THE frequency of NGOs’ reports about purported retributive post-election violence by ZANU PF supporters following the largely peaceful and credible harmonised elections should serve as a reminder that the regime change drive is very much alive.
What is most disturbing is that it looks like it is a well-co-ordinated strategy to paint a gloomy picture of the country.
To add credence to this theory is the involvement and apparent enthusiasm by sections of the media to dutifully give these NGOs’ reports prominence.
One such report was in the NewsDay of August 28 2018 which claimed ‘many’ families of the MDC Alliance had abandoned their homes countrywide.
It’s said they had found refuge in bushes for fear of reprisals by vengeful and yet victorious ZANU PF activists – a situation that sounds quite contradictory.
It was no surprise then when police dismissed these reports as ‘fictitious’ as there was peace prevailing across the country.
Some of the fiction was outrageous.
One such purported case involved an MDC supporter whose house was burnt in Mozambique by non-Zimbabweans.
Apparently authorities in Mozambique confirmed the MDC Alliance supporter, Joseph Kaswa, had been expelled from Mozambique by political leaders in that country for involving himself in trans-border politics.
Instead, ZANU PF supporters were accused of having committed the offence on Zimbabwean soil.
Police have the details.
We have also carried out investigations of our own going to Chitungwiza and Chigiji Village in Bindura.
Here, atrocities reported by well-known NGOs like Counseling Services Unit (CSU) and Heal Zimbabwe Trust were dismissed by the purported victims.
The case of violence in Chigiji Village peddled by the so-called private media looks like it had been deliberately stage-managed.
But why would these NGOs relentlessly spread damaging lies and link them to ZANU PF.
The answer is simple.
The victory of ZANU PF means the regime change battle has to go on.
But after the 2013 crushing electoral victory by the former liberation Party, NGOs’ donors had to take a closer look at their books.
Reports they had been made to believe were that their puppet party, the MDC, was going to win.
When they opened their eyes, they realised most of the cash earmarked for the regime change project had been redirected to pockets of project co-ordinators and managers.
Donor funds to NGOs were frozen.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was particularly irked by the CSU, among other NGOs.
Thus, as we went to the July 30 2018 general elections, NGOs and in particular, their flagship (MDC Alliance), were broke.
Like most other NGOs, the CSU survives on funds disbursed on the basis of its reports to keep the regime change project alive.
Definitely, the pre-election peaceful environment was not good enough to generate reports that would encourage principals of the regime change project.
Similarly, the peace prevailing after the elections is not what the regime change NGOs wanted.
However, generation of false reports has become their preoccupation.
We should brace ourselves for even more lies.
Only recently, Dr Frances Lovemore, who is head of CSU, played a leading role in forwarding an unverified report of massive countrywide post-election violence allegedly by ZANU PF supporters.
Anthony Reeler, the founding director of the racist Amani Trust, later rechristened to CSU is notorious for his toxic fake post-election reports meant to tarnish the image of ZANU PF.
And with the media not to be outdone, remember the 2002 Magunje fake story by Daily News where a mother’s head was ‘chopped’ off by ZANU PF ‘thugs’ in full view of her children.
However, despite lies, sanctions, creation of puppet parties and massing NGOs countrywide, regime change has failed because Zimbabweans have been able to see through these machinations.
A reminder awaits in 2023.