Zimbabwe – Tsvangirai’s message to fellow Zimbabweans
President Tsvangirai’s message on the crisis in Zimbabwe
9 July 2007
Fellow Zimbabweans,
The current siege on the struggling business community following a decision by the Robert Mugabe dictatorship looks set to back fire and plunge the country’s economy into serious chaos. Already, our embattled nation has begun to feel the pinch: shortages of fuel, basic commodities and a systematic destruction of the formal sector.
Zimbabweans realize the dangers of the short honeymoon. The future, in the short term, looks bleak. More businesses are going to close. More jobs lost. Our shops and market shelves are already empty. Our families, our schools, our hospitals, hotels and most public outlets are without basic foodstuffs and essential commodities.
When Mugabe launched Gukurahundi in Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands in the eighties, his actions were motivated by his desire to retain power by neutralizing all potential opposition forces.
When Mugabe descended onto the commercial farming sector in 2000, it is now clear to all, his actions were directed at liquidating a powerful voice of the farm workers by dispersing and liquidating that constituency.
Zanu PF destroyed commercial agriculture, resulting in rampant food shortages and a major economic meltdown. As if that was not enough, in 2005 Mugabe targeted the urban voters through operation Murambatsvina. Today, he is at again.
Mugabe and Zanu PF have gone full scale for the business community, pursuing a populist policy against the national interest. He is even talking of wholesale nationalization, a concept that was tried and tested, but failed dismally throughout Africa soon after the advent of decolonisation.
The regime runs 32 parastatal companies and none of them have a record of success since independence. How he hopes to take over the entire country in the face of glaring failures boggles the mind.
Like the state-sponsored farm invasions, the attack on the business community is a poor election gimmick. Our experience shows once a key economic sector is targeted by this regime, the poor and vulnerable often bear the brunt of such recklessness.
Mugabe and Zanu PF enjoy the blame game. For nearly three decades, they have targeted the opposition and people of Matabeleland and the Midlands to defend his power-base. Mugabe has smashed the media; he has attacked white Zimbabweans, white farmers and the West; he has gone for the church and church leaders; now he turned his axe onto the business community.
The collapse of agriculture saw a dwindling supply side of our economy, leading to incessant controls on our staple: grains and cereals. The result was corruption and shortages, high prices and a thriving informal market.
An informal market ravages the poor in any society as speculators and beneficiaries of a government patronage system thrive on the scarcity of goods and services. The poor cannot afford the goods sold on the parallel market.
In 2005, Zanu PF clearly lost the parliamentary election and in a fit of rage went out of way to declare war onto the people, through Operation Murambatsvina. We are now approaching another election and Mugabe is on us again. Mugabe failed to secure a postponement to 2010; he failed to liquidate the MDC; he failed to arrest an economy on a free fall; and now wants to finish-off the little that still remains.
In an era of globalisation and regional business linkages, the business sector represents a sensitive community, with tentacles across the globe. Investors at home and abroad customarily shun locations and destinations managed outside universal norms, standards and known practices. It is folly to try to force inflation down through policy flip-flops designed to satisfy a political ego. The fundamentals must be put right.
My message to the people is that the time is now ripe for us to unite against tyranny. There is no room for doubts on Mugabe’s intentions. He has failed all of us as a nation. We must mobilize ourselves and defend our businesses, our property and our rights.
Let us prepare for a new Zimbabwe. Let us stand ready for a society awash with food and jobs for our people. The temporary setbacks we are all facing shall vanish as soon as we mobilise and claim our space.
Mugabe and Zanu PF must never be allowed to get away with his dangerous experiments that impoverish us further. For 10 years after Independence, he toyed around with socialism. For another 10 years, he embraced the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP). When all these policies failed to address the people’s needs, he turned to violence. Let us save Zimbabwe from the rapacious clique that has ruined our livelihood and tarnished our image as a country within the family of nations.
We are near the end game. A new Zimbabwe shall soon be with us.
Morgan Tsvangirai,
President.
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