EVER since the British colonial rule in Zimbabwe was ended through defeat on the battleground, the West led by America would not sleep until veterans of the liberation struggle were discredited.
This they would achieve by making sure the victorious revolutionary ZANU PF and everything it stood for was shredded from Zimbabwean memories.
ZANU PF and veterans of the liberation struggle have to be removed from the seat of Government at any cost, the vanquished Western imperialists are convinced.
When ZANU PF introduced the Land Reform Programme in 2000, it turned out to be too bitter a pill for the Americans to swallow.
The revolutionary party was now embarking on a course the imperialists feared most.
The West led America felt duty bound to act.
The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) of 2001 was meant to make life difficult for Zimbabweans after the country’s economy had ‘screamed’ forcing the collapse of the revolutionary party.
And with that, the emasculation of the war veterans and the trashing of the values of the liberation struggle would follow.
However, it looks like things have not gone according to plan.
But then American and British think tanks already had contingent plans.
Remember the Chatham House meeting of 1999 when Richard Dowden chaired a meeting that mapped out strategy to destroy the ZANU PF Government and President Robert Mugabe.
Since then they have already sponsored an opposition party, the MDC.
It was heavily backed financially by Western non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the kith and kin of Americans in Zimbabwe.
Much to the chagrin of the West, the MDC and other surrogates of the West were repeatedly walloped at successive polls.
As part of fulfilling the Dowden plan, which included the psyching of people to rise against the ZANU PF Government, in 2005 the MDC organised what it called the ‘final push’.
The Western-sponsored party had hoped over a million people would march to State House and physically remove President Mugabe from power.
Failure was total.
At one point the Americans and the British thought a quicker way to bring about regime change was to plead with the United Nations Security Council for punitive sanctions.
The evil plan was shot down by Russia and China through a veto.
Back to the Dowden strategy.
In this edition, we have a story which reminds us of a regime change plan perfected by George W. Bush code-named ‘Operation Shumba’.
Through this strategy, ZANU PF and the legacy of President Mugabe had to be destroyed from within.
According to the regime change strategists, ZANU PF together with the military and war veterans had to be at each others’ throats.
This was almost achieved when the late General Solomon Mujuru with the support of his wife Joice had agreed to lead a faction that would join hands with the MDC.
This never happened.
But this does not mean ‘Operation Shumba’ is dead.
For as long as the legacy of the liberation war and the values preached by President Robert Mugabe remain intact, the imperialists will not rest.
So even though the Mujurus might be out of the present ZANU PF picture, the Western imperialists will continue to look for the gullible reactionaries from within the revolutionary party to achieve their aim.
Thus ‘Operation Shumba’ is very much alive and we hope that the much touted shadowy group referred to as G40 will remain an imaginary setup as most of us believe.