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
February 25, 2008
The vultures are circling over Mugabe and ZANUPF
In the latest wave of protests against the Robert Mugabe regime , a group of Zimbabweans demonstrated outside the Zimbabwean embassy in Washington DC on February 22.
The protest was organized by Global Zimbabwe Forum -- North America as part of a worldwide mobilization of Zimbabweans to demand their right to vote in the March 29 elections.
The Zimbabweans also presented a petition to the ambassador, and staged a mock vote in front of the embassy.
President Robert Mugabe’s regime has emphatically refused to allow the Zimbabweans in Diaspora, who number about 4 million, to vote.
This means about one third of the country’s population has been effectively disenfranchised.
At the start of the protest there was only one police car with one police officer from the United States secret service which is charged with protecting diplomatic institutions based in Washington DC.
Protesters took positions and held their posters high in front of the embassy building and started singing and dancing.
Initially everything seemed alright, with the secret service officer sitting in his police vehicle nearby.
However, one of the protesters brought and opened a 30- foot banner which read: Zimbabweans in Diaspora demand their right to vote.
The large black letters against the yellow background drew considerable attention from the neighborhood. It also energized the protesters who began to sing and dance with even greater vigor.
In a matter of minutes three additional police cars with sirens blaring came to a screeching halt at the embassy. Some officers went to knock on the embassy door and entered while others spoke with the protest organizers.
It became clear that the embassy had called the police because they were increasingly nervous about the protest which was becoming more vociferous.
It was reliably learned from people with inside information that the embassy staff had not been paid for three months as a result of foreign exchange problems perennially besetting Mugabe’s regime.
Incidentally, one of the protesters’ banners read : Zimbabweans in Diaspora remit $1 million a days to Zimbabwe.
The police told the protesters to keep the entrance to the embassy as well as a sidewalk clear. Protesters promptly complied with the order as it had never been a major problem in the first place.
This apparently brought puzzled looks on some of the police officers who had been brought in as reinforcements.
One of the police officers was overheard saying to his colleague: “I don’t know why they called us here.” An obvious reference to the embassy staff!
Some of the protesters held up for the police to see posters with pictures of the victims of Mugabe’s brutality.
One protester told an officer that the embassy staff is used in Zimbabwe to calling the police to come and beat protesters.
If this had been Zimbabwe police would have beaten up the protesters for no reason and hauled them to jail.
Although they remained professional the police officers appeared to appreciate the cause of the protesters. They even allowed the protesters to use a bullhorn or loud speaker which the protesters had brought but had voluntarily not used initially.
At another protest against Mugabe at the United Nations one police officer said she could not believe her eyes when she saw the poster of badly assaulted opposition supporters.
The reaction by the embassy staff was indicative of the nervousness of ZANUPF’s apprehensiveness at the mass dissatisfaction of the Mugabe regime and all it stands for.
In their petition to the ambassador and Mugabe protesters listed six demands, namely,
1. To ALLOW Zimbabweans in Diaspora to vote;
2. To RESPECT and IMPLEMENT the SADC protocol for conducting elections;
3. To IMPLEMENT before elections the agreements so far reached with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change;
4. To POSTPONE elections to at least June to allow for the leveling of the playing field for elections;
5. To ALLOW members of the opposition movement and civil society to hold their rallies and protests without harassment and assaults from the police and army.
6. To ALLOW international observers under the auspices of the United Nations to come to monitor the elections.
Another significant part of the protest was the mock vote. Each Zimbabwean at the protest was given a ballot with names of three presidential candidates and a space for a write-in candidate.
The results were: Tsvangirai won by 83 percent, followed by Mugabe with 11 percent and Makoni with six percent. Tsvangirai was subsequently declared the winner of the mock presidential election.
The demonstration was part of a growing number of protests against Mugabe worldwide. And the reaction of the embassy staff was predictable and symptomatic of an embattled regime. The ambassador or his staff had called the police to complain about the protesters.
Whoever called the police was probably hoping and praying that they would come and disperse, beat or arrest the protesters. As it turned out the police allowed the demonstrators to continue as long as they did not block the entrance to the embassy. An officer from the state department escorted one of the demonstrators to present a petition inside the embassy.
The winds of change are now pummeling ferociously on Zimbabwe. The protests at the Zimbabwe embassy were replicated with similar demonstrations in South Africa and the United Kingdom.
The Movement for Democratic Change recorded one of its largest rallies in Mutare when 60,000 people came to the launching of the MDC campaign.
In contrast, Mugabe‘s birthday bash in Beit Bridge was attended by mostly school children forcibly bussed to the venue of the birthday where $3 trillion was spent.
Protesters in South Africa, reportedly numbering over 1,000, staged a demonstration just across the border. To make their presence felt, they flew hot air balloons displaying anti Mugabe messages.
With his back against the wall and facing a massive rejection at the polls, Mugabe is now relying on his tried and tested strategy for winning elections, namely, rigging.
But with Simba Makoni potentially commanding support from some disgruntled elements deep inside ZANUPF, rigging elections may not be so easy for Mugabe. In his battle for political survival Mugabe has lined up a number plans in case one strategy fails.
There is still the military directorate that, if everything else fails, will resort to simply deciding on their own that Mugabe has won the elections.
There is, of course, the possibility that something might go wrong with that military directorate’s decision.
For example, if there is clear evidence that MDC has won overwhelmingly, it will inevitably be difficult for the directorate to routinely and arbitrarily declare Mugabe the winner.
Mugabe’s ultimate plan rests on his simply refusing to give up power.
He has stated so recently. But in doing this, Mugabe will be extending the suffering of the Zimbabweans. At the same time, Mugabe, who turned 84 this month, will have to contend with the fact that his health and sanity are unlikely to sustain him for the next five years.
Zimbabweans have proved that their resilience is far superior to Mugabe’s health and age. He may have killed thousands and exiled millions. But there are still many more millions of Zimbabweans inside the country who will continue to defy and outlive him.
Whether it was the Zimbabweans demonstrating at the embassy in Washington or Zimbabweans groaning under the iron heel of Mugabe’s dictatorship the struggle against Mugabe is just warming up.
There is no way Mugabe can survive this time. Vultures are now circling Mugabe. And it is only a matter of time before the curtain closes on the Mugabe circus and nightmare.
Zimbabweans sense that the Mugabe circus is coming to an end either through the elections or through their resilience.
They know that Mugabe will most likely cling to power regardless of the people’s verdict at the elections.
But Zimbabweans also know that their resilience and resistance to Mugabe is probably what will ultimately bring him down.
When they learned that Mugabe has turned 84 years old Zimbabweans sense that the countdown for the end of the Mugabe has begun.
The atmosphere of excitement reported among Zimbabweans, even in these very tough and primitive times, is symptomatic of a new optimism that Zimbabweans are about to prevail over Mugabe, although not necessarily through elections.
