Choosing to attack the MDC leader in his personal capacity only seems to expose Moyo’s own fear of Tsvangirai’s popularity. Against all odds, Tsvangirai polled 1 195 562 votes and Mugabe got 1 079 730 in the March 29 2008 presidential election but this still didn’t gain him the respect of the Tsholotsho politician.
One commentator hit the nail on the head when he said: “Moyo’s recent attacks of Prime Minister Tsvangirai and MDC ministers is meant to convince both his sympathisers and detractors in Zanu PF that he is still part of them by speaking their language and crying louder than the bereaved.”
When an audit of the diamond sales was called for by Finance minister Tendai Biti, Moyo cried foul and there was a Zanu PF outcry. Bizarrely, the state-owned The Herald claimed on March 15 that nearly US$167 million had found its way into Treasury after verification and reconciliation of proceeds from diamond sales following conflicting statements by ministers Biti and Obert Mpofu.
Somehow, all of a sudden The Herald is the Treasury by determining what the proceeds from diamond sales should be used for. What The Herald needs to know is that the people of Zimbabwe would like a full audit of the diamond sales to determine who sold what, where, to whom, when, for how much and where the proceeds went.
Similarly, the people want a full audit of Zimbabwe’s debt to establish the amounts, dates, who authorised them and what the loans were used for, because any expenditure on weapons is very controversial since Zimbabwe has never been officially at war, at least with parliament’s consent.
Therefore proceeds from diamond sales cannot be diverted to clear a debt that may have been used to buy weapons or to pay people who terrorised and murdered innocent civilians during Gukurahundi or in elections because of their political views.
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It could be argued that Moyo’s discomfort with democracy and the rule of law is their potential of exposing a lot of dirty linen and possibly make him account for his alleged misdeeds.
Notes about Moyo which are on the Wikipedia website say he is considered the core architect of Aippa and Posa (notorious laws which are still on Zimbabwe’s statute books, albeit undergoing some cosmetic amendments).
Moyo seems to court criticism with his alleged political flip-flopping and suspected vendetta. He was once asked by Munyaradzi Huni about the Gukurahundi Bill which he wanted to bring to parliament as a way of fixing Zanu PF before he applied to re-join the same party.
What is curious is not the idea of such a bill being put into law but its unexplained sudden death. But what is Moyo’s grudge against the MDC?
For example, he is cited in Luise White’s The Assassination of Herbert Chitepo as saying: “The MDC is ‘a political party with its roots in the donor purse run by Rhodesians who tortured and killed Zimbabweans during our liberation struggle.”
However, Moyo has a right to respond to reports in July 2009 that a source in the MDC party had alleged that he begged the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to include him on the list of MDC-T ministerial nominees.
“The Prime Minister did not decline, but told him he would consult the national executive, it never got there because Minister Biti was fiercely opposed to the whole idea, arguing that Moyo brings no value to the MDC,” the source said. So are Tsvangirai and Biti being penalised for that?
About the Author
Clifford Chitupa Mashiri is a London-based political analyst.
