Zimpapers Logo

Obert Gutu

Benny Tsododo Correspondent

The MDC-T cannot pretend to be sympathetic to retrenched workers when it is advocating plans that would trigger more job losses and company closures.

To say the MDC-T has no ideological direction could sound trite but remains pertinent, particularly so when the party announces unhelpful plans to boycott products and companies linked to ZANU-PF.

At a time Government is piously fighting to keep struggling companies afloat, it is both disheartening and revealing that the MDC-T announced plans to roll out a boycott of local companies.

While other patriotic Zimbabweans are sleeplessly promoting local companies and their products through the Buy Zimbabwe campaign, the MDC-T is busy backstabbing by propagating retrogressive campaigns such as the boycott of ZANU -PF-linked companies.

The boycott is just a name for the MDC-T’s own callous sanctions on the country.

On August 18, 2015, the NewsDay carried a story saying the MDC-T is set to mobilise its members to boycott businesses and products linked to ZANU-PF.

The party’s spokesperson Obert Gutu reportedly said: “The MDC has come up with a programme in which we will call on all our supporters and the generality of Zimbabweans to stop dealing and buying products from ZANU-PF-linked and owned businesses.”

He was further quoted saying: “We need to hear ZANU-PF scream and as a democratic party we can only engage in peaceful resistance to this regime until it squeals.”

Anyone would notice that Gutu’s statement echoed words of one disgraced Chester Crocker, a former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, who on June 13, 2000, told a US Senate Sub-Committee on Foreign Relations that, “To separate the Zimbabwean people from ZANU-PF, we are going to have to make their economy scream, and I hope you, Senators, have the stomach for what you have to do.”

Chester’s pronouncements were a precursor to the imposition of illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe that occasioned the present economic challenges besetting the country.

True to Chester’s words, Zimbabwe’s economy is now “screaming” as witnessed by increased company closures, liquidity crunch and job losses.

Now the country appears set to “scream” more as the MDC-T ominously announced another round of sanctions directed at companies associated with ZANU-PF.

This round of MDC-T sanctions are directed at escalating the economic morass precipitated by illegal sanctions from the west, hitting the final nail in the already limping economy.

The targeted companies are those that survived the throes of western embargoes and are currently holding the economy together.

In a country where ZANU-PF’s economic empowerment drive resulted in the formation of many business enterprises, no company could be easily dissociated from the party.

Most local companies somehow have their roots in ZANU-PF and it might be a Herculean task, amounting to a search for a needle in a haystack, to find a firm without an association to the revolutionary party.

In essence, the MDC-T is actually declaring sanctions on all local companies. It simply wants to guillotine all business enterprises that are holding the economy together.

This brings into context the opposition party’s actual position concerning the current job losses and company closures. The MDC-T cannot pretend to be sympathetic to retrenched workers when it is advocating plans that would trigger more job losses and company closures.

It is a given fact that if the local companies and their products are boycotted, they would eventually close shop for lack of business, leaving them with no choice but to dump workers into the streets.

The MDC-T and their western bedfellows have not made it a secret that they want to create conditions similar to those that triggered the so-called Arab Spring uprisings.

They want to sow seeds of discontent among the people, to spur them to revolt against Government.

All this is in a bid to avoid elections.

The opposition party wants to smuggle itself into government through a wave of civil disobedience, without subjecting itself to elections where it knows it is a perennial and sore loser.

Ironically, Gutu claims his party has overwhelming support to make the boycott sanctions a success.

He told NewsDay that, “we are sure we have the numbers. We have people on our side and they will understand what we are trying to do. It should make ZANU-PF squeal.”

If the MDC-T has such “overwhelming” support, why not mobilise it to win the forthcoming 2018 elections?

Why use it for destructive purposes of further hurting the economy and make the people “scream”?