Mutasa, the fallen Manicaland ‘godfather’.
The maverick politician from Rusape celebrated his 80th birthday last week.
Mutasa told us he regretted ever working with ZANU PF, the party that brought this country freedom.
Mutasa is apologising to ‘fellow’ Zimbabweans for ever working with Robert Mugabe.
“I feel much wiser and quite interestingly concerned about our people’s welfare and any other issues that the country should be concerned about,” said Mutasa in an interview with a local daily.
“All of us in People First must apologise not only to the people we have misruled but to the entire world, you don’t run a government like we did up to 2014, I mean you break your own constitution into pieces, good heavens, we can’t repeat that, Mai Mujuru would never do that.
“I feel for instance that we should be thinking about how our suffering people are going to get to next year when things are this bad.”
Such level of duplicity and dishonesty is shocking, to say the least.
If Mutasa had not been fired, he would still be ordering everyone in ZANU PF to do the damage control for his shenanigans. Anyone who believes Mutasa has changed must be out of their minds.
Tinochema hedu Cecil wedu tiine tariro, tirikure nebopoto raSaMutasa reshungu dzokusiiwa nechitima cherugare.
Let those with ears listen.