HARARE - The nine MDC youths who were accused of assaulting expelled former party deputy treasurer-general Elton Mangoma in February, have, almost predictably, been found not guilty of the charge.
We say predictably because Mangoma’s case always looked doomed and amateurishly spiced-up and put together from day one, seemingly for maximum political gain.
No wonder the learned Harare magistrate, Milton Serima, found Mangoma’s evidence and that from the other state witnesses — Pardon Maengahama, Lastone Julias and Thabani Mlambo — to be desperately lacking in credibility when he dismissed the case on Monday, as they gave differing versions of what happened on the day in question.
A video that was produced by the State in an attempt to nail the accused — and which showed the skirmishes outside Harvest House in Harare before, during and after Mangoma’s harassment — in fact ended up helping to exonerate the accused youths who had maintained their innocence throughout the trial.
Surprisingly, the three people who are clearly shown in that video needlessly badgering Mangoma outside Harvest House in Harare are yet to be arrested or charged — which begs the question why.
Let us be very clear though: violence or harassment of others, in whatever form, and no matter how innocuous this may appear to be, has no place in Zimbabwe.
This is irrespective of who the perpetrators or the victims are.
Indeed, violence is barbaric, and is the primitive weapon of choice for scoundrels, gobshites and the intellectually challenged.
That said, it is perhaps revealing that neither the police nor Mangoma himself have shown any interest whatsoever in seeing the real culprits involved in this case, as shown on that video, arrested.
This leaves Zimbabweans wondering whether in fact the whole sad saga was not manipulated by Mangoma, law enforcement agencies and Zanu PF to tarnish the name of the MDC, particularly its embattled leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
If that is the case, then it is very sad indeed.
In the absence of a rational explanation for this Chinese puzzle, Zimbabweans are also entitled to look at all this in the light of the subsequent failed move by Mangoma, and a few other senior MDC officials that include former secretary-general Tendai Biti, to seize power irregularly, if not illegally, in the party.
That ill-considered move by the rebels truly shook the country’s main opposition party to its core at the time, amid fears in those early frenetic days that the MDC would implode altogether.
As we have said before, the critical question to ask still is who benefitted then and could still be benefitting from that attempted coup d’état, as well as the chaos that this spawned subsequently.
Further, how was removing Tsvangirai supposed to resolve all of the MDC’s known myriad of organisational and strategic challenges?
And how was this senseless infighting ever meant to help solve Zimbabwe’s deepening socio-economic problems?
What has concerned many Zimbabweans is the fact that the “latter-day democrats” within the party who openly rebelled against Tsvangirai and attacked him viciously with the active support of authorities and State apparatus were part of the many strategic errors that the MDC made over the past 15 years, culminating in the party’s heavy defeat in last year’s disputed national polls.
It really is telling, therefore, that these esteemed “saints” are entirely unwilling up to this day to shoulder any blame for these mistakes, and in fact want to absolve themselves of any blame completely.
Sadly, if there have been any winners in the self-defeating MDC fights, it has only been President Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF.
Yet Zanu PF, and our long-suffering country have never needed a stronger MDC than now if Zimbabwe is ever to come right.
Indeed, one does not have to be an MDC supporter to realise that a strong opposition is good for Zanu PF, and for any democracy for that matter.
And surely the selfish MDC combatants, particularly the rebels who falsely claim to be operating in the interests of their party and the country, know this.
Let us spell it out again very clearly: none of the supposed “luminaries” within the rebel movement can challenge, let alone match any of Zanu PF’s leading, albeit feuding lights in 2018. They all know this.
So what do they think they can achieve with their continuing, but futile lunacy?