Financial Gazette (Harare)
CZ
15 August 2008
column
Harare — Dear Cabinet and Politburo members
COMRADES, I know most of you are eager to know how far we have gone with our talks with the two opposition formations. I can't give you details of that yet but I can assure you that you will know very soon. ">
As you are aware, President Thabo Mbeki was here for marathon meetings and we covered quite a lot of ground. There are just one or two sticking issues that we will be ironing out shortly, but most of the work has been done.
I wish I could give you a blow-by-blow account of the discussions we have had so far, but unfortunately, I can't do that at this point in time. Just bear with me Cdes.
Kindest Regards
Yours Sincerely
ME
Deal Sealed?
ON Wednesday Zimbabweans woke up to The Herald headline "Deal Sealed". To many, that implied the dialogue between the country's political parties had resulted in ZANU-PF finally agreeing to end its violent monopoly on power.
They only needed to read the actual story to realise that no deal had been clinched. Even the purported deal between ZANU-PF and MDC Mutambara that the paper claimed had been signed, was later denied by those who were said to be involved.
The interesting part of The Herald story pertained to the veiled threats by some sources that the Great Uncle had decided to move on, and set up a government without Morgan Tsvangirai. The threats were repeated the following day.
Well, all Zimbabweans are fully aware that after the June 27 "victory", ZANU-PF has always been free to form a government and move on. We wonder why they have been reluctant to do so.
We also wonder who they think they have been doing a favour when they started crying for dialogue with losers.
From the tone of The Herald story, it is obvious that there are still many in ZANU-PF who are refusing to come to terms with the fact that their party is now bankrupt and unable to rule this country alone anymore.
These hawks, many of whom fear for their privileged positions, are determined to scuttle on-going government of national unity (GNU) efforts. You find these people almost everywhere, Cabinet, government ministries, army, police, parastatals, universities and the newsrooms.
There is just that atavistic fear that sharing power would mean some losing out altogether.
And it is those who are sure to lose out who are concerned by these prospects of a GNU. They will do anything and everything in their power to shipwreck the effort.
In the meantime, we wait to see ZANU-PF and MDC-Mutambara setting up their own government.
Sad
CZ is a very sad man. Almost suicidally sad. Saddened by the near-criminal way in which his namesake, the other CZ, Cde Caesar Zvayi, was treated by the government of Botswana, Ian Khama to be specific.
See, when such things happen to your namesake, your name too gets soiled and it is bad for everyone. Anyway, those are some of the occupational hazards of patriotism.
I know some colleagues in the media have been making malicious and tendentious claims that yours truly had benefited immensely from his namesake's move to Botswana, besides kuzowana pekusvikira, they claim, he had been given a couple of old oversized trousers and shirts, an old bed, ATM cards and such other paraphernalia that had suddenly become excess baggage in view of the new status in a foreign country.
So when the fellow was booted back home, they say, he headed straight to this CZ to reclaim his property. All this is not true.
In fact this CZ is seriously considering suing those people who are spreading highly damaging falsehoods.
If anything, CZ is so glad that his namesake is back. He is back so that they can be together in the trenches as they practice patriotism. The country needs him most at this crucial moment.
In fact, we were feeling betrayed that one of our celebrated patriots had been seduced to abandon us to enrich a hostile and very bad neighbour when our own children are badly in need. But we are not happy with the way the whole thing ended up unfolding. In fact, he ended up being treated like a criminal. Anyway, vachanyara.
The party is obviously going to make the necessary arrangements to get the good namesake a lectureship at our own UZ, where he will learn and perfect the art of going and doing without. We can't be treated like people without our own universities!
But ...
Well, it looks like some thugs in ZANU-PF were infuriated by the fact the Botswana leader Khama decided to have the deportation order delivered to Cde Zvayi in the full glare of the media. Zvinorwadza-ka? Yet the same ZANU-PF government has been doing it all along in Zimbabwe, with the white commercial farmers, with the opposition leaders, foreign journalists, and most memorably in the Pius Ncube debacle.
Even as recent as two weeks ago, a ZBC reporter connived with the police to have her landlady accused of charging rentals in forex-arrested on camera. So it becomes criminal when other countries copy us?
It was good to see Cde George Charamba shedding tears of blood that the Media Institute of Southern Africa, the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists and other media bodies did not say a word in protest against Cde Zvayi's illegal deportation from another sovereign country called Botswana.
It is pleasing to know that this time he decided to acknowledge they existed.
But the same media organisations have always maintained that Cde Zvayi has never been one of their own. So it would have been absurd for them to take sides with a stranger.
If anything, those organisations have always expressed fear that the fellow in question posed a serious physical threat to real professionals. Remember the case of Thelma Chikwanha?
We will not bother asking Cde Charamba how many people have been illegally and violently deported from this country, including journalists. So it only gets abominable when it is done to our own by other countries?
ZANU-PF, its people and their actions aside, we are also human beings who should feel for even the worst criminal villians. See, there are some things that are just difficult to understand. Surely, how can a reasonable leader decide to go out of his way to be so hard-hearted as to deport home a brother, knowing how desperate the situation back home is?
It is like having a honey jar being suddenly snatched from under your mouth leaving you to salivate in gluttonous lust! Kudzoka kuZim-dollar futi! Life is so, so unfair!
Infiltrated?
CZ is quite disappointed that our gold medal hopeful at the ongoing Beijing Olympics, Kirsty Coventry, no longer seems to be the golden girl that we have known her to be, at least for now.
Could something be wrong with her? We mean could the challenges back home be taking their toll on her or have the British and their American cousins put their filthy pawns on her?
Remember Kirsty is based in the US, and knowing them as much as we do, they can do anything, just anything to spite us all the way to hell and back.
Seeing how we celebrated beyond reason the last time she brought home a haul of gold medals. You never know. Well in this case let's just hope she is just getting tired on her own.
Rewarded
ZANU-PF and Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's George Chiweshe is one of the war veterans and retired senior army officers who were this week awarded some medals or whatever it is they were given.
In his case we have no doubt that his medal included the super-patriotic role he played in the so-called inconclusive March 29 harmonised elections. Naturally! CZ envies him.
Threat
"Iwe CZ. If this confusion called Aurthur Mutambara is behaving the way we were told he may have done this week, we will have no problems begging the Americans and the European Union countries to include him on the sanctions list. Otherwise we have always noticed that the difference between him and those thugs in ZANU-PF is the same!"
De-zeroed?
CZ tell me. If we can manage to remove 10 zeros from our inflation-ravaged currency, what can stop us from removing zeros from the inflation itself?
If our inflation is say 20 million percent or more, like we are always told by the less patriotic, we can simply de-zero the figure to respectable levels, like in the case of 20 000 000 percent, we can conveniently remove seven zeroes to leave our inflation at two percent. Simple!
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