
Foreign organisations are coordinating workshops and
training in Zimbabwe, the region and overseas to effect regime change in the
country.
Also in the mix are individuals that security services in
Zimbabwe have been watching.
According to information at hand, the organisations are
seeking to unleash a massive wave of violent demonstrations beginning next
month, with ring leaders of civil unrest having received training in the Czech
Republic and the Maldives
Further, the Herald has been told that after the trainings,
the groups came and gave briefings to MDC-Alliance president, Mr Nelson
Chamisa.
There is a group undergoing training in the Maldives, which
started on Tuesday and ends on Sunday and is being conducted by Centre for
Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), a Serbian organisation which
trained MDC activists involved in the coordination of the January 14 to 16
violent protests.
Eight local activists, including a multimedia journalist
from NewsDay, are attending the programme and will be instrumental in training
and instigating mayhem to be rolled out in June.
The eight are drawn from various civic organisations which
include Women’s Academy for Leadership and Political Excellency, Centre for
Community Development, Trust Africa, Rozaria Memorial Trust and Community
Tolerance and Reconciliation Trust.
CANVAS was founded in 2003 by Serbian nationals Srdja
Popovic and Ivan Morovic and has been involved in the training of
anti-government activists in Azerbajan, Belarus, Georgia, Iran, Lebanon, Tibet,
Ukraine and Venezuela.
MDC activists who attended the training in the Czech
Republic were sponsored by Trust Africa (Zimbabwe) which is headed by Mr Briggs
Bomba, who also heads Zimbabwe Alliance, a donor collaborative sponsoring
regime change efforts in the country.
According to documents leaked from Mr Chamisa’s office, the
MDC and Trust Africa seconded six members to the workshop, which was held in
Prague, from May 6 to 10.
The purpose of the workshop was to share transitional
experiences of countries such as Argentina, Georgia, Poland, Russia and the
Czech Republic, among others. The workshop was funded by National Endowment for
democracy (NED), an American private and non-profit organisation which focuses
on “strengthening democratic institutions”.
Although Mr Bomba did not return calls as promised by his
office, a source at Morgan Tsvangirai House – the MDC headquarters – confirmed
details of the workshop held at CEVRO Institute, a private university in
Prague, owned by a civic organisation with the same name.
According to the CEVRO website, the organisation was
established in 1999 in Prague, as a non-profit organisation “seeking to support
democratic development home and abroad”.
“The workshop was held at CEVRO Institute, Jungmannova 17,
111000 Prague 1, Room Number 218. The workshop topics focused on dismantling of
the State Security apparatus and the investigation and prosecution of the
crimes of the regime, among others.
“Case studies on the transition experiences were drawn from
Georgia, Estonia, Argentina, Poland and Czech Republic. The activists also
toured the Chamber of Deputies and Senate of the Parliament of the Czech
Republic.
“The workshop follows efforts to push for the formation of
a transitional authority in Zimbabwe in the aftermath of the 2018 harmonised
elections,” the source said.
The workshop was also attended by activists from Vietnam,
Armenia, Azerbaijah, Bolivia, Burma, Burundi, North Korea, Uganda and
Venezuela.
According to the training programme, topics were based on
the Georgian, Estonian, German, Polish, Russian and Czech experiences and
centred on the dismantling of state security apparatus, prosecution of regime
crimes and transformation of political system.
Presenters included CEVRO director Jiri Kozak; Anton
Vacharadze, direction head at the Institute for Development of Freedom of
Information; Gabriela Ippolito-O´Donnell, director of the School of Politics at
the University of El Salvador; and Franciszek D’browski, a lecturer at the
Academy of Warfare in Warsaw.
“The workshop focused on how to unseat authoritarian
regimes using peaceful means. Modus operandi for the unseating would include
massive demonstrations, sit-ins, student protests, civil disobedience and
online activism. What we want to do is to pressurise the regime into
concessions with protestors. The most powerful tool to be used is grassroots
mobilisation and use of the internet for sharing information. This is exactly
what we did during the January protests, we used the internet,” the MDC source
said.
“We have been told that the security sector’s top hierarchy
is disgruntled with the current regime and is willing to work with Nelson
Chamisa but are fearful of their future in the aftermath of regime change. We
have suggested that Chamisa should approach the security sector’s top hierarchy
and assure them of no reprisals if the MDC wins.”
The MDC has previously denied instigating and coordinating
public violence, especially on August 1, 2018 and January 14 to 16 this year.
The August 1 post-election violence left six people dead
and property worth millions of dollars was destroyed in Harare.
Prior to the election, Mr Chamisa had threatened that he
would make Zimbabwe ungovernable if he did not win.
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