INTO THE STREETS

We are not fooled. Two warring antagonists shaking hands for the first time in ten years does not constitute a diplomatic coup, even though the desperate Mbeki apologists will claim anything to give some credibility to “quiet diplomacy.”

By virtue of the twenty-one day clause inserted into Zimbabwe electoral law, Morgan Tsvangerai is the de jure President of Zimbabwe, but he is still not the de facto one. Let’s face it, no politician in Africa or the rest of the world has any idea of how to marry the two.

Britain, the U.S.A. and Europe are all keen on introducing stricter sanctions, but sanctions can take years to have an effect and Zimbabwe needs solutions now.

The SADC leaders want dialogue to produce a government of national unity, but we’ve been through all this before? Wasn’t it dialogue, that President Mbeki was meant to have mediated, that got us to the March elections in the first place?

Their latest brainwave, a “Memorandum of Understanding”, is a document designed to get talks about talks under way, which will then lead to the real talks, which will lead to internationally supervised elections - in about two years time. In the interim, Zimbabwe will starve.

They also can’t be serious about expecting the Zimbabwean people to trust Mugabe, even with Tsvangerai willing to talk.

Force as a solution, is out of the question. Africa does not have the capability and the West does not have the inclination.

And, here lies the catch. If the MDC wins the eventual election, the Joint Operational Command of Zimbabwe can simply stage a palace coup as they did in April this year, with no force in Africa able to stop them.

So, the impasse continues, but this is not the first time the world has been faced with a seemingly immovable dictator, one who does not obey the rules that he created and one who will not stop brutalizing his people. History has many examples of tyrants that have been ousted by their people, but the nearest modern day comparison is that of President Marcos of the Philippines.

The rule of Mugabe, with all the brutality, deceit, assassinations, vote rigging and theft from the national treasury is a carbon copy of the rule of President Marcos. Marcos, also had an ally in Ronald Reagan, much the same as Mugabe, has an ally in Mbeki.

Like Mugabe, Marcos managed to buy off most of his military chiefs, but he controlled an army much bigger and more efficient than the Zimbabwe Defense Force, so the task for the Filipino people was much greater than it would be for the Zimbabweans. No army or police force in the world can control a crowd of a million people.

We need only look at the method the Filipino people used to remove Marcos, in February, 1986 to see how the job can be done. Between one and two million people were able to defuse the Filipino Army and Air Force by using non-violent resistance, exposing massive election fraud, after Marcos had declared himself, president.

By the end of the month he had fled to Guam and then to the U.S.A.

Democracy is more than placing an X on a piece of paper once every four or five years. It is an institution that must be jealously guarded by it‘s owners, which are the people of a country and not it’s politicians.

As custodians, they have a duty to come out in numbers to protect their democracy whenever it is abused.

Ultimately, the problem is therefore a Zimbabwean one. If they have to rely on outside help to dislodge their unelected and unwanted autocracy, then their sovereignty will go out the window.

National independence means exactly what it says, freedom from outside influence and control

The task ahead for the new government will be much more arduous than the current problems they face of trying to change the status quo. If Zimbabwe is going to haul itself out of the financial morass it finds itself in, and bring the economy back to the international fold, it will need a president with the leadership qualities to match the task.

That leader is certainly not Mugabe, but as things stand today, it is also not Tsvangerai. He is the legally elected president of Zimbabwe and must take the initiative in reconstructing the country if he is to retain credibility.

He remains reactive, only responding to the moves of Zanu P.F. and Mbeki, instead of taking the reigns and guiding his people. If he can’t take control without help from the rest of the world, then he is not the leader to take Zimbabwe into the future.

As with the Philippines, the government may have the force, but the people still hold the power. If the MDC have won a majority of the votes cast on March the 29th, then where are their millions of supporters, and why are they not on the streets?

The MDC abhors violence, but that does not disqualify peaceful mass action. The revolution that removed Marcos was not lead by stone throwing students, or by communist militants, it was lead by praying nuns and priests.

Radio Veritas, a pro-revolution, independent radio station, was owned and run by the Catholic Church. There was a carnival atmosphere amongst the millions of people present, with free candy and cigarettes dished out to soldiers sent to disperse the crowds.

The catalyst for their successful revolution was not violence or force, but masses of ordinary people withdrawing their consent from a brutal government.

Motivating millions of people to march on Parliament is not an easy task, but neither is running a country. It will require bold decisions and the MDC are the only group in Zimbabwe with a legal mandate, from the people, to exercise their leadership.

It is far better to have millions of people march on the towns and cities, than to have millions flee across the South African border as refugees. But, it needs mobilization from the top.

Of course, there will be casualties, but there have always been casualties in the past and they will continue in the future as long as Zanu P.F., hold onto power. Inaction, on the part of the cheated electorate will not stop their victimization, but if there are to be reprisals for voting the “wrong” way or for protesting against a stolen election, then let them take place on the hallowed lawns of Government House, where the world can bear witness, and not in some hastily arranged torture hut in the bush.

Other recent examples of peaceful revolution include Serbia in October 2000, the Rose Revolution in Georgia in November 2003 and the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine in November, 2004. In all cases, corrupt leaders were removed by the non-violent action of millions of citizens.

Is it only in Africa, where we lack the courage and resourcefulness to fight for our democracy? It is time for those Zimbabweans who want regime change to make their country ungovernable.

This can be done by anything from clogging up the police stations, to blocking the entrance to Mugabe’s residence with millions of living human bodies. Nothing puts fear into tyrants like hoards of immovable people.

It is also time for Zimbabweans to stop telling their woeful tales of hardship. They need solutions, not stories.

If they can’t lift themselves out of their situation by pulling their disgruntled people together in unified resistance, then all their triumphs in removing colonialism will have been for naught. After all, the notion that we deserve the government we end up with, still rings true.