By David Coltart
The Herald has fallen into the ZANUPF propaganda line that
the disappearance of Dr Peter Magombeyi is “fake” and deliberately engineered
by the opposition to embarrass Mnangagwa.
Aside from the fact that there have been some 51
disappearances this year and not one prosecution, the question must be asked
what other things have happened this year which are fake and solely contrived
to embarrass Mnangagwa? Was the gunning down of some 17 civilians by the
military in January fake or done by pseudo operators solely to embarrass
Mnangagwa? Are the revelations of billions stolen from Command Agriculture
funds fake and also designed to embarrass?
As absurd as the propaganda line is, it remains profoundly
sinister. For not only does it seek to shift the blame for these
disappearances, but it also seeks to give the regime even greater cover going
forward. Once the regime believes it has sown this falsehood in the minds of
people and in particular the international community, it wil then think it has
licence to disappear even more people with impunity- because it can then just
blame it on the opposition, no matter how outlandish it may appear.
This is not be the first time ZANUPF and Mr Mnangagwa has
done this. In the 1980s all sorts of criminal acts were blamed on ZAPU and
dissidents. History now shows that many of these criminal acts, if not most,
were committed by agent provocateurs acting under the directions of the ZANUPF
government.
The MDC and civic organizations have repeatedly declared
their commitment to the use of non violent, lawful and constitutional measures
in seeking to have the Constitution of Zimbabwe respected by the ZANUPF regime.
Despite ZANUPF’s unrelenting efforts to portray the opposition as violent it
has failed because there isn’t a shred of evidence that the opposition is
prepared to use illegal and violent methods to achieve its goals.
The recent spate of abductions must be seen in this light.
ZANUPF is prepared to go to the lengths it has because of its current paranoia.
Not only does this tactic of disappearing people have a chilling effect on
activists angry with ZANUPF’s policies, but ZANUPF appears to think that it may
provide them with another pretext to crack down on the opposition.
The international community must be alive to these
machinations and to the historical record. The latter shows that ZANUPF is an
entity which has systematically disappeared its opponents for 4 decades - and
which has sought to blame those same disappearances on the opposition itself.
It has resorted to this again because it has never been held to account for its
past actions. It is critically important that the international community let ZANUPF
know that it will not look the other way this time round. Via Facebook
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