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Zimbabwe's march to real change
Statement
by Rt Hon Morgan R Tsvangirai,President of the Movement for Democratic
Change and Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe
March 02, 2011
We meet today
against the backdrop of significant happenings elsewhere in Africa.
However, in Zimbabwe we are experiencing a new wave of repression
against the people's universal right to free choice and free expression.
The past five
months have seen a significant rise in the culture of impunity and
violence against the people of this country all in the name of an
election. Suffice to say that we have not even begun to implement
the Global Political Agreement and all the parties to the inclusive
government have yet to adopt a roadmap as a precondition to a free
and fair election in Zimbabwe.
It is in the
context of the on-going culture of impunity and violence that we
have seen people being frog-marched across the country and in the
urban centres to attend a Zanu PF function in Harare today. Businesses
have been forced to close while motorists and commuter omnibus operators
have been diverted from their routes to make the numbers at this
function, in clear violation of the GPA
where the rights of citizens are supposed to be respected in light
of the new inclusive dispensation.
Indeed, no section
of the GPA is more important than the other. It is in recognition
of the people's basic rights and freedoms that I and the party I
lead find it despicable that people would be arrested for watching
videos of happenings elsewhere in the world, videos of events that
are already in the public domain. We shudder at the culture of impunity
and the renewed wave of arrests of MDC MPs and political and civic
activists detained in our prisons while Zanu PF perpetrators of
violence roam free.
State security
agents such as the police, the army and the Central Intelligence
Organisation have become part of a cabal that is at the centre of
a well-orchestrated partisan operation to instil fear in the people
of Zimbabwe. The arrest
of Munyaradzi Gwisai and 45 others, Hon Douglas Mwonzora and
23 others in Nyanga and many other innocent villagers and activists
across the country is at the centre of impunity, violence and the
selective application of the law which has conspired to poison the
political atmosphere in the country.
The MDC side
of government does not believe that this government is under threat
from its citizens to the extent of detaining people for watching
a video. We do not believe that ordinary Zimbabweans should be victimised
because others in government have an inherent fear of the people.
We urge SADC,
the African Union and the international community at large to keep
an eye on Zimbabwe. The country risks sliding over the precipice
if the guarantors of the GPA do not take immediate action to come
up with a binding roadmap as a precondition ahead of the next election.
People across
the world, including Zimbabwe, yearn for their right to make political
choices with neither fear nor coercion. They reserve their rights
of expression, movement and assembly. The people are the real government
and they have the universal authority and mandate to make a statement
to any government.
As president
of the MDC, the people's party of freedom and real change in Zimbabwe,
I would like to state that violence against the people must stop.
Events elsewhere on the continent provide the fundamental lesson
that repression has its lifespan.. And there is only one right result:
freedom.
All people,
Africans, Asians, Arabs, Americans, Europeans alike desire and deserve
freedom. They do not deserve dictatorship and repression, nor violence
and abuse at the hands of the State and the leaders who should serve
them. I have no doubt that, eventually, all repressed people will
gain the freedom which they deserve. The inexorable march of liberation
can be seen and felt today, stronger and louder than for many years.
The courage
and dignity of repressed peoples can be seen and felt on the streets
of this continent. And this is why I also wish to applaud the determination
of the United Nations and the leaders of the world to support those
people who suffer at the hands of tyrants and dictators.
The people of
Africa have created this march to freedom and it will succeed. We
have a process in place here, which is supposed to be guaranteed
and supported by other countries of this region.
Those who have
been in power here for decades, and have repressed and stolen from
the Zimbabwean people, have committed to change and have signed
up to specific reforms and principles. Sadly, they continue to flout
those obligations, and renege on those undertakings. They continue
to use their more familiar tools of violence and intimidation. But
I am not advocating giving up on that process.
I still believe
that, if SADC, fellow African countries and the international community
show the right will and the right commitment to Zimbabwe, we can
secure freedom here too, and do so peacefully.
What is needed
is no more and no less than the full respect and the full implementation
of the Global Political Agreement.
In other words,
- an end to
all violence;
- an end to
all abuse of power;
- and genuine
free and fair elections.
Across this
continent, whether in Libya, in the Ivory Coast or in Zimbabwe or
elsewhere, what is at stake is freedom and dignity. Let us stand
by our brothers and sisters as they fight for their freedom and
dignity.
We in the MDC
want peace to return in Zimbabwe, the land of our birth. We want
freedom and democracy to flourish. We want the people to have the
freedom to pursue and live their dreams in a new Zimbabwe characterised
by peace, hope, dignity, prosperity and freedom.
God bless Africa.
God bless Zimbabwe.
I thank you.
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