27 June 2006
Posted to the web 27 June 2006

Reason Wafawarova
Harare

WHILE international propaganda finds good politics in portraying Zanu-PF as a violent party thriving on the blood of its opponents in the main opposition factions one may need to take a look at the culture of violence in the MDC.

Tsholotsho legislator Jonathan Moyo used to repeatedly say that the MDC was a violent party and many chose to dismiss his assertions as Government propaganda spinning from a hired spin-doctor.

I have always personally thought that he based his assertions on the physical abuse he personally suffered in Mutare in January 2000 during the "Yes Vote" campaign.

The MDC was a product of the 1998 violent food riots when Morgan Tsvangirai and his colleagues in the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) mobilised workers to oppose the 3 percent development levy, that had mutated from the drought levy of the preceding years.

Many may remember how buses were torched, shops looted, private cars smashed, roads blocked and many were wounded and those who did not participate were beaten up.

This was the climax of Tsvangirai's political profile, the height of his political success. It is the standard he has thrived to reach once more by his numerous fruitless attempts at "mass actions", "final pushes" and "winter battles".

Of course what Tsvangirai "achieved" in 1998 cannot be repeated, at least by him, but we need to look further into why violence has become endemic in the MDC.

The party was formed as a coalition of the ZCTU, the Zimbabwe National Students Union (Zinasu), the NCA, and the Rhodesian Front.

When these groups met to form the MDC, the ZCTU was boasting of an impressive record of having masterminded the most "successful" violent demonstrations after independence, after the Government acceded to its demands to scrap the development levy.

The students' body, Zinasu weighed in with the culture of violence that had been perfected at the University of Zimbabwe since the Arthur Mutambara-masterminded October 4 1989 demonstrations that led to an indefinite closure of the campus.

The students were reminding their colleagues of the October 4 running battles with the police as well as the infamous 1995 warlords who are better known for urinating into refrigerators and freezers containing their food in protest over food rations.

President Mugabe called them "magamba ehondo yesadza nenyama" at the funeral of the late national hero, Cde Zororo Duri when he compared the late hero's exploits during his days at the then University of Rhodesia to the behaviour of these hooligans and thugs.

The NCA weighed in, albeit in a little way by citing how they had disrupted Jonathan Moyo and his "Yes Vote" campaign team at every opportunity throughout the country.

They claimed that their otherwise shameful acts of thuggery had actually won them the vote against the Constitutional Commission's draft constitution.

The ex-Rhodesian Front service men in their ranks were obviously boasting of the way they had introduced the ruthless tactics of the Selous Scouts who tortured and killed many people during the liberation struggle.

This combination was always going to use confrontation to meet its political aspirations, the obsessive desire to take over power by any means necessary.

They however found that Zanu-PF was no pushover and resorted to playing "poor victims" to the Western gallery.

Indeed they got massive coverage as persecuted advocates of democracy. For all that is known, many in the MDC ranks are well known thugs who cannot pass for saints, thus one wonders how such people can be at the forefront of a "peaceful democratic movement".

The recent chronicling of the culture of violence in the MDC by its founding secretary for legal affairs, David Coltart was just a confirmation of what has always been the nature of the MDC.

Of course Coltart never saw evil when the MDC was burning public-owned buses, petrol bombing that Kuwadzana building during Nelson Chamisa's 2003 campaign and attacking National Youth Service personnel from their base at Harvest House.

He only discovered how evil the culture of violence was when Tsvangirai started using the machinery of violence against his opponents in the MDC, including female legislators like Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga.

The culture of violence is entrenched in the opposition and people like the Tsvangirai faction Harare provincial secretary, Morgan Femai who promised to "stamp out" Mutambara's group, are convinced it is a legitimate practice.

That is why they publicly and unashamedly call on their supporters to beat opponents should they see them anywhere near perceived MDC strongholds.

The fact that the MDC is perceived to have a strong youth base makes the culture of violence a sad development for the political future of the country.

The West is not sponsoring democracy at all.

Rather they are soundly funding a bunch of thugs and hooligans who are likely to make democracy very difficult to practise.

To the MDC democratic values are a threat and all we can hope to see is a culture of violent confrontation unless the party decides to decisively deal with this scourge that has no place in Zimbabwean society.