I was in Murewa. In a Roman Catholic church. Sitting in a pew like any other congregant. An old soldier, a war veteran, a Roman Catholic attending Saturday mass as I have done for most of my adult life.And I watched General Constantino Chiwenga stand before that congregation and speak.
I was there. I heard it with my own ears. I am not reporting what someone told me. I am not relaying a secondhand account. I sat in that church in Murewa this morning and I listened to the Vice President of the Republic of Zimbabwe tell the story of King Hezekiah.And I understood every word. Not just as a Catholic. As a soldier. As a Zimbabwean who has watched this country for six decades.
A king told his time was up. Who demanded more. Who received it. And whose extra years brought war, suffering, and consequences that his nation not he himself had to bear.
What I witnessed in that church today was not a sermon. It was a warning.
I left that church in Murewa with one obligation to say plainly, in the language of a soldier rather than the language of scripture, what General Chiwenga said carefully in the language of faith.Let me now do that. Without metaphor. Without diplomatic softening. Without the careful language of a man who is protecting himself from consequences.I am 75 years old. I am a Roman Catholic. I have nothing to protect. I have everything to say.
To those pushing CAB3 hear me clearly. You are not dealing with a political opposition. You are not dealing with NGOs funded from outside. You are not dealing with Twitter activists and diaspora noise. You are not dealing with a weakened MDC or a fragmented civic society that can be arrested into silence.
You are dealing with the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. And the Zimbabwe Defence Forces do not forget. They do not tire. And they do not stop.
I want to be constitutionally precise about what I mean because precision matters and because I will not give anyone the satisfaction of misquoting me.Section 212 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe mandates the Zimbabwe Defence Forces to uphold this Constitution. Not to observe it. Not to note it. Not to file it in a cabinet and hope that Parliament respects it.
To uphold it. Actively. Against whatever threatens it. From whatever quarter that threat originates.
Including from within.
Now let us apply that mandate to what CAB3 Nonsense is doing.
It is removing the direct election of the President by the people the most fundamental democratic right in Zimbabwe's constitutional architecture. It is circumventing the referendum that Section 328 explicitly requires. It is being pushed through a Parliament whose composition was itself the product of electoral processes that this same institution the Zimbabwe Defence Forces was deployed to protect.
And citizens attempting to organise opposition arrested. Public meetings banned. The Constitutional Defence Forum blocked from assembling in Mutare. Tendai Biti on bail for doing what ZANU-PF does freely every single day.
Tell me at what point does the institution mandated by Section 212 to uphold this Constitution decide that the threshold has been crossed?
I will not answer that question for those who are currently in uniform. That is not my place and it would be improper. But I will tell the architects of CAB3 something that their own political calculations appear to have missed. You did not ask the Zimbabwe Defence Forces whether they support CAB3. You assumed their compliance. You assumed that the reshuffles, the recalls, the promotions of returned retirees, the systematic thinning of General Chiwenga's network inside the institution you assumed that all of that had produced an institution that would stand aside.
That assumption is the most dangerous political miscalculation in Zimbabwe since 2017.
In the documentary Democrats, Douglas Mwonzora calmly reminds the room that a constitution is not a favor from power it is a restraint on it. Even when facing Robert Mugabe, the demands were clear: the law must stand above men.
Whatever politics say today, history records this Mwonzora has always been a constitutionalist. He fought for the constitution when it was hardest to demand it.
Even the outsiders really understand that Zanu Pf is not good for Zimbabwe and ask yourself what will be the future look like life under one party state of Zanu Pf
Come here all Zimbabweans and listen to Victor Matemadanda destroy Mnangagwa and zviganandas with pure unadulterated facts. The absolute truth. Listen to truth being told by a Zanu pf stalwart without fear.
@PoliceZimbabwe Good work
But where are those who abducted,raped and tortured the MDC3 namely Joanna Mamombe,Netsai and Cecilia Chimbiri??
How about those who bombed who conducted Gukurahundi? Why inefficient in severe cases???
@LynneStactia@zanupf_patriots Those are thieves and fraudsters who run away from the rot that RG/ED/ZANU have created in our country and now want to use the same evil dismal regime to help them also loot our already bare to the bones carcass that is Zimbabwe ๐ฟ๐ผ
@MacBelts Our leader should come to these spaces to talk to us like a servant of the role nekuti tese hatina acumen to decipher these hidden meanings.
I however see where he is coming from and heading.
Henrietta Rushwaya accidentally picked a bag with 6kgs of gold and went to the airport which also accidentally turned off cameras and someone caught her. She was acquitted by the courts of Zimbabwe. That's all we need to know. Nothing to be concerned about here.
William Nhara once had 10000 carats of diamonds in the same year that ZMDC declared 3000 carats mined.
Faber Chidarikire was found with a whole human head in his car, he wasn't arrested.
I'm convinced we are in a simulation.