Schadenfreude, altruistic punishment or a remarkable diversion?

Well, nothing has changed! The same old permanent secretaries and their long lists on incompetencies. The same attorney general and RBZ governor. Okay here is my perception of all this, seriatim. Zimbabwe's permanent secretaries seem, at face value, to be simple career civil servants. Indeed some of them may be, but some are complex characters whose past and present attitude towards democracy and basic rights and freedoms is at best dubious and at worst malicious. An example, is the candidate for the Publicity and Information post, one Dr. George Charamba. While I do not know whose long hand authored the Nathaniel Manheru column, I feel that a person who condoned such extreme hate speech as was common on the column cannot be expected to be a servant who carries out honest media reform. I stand to be corrected, sorry, surprised. In addition, we should stop pretending that there were no other persons who would have taken over as PermSecs and that the current crop are not political appointees. The PermSec is the CEO of the ministry and I doubt if Mr Mugabe has ever appointed any of them on merit alone. I think he appointed them on their ability to sing praises to him first, any other qualifications being secondary and, in instances, immaterial. So, for the MDC to simply accept the so called criteria and accept the lot is a case of misplaced trust. Or misplaced hope. Or both. My verdict is that all the PermSecs have nothing to offer; in fact, they may turn out to be serious obstacles.

The attorney general is another interesting character. I do not want to delve into his qualifications. Bob might be untrustworthy democracy-wise, but he would not be so crass as to appoint an unqualified person to the post. What I feel uncomfortable about this man is his seemingly relentless pursuit of the nonsensical. What is the probability of Jestina Mukoko et alum succeeding in plotting, let alone succeeding in removing Bob unconstitutionally? Most of the people who stand accused of this crime are members of the MDC. Why then do you choose to prosecute minions when you are dining with the head of the MDC every day? Staggeringly, people who were involved in the abduction and subsequent murder of MDC activists Chiminya and Mabika are not being prosecuted even though they are quite well known. Is this a situation where a ZANU PF attorney general is deliberately blind to ZANU PF excesses but he is clear sighted about the activities of the MDC? Whatever the outcome of those prosecutions, Tomana will go down in Zimbabwe's history as a person who, when given the chance, failed to protect human rights and democratic pursuit; spectacularly. These charges have been recycled ad nauseum since independence and no one, I mean NO ONE, was ever been convicted. The question is why waste national resources in pursuit of a case where the so called evidence was extracted under duress when the accused was being held incommunicado after being abducted? The last time a judge was asked to pass a judgement on a case with a similar history, the learned and competent justice dismissed the state case as fictitious and set free the accused. While the judge set the Cain Nkala accused free, they suffered irreversible harm to both body and soul, and sadly one is said to have died after the ordeal. The question to Tomana is, why are you repeating the same thing?

The RBZ governor is like everyone's pet project! Bob says he won't go, the service chiefs are happy with him, Gilbert Muponda wants him gone (yesterday!) and Biti is busy clipping his wings. I do not know what to add to the debate but I will try. First, Mr Mugabe should remember that he is not God. Second, he should remember that he once swore in his mother's name that the MDC will never win elections. Third, God gives you a long life so that events in your life will teach you how to be humble. Fourth, governing with the consent of the generals is not the same as governing with the consent of the governed. The service chiefs are happy with Gono. Of course, they have to be. Where else in the world do you get a central bank governor who has bought an army, an airforce, a police force, an intelligence agency and a prison service by giving the leaders cars, tractors generators etc which he has purchased using money stolen from other people's forex accounts? They would be mad if they did not support him. Chinamasa's loud noises are irrelevant, and are best left without the dignity of a comment. Then, there is Gilbert, of all people. While Gono did a lot to dispossess other business people and to persecute and haunt them out of the country, I do not think that Gilbert can, in all honesty, point at Gono and tell us how bad he is. But then, which one of the dispossessed business people wouldn't be willing to donate a rope to hang Gono? Mr Biti's efforts are commendable in as far as he wants to address governance issues at the RBZ, especially the bizarre arrangement where the governor chairs the board and runs the RBZ. That is an obvious recipe for disaster. But, if his objectives are vindictive, then he should be stopped. What I really do not understand about Gono's case is why we are so obsessed with his discomfort? Is it a case of Schadenfreude? Or are we calling for his punishment for the benefit of Zimbabwe as a whole? Or our attention is being diverted to Gono so that we lose sight of our agenda to deliver democracy? After all, Mr Gono himself knows that he is not liked, nor trusted by the ordinary Zimbabwean. There reasons he is not resigning are difficult to come up with but I think the following could be some of the reasons; 1) a desire to hide or alter records at the RBZ that would be inimical to his freedom or that of his so called principals, 2) a disproportionate sense of individual ability and a bloated ego, 3) a hope that the West and other donors will 'go to sleep' and give him millions of USD so that he can repurchase the generals etc, 4) an absence of a sense of shame for past misdeeds, which is ominous, 5) he is a useful focal point for people's efforts while ZANU PF plans their next orgy of violence or some other such undemocratic endeavour.