An Open Letter To Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 00:02:00

 

http://www.zimdaily.com/news/117/ARTICLE/1149/2006-12-04.html

 

Robert Mugabe

Paga Masika

I have always wanted to write this letter to you, father, but I never gathered enough courage to do so.

I know that you are a busy man, and you have better letters to read, but I know that an intelligent and wise old man of your caliber and fibre cannot ignore any piece of wisdom that comes his way.

My letter is different from others because it comes from someone who loves and respects you as a Great father and founder of the nation. It comes from someone who is a full beneficiary of the gains of our independence.

It comes from someone who loves Zimbabwe as much as you do. It comes from a fellow Catholic, educated by the Jesuits like you. It comes from a teacher, just like you; not a mere teacher for that matter, but one who has had the privilege of teaching one of Your Excellency’s sons.

Though unquestionably great you are, but you never had an opportunity to mark the book of the President’s son. I did, and that makes my letter worthy of your small attention. Your son’s teacher!

I appreciate your efforts to resuscitate and re-orient our besieged and ailing economy. I know that you spent many sleepless nights assessing the situation and mapping out the way forward, but to no avail.

I know that you passionately love Zimbabwe, and that all the sins they accuse you of having committed, if any, were committed because of your love of our people and country. I also love Zimbabwe, and that is why I have remained in the country instead of going into the diaspora.

That is why I continue to hope for a better Zimbabwe, amidst so much suffering and hopelessness. I have a feeling that the worst is yet to come, and you also know that, and that makes both of us prophets of doom.

You sometimes wonder why things are not changing for the better, despite all your efforts to harness the unprecedented economic melt down.

The advent of the over-zealous and utopian, but well-meaning Dr Gideon Gono, brought a sigh of hope to many Zimbabweans, only to discover that the Governor is a great talker and day dreamer, interested in taking people by surprises and dealing out vengeance to fellow Zimbabweans.

Your trips to the Far East have not born much fruits. Your well-articulated speeches, though vivid and applausable, have failed to bear fruits. A great thinker of your make does not fail to ask why?

The problem is not Tony Blair, as Dr Tafataona Mahoso and the renowned Professor of Sociology, Mararike would persuade you to believe, Blair has his own problems to nurse. The problem is not George Bush, for his has his own fair share of tribulations.

Tsvangirai is not the problem, for he spends sleepless nights figuring out how to heal the rift between members of his party. The problem is of our own making.

No one tells you the truth about the tribulations ordinary Zimbabweans are going through Mr President. People around you tell you what they think you want to hear.

They tell you that things are okay, but that is not true. They say Zimbabweans are a happy lot, but that is a lie. The majority of our people are mourning.

I know that many a time you have thought of retiring and spend time with amai, and my young brothers and sister, Grace, Tino, Chatunga and Bona, respectively, but the people around you would not accept that.

Your Excellency, the right question to ask is why? Because they know that you love and respect your friends. They want to loot the economy whilst you are still in office.

In another ZANU PF government, they are not sure if they will retain their posts. They want to steal and amass enough wealth and acquire more property: land, houses, factories, etc, whilst the sun shines.

They can steal as much as they want because they are immune from investigation and arrest because some of them went to war.

Father, you established the Ministry of Anti-Corruption, a good idea, but did it ever arrest any one, except the two scapegoats, Chiyangwa and Kuruneri? Zimbabwe is on her knees not because of you, but the hypocrites around you. We know that you are not a thief, you are not a hypocrite.

You say what you mean and mean what you say. You are not like Sam Nujoma, who clapped hands for you when you gave your hate speech in South Africa, but he retired before giving even an acre of land to one of his people.

Your children are here with us, but where are the children of your ministers? Your family watch with us ZTV, and they all have satellite dishes. How many houses do your ministers have? How much money do they have in their bank accounts?

How many farms did they acquire? Who supplies the parallel market with foreign currency? Who sells fuel at the parallel market? Who writes hate speeches for you? Who forbids you from retiring? The answer is – the people around you.

They do not want you to know the truth. They harass demonstrators to keep you out of the picture. They write hate speeches for you so that you create international enemies, lest you get sound advice and you retire.

They forced you to reverse your historic reconciliation to the Zimbabweans which you made at independence, and turned you into a land grabber. They publish lies in news papers to mislead you. Wherever you go they send Mukoma Reuben, who has a diploma in distorting information.

None of them wants economic turn-around programme to be successful, because this will take away their business. They use you and you will go down in history as a very bad person, who brought about the economic meltdown of our country.

One who brought to futility the work of so many decades and well meaning citizens of our country, white and black, women and men, living and dead. They will emerge from the mess clean while all the blame is piled on you.

Father, these people are not our friends, as they pretend to be. Those people who tell you to go, like Dzikamai Mavhaire, Morgen Tsvangirai and Pius Ncube are our friends.

You are a great revolutionary, but your friends have turned you into a villain and monster. We still respect you, not ZANU PF because we do not want to let you down, you as a person.

My advice to you is – leave office now. Arrange for your exit package and go into the diaspora, for the sake of my siblings, Chatunga, Tino and Bona. You will find a place to go now because you still have friends.

If you leave office and decide to remain in Zimbabwe, the people who will take over from you will harass you. Remember how Chiluba harassed our dear Cde K.K. I know that you wonder what happens when you leave office – pure genocide.

People have been silenced, oppressed, starved, harassed, tortured and abused for so long, and one day, at some place, at some particular time, they will burst. I foresee a repeat of Hotel Rwanda. Tsvangirai is a better evil than the people around you.

Start a dialogue with him, and your friends will try to stop you as they always have done, not because they hate MDC, but because they want to continue vilifying you and milking the milkless Zimbabweans, relentlessly.

They give you false hopes like the present canonization of Jatirofa as a panacea for our fuel blues, to make you stay. If you go, most of them know that they will also go. It is a question of making hay while the sun shines.

I am extremely persuaded that a great revolutionary of your make, will take my words seriously, for they come from a passionate and patriotic beneficiary of your sacrifice, and the blood of so many Zimbabweans. I know that the detractors and saboteurs of our economic sovereignty and integrity (reminds you of the verbose Jonathan Moyo), will read this letter before you.

You may not even see it, like many of its kind that have perished before you saw them. Probably they have started looking for me to feed me with fear, but I tell them that a time shall come when the difference between life and death will be insignificant.

Sincerely yours

Son of the soil