THE motor-mouthed MDC secretary for elections, Jacob Mafume, has defended the party’s decision to embrace people implicated in the murder of the party’s activists in previous elections.
Responding to social activist Freeman Chari, now based in the United States of America, who had suggested that the party was betraying those who were killed, Mafume said:
“Chief, you live in a country where Africans used to slaves. You went by plane, Africans went by ship just less than 150 years ago. In a country where Martin Luther King had to fight for the vote for Africans. Where is this judgemental process coming from?”
Analysts says the MDC is playing with fire by engaing with Professor Moyo.
The late Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe even accused Moyo’s character as that of fomenting divisions within his party.
“You have our minister of information wanting to put people one against another,” Mugabe told mourners at a wake for Nathan Shamuyarira.
Posting on Twitter, Chari has expressed dismay over the MDC’s acceptance of people who are “known” to have killed Tichaona Chiminya and Talent Mabika.
He wrote: “Our house was less than 500m from where Tichaona Chiminya and Talent Mabika were killed. The people who killed them are known.
“I still find it difficult to walk hand in hand with those who killed them and say we are in the same struggle… Ini hangu zvongondinetsa. Ndiniwo!
“You can all forget and enjoy the expedience but for me, I remember many times people telling me kuti “Uchafira mahara!” I refused to believe that even if I was to die it would be in vain. I think of these people’s kids and relatives.
This week former Sunday Mail and Jonathan Moyo’s sidekick Editor Edmund Kudzayi sensationally claimed that exiled ex-minister Jonathan Moyo funded the MDC 2018 presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa’s election campaign.
Kudzayi said, he and former Politburo member and Information Minister Moyo, had to step in and assist Chamisa with his media campaigns as no-one was doing the job in the opposition MDC.
Edmund Kudzayi@EdmundKudzayi1/5 Ultimately, it is the voters who decide. If anyone wants power, they must stand for election. No citizen can say so and so is disqualified. That said, I certainly have no ambition to join the MDC, nor does Prof Moyo, but we want to see opposition politics done competently.
Replying to @freemanchariI have no problem listening to them, interacting with them, even taking their advice but never should you ever let them come closer to power again. They don’t change, they have no retrospection nor a moral drive to do right. We have examples and it is not rocket science!!!!
Edmund Kudzayi@EdmundKudzayi2/5 In the 2018 elections, we ended up having to intervene to do radio, print, social media and television adverts for the MDC. Why? Because nobody was doing the work and Chamisa was the best foot forward.
Where did the money come from? It was raised by Professor Jonathan Moyo.
“In the 2018 elections, we ended up having to intervene to do radio, print, social media and television adverts for the MDC,” Kudzayi wrote on Twitter.
“Why? Because nobody was doing the work and Chamisa was the best foot forward. Where did the money come from? It was raised by Professor Jonathan Moyo.”
However, Chamisa lost the presidential election to Zanu PF’s Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Professor Jonathan Moyo was once a fierce Information Minister for the now late President Robert Mugabe. In the 2008 political violence that killed over 200 of the opposotion MDC supporters, Moyo is on record defending government’s state agents for those attrocities saying the ruling party had the right to defend its territory.
During his 2000 to 2005 tenure, he crafted and defended, helped by Patrick Chinamasa, the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) (2001), the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (Commercialisation) Act (2003), the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) (2002), the Public Order and Security Act (2002), and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (Commercialisation) Act (2003). This led to widespread criticism that he was attacking freedom of speech.
When Moyo brought the AIPPA to parliament, the chairman of the Parliamentary Legal Committee, Dr Eddison Zvobgo, said, “I can say without equivocation that this Bill, in its original form, was the most calculated and determined assault on our liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, in the 20 years I served as Cabinet minister.”
Since being expelled from government, he has denied and rejected outright that he was the architect of these laws.
As Minister of Information, Moyo fought personal and government battles with the media from July 2000 until 2005, when he was expelled from ZANU-PF.
“The Daily News is a victim of the rule of law which it had been preaching since 1999.” Moyo said, celebrating and beaming at the demise of the popular Daily News.
He beamed with pleasure and satisfaction when Chief Justice Gubbay resigned after being threatened by Joseph Chinotimba and company. When the Daily News was shut down, he said “The Daily News is a victim of the rule of law which it had been preaching since 1999.”
In the mere space of seven years, Moyo went from being a fervent critic of the government of Robert Mugabe to being its fiercest defender and then again to being one of its foremost critics, a fact that renders him a mystery to many Zimbabweans. Analysts and observers and ordinary people have labelled him an opportunist because of this puzzling behaviour, including George Charamba, his former friend and ally. He has said: “I have always been a critic of government policy. I was in government for more than five years. Before that I was a critic.”
“If good governance means that black people should forever live as servants and poor and as inferior citizens to white people, we don’t accept it” Defending the land reform program.
“Good Riddance” he said after Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay, 68, signed an agreement to go on leave immediately and to retire formally on 1 July 2001 following threats from war veterans led by Joseph Chinotimba.
“We have to secure the gains of the Third Chimurenga in legal terms and Government is considering a number of options. The so-called successful white farmers were made by successive colonial governments. But given the level of the support they enjoyed and the vast tracts of land they commanded, an inescapable conclusion is that they were an inefficient lot. Much of commercial farmland was under-utilised. Moving forward means crafting legislation that consolidates and puts a final seal of legality to the gains we have made through the fast-track programme. We are aware that white commercial farmers who used to be on the land have refused to surrender title deeds to Government.”
“Our problem with Britain and Australia is over the land we took over from their white kith and kin to redistribute to the indigenous black people of this country. …” Explaining why relations with Britain had become strained.
“We were under pressure from foreigners who claimed that they were Zimbabweans, when they were actually enemies,” Defending the government’s decision not to award broadcasting licenses to foreign companies.
“I have always had a nagging feeling that for all their propensity for liberal values and civilised norms, these people (South Africans) are dirty. In fact they are filthy and recklessly uncouth. Now the evidence is there for any decent person to see” Justifying his shopping spree in South Africa, when people in Zimbabwe were starving.
“He needs to be told that Zimbabwe will never be a colony again, never” Telling Tony Blair not to interfere in Zimbabwe during the days leading up to the 2002 presidential elections.
Prof Moyo has a record of criminal activities.
In 1993 he was program director for the Ford Foundation in Nairobi. He departed under a cloud after allegations that he had embezzled US$88,000 from the organisation. As of 2018 he was still under indictment in Kenya.
In January 1998 he moved to South Africa, to the University of Witwatersrand (WITS) to work on a project entitled The Future of the African Elite sponsored by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.
WITS later claimed that he had absconded with part of a 100 million rand research grant for the project. In October 2006 Moeletsi Mbeki, younger brother of former South African President Thabo Mbeki, and Witwatersrand University separately applied for an order to have Jonathan Moyo jailed the next time he visited South Africa.
On 19 November 2017, Moyo was expelled from ZANU–PF by the party’s central committee. Other prominent G40 politicians, including Grace Mugabe, Saviour Kasukuwere, Patrick Zhuwao, Ignatius Chombo, Walter Mzembi, Shadreck Mashayamombe, Makhosini Hlongwane, Innocent Hamandishe, Samuel Undenge, and Sarah Mahoka were also expelled from the party.
Moyo fled the country after his removal, and from his unknown location threatened bloodshed if Mugabe was not restored to power.
Even while a cabinet minister, Moyo was charged with corruption, and following his ouster investigations resumed. The main charges are that Moyo improperly used Zimdef (Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund) funds for political patronage in his home district of Tsholotsho. In his defense, Moyo claimed that he did not convert the money for his own use, and that Tsholotsho, being one of the poorest Zimbabwean districts, deserved the largess.
