Full statement
Thursday, 20 April 2017
Statement by MDC-T President Tsvangirai on the occassion of the signing of a MOU with Professor Welshman Ncube of MDC
Today we continue the journey that we started yesterday with Dr Joice Mujuru; a journey whose destination is a democratic, free and prosperous Zimbabwe under a caring government.
When we arrive at our desired destination in 2018, we will revive our industries so that we can create job opportunities for millions of our young people. We will attract investment to create new wealth, new jobs and end the man made cash crisis. We will give title deeds and sustained support to our new farmers and compensate our old farmers as a process of restoring property rights and making Zimbabwe a net exporter of food again. We will revamp and revitalize our health and education service delivery system. We will rehabilitate and modernize our collapsed infrastructure of roads, rail and energy. We will declare war on corruption. Through our Socio Economic transformation agenda, we will restore Zimbabwe to its former glory.
However, to embark on this transformation agenda, we need to extricate ourselves from the shackles of the corrosive dictatorship and economic mismanagement gripping our nation State. Father Zimbabwe, Dr Joshua Nkomo, in his memoirs whilst exiled in England wrote something very profound and I quote. “The hardest lesson of my life has come to me late. It is that a nation can win freedom without its people being free.” His words still ring true today as they did then. As Zimbabweans we are still not free, but none but ourselves can free ourselves, and to do so we need to work together.
Ladies and gentleman, Dr Nkomo was exiled not by the racist settler regime of Ian Douglas Smith, but by his own comrade in arms, President Robert Mugabe. His exiling was not motivated by anything other than power and its retention at all cost. The cost of that power retention agenda was the massacre of 20 000 of our fellow citizens in Midlands and Matabeleland.
President Mugabe, as Prime Minister, presided over these senseless killings. His response to the cry for a simple apology and for transitional justice was that it was a “moment of madness”. Really? Was it one moment of madness or more than 20 000 moments of madness? To us it was more—–it can only be described as cruel, unbridled, State sponsored terrorism. Cruelty manifested in divisive politics of hate, violence, intolerance, racism and tribalism which form part of the DNA of Zanu-PF. This, my countrymen and women, we will put an end to come 2018. Not through retribution but restitution.
Fellow Zimbabweans, for change to come we all have a part to play. The most critical role that you must play wherever you are is to register to vote so that you can participate in shaping the destiny of your own country and securing the future of your children by voting for change. Failure to do so would mean that you are voting for the perpetuation of our current suffering. Let’s go out in our numbers and register to vote so that we can usher in a new dispensation where every Zimbabwean irrespective of race, creed, religion or tribe is given an equal opportunity to prosper.
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