Stanford Biti and his branch executive maybe unaware of the underhand ROHR political initiative that isled by Tapa in getting back at the Premier and MDC President.
After an absence of between a year to a decade the looming prospect of a return to Zimbabwe for Zimbabwean nationals who sought refuge from political tyranny and the economic morass in the country is indeed a ghastly event to contemplate for most of the refugees.
This was amply demonstrated by the jeering and booing that was elicited from the over 1000 strong contingent that attended the Zimbabwe Premier’s public rally at the Southwark Cathedral on Saturday, 21 June 2009.
The Zimbabwe Premier, former opposition MDC leader now in coalition with Mugabe’s former ruling Zanu PF party and a smaller faction of the MDC under Deputy Premier Professor Mutambara’s stewardship took time off his gruelling Western Nations visit aimed at reviving severed relations with the block to explain and project what the future holds for the refugees.
They did not like what they heard from the Premier and they did not hide their repugnancy.
The Premier had called on all Zimbabwe refugees to start making arrangements to return to their homeland citing political and economic improvements brought about by the SADC coerced consummation of the coalition government.
They jeered and booed forcing the Premier to make a strategic retreat from the podium until they had regained their composure and prepared to listen after which he took to the podium and fielded questions from the floor.
The call
What triggered the Premier’s audience to respond as they did was the Premier statement below;
“What is our message to Zimbabweans in the Diaspora? Let me state here and I will state it boldly that Zimbabweans must come home.”
The crowd went into shrills of discontent and started chanting the MDC slogan “Chinja” (Change) in unison drowning attempts from the Premier to explain himself.
The Premier’s call was widely expected after he had made similar calls while in the USA. It is a well meant call from a Premier whose task to put the pieces of a ravaged economy and national social fabric was probably ill-timed.
From the very onset the MDC UK and I Province that organised the rally was not in consensus about the function given simmering leadership divisions in its executive.
The party province that is among the top sponsors of the party has among its leadership disgruntled cadres who are unhappy with the coalition government union and exclusions from ministerial appointments of certain party stalwarts.
This discord has been hugely exploited by the fall guys in the Ephraim Tapa led executive that was dissolved in 2007 and morphed up as the Civic group Restoration of Human Rights (ROHR) within the Zimbabwe Vigil which had sponsored Tapa and Mutyambizi’s ascendance to the MDC UK and I provincial leadership before they were exposed as impostors with little understanding of how the MDC party is geared and operates and relieved of their leadership roles.
What emerged as a spontaneous show of discontent with what the Premier had called upon exiled Zimbabweans to consider was in effect a well planned political initiative by ROHR and the Zimbabwe Vigil to embarrass the Premier by disrupting the Southwark rally and the private dinner that the Premier held with a select group of party supporters prepared to part with a whopping £75 per head to be in the Premier’s company at the dinner table.
After leading the rowdy behaviour at the rally Stenford Biti and Adella Chiminya were dispatched to the Premier’s hotel to go and dissuade the Premier from attending the private dinner at the Royal Over-Seas League Club that had been fully subscribed to.
The duo had already convinced Premiership Chief Spokesman and Permanent Secretary James Maridadi and Ian Makone respectively that the Premier’s attendance at the private dinner would be greeted with an equally if not worse protest to that witnessed at the rally.
The intention was never to demonstrate at the dinner venue but for the function to be cancelled so that the people who had pre-paid for the function would cause commotion by demanding refunds from the MDC organisers of the Function Izzy Mutanaurwa and Provincial Treasurer Tendai Goneso.
That would have been the perfect embarrassment for the Premier’s party. But it failed when the premier received intelligence of the intention and dispatched Secretary Ian Makone to reconnaissance the dinner venue and evaluates safety as well as the mood in the venue.
As fate would have it Ian Makone fell back on Stenford Biti’s availability for escort to the venue and on arrival found the place convenient in every respect for the Premier’s dinner.
The attendance was then confirmed much to the chagrin of the Vigil/ROHR emissaries who informed their principals that their mission had fallen through after unforeseen interventions caused Ian Makone to inspect the venue.
The only possibility the anti-Premier grouping had of disrupting the dinner was to sponsor hecklers to book into the occasion but when they arrived they found the subscriptions closed and could not be accommodated dealing a final blow to their wicked intentions.
But it was rather pitiful to see Provincial Secretary Sakhile Mtombeni pleading with gate security to be allowed in and finally seeking assistance of Provincial organising secretary Jaison Matewu to be admitted.
Why a senior party official like Mtombeni would have to negotiate entry to a party function in which he is by position second most powerful after the Chairman baffles the mind and points to the divisions at the top leadership of the Province.
The absurdity
Exiled genuine Zimbabwean refugees have multiple genuine misgivings about the coalition government which they are entitled to openly voice concern about and seek redress of.
They have been away from the country for many years most of which have gone to waste as they struggled to obtain refugee status and seek gainful employment forcing them to live on host governments and humanitarian charity.
Many fled vicious political violence that ravaged not just their homes but also life savings which they used to buy flight tickets to wherever they are now domiciled.
Those that managed to get asylum status and the right to work found themselves restricted to working in lower end menial jobs which were not cognisant of their training and experience.
Earnings were low and insufficient for them to atone for their losses and while the more enterprising took advantage of the economic downturn and accumulated assets back in Zimbabwe the majority just could not afford the demands of dual residence and managed to sustain lifestyles that they never imagined possible in their country of origin and never prepared for a day when the situation would not justify their stay in exile.
Most of the refugees were also exploited to sponsor the struggle for democracy in their country of origin by vultures in organisations like ROHR and The Vigil that promised them help in their asylum applications if they bought fake MDC party membership cards.
Unfortunately very few lucky ones benefited from their membership in these hazy organisations and yet were made to believe that it was the MDC that was letting them down after becoming “members” of the party and the party leadership refusing to support their applications notwithstanding the support and endorsements from the nefarious organisations.
By and large the situation on the ground in the country has drastically improved from those years when most refugees gapped it but they are far from ideal. The Premier has admitted same but invokes ire in refugees when he refuses to publicly condemn Zanu PF excesses after the formation of the coalition government.
They hate it when the premier appears powerless to stop farm invasions, wanton arrests of activists from his party and declares that there are no political prisoners in the country when scores of MP’s, Party activists, Ministers, Civil Society activists and Party administrators from the MDC he leads are being persecuted for political crimes in courts yet nothing seems to be done about Zanu PF activists who led the orgy of violence that displaced them.
To add insult to injury the premier in his capacity as MDC leader is widely seen as ungrateful for the support his party got from the diaspora as he has not accommodated anyone from Diaspora leadership of the party other than Roy Bennett into the quota of his appointments in the coalition government, neither has he accommodated them on various Conferences and Commissions underway.
Mugabe denied them the vote and the premier is seen as perpetuating that disenfranchisement by publicly misleading the world on realities on the ground and then having the temerity to request the Diasporans to obvious Zanu PF servitude they ran away from in the first instance.
They accuse the Premiership of misrepresentations and blinded leadership of the party and reckless abandon after being stripped of all powers in government by the President and loathed Zanu PF leader he now praises as if he never caused the exiles harm.
Diasporans legitimately argue that no sane person who has escaped the Zanu PF scripted inferno that engulfed the country in the past decade to the frying pan of the diaspora would consider jumping back into the raging fire in Zimbabwe at present with the hope of helping a lame duck Premier extinguish it.
Farm invasions, lack of national currency, snail paced economic reforms, dilapidated service delivery infrastructure, arbitrary politically motivated judicial persecutions, unimplemented portions of the GPA, lack of progress on media, security and constitutional reforms as well as failure to accommodate diaspora representation in the coalition government are all cited as reasons why the premier’s call for refugees to return are ill timed and unconvincing.
The irony of it is that the call made as it was in more than one of their sanctuaries has the greatest potential of influencing hosts to repatriate the refugees prematurely and exposing them to even greater hardships than those they ran away from.
But all this is misplaced apprehension because the Premier has not stated that Zimbabweans must be repatriated back to Zimbabwe forthwith but merely appealed to those of his fellow citizens that have been advantaged by exposure to external economies to seriously consider returning to the country and help in its monumental reconstruction.
For people to jeer and harangue their most well placed change agent over such a cry for help and demand him to use blunted and tired manpower resources to achieve the changes they desire before they consider returning to their homeland is pathetic.
Zimbabwe does not belong to the Premier and those who are trapped in it alone. It is our country and we can shape its destiny together through participation in the best manner we know how but certainly not through booing and jeering.
Indeed we need to make it clear to those leaders we trust are better placed to make a difference to our lives that we will not be prepared to be led up the garden paths but we demand real and last changes to the way our country is managed so that we will never slide back into the gloom of the past two decades.
The Premier was taken aback by the behaviour of the exiled Zimbabweans but not daunted. After listening to some of the views expressed on the live Zimnet Radio talk show on 21 June 2009 I am determined more than ever to do whatever I can to ensure we reclaim our place in shaping the reconstruction of the Zimbabwe we want even if it means sacrificing some luxuries accessible to me at present.
My prayer is that the Diaspora provincial leadership of the MDC that has done so wonderfully well in sponsoring the party be granted the extra energy to show direction for their membership that the struggle will never be completed to its logical conclusion without their unwavering support.
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