The following day one of the authors of the letter was picked up in the middle of the night. Two days later his co-author was also picked by the CIO and accused of selling-out the country.
Since the two authors were Fred Mavhimira and Farai Chitate, both war veterans of the Norton Chapter, on October 24 the CIO attended the monthly war veterans’ meeting where they interrogated the leadership. They pressured the leaders to write a retraction distancing itself from the views of the two war veterans.
The news then spread like veld fire in the small dormitory town and as a result, overwhelming fear of imminent danger has gripped the town. This is state terrorism at its worst.
If this can happen to war veterans who are known as the bedrock of the Zanu PF support base, what of the ordinary citizen?
The Copac process was supposed to be an open debate where people freely expressed their opinions without fear of retribution.
All along I have been telling all the Zvimba MPs: Patrick Zhuwao, Walter Chidhakwa and Stanley Samkange that they should use the Copac opportunity to solve the perennial problem of MPs’ welfare they always bemoan by equalising the power matrix between the executive and the legislature.
I tell them that the US congressmen are very powerful and respectable because of the powers invested by US constitution in their legislature. The president, ministers, and senior civil servants tremble at the prospect of being summoned to stand before the august House, unlike the present scenario in Zimbabwe where Obert Mpofu can snub the Chindori-Chininga led Parliamentary Portfolio Committee and even bar it from conducting a fact-finding mission in Chiadzwa. In the US, Congress would have fired him.
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It is in the interest of backbenchers driving the Copac process to invest wide powers in parliament such as the powers to easily impeach the president, fire ministers, summon top civil servants, among other things if it is to be taken seriously and improve its bargaining powers.
Rastan Matibiri, Norton.
