[This is written by a Black man from Zimbabwe who was an insider there whom Mugabe once tried to kill.

I have only one word for the Zimbabweans: REVOLUTION! My feelings about Zimbabwe since 2000 have been this: Mugabe must not go unpunished for what he did to the farerms of that country. He must be burned – and taken down – without question. Jan]

THE long – suffering Zimbabweans have once again been brought to their knees by the actions of their insensitive, cruel and selfish rulers.

The attitude of this government and that of its leader, President Robert Mugabe, to the plight of starving masses of Zimbabwe is obscene to say the least.

Right now, Zimbabwe has insufficient maize to meet the national requirements for the people’s staple food, sadza, which has become an elusive luxury – available only to a few who are well connected or those whose pockets are bottomless and can afford to buy it at any price on the parallel market.

Of course, the government and Zanu PF chefs themselves do not run short of the commodity. The country is facing a critical shortage of all basic commodities such as cooking oil, sugar, soap and other commodities. What the suffering innocent Zimbabweans are being subjected to is not necessary at all. It is simply the work of an incompetent, arrogant and corrupt government which is determined to line the pockets of its ministers and top officials while the nation starves.

The arrogance is evident in the manner the President reacts to the crisis. He ignores his subjects completely. As if that is not enough, he goes on to allocate scarce foreign currency to acquisition of jet fighters and arms of war, while the nation scrounges for a few American dollars to buy maize so that millions of hungry Zimbabweans can be fed.

We have no maize, we have no petrol and we have no basic commodities such as sugar, flour, milk and we are experiencing crippling power cuts because the country can not pay suppliers of electricity yet Mugabe sees it fit to buy jet fighters from China and expensive anti-riot amoured tanks, all for the purposes of suppressing hungry citizens.

What kind of a father goes to buy a gun when his own family is starving? This shows how cruel and insensitive Mugabe can be. He has no heart for his people at all.

Already the media today is awash with stories of starvation, fuel shortages and power cuts throughout the country. Shortages have become a national curse. Rumblings of hungry people standing for hours on end in long queues of food, fuel and bus stops, jostling for transport to take them home after work, may appear harmless and localized disgruntlement, but they should be seen as manifestations of national anger and desperation.

Zanu PF may rig elections but as is now evident, they can never rig the economy. If anything, it is the economy, which they have messed up by their incompetence and fraud, which will rig them.

The suffering of ordinary people cannot be allowed to go on forever. The people have been made to suffer for far too long! The patience of peace-loving Zimbabweans has been stretched to the limit!

But the arrogance and insensitivity of this regime does not end there. Zimbabweans watched in horror on the eve of Independence Day seeing people like Solomon Mutsvairo and Bernard Chidzero being honoured for liberating Zimbabwe while great liberation heroes like Josiah Tongogara, Herbert Chitepo, Ndabaningi Sithole, Enoch Dumbutshena, and Jason Ziyapapa Moyo, who was at one time Mugabe’s great friend and who was his best man at his wedding in Ghana, were sidelined.

How can someone who simply composed the national anthem long after independence be awarded a gold medal for liberating the country while the names of those that fought the war are not even mentioned?

On occasions that he sits in Parliament, Mugabe can boast having himself, his sister, Sabina, as well as her sons, Leo Mugabe and Patrick Zhuawo.

Mugabe is also a man who does not forget a grudge easily. Even in death, Chitepo is paying for chastising Mugabe and ordering a reversal of his action to depose Ndabaningi Sithole from the party leadership.

When Mugabe and Enos Nkala went to report to Chitepo at Mulungwishi Village in Lusaka, that they had removed Sithole from the party leadership, Chitepo simply laughed and told Mugabe and his friends that: “That is unconstitutional. Go and bring Ndabaningi Sithole.” I was present at this meeting as regional chairman of the party in Zambia.

So the background to what the real person Mugabe is goes far back during the liberation struggle and I am not surprised that he is treating his countrymen like trash today. I have known him to be a crafty, insensitive, arrogant and ruthless man of great ambitions who stops at nothing to get what he wants. Remember he was my teacher at one time in my life. Remember, too, it is his regime that gunned me down at point-blank range, leaving me with scars that I will carry to my grave.

Patrick Kombayi is the MDC spokesperson for the party’s Midlands South Province.

Source: AllAfrica.Com
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200506061321.htm…/p>