Zimbabwe Information Center in North America
A project of the North American Coalition for a Free Zimbabwe (NACFREEZ)
MDC
By Stanford G. Mukasa
Letter from America
August 6, 2007
Jocelyn Chiwengwa is a textbook case for Mugabe's psychiatric analysis
Jocelyn Chiwengwa, the wife of the commander of the Zimbabwean army has done it again.
She recently assaulted a reporter for what she alleged was negativism in the mass media coverage of Zimbabwe. Then, according to reports, she went after MDC president, Morgan Tsvangirai, who happened to be in the same store and threatened to “take away” his manhood.
After slapping the reporter she then ordered her bodyguard to do likewise. But the bodyguard refused.
According to reports last week she ordered staff at the Makro shop in Harare to close doors. They dutifully complied, trapping many shoppers, even though Tsvangirai’s bodyguards had managed to whisk him out.
Some three years ago the same Jocelyn charged at a white commercial farmer with her infamous sentence “I have not tasted the white man’s blood for a long time.” She then ordered her bodyguards to shoot the white farmer. The bodyguards refused.
Many people were reminded of another occasion when the same Jocelyn Chiwengwa punched a human rights lawyer, Gugulethu Moyo, whose only crime had been to secure the release of her client.
In a radio interview last week with Voice of America’s Studio 7 Jocelyn boastfully admitted she had assaulted the reporter. She even threatened further assaults on all kinds of people for a variety of reasons that ranged from advocating for sanctions against Mugabe to writing negative things about Zimbabwe.
In a subsequent interview with SWRA Jocelyn appeared to deny she had ever assaulted anyone. Then she wrote a lengthy email to the online publication ZIMDAILY suing the media for $2 billion, a figure which she said would be incrementally increased each time the ZIMDAILY commented further.
A few years ago she said she had assembled a team of lawyers who were preparing to sue a radio station.
Nothing has been heard since.
The latest threat to sue ZIMDAILY brought about a flood of fiery comments from people, mostly Zimbabweans abroad, and almost all of them attacking Jocelyn. Some of the emails came from people who said they had personally known, interacted and/or lived with Jocelyn. Others claimed they had had one—night stands with her. The information they posted online revealed Jocelyn’s dark shadowy past. How much of it was true or not remains to be seem. But a clear pattern in Jocelyn character has emerged.
What was particularly significant about Jocelyn’s outbursts on Voice of America interview was her proclamation for the world to know that Zimbabwe is now being ruled by the military and that anyone who dared oppose the ZANUPF government would be dealt with severely. She used a Shona word which simply meant “We will beat them severely.”
It is all too easy to dismiss Jocelyn’s outbursts as the ranting of a person who some people say has a mental problem.
But there is something about Jocelyn’s character that deserves some analysis.
In the first place this is the first revelation by a top ZANUPF official that the country is now under military rule or the securocacy. It points to the fact that power in Zimbabwe now effectively lies with the military – something many people had long suspected.
While this comes from what some people describe as a mad woman there is a great deal of credibility in it, considering the fact that Jocelyn lives, and presumably shares the same bed, with the commander of the Zimbabwe’s army that numbers about 30,000. She is undoubtedly privy to the activities of her husband. She has firsthand knowledge and, possibly experience, that the military now effectively controls every facet of Zimbabwe.
The fact that she could without any shame or fear of arrest, assault in broad daylight a journalist, order a supermarket to close doors and openly threaten to assault the president of the opposition party, speaks volumes of just how she sees herself as above the law and how much effective political power she feels she has by virtue of being the wife of an army commander.
Jocelyn, also without any shame or embarrassment, boasted that anyone who opposes ZANUPF was a candidate for a thorough savage assault. This, again, is consistent with the observed behavior of ZANUPF. Human rights organizations have now documented an escalation of assaults on supporters of the opposition movement, notably the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai.
But above everything else lies the fact that Jocelyn is an accurate representation of the ZANUPF psychosis. She is the window through which Zimbabweans and the world can learn a great deal about what Mugabe and ZANUPF have become. If one wanted to study Mugabe and ZANUPF carefully, you only need to study Jocelyn. The only difference between Jocelyn and most of ZANUPF top officials is she boasts the most loudly about it.
What, then, are the characteristics of Jocelyn that people can learn about Mugabe and ZANUPF?
She has a superiority complex. She believes she can do practically anything she wants with absolutely no regard for the law. She sees herself above the law. This is one strand of character that runs through all ZANUPF officials.
Jocelyn has a sense of ultimate political and military power. She believes she can, by the virtue of the fact that her husband commands the national army, wield a great deal of political influence to her advantage. Reports say she has used her political clout, although she has denied it, in acquiring businesses and lucrative government contracts.
From her interviews Jocelyn’s character comes through as follows:
She has only one strategy for dealing with the opposition party supporters – assault them, beat them even until they are lifeless.
She has also one explanation for the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe namely, sanctions by Britain and the United States.
She has one major ambition in life – seizure of businesses and commercial farms. She is motivated by sheer greed. She has no entrepreneurial skills.
Jocelyn is uncontrollably drunk with both power and wealth.
She is incoherent, illogical, and incapable of engaging in a rational and civilized debate. She cannot answer a specific question with a coherent response. She easily self-inflates with uncontrollable anger and temper. Her schizophrenic paralysis of reason and humanity has given way to what some people have concluded to be a classic mental case – a psychosis that degenerates people into barbarians.
Yet she is not alone in this type of behavior. Jocelyn Chiwengwa is a textbook case in understanding ZANUPF behavior.
By observing and listening to Jocelyn Chiwengwa one can profile accurately the nature, structure and behavior of the monster called ZANUPF. The profile of Mugabe and ZANUPF is that of a group of power hungry individuals who have no capacity to generate wealth.
These individuals are militant and violent. They have the control of the army, police and intelligence agencies. They are determined to seize and hold on to the wealth they have not created. They have the monopoly of violence and will not hesitate to use it in order to protect their ill acquired wealth. Their political stratagem is to use the state system to protect their loot which they stole from the State.
There is, therefore, a challenge to the opposition movement. How do you deal with monsters and crazy people like Mugabe and ZANUPF?
Can these monsters ever be civilized enough to negotiate rationally or peacefully without resorting to violence?
Is it in their nature to be non violent? Or, like the leopard’s spots, are Mugabe and ZANUPF now perpetually condemned to the life of violence?
Can the opposition movement realistically expect to sit across the table with Mugabe and ZANUPF, discuss and reach an agreement on resolving the crisis of governance that has wreaked havoc on the country? How do you deal with mental cases like Jocelyn Chiwengwa, Robert Mugabe and ZANUPF?
Jocelyn Chiwengwa‘s outbursts at Makro store, and her behavior elsewhere, is a microcosm of the nature of the ZANUPF beast the opposition must contend with. The big question is: What non violent strategies can the opposition movement adopt to deal with the ZANUPF monster?