Raila Odinga: the Merchant of violence...at MDC-T congress

Merchant of Violence...Raila Odinga is likely to give practical tips on post-election violence

By Tichaona Zindoga
ANYBODY who has been disconcerted by the violent trends in the MDC led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai both internally as characterized by skirmishes to the run up to its forthcoming congress, and externally as lately exhibited by the violence against mourners at Warren Hills Cemetery in Harare, should be afraid.
And be much afraid.
The first and immediate reason for this is that the intraparty violence can only get worse with the congress, following this trajectory, having the capacity to give a bloodbath of some kind.
National organising secretary for the party, Elias Mudzuri seemed to have a premonition of this regrettable possibility when he told the world last week that his party could not guarantee a peaceful congress.
Even God, he invoked the name of the Almighty, cannot guarantee peace!
Many observers have resigned to the fact that violence is MDC-T’s second nature, although the man at the helm, Tsvangirai, who is infamously remembered for once calling for the violent removal of President Mugabe, sometimes seeks to portray his party as a host of angels while ZanuPF are “merchants of death”.
The second and chief reason why Zimbabweans and other peaceloving people of the world should be afraid is the expected presence of Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga as “Guest of Honour” during the MDCT congress.
The presence of Odinga will have so much significance.
Odinga is the man who in December 2007 after alleging vote rigging by incumbent Mwai Kibaki incited violence by his supporters which led to the death of around 1 000 people and the displacement of thousands others.
There was eventually a powersharing agreement between the two rivals which yielded Odinga’s premiership.
“Doing a Kenya” in reference to postelectoral crises has thus become reference to an orgy of violence by those that might think or claim that they have been robbed of victory.
MDCT has not hidden admiration for this, and Odinga per se as Tsvangirai once visited his opposite number to “consult” during the drawnout post electoral negotiations that gave birth to the GPA in 2009.
So Odinga is likely to be giving practical tips on violence when he addresses delegates in Bulawayo during the congress.
That might also include just how to savage each the Kenyan way we saw on television.
There is a lot of symbolism to MDCT’s attachment to Odinga in whom Tsvangirai seeks mentorship, notwithstanding his vaunted admiration for pacifist and Nobel laureate former South African president Nelson Mandela and his portrayal of his party as a host of angels.
Tsvangirai and Odinga are birds of the same feather.
Zimbabwe is only lucky to have not met a Kenya much earlier than Odinga’s brew in December 2007, if only Zimbabweans whether out of the love for peace, being cowardly or by some divine will should have been plunged into senseless violence by Tsvangirai.
It could have happened when he called for the violent removal of President Mugabe in 2000 or through the socalled “pushes” or the “prayer meeting” in Highfield in March 2007.
Both politicians are a creation of the West in trying to effect the socalled “colour revolutions” that the West uses for regime change purposes worldwide.
The National Endowment for Democracy in the US, the Westminster Foundations in Britain are some of the central figures in the regime change projects of the colour revolutions type.
A definition and description of these, as given by French political analyst Thierry Meyssan will suffice.
He explains: “‘Colour revolutions’ are to revolutions what Canada Dry is to beer. They look like the real thing, but they lack the flavour. “They are regime changes which appear to be revolutions because they mobilize huge segments of the population but are more akin to takeovers, because they do not aim at changing social structures. “Instead they aspire to replace an elite with another, in order to carry out proAmerican economic and foreign policies.”
He notes that the main mechanism of the “color revolutions” consists in focusing popular anger on the desired target, an aspect of the psychology of the masses which destroys everything in its path and against which no reasonable argument can be opposed.
“The scapegoat is accused of all the evils plaguing the country for at least one generation. The more he resists, the angrier the mob gets. After he gives in or slips away, the normal division between his opponents and his supporters reappears,” says Meyssan.
He pinpoints that Raila Odinga’s party the Orange Democratic Movement was created by NED in 2006, as America reorganized the opposition to Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.
“He (Odinga) received the support of Senator Barack Obama, who was accompanied by destabilization experts (Mark Lippert, current chief of staff for the national security adviser, and general Jonathan S. Gration, current [as of 2009] US special envoy to Sudan).
“During a meeting with Odinga, the Illinois Senator invented a vague family relationship with the proUS candidate. However Odinga was defeated during the 2007 legislative elections. Supported by Senator John McCain as president of the IRI (the NED’s Republican pseudopod), he disputed the validity of the vote and called for his supporters to take to the streets. This is when anonymous text messages were sent en masse to ethnic Luo voters.
“(The texts read:) ‘Dear Kenyans, the Kikuyu have stolen the future of our children…we must treat them in the only way that they understand… with violence’.”
The result was of course what the world saw on television as December 2007 washed blood into the following year, and the subsequent negotiations and powersharing.
The same was almost replicated in Zimbabwe after the March 29 2008 elections as MDCT a creation of the same AngloSaxon forces and coded red, rallied its supporters over false and premature election results to create conditions ripe for protests over “stolen elections”.
Giving such a casus belli is within the modus operandi of the socalled revolutions which but need a spark to take off.
With these dynamics in mind, it wouldn’t come as a surprise then that Odinga called for the stepping down of President Mugabe to pave way for Tsvangirai as solidarity with a comrade in the mutual service of the AngloSaxon empire.
But then Tsvangirai might have more to identify with Odinga.
They are the same blundering, megaphonic kind.
While Odinga might be noted for such undiplomatic and highhanded instances as the recent howler he put up when he was controversially made a “facilitator” in Ivory Coast which culminated in his unceremonious sacking, Tsvangirai will be remembered for his calling for Zimbabwe’s neighbours to cut essential supplies to the country, among other sanctions.
Was he not the same Tsvangirai whose party called Sadc a club of dictators and wrote to facilitator Thabo Mbeki calling Sadc resolutions a nullity?
(Mbeki had to admonish Tsvangirai and his party that “…it does not help Zimbabwe, nor will it help you as prime minister of Zimbabwe, that the MDC (T) contemptuously repudiates very serious decisions of our region, and therefore our continent, describing them as ‘a nullity’.”)
There could be more examples on both sides.
If the US were objective they would recall the criticism that former Ambassador Christopher Dell leveled against Tsvangirai that he has poor choice of his advisors and hangers on.
Only Tsvangirai and Odinga share a master in the West and they can’t be so bad around each other as viewed by the latter.
For those outside of the system, it is clear as day that Tsvangirai and Odinga make statesmen whom no selfrespecting African would really be proud of or feel honoured to be around.

April 18 deeper, richer…

On April 18, Zimbabwe celebrated 31 years of Independence from British colonial rule.

It is a day that reflects on not only the heroism of Zimbabweans against the brutality and savagery of the British settlers, Rhodesians, and their allies home and abroad but also the achievements that have been made in the 31 years of Independence. However, Independence is under threat from the erstwhile colonisers who use local puppets to try and defeat or pilfer it. Below is an assessment of one such attempt in the mould of Morgan Tsvangirai's "Independence message"

By Tichaona Zindoga

It is beyond equivocation that, as a country that had been under the colonial yoke for 110 years before that happy day on April 18, 1980, the day itself represents something sacred, rich and deep.
It might as well be the Easter of Zimbabwe where blood, tears and sweat were expended so that a new, liberating order prevailed.
One does not have to have participated in the liberation struggle, in its many phases, or for that matter having ran away from it, to appreciate its extent and sanctity.
The rich history of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle against imperialism speaks for itself, with supreme sacrifices that resulted in the loss of life and limb being there to show for it.
Suffice to say, speaking of the day and the related struggles in terms that offend the ideals of Zimbabwe’s Independence is something that might as well equate to blasphemy and sacrilege.
At best this is part of counter-revolutionary mischief.
For example, one cannot speak, without offending sense, of a “struggle” that seeks to undo the gains of the liberation and pretend to champion the cause and the continuum of the struggle that brought April 18 1980.
This is the reason why the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s “Independence message to the people of Zimbabwe” which he delivered through Western-sponsored media, including his own newsletter on the eve of April 18, stands out so revoltingly.
One can observe the following in Tsvangirai’s address:

·    An a-historical, dry and pedestrian mentioning of the attainment of Independence without putting the same into historical context, namely that Zimbabwe got independence from Britain whose settlers had misnamed the country Rhodesia. The same British killed thousands of people whose only crime was to demand to be free from exploitation; reject the theft and plunder of their God-given resources and labour; and demand their own humanity which the colonial system negated profusely.

·    An attempt to dismiss the reality  of Independence, which subsists to this day, by suggesting that it has been rubbished and defeated and, in Tsvangirai’s words, hijacked, by a certain group of people.

·    An attempt at appending Tsvangirai’s own Western regime change agenda to the historic and patriotic struggle for Independence. Tsvangirai does not even sense the irony that his western-regime change agenda, apart from affronting Independence, lets “this country slide back to the dark years of (Western) repression, violence and intimidation”. This has been seen in the scores of countries that have been as unfortunate as to see through the success of the struggles as such Tsvangirai champions here.

·    Tsvangirai’s attempt at selling his “struggle” as people driven and saying Zimbabweans are “ultimately responsible for our own destiny” while it is common knowledge that he daily gets his fodder from the West. Presumably, this speech, like many before it, was prepared for him by some Western forces, or if it didn’t takes much care reflect the same.

·    The typical, anti-majority disposition that seeks to challenge and trash people oriented programmes. Expectedly, the land reform programme and the indigenisation and economic empowerment drive are the objects of Tsvangirai’s discomfort. And you hear him giving puerile and base arguments that these programmes benefit a small clique, despite evidence to the contrary. He might as well go the auction floors to see very ordinary folk trying to outdo each other in selling their tobacco crop to see the fatuity of his argument. Agriculture as driven by the 300 000 families that benefited from the land reform programme is leading the economic recovery of Zimbabwe. His secretary General and Finance Minister Tendai. The ongoing exercize of indigenisation can only go in that direction.

In light of the foregoing, one can see that the man who only yesterday trashed and did not attend Independence celebrations is trying to have ownership of the day by trying to be relevant.
He even tries to be sophistic.
It is like the Devil himself has laid his filthy hand on the Gospel and tries to run away with it.
But he should not be allowed to.
Granted, Independence is for everyone, including traitors.
But they cannot be trusted to provide or show the way.
Says Tsvangirai: “The coming year will also hold many challenges, dangers and difficult choices. But we have already shown that we have the conviction, the courage and the belief in our own capacity to overcome any hurdles and to build the society that we want.
“As we enter our 32nd year of liberation, there will be many treacherous voices trying to convince you to shed away your determination for a new and democratic Zimbabwe. All I ask you is to trust in your heart and to embrace the democratic ideals of our fallen heroes and to remain steadfast in your dedication to building a truly free society. Twenty years after independence we were told that the land would set us free. The same land was later grabbed by avaricious politicians and the well-connected in our society.
“Now, thirty years after independence we are being told by multi-millionaires and multiple farm-owners that indigenisation will set us free. By this they are not referring to broad-based empowerment of the ordinary man and woman, but the looting and plunder of national resources by a small, parasitic elite.
“Let us not be diverted or distracted by empty rhetoric. Let us not grasp at seemingly easy, short-term gains while continuing to live under the yoke of repression, by individuals driven by partisan political motives and personal greed.”
This excerpt shows two aspects of Tsvangirai’s sophistry and fallacy.
He vainly tries to convince his readers that heroes of Zimbabwe sacrificed, and for others, fell to achieve certain “democratic ideals” which he needs not mention are those daily preached by the West which sponsors him.
 Tsvangirai does not have the insight or the courage to tell the world that the West denied Zimbabweans any democracy and only had to be taught by the gun to admit to people’s will.
It can only be the daft and the dishonest and delusional to think that the West is out to promote democracy in the world.
So Tsvangirai thinks that there can be greater “courage and the belief in our own capacity to overcome any hurdles and to build the society that we want” than that which was championed by liberation fighters.
He ought to explain how a party that is bent on undoing the gains of the anti-West liberation struggle by seeking to bring back Western domination amounts to well-meaning self-determination.
The second aspect relates to Tsvangirai, and by extension, the West’s fear of the majority power, in this case economically.
If one were to ask a farmer at the tobacco auction floors today if his getting the land that has seen him venture into a former preserve for the white minority would he say that amounts to treachery, or he would say that trying to reverse land reform does?
Owning industries and making employers of the previously marginalized black majority, the vision of the indigenisation drive, cannot amount to treachery.
Unless, of course, one is part of that minority or a beneficiary thereof, in the oft horse-rider relationship.
Thus Tsvangirai betrays himself for the political character he is today: one that increasingly feels the power of the continuum of the liberation story which he has so far tried deny and defeat.
And since he cannot defeat it, he tries to poach it and adopt it for his own treacherous cause.
He distorts and he distracts.
His is a strong case of someone who puts a fly into a bottle of perfume, as one Biblical passage notes, resulting in the perfume losing essence.
Then Tsvangirai says he makes a “commitment today that I will lead the collective national effort to complete the unfinished business of the liberation struggle by ensuring that true freedom returns to this great country of our birth”.
One wonders what this other “unfinished business of the liberation struggle” can be (and this reminds one of that equally dubious Tendai Biti statement when he talked of the late nationalist Joshua Nkomo).
Zimbabwe’s heroes, fallen or living, conceivably will not accept to be lectured on that which they fought for by someone who says the land and business ownership are a “distraction” and treachery.
These men and women that fought segregation cannot be told today that they sacrificed their lives to be condemned into the hands of the very same West that they fought only yesterday.

Libyan Rebels: Dependent Minions of US and Europe

The actual "club" that threatens black Africa and Arab Africa and all the world's people's, is the Euro-American club: France, Britain, Belgium, the United States and the other world-enslavers that are joined in the hyper-aggressive military "club" called NATO – the most dangerous club on the planet!
Trinicenter

By Glen Ford
The rebels in Benghazi have rejected an African Union delegation proposal for a ceasefire in Libya – a plan that was accepted by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi over the weekend. The reaction in Benghazi was no surprise. The five heads of state from Mauritania, Mali, Congo-Brazzaville, Uganda and South Africa would have been chased down the streets and lynched by mobs had the western news media not been watching, so rabid is the anti-black hysteria whipped up by the rebel political leadership. If anyone needs protection in rebel-held Libya, it is people with dark skin, hundreds of whom have been murdered for no offense other than their color. Spokesmen for the rebel transitional council claim to be fighting phantom Black African armies, mirages that do not exist – a despicable use of race as a tool of war.

In reality, the rebels are not in a position to accept or reject anything. Whatever their political composition may have been when protests against the government in Tripoli began back in February, they are now totally dependent minions of the United States and Europe. They have chosen to become soldiers of an Arab counterrevolution in the service of imperialism. What kind of revolution – what kind of Arab nationalism – is it, that begs for intervention and close air support from the imperial super-power?

The African Union heads of state had to seek approval for their delegation from the European Union, according to the BBC. Western media dismissed the peace mission as suspect, many of them referring to the African Union as a "club" for the benefit of African rulers. If that is so, it is a circumstance for Africans to deal with. The actual "club" that threatens black Africa and Arab Africa and all the world's people's, is the Euro-American club: France, Britain, Belgium, the United States and the other world-enslavers that are joined in the hyper-aggressive military "club" called NATO – the most dangerous club on the planet!

"The Euro-Americans also bear responsibility for migrant workers' plight."

The African Union proposal called for an immediate ceasefire, suspension of NATO airstrikes, a dialogue between the Gaddafi government and the rebels, unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid, and protection of foreign nationals. The last item points to the obscene behavior of the rebels and their Euro-American overseers, especially. Three million foreign workers did the manual labor that kept Libya's economy going, so that six million Libyans could enjoy the highest standard of living, by far, on the African continent. Half of those foreign workers, 1.5 million, are black Africans, whose abuse in rebel-held areas since February will stain the national honor of Libya for a generation. The Euro-Americans also bear responsibility for migrant workers' plight, as self-appointed protectors of Libya's civilian population. Yet they have failed to maintain a safe corridor to Egypt for the hunted and despised black Africans, making a mockery of the United Nations resolution, and showing the NATO war for what it is: a neocolonial crusade.

The real heroes in any Twenty-first Century war are those who are willing to stand up to the "full-spectrum domination" of U.S. air power. Gaddafi's soldiers have earned the respect of all those that do not worship at the alter of imperial power. The Libyan rebel leaders have chosen to be pawns in someone else's Great Game.