The Sunday Mail
Prof Jonathan Moyo, MP
Imperial Germans who have the dubious distinction of twice starting two catastrophic world wars in 1914 and 1939 have a warped saying — whose fatal logic best explains how and why the embattled Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his treacherous MDC-T have without any serious doubt become clear and present threats to Zimbabwe’s national security — and that telling German saying is that if you want to kill a dog you must allege that it has rabies.
In order to appreciate this unimpeachable conclusion whose evidence is now well-documented beyond rational disputation, it is necessary to make clear upfront the internationally agreed and therefore reasonable definition of national security.
While points of emphasis and nuances may differ from scholar to scholar in international relations and strategic studies, the generally shared view of national security is that it is about the imperatives of ensuring the survival of a nation given its territorial boundaries, heritage, ethos, values and interests as systematically pursued through the use of cultural, intellectual, media, economic, military, political and diplomatic power.
As such, it is now common cause that threats to national security around the world are no longer posed only by other nations but are equally if not more so posed by or via non-state actors including but not limited to multinational corporations, political parties, politicians, NGOs, churches, media organisations, journalists, academics and criminal cartels. These non-state actors do not typically or only target heads of state or government or their ruling political parties but they mainly target in a systematic way the foundational values, institutional backbone and cultural pillars of the country under attack.
In view of this well-established understanding of national security which is applicable to all nations including Zimbabwe, and given the application of the German saying that if you want to kill a dog you must allege that it has rabies, just witness the current frenzy whose objective is to allege that Zimbabwe has rabies coming from not only the UK, US, EU and their allies in the white Commonwealth but also their African puppets and media mouthpieces, let alone Tsvangirai and his treacherous MDC.
Here are some of the benchmarks of this frenzy gleaned from the regime change coalition against Zimbabwe’s national security interests. If, for example, you reflect on the publications of the so-called independent media all their issues — day in and day out, week in and week out — are always anti-Zanu-PF in ways that are not only oppositional to the liberation party but are tellingly oppositional to the legacy of the liberation struggle itself and are therefore against the foundational values and aspirations of the State. The same is true of the work of NGOs who now constitute a destabilizing colony in Zimbabwe by their sheer staggering number now said to be over 3,000 and all of them founded and funded by UK, US, EU and white Commonwealth donors.
Although the regime change coalition claims to support peaceful demonstrations, when war veterans of our heroic liberation struggle demonstrate peacefully with police clearance against Tendai Biti's support for illegal economic sanctions the so-called independent media labels them as “thugs” and not demonstrators.
When President Robert Mugabe describes the last extraordinary Sadc summit held in Sandton, South Africa as a “success” and refers to the report of the Sadc Organ Troika summit held on March 31 in Livingstone, Zambia as “innocent” he is demonised as a “liar” in a manner designed to undermine not only the person or office of the President as Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces but also the State of Zimbabwe itself and this by the same so-called independent media which routinely calls war veterans thugs in order to undermine the legacy of the liberation struggle.
And Brigadier General Douglas Nyikayaramba is demonised by the same so-called independent media as a “rogue soldier” when he exercises his freedom of speech to say the obvious that Tsvangirai is not a political threat but rather a national security threat, which he clearly is in his indisputable role as the engine of hostile UK, US, EU and white Commonwealth interests in Zimbabwe. Yet, if there’s one thing that stands out about Brigadier Nyikayaramba's much-talked-about but deliberately misunderstood statement that Tsvangirai has become a national security threat beyond normal politics, it is not the rather inane point that he should have not made the statement as a professional soldier when it is crystal obvious that the politicians who should be regularly making the point are treacherously silent but the compelling fact that what Nyikayaramba said about Tsvangirai is unimpeachably true and therefore right.
Brigadier-General Nyikayaramba
However, the point to underscore here which Zimbabweans and the progressive world should note is that the so-called independent media in Zimbabwe which view any and all criticism against it as a “hate campaign” routinely demonise our freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for our country’s heroic independence as “thugs” and who in the same vein and for the same diabolic reasons demonise the country’s military leadership which has firm roots in our liberation struggle and national independence as “rogue Generals”. Is there anyone out there who really thinks that routinely calling war veterans “thugs” and calling the leadership of our military “rogue Generals” by definition is acceptable? If there is, then that person must go to hell and take with them their unacceptable name-calling. As for our compatriots in the so-called independent media, the stubborn truth is that there’s not even one cat which is still in the bag. The game is over.
We all know what has been happening since 2 000 and we now have more than 10 000 hours of real evidence. Journalists who have taken brown envelopes before and those who continue to take such envelopes are known as are the sources of these dirty envelopes, some of which are local. The bottom line is that the nationalist movement will not allow our country to be sacrificed under the altar of brown envelopes. Never ever!
Some well-known media recipients of dirty brown envelopes are now shamelessly trying to justify their 30 pieces of silver by foolishly claiming that there’s a fifth column in our country which is allegedly taking advantage of an alleged power vacuum in Zanu-PF or in Zimbabwe and which is said to be determined to prevent the MDC formations from taking over power. Well, anybody who thinks there’s a power vacuum in Zanu-PF or Zimbabwe is a joker who probably failed high school or dropped out therefrom.
But if things come to a head, then names will have to be named and the chips will fall where they should. There’s just too much at stake to allow some riff raff misfits in the corrupt so-called independent media to get away with political murder when there's a lot of empirical dirty stuff known about each and all of them.
In the meantime, what is clear is that the routine demonization of war veterans as “thugs” and of our national military leadership whose firm roots are in the legacy of our heroic national liberation struggle as “rogue Generals” are in fact a regime change translation of the German saying that if you want to kill a dog, you simply allege that it has rabies.
It is also now clear that the regime change intention of this translation is not only to change the government of the day in our country by removing President Mugabe or Zanu-PF from power but to also change the system of our governance from that based on the legacy of our liberation struggle, national heritage, ethos, values and interests which we have a right to fully pursue through our distinct cultural, intellectual, media, economic, military, political and diplomatic power.
The so-called independent media, which is undoubtedly driven by brown envelopes, is being used to falsely allege that Zimbabwe has rabies in order to justify the killing of our nation wherein the target is not Zanu-PF, or the government or President Mugabe but Zimbabwe itself. This explains why we have a very serious, clear and present threat to our national security personified and represented by Tsvangirai and organised around his treacherous MDC.
If you doubt this submission, then consider what the US Ambassador Charles Ray said about the matter last week when addressing journalists in Bulawayo and ask yourself what the implications of what he said are on our country's national security and what the roles of Tsvangirai and his MDC T are in those implications.
Otherwise, and in very poignant and thus unambiguous language, America’s Uncle Tom in Harare made it clear that Washington has no intention of changing the Zimbabwean house by only changing its roof.
Ambassador Ray told the bemused journalists, who included some brown envelope seekers, that “There is no way you can build a house from the roof. You have to start from the foundation going to the top. So
I don’t think removing Mugabe will change anything. What is needed is to change the system of governance. . .Sadc is working on the issue of Zimbabwean elections and I don’t see any reason why some political party is pushing for elections this year. Elections should be held at a time when every Zimbabwean is free to participate."
This loaded statement, which puts paid to the so-called Sadc election roadmap, is not difficult to unpack. Those among us who have naively interpreted this dangerous statement to mean that the US government recognises or respects the fact that there's more to Zimbabwe than President Mugabe as an individual and Zanu-PF as a political party have missed the point not least because that fact has always been self-evident.
The import of Ambassador Ray’s statement is that it is a reminder to the evil regime change coalition against Zimbabwe that, because it is morally equivalent to slavery and colonialism which were scandalously justified on the basis of universal values of Christianity and human civilisation, regime change—which is justified on the universal values of human rights, democracy, good governance and the rule of law-does not only seek to change government or the leader of government but it seeks to change the system of governance by uprooting its foundation. This makes the US, UK and EU regime change agenda a triple threat to national security in that it seeks to change (1) not just the leader of our State and Government, and (2) not just our Government itself but (3) the roots of our system of governance and therefore the State itself.
Now, if this is not a direct and very serious threat to our national security then nothing is. All the noise that Tsvangirai has been making against the security sector is about this fact.
What is worrying against this backdrop and what explains why General Nyikayaramba is right, is that the personification and representation of Ambassador Ray’s illegal regime change statement that Zimbabwe must change not only its roof but also its foundation is none other than Tsvangirai. This fact makes Tsvangirai a very serious and on-going threat to Zimbabwe's national security.
While people are free to say what they want, the inescapable truth that obtains in any and all constitutional democracies such as ours is that a threat to national security must be dealt within terms of national security without any fear or favour. Given the widely held definition of national security proffered above, it should not matter whether the threat is coming from foreign governments, multinational corporations, political parties, politicians, NGOs, churches, media organisations, journalists, academics and criminal cartels.
Given Ambassador Ray’s statement that the objective of the US government's illegal regime change agenda in Zimbabwe is not only to change the roof by removing President Mugabe and Zanu-PF from power but also to change the country’s foundation so as to have an entirely new house as it were, it is clear therefore that the US and its UK, EU and white Commonwealth allies are not concerned about the so-called roadmap to Zimbabwe’s elections as some gullible and treacherous elements in our midst would have us believe.
If the much-talked-about Sadc roadmap is about elections, then surely its electoral objective should be about confirming or changing only the roof of our government by enabling the election of a leader and a political party to superintend over our government for a five year period. In this case, the whole matter would be purely political.
But if the issue is to change not only the roof but also the foundation of the house of Zimbabwe as clearly stated by Ambassador Ray only last week in Bulawayo, then we have a very serious national security problem in our hands. Nobody should be allowed to allege that our country has rabies or that Zanu-PF has rabies or that some Zanu-PF leaders have rabies as a regime change strategy of changing the foundational roots of our country.
Ambassador Ray’s intervention last week must be taken very seriously when seen not only against the background of Tsvangirai's demonization of the security sector as a backbone institution but also as seen against the very worrying archival fact that the Facilitator’s Report of the ill-fated Sadc Troika summit held in Livingstone on March 31 is astonishingly entitled “Zimbabwe Peace Process”. In God’s name, what peace process did the Facilitator have in his mind? Is Zimbabwe at war? Indeed, has Zimbabwe been at war? Which or who are the warring armies? Is the Facilitator not aware that Zimbabwe has a GPA government in place?
The GPA stands for “Global Political Agreement” and not “Global Peace Agreement”. The GPA was signed after an inconclusive 2008 parliamentary election and not after a war. Quite clearly, the attempt to revise the 2008 GPA from a political to a peace process smacks of a sinister and totally unacceptable attempt to allege that our country has rabies of war when it clearly does not. Is the intention to justify Ambassador Ray’s regime change wish to change the roots and foundation of our country?
Zimbabwe was at war before 1980 and peace was restored after the Lancaster constitutional process following our national independence in 1980. Then that peace was disturbed during the Gukurahundi period from 1981 to 1987 when the nationalist movement came together under the historic Unity Accord. Since then, Zimbabwe has enjoyed unparalleled peace. There’s by far more violence of all sorts in South Africa than in Zimbabwe.
Of course our country has had its share of political problems since 1999 when the British political establishment used the Westminster Foundation to found and fund the MDC under Tsvangirai.
The fact that this was allowed to happen as a political event when it was a major security lapse by our national security system is an indictment of the entire nationalist movement and should not be repeated. No country should allow a foreign power to form and grow a political party within its boundaries, worse if that foreign power is also the erstwhile colonial power.
Historians who peruse through the Facilitator’s Livingstone Report from the archives will also notice that its third paragraph has the following shocking statement which should wake up the nationalist movement and make us vigilant going forward, “The developments in the Northern part of our continent should impress upon all of us within the Sadc region, about the need and importance of resolving the Zimbabwean impasse speedily and in a way that will not just satisfy the Sadc region but also that would be acceptable to the entire world”.
God forbid! Did the Facilitator really believe that we in Zimbabwe should conduct our national politics in a way that would be acceptable to the entire world? Which entire world? Which country in Sadc conducts its national politics in that way?
It is such unacceptable sentiments, as captured under paragraph three of the Facilitator’s Livingstone Report which is now consigned to the archives, which dovetail with last week’s regime change call by US Ambassador Ray to change not just the roof of our government but also the foundation or roots of our governance as part of the Sadc election roadmap which prove the current threat to our national security represented by Tsvangirai and his MDC.
The new issues about security sector reform, media reform and the reform of ZEC among others which Tsvangirai has tabled as part of the so-called Sadc roadmap to Zimbabwe’s elections are not only outside the GPA as signed on September 15, 2008 but they also constitute a threat to our national security and should be vigorously resisted for that reason and that reason alone.
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