On July 6 Zimbabweans peacefully and non-violently protested against President Robert Mugabe’s misrule across Zimbabwe. This was evidenced by a successful stay away and shut down, which brought all the towns in Zimbabwe to a standstill. Leaders of citizen movements Tajamuka/Sesijikile and #ThisFlag, Promise Mkwananzi and Evan Mawarire, respectively were peacefully demanding answers and accountability from the government on issues to do with corruption, unemployment, kleptocracy, gross human rights violations and government’s failure to eradicate poverty. Citizens stayed away as a way of peacefully demanding accountability from the Zanu PF-led government. The ruling Zanu PF government responded by sending out its junta to tear gas and beat up defenceless civilians, as if that was not enough Mkwananzi and Mawarire were arrested for exercising their constitutional right of asking the government to be accountable to its citizens.
By Nkosilathi Emmanuel Moyo,Our Reader
When a handful former freedom fighters, the so-called war veterans in our usual political terminology, protested at the Zanu PF headquarters raising issues of their welfare to Mugabe, the President called for a State of the Nation Address (Sona) that same day and responded to their issues. But when the whole country peacefully protested on July 6, he chose to ignore and as I write he is said to be wining and dining with his youthful wife Grace in the Far East, while the country is burning.
What happened on July 6 in a normal democracy would have triggered an urgent Sona with the President responding to the issues raised by citizens. Despite President Jacob Zuma of South Africa being called all sorts of names, he is better than Mugabe. When citizens demanded answers on Marikana and Nkandla he responded, millions saw him stammering in Parliament trying to be accountable to South Africans. But not Africa’s oldest President, Mugabe, has no time for all that and neither does he care what citizens think. Just like apartheid President Pieter Willem Botha, ask Mugabe a question, he will respond with a sjambok. He does not recognise us (Zimbabweans) as citizens empowered by our Constitution to demand accountability from him, so why do we have to recognise him as our President? We have no President. If we had one he or she would have responded to our demands on July 6 or extended a hand of invitation to a discussion. Mkwananzi, Mawarire and other leaders of various citizens’ movements were supposed to be summoned to the State House for lunch with the President where they will have to put all their issues (on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe) on the table.
People of Zimbabwe, the Zanu PF-led government has taken us for granted for a very long time, but this is the time to reclaim our rights as Zimbabweans and uproot dictatorship on this land.
Enough is enough we have suffered enough!
