In the first place, everyone can see that the countries and organisations that have been showering Tsvangirai with dubious awards also happen to be the same forces in the evil coalition that has been at the fore front of regime-change and puppet politics in Zimbabwe over the last 10 years.
The Herald
By Professor Jonathan Moyo
SOME things, or rather some people, never cease to amaze.
A case in point is the nauseating display of rank-hypocrisy behind an alleged democracy award given to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in Washington this week by a regime-change outfit called the National Democratic Institute which the US has deployed over the years, along with the International Republican Institute (IR), to subvert and compromise Zimbabwe's national interest.
The NDI propaganda about the dubious award is that it is given "to individuals and organisations that have demonstrated a sustained commitment to democracy and human rights".
Taking a cue from this spurious claim, the Prime Minister's ham-fisted information department released an statement which sought to justify Tsvangirai's unnecessary trip to Washington by comically alleging that he "was in Washington DC to receive the prestigious Harriman Award in recognition of his selfless effort in championing restoration of the rule of law, democracy and good governance in Zimbabwe and Africa".
Putting aside the manifestly bizarre lie that Tsvangirai has championed good governance in Africa about which many Africans will not be amused to hear, there was a particularly prominent line in the statement which vacuously claimed that "Prime Minister Tsvangirai's dedication to democracy and the rule of law is there for all to see".
Since the word "all" means "everyone", the Prime Minister's inept mouthpieces should tell that nonsense to Tendai Biti, who surely must know better, and to scores of MDC-T members who have recently suffered from untold violence meted against them right inside Harvest House, the MDC-T's headquarters, by gangsters in his name.
If that is not enough to prove the lie about Tsvangirai's alleged rule of law and human rights credentials that are supposedly there for all to see, the Prime Minister's information department should try and tell its propaganda to Welshman Ncube and tens of thousand of MDC supporters who had to split from Tsvangirai in 2005 after they were subjected to in-house violence and after they had their human and political rights violated beyond what they could stomach.
What cannot be denied of course is the fact that Tsvangirai has indeed, since 2000, been a recipient of a number of awards similar to the one he received from the NDI this week in Washington and that all of them have invariably if not falsely portrayed him as an unflinching champion of democracy, good governance and human rights.
Against this backdrop, the time has come to take a second and closer look at Tsvangirai's questionable awards and their motivation as well as their purpose given that he is now Prime Minister in the Government and is therefore, accountable to all Zimbabweans beyond his party and also given his self-indulgent readiness to dump his government work and rush to Washington this week only to receive a hopeless award whose essence is not better than that of a toy.
In the first place, everyone can see that the countries and organisations that have been showering Tsvangirai with dubious awards also happen to be the same forces in the evil coalition that has been at the fore front of regime-change and puppet politics in Zimbabwe over the last 10 years.
It is, therefore, all too apparent that by offering Tsvangirai, and a retinue of his supporting cronies especially in some sections of the media, academia, the legal fraternity and among donor created and donor funded NGOs, the evil coalition against Zimbabwe has essentially been using the questionable awards to endorse their own agenda in pursuit of regime change.
The strategy of employing "democratic" or "human rights" awards and giving them to pliable and treacherous individuals and organisations did not start with Tsvangirai and his MDC, but has its roots in eastern and central Europe as well as in Latin America and became particularly pronounced after the end of the Cold War when democracy, good governance and human rights became instruments of foreign policy and propaganda mantras of Western countries against the developing world.
Zimbabwe fell into the mix of targets in 1999 when the three main political parties in Britain, Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, joined forces through the Westminster Foundation to halt and reverse land reform in the country by founding and funding the MDC with the support of the US government and other interests in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Since then, and the evidence is there for the asking, there is no single loquacious or reckless sellout in some sections of the media, academia, legal fraternity and among donor created and donor funded NGOs who has not received a dubious award of one sort or another from the evil coalition of regime-change politics in our country.
Tsvangirai has topped the bill as a recipient of the dubious awards for obvious reasons.
In 2000, soon after the formation of the MDC, and with the knowledge of financial, diplomatic and intelligence backing of Britain and the US, Tsvangirai used a widely reported address of a political rally at Rufaro Stadium to call on President Mugabe who had been last elected in a 1995 democratic election which the MDC leader did not contest to "leave now peacefully or we will remove you violently".
Zanu-PF detractors can say whatever they want, but the fact is that the cycle of political violence which this country has witnessed over the last 10 years started with that terrible statement by Tsvangirai.
History will record this fact because time does not lie. But how is it that a person who started his current political journey 10 years ago with a public statement calling on the elected head of state and government to leave his constitutional office immediately or risk being removed violently can now be recognised as a "consistent democrat" deserving of all sorts of funny awards in the name of human rights?
Is that not rank-hypocrisy?
The political violence which started with Tsvangirai's unlawful threat against President Mugabe in 2000 did not only pit the MDC against Zanu-PF but also, and even more tellingly, it became the order of the day within the MDC itself as political gangsters terrorised with impunity anyone they suspected to be supporting or associated with Welshman Ncube.
The saga of that violence which raged out of control as early as in 2001 is yet to be told but the MDC founders and funders know everything there is to know about it despite their deafening silence, inaction and sickening hypocrisy.
By the time of the MDC split in 2005, during which Tsvangirai publicly proved that he was not a democrat at all, when he clumsily sought to rig the vote of his own executive, violence within the MDC had become not only an entrenched political culture but also the party's conflict resolution mechanism of choice under Tsvangirai's leadership.
With this in mind, how can any thinking person regard as a beacon of democracy the one and same leader who allowed the violent rot to mature within the MDC?
And how can that leader be claimed to be a deserving case of not only some silly geopolitical awards fronted as recognition for human rights action but also of the Nobel Peace Prize itself?
Ask anyone who knows about the current fires of gangsterism that have engulfed Harvest House and they will tell you that its 2005 all over again.
What makes the latest episode worse is that it is taking place when Tsvangirai has allowed the MDC formation which he leads to be called by his surname as if it were a family petty business concern of his.
It is not plausible or defensible that any democrat worth of the name, and worth of democracy awards such as one given to Tsvangirai in Washington this week by the NDI, would lead a political party named after him.
That is banana republic stuff which even political demigods such as Zaire's Mobuto Sese Seko never contemplated.
When Tsvangirai was in Washington receiving his latest dubious award, the palpable irony is that he and his hosts were so self-indulgent that they could not be bothered by the fact that this was the same Tsvangirai who, according to a report prepared by his own party on the latest clashes in the MDC-T, is currently presiding over a Harvest House that is now a haven for violence and debauchery of Sodom and Gomorrah proportions.
If Tsvangirai had proper moral and political judgement, he would not have travelled to Washington to receive a phoney award that exposes duplicity by parading him as an unparalleled and consistent champion of human rights, democracy and good governance at exactly the same time when the goings-on at his party headquarters tell a different and sad story of political violence and sexual depravity.
So serious is gratuitous violence within Tsvangirai's party that where Zanu-PF has the problem of factionalism the MDC T has gangsterism.
Gangs and politics do not mix. Just like it would be absurd to expect a Mafia kingpin to be a candidate for any human rights award, it is unreasonable to think that anybody in Zimbabwe or Africa is fooled when Tsvangirai receives a democracy award such as the one the NDI gave to him this week in Washington.
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