Wikileaks confirms the puppets in the MDC that we already knew.

By agreeing to be used by the Anglo-Saxon powers to reverse the legacy of the African liberation movement led by President Mugabe, the MDC formations became purveyors of a creeping “know-nothing” culture whose objective was to recolonise the African mind through “terror by forgetting” and through the “free flow of lies”. Zimbabweans were suddenly confronted by an opposition movement characterised by intellectual hooliganism and intolerance sponsored by the former colonial power.
The Sunday Mail
AFRICAN FOCUS


By Tafataona Mahoso.
The undiplomatic cables of the US government recently leaked by Wikileaks show that by 2007 US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell blamed Morgan Tsvangirai’s lack of strategic intelligence for the failure of the MDC formations to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.
Christopher Dell was one of the thuggish Anglo-American envoys transferred here by Britain and the US from Angola and Yugoslavia specifically to oversee the illegal overthrow of the African liberation movement in government.
Illegal regime change had already succeeded in former Yugoslavia, but Angola survived 30 years of US-sponsored war which also involved white South Africa.
Neither the MDC formations nor the envoys of the US and UK were meant to be great thinkers. Even if they were personally intelligent, the job they were given required them to behave as foolhardy and brazen numbskulls who should neither flinch nor blink while administering white-sponsored imperialist terror against a peace-loving Zimbabwean people and their leaders.
In other words, the allegation of stupidity and lack of foresight levelled against Tsvangirai by Mr Dell should actually be shared between the Anglo-Saxon ambassadors to Zimbabwe and sponsored leaders within the MDC formations.
Neither of them really understood Zimbabwean society. But they did not need understanding in order to destroy that society.
Long before the cables were leaked, a Zimbabwean educated at Cambridge and Oxford universities in the UK, with the help of Professor Terence Ranger, revealed the same problem in his research carried out in Zimbabwe.
This research has resulted in a book called Making History in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe: Politics, Intellectuals and the Media, and it is Volume 4 of a running series called Nationalisms Across the Globe.
The original purpose of the research was to foreground and promote the supposed intellectuals and technocrats who surrounded and advised leaders of the foreign-sponsored Zimbabwe Democracy Project and the MDC formations while denigrating what the author calls “patriotic intellectuals” as mere “praise singers”.
However, the realities on the ground in Zimbabwe made it difficult for the research to produce such a binary outcome, just as by 2007 the realities on the ground frustrated the regime change envoys of the US and UK in Zimbabwe.
The destructive purpose of the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy Project made it necessary to create a clique of anti-intellectual pretenders around the MDC leadership. The job of the anti-intellectual clique was to pretend to be great and original thinkers while spinning and spewing huge billows and yarns of lies which would justify subjecting the country and the people to mass terror and mass torture through illegal sanctions, financial warfare, information warfare, industrial shutdowns and urban riots in the midst of an HIV-Aids pandemic. 
On Pages 59 and 60 of his book, Blessing-Miles Tendi cites Lewis Coser, who observed that the supposed intellectuals in the foreign-sponsored Zimbabwe Democracy Project, just like their political leaders, discredited themselves because they saw Zimbabwe’s salvation as coming from the same Western powers who had colonised and looted Zimbabwe for the last 100 years. They served as mere “legitimisers of external power”. The late Masipula Sithole is cited as “the most palpable example”. In 2000, at the time the MDC formations were agitating for illegal sanctions to be imposed on the people, Sithole was sponsored by the US government to go and observe the US Presidential election there. The purpose was to generate propaganda which would be used to discredit the 2000 and 2002 elections in Zimbabwe. Sithole wrote back to newspapers and magazines in Zimbabwe in the manner expected by his handlers.
“I am in the United States observing public opinion polls and American party conventions. No margin of terror here, no farm invasions, no electoral violence. Neither is Al Gore accusing George Bush of attempting to sell America back to the former colonialists, who are ironically, the (same) British (implicated in Zimbabwe).” 
Blessing-Miles Tendi observes in his book:
“The 2000 American Presidential election Sithole extolled proved to be an incompetently administered election fraught with sharply disputed vote counts and recounts, and was ruled in favour of Republican candidate George Bush (not by the people but) by a US Supreme Court dominated by judges with a Republican predilection. Prisoner abuses committed by American and British troops at Iraq’s Abu Graib prison in 2004 demonstrated amply that (self-proclaimed) champions of human rights also disregarded human rights, despite their criticism of smaller powers, such as Zimbabwe.”
So, Sithole was trying to hide from Zimbabweans facts about the US which US citizens were not denying to themselves or to the world. George W. Bush’s election was a disaster.
The other supposed intellectual supporting the MDC in embarrassing ways was UZ Professor John Makumbe who, at the very same time the US and UK were illegally invading Iraq, made a point of proclaiming on his office computer screen: “REGIME CHANGE NOW!”
Blessing-Miles Tendi comments that: 
Makumbe did not see any possible hazards for local (Zimbabwean) democratic forces in conscripting (that is uncritically borrowing) terms and concepts from external centres of (imperialist) power viewed as harbouring imperial objectives by Zanu-PF and its local and international sympathisers.”
The worst thing that ever happened to Zimbabwe in the last 13 years is the willingness of leaders of the MDC formations and the supposed intellectuals and activists supporting them to lie about and against Zimbabwe in exchange for money, sponsorship and other Western inducements. The 2000 election in the US was a disaster, but Masipula Sithole wrote glowing reports on it which were proudly displayed in The Financial Gazette and included in Sithole’s book. 
Blessing-Miles Tendi quotes yet another UZ lecturer who admitted that:
“I do consultancy work for NGOs and I bend my analysis to please them. (That means lying to get money.) I tell NGOs what they want to hear. I tell them Mugabe is bad and there is a serious crisis and I say it loudly so they are satisfied. That way they will come again next time for my analysis and even bring me new clients.” 
One cannot build an intellectual legacy, let alone a democratic movement, solely on lying for money. Even the forces who pay for the lies cannot respect the paid liars. That is what the undiplomatic US cables reveal, especially on Christopher Dell’s assessment of the MDC formations and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. It is not so much lack of intelligence as willingness to tell lies against one’s own people in order to earn sponsorship which disgraces Tsvangirai as an aspiring leader.
By agreeing to be used by the Anglo-Saxon powers to reverse the legacy of the African liberation movement led by President Mugabe, the MDC formations became purveyors of a creeping “know-nothing” culture whose objective was to recolonise the African mind through “terror by forgetting” and through the “free flow of lies”. Zimbabweans were suddenly confronted by an opposition movement characterised by intellectual hooliganism and intolerance sponsored by the former colonial power.
l A web of lies had to be spun to justify illegal and racist sanctions, imposed by white racist nations only, against Zimbabwe.
l A web of media lies had to be spun to make the people of Zimbabwe believe that the destruction of their livelihoods concurrent with the sanctions had nothing to do with the same sanctions.
l Third, yet another layer of lies had to be developed to say that the sanctions did not constitute real economic warfare but just travel bans and “restrictive measures”.
l Then, when it became clear that the majority of the people knew that the sanctions were real and they really hurt, yet another layer of lies had to be created to argue that the now real sanctions were doing so much good that they needed to be “calibrated” (in the words of David Miliband) or “staggered” (in the words of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai).
The effects of this creeping culture of denial have been devastating. The MDC formations, particularly MDC-T, have had to train and deploy an army of “know-nothing” anti-intellectuals and activists whose duty is to suppress African knowledge and memory on behalf of the Anglo-Saxon regime change axis. Let me give a few examples, for lack of space.
The Zimbabwe Independent on February 12 2010 carried a piece entitled GNU birthday: Consolidate democratic culture. But how was “democratic culture” and “inclusivity” supposed to be consolidated?
The writer for The Zimbabwe Independent wrote: “Political institutions and civil society need to be infused (which means they are not so infused) with democratic practices . . . Authoritarian political discourses need to be rejected and authoritarian political actors such as Christopher Mutsvangwa, Jonathan Moyo and Tafataona Mahoso need to be neutralised . . . ” 
This is because of the realisation that informed people are creators, bearers and transmitters of knowledge. This is the same knowledge which Blessing-Miles Tendi admires in his book, despite his dislike of the intellectuals who have defended Zimbabwe against illegal regime change for the last 15 years and more. 
The Financial Gazette of February 4 2010 published a long letter entitled “Mahoso’s Haiti piece showed lack of soul”. The key passage there says:
“Human life is of paramount importance such that Dr Mahoso should have drawn a clear line (veil) between social and political issues. No one gets political mileage through linking a genuine and timeous humanitarian rescue operation to a ‘perceived regime change agenda’ unless one is addressing a ‘dark-age’ readership.”
So any obvious connections between “social” and “political” issues should not be allowed.
This was an effort by a Mr Benjamin Bendera, suggesting that The Sunday Mail’s African Focus instalment of January 24 2010 should not have been published because the truth told in it was cruel and offensive to Haitians in the darkest hour of their history. Why? Because the African Focus article dared to suggest, as Sir Hilaty Beckles and masses of Haitians themselves were also saying: That without US regime change, without French and Anglo-Saxon interference in and strangulation of the independence of Haiti since 1791, the cost of the January 2010 earthquake in human lives would have been less by more than 50 percent; and that all the humanitarian relief coming to Haiti would have been on the basis of solidarity and sovereignty (as in Indonesia recently) rather than on the basis of colonialist and paternalistic charity.
Indeed, on February 18 2010 the people of Haiti mounted demonstrations against the visiting racist French head of state Nicholas Sarkozy because, as Sir Hilaty Beckles has documented, the value of what France alone owes Haiti for its looting of Haiti (before the period of US regime-change interference) amounts to more than US$21 billion.
In other words, Benjamin Bendera is saying that The Sunday Mail should have suppressed the February 24 column because it tried to make a distinction between relief based on solidarity, mutual respect and sovereignty, on one hand, and the criminal humanitarianism the world has witnessed in former Yugoslavia (Serbia 1999), Nicaragua, Iraq and Zimbabwe. Criminal humanitarianism refers to relief which has the following characteristics:
l It is given by the same forces which either caused or worsened the crisis.
l It is meant to hide the active roles of those same forces in precipitating or worsening the humanitarian crisis.
l It is counter-revolutionary in that it seeks to further deepen the dependency of the population, making sure that the people won’t be able to help themselves or to have any say in how they should be helped.
l It is meant to make the recipients of relief forever grateful to the very same powers and forces who have done them the biggest harm in their history. These are the powers represented by Christopher Dell and Morgan Tsvangirai; and Wikileaks confirms that reality in Dell’s own words.
What made The Sunday Mail column so upsetting was its relevance to the deceit which the same Anglo-Saxon powers are trying to get away with in Zimbabwe which their involvement in Haiti in the last 100 years undercuts directly.
Much of the damage to the economy of Zimbabwe was inflicted by the very same forces who cry the loudest about the deterioration in the livelihoods of the people of Zimbabwe.
That is criminal humanitarianism, especially since the very same forces are already campaigning against Zimbabwe’s economic empowerment laws and against the legitimate exploitation and sale of Zimbabwe’s gold, diamonds and platinum!
In other words, since the creation of a Western-funded opposition in Zimbabwe in 1999, Zimbabweans have been subjected to a growing tendency to deny or suppress historical information relevant for their continuing emancipation.
So we find that MDC-T members of the House of Assembly, on February 3 2010, sought to suppress a motion by Cde Kudakwashe Basikiti because that motion again made a link, revealed connections, where MDC-T wants to maintain a veil. The motion sought to compel leaders of the MDC formations to go abroad and campaign against the same illegal sanctions which they asked for and got 10 years ago. Such a motion made uncomfortable linkages between sanctions and the damage to Zimbabwe’s economy; between the MDC formations and the Anglo-Saxon powers opposing Zimbabwe’s economic sovereignty; and between that opposition to Zimbabwe’s economic sovereignty and the charity which the same powers are so willing to dish out and publicise as a cover-up for their contribution to the current crisis.
Likewise, on February 2 2010, on ZTV’s Melting Pot programme, Senator Obert Gutu of MDC-T sought to prevent me from explaining to the people the meaning of British Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s House of Commons statement of January 19 2010. The Senator attempted to use insults and name-calling to stop me from being understood by the audience and to try to reduce (through sheer noise) the dignity and truth of the information I had. This is the essence of intellectual hooliganism.
Equally, on November 12 2010, Zimbabweans woke up to yet another MDC-T attempt to suppress debate.
In the second week of November 2009, Mashonaland East farmers demonstrated against the inclusive Government’s decision to remove direct Government support to farmers prematurely and in the middle of illegal sanctions and an impending drought.
Two days after the demonstration, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s spokesman James Maridadi told The Herald (November 12 2009) that Zimbabwe was not subject to sanctions at all:
“Which sanctions? I am not aware of them, I only read about them in your newspaper.”
On September 22 2009, former MDC Member of Parliament for Budiriro Gabriel Chaibva appeared on ZTV’s Melting Pot programme, again with Senator Obert Gutu. Chaibva said that he was there in Nyanga in 2000 when top MDC leaders then drafted the document which they submitted to the US Congress before it was turned into the US sanctions law against Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (Zidera).
In that programme as elsewhere, Senator Gutu’s role became one of suppressing the truth, trying to heckle and insult his counterpart in order to prevent him from communicating what he had witnessed at Nyanga in 2000, where Gutu was definitely not present. The current official MDC-T spokesperson, Nelson Chamisa, on May 21 2008 played a similar role on ZTV’s Zimbabwe Today programme.
My first encounter with this intolerant approach to debate and information was on ZTV’s Talking Business programme on July 15 2001, when Zidera was still a Bill in the US Congress and the then MDC party was campaigning to convince the people of Zimbabwe that the US was helping them by presenting the Bill for congressional approval.
I asked my counterpart, the late Learnmore Jongwe, who was the official MDC spokesperson then, if he knew the meaning of what his party had just done.
They had drafted a proposal for the US to wage economic war on their own people. The channels they used to submit the document to the US Congress were exactly the same channels used by Rhodesian Foreign Minister P. K. van der Byl in 1979, including the same US Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Senator Jesse Helms:
“I then read, on air, P. K. van der Byl’s letter to the US government dated 12 January 1979, in which the Smith regime appealed to the US government and to whites in the US to help destroy Zapu and Zanu in order to save white supremacy in the Southern African region.”
Learnmore Jongwe threw a tantrum on screen and violently threw his papers around in order to drown the importance of what I had just said. He shouted that the US Bill which later became Zidera had nothing to do with sanctions!
Therefore the leaked Dell cables confirm from the point of view of the US, that the MDC formations and most NGOs supporting them were set up to destroy Zimbabwe and deliver it to Anglo-Saxon powers as a failed state.
They almost succeeded. As a result The Daily News on Sunday for July 13 2003 carried an article by Barnabas Thondhlana entitled “Cyclone Bush hits Africa”. Its essence was that “The Final Push” organised by the MDC formations and their NGOs allies had flopped. But not to worry, “Cyclone Bush” was coming to the region in the form of the then US President George W. Bush. Bush would deliver the final hammer against Zimbabwe.
“We can shout ‘Yankee go home’ until we are hoarse, but we cannot ignore Bush. Be afraid, be very afraid, Cyclone Bush is here.”
And the leaders of the MDC formations rushed to South Africa to meet Bush and ask him to hold their hands in the partnership for the destruction of the Zimbabwe economy. That is what Dell’s cables confirm.


SEE ALSO:
Tsvangirai: the star that will fade in Bethlehem

MDC-T conduit in US foreign policy

Wikileaks blows Tsvangirai cover.
Wikileaks exposes US hypocrisy.
Wikileaks to change course of US diplomacy.