We’re riding the tide of a new world order

MOREBLESSING ALI — a virtual unknown who led a largely listless and colourless life, at least politically — died the most violent death imaginable that even her worst enemies would not have wished for her.

ON the night of May 24, 2022, she was snatched by her old flame, Pius Jamba, at Chibhanguza Night Club in Nyatsime, Chitungwiza, where she was enjoying a night out with a friend.

So determined was Jamba in his evil enterprise that he rained missiles at those who wanted to rescue Ali.

After abducting his victim, he disappeared into the night.

Days turned into weeks, only for Ali’s dismembered body to be discovered on June 11 — exactly 18 days later — stashed in a disused well at a plot owned by Jamba’s mother.

It was the putrid smell of death that wafted through the area that alerted people to this murder most foul.

And the state of Ali’s body told a story of a heinous crime.

Some say she was cut into two, disembowelled and had her intestines packed in a plastic bag.

It was just horrible.

Ever the ones to gatecrash and exploit macabre events such as deaths, funerals and memorials for political capital, the CCC, led by their former point man in Chitungwiza, Job “Wiwa” Sikhala, actively tried to weaponise the Ali family’s grief by claiming it was the handiwork of ZANU PF.

They swore that Ali’s body would never leave the morgue until perpetrators of this egregious crime were brought to book.

“That area (Nyatsime) has now been turned into a terror zone and it is up to the citizens of this country (read Citizens Coalition for Change) to make sure that it is liberated.

“But this death of Moreblessing Ali, let me tell them and the whole Zimbabwe, the whole (Jamba) family shall perish. We are going to revenge,” said Wiwa on June 12, a day after the decomposing body was discovered.

“Whichever way we are going to do (it), the family shall suffer. You might not hear about this family once again. It will be wiped from the face of the earth . . . and truly the avenging shall be done (sic),” he added for effect.

Two days after this bombastic statement, CCC engaged in a festival of violence in Nyatsime.

Well, to cut the long story short, Wiwa was to become a guest of the State for 595 days for his transgressions, while Ali’s body was to spend 631 days in the mortuary before her burial on March 2 this year.

The street kid and the Cobra

But Bishop Lazarus is much more interested in what happened at Ali’s burial at Zororo Memorial Park in Chitungwiza, where Wiwa, who is now trying to assemble and lead a new political outfit after his fallout with Nelson Chamisa, was heckled, harassed, intimidated, threatened and blocked from addressing mourners by supporters of the nascent blue political formation fronted by Chamisa.

It represents deepening fault lines in the opposition coalition forces created by the late Morgan Tsvangirai — and supported by the West — that will have consequences on Zimbabwe’s future political landscape.

The sight of Wiwa, who wants to masquerade as tough, militant even, cravenly wilting under siege from Chamisa’s supporters, was just remarkable.

Not even his Mandela shirt, which he was told by Bulawayo-based “prophet” Blessing Chiza to religiously wear as a charm to help him on his journey to State House, could help him. Kikikiki.

While Sikhala might have a stomach for the rough and tumble of politics, he is no match for Chamisa, who was christened the “Cobra” in opposition circles.

Eddie Cross, who spent time in the trenches with Wiwa, recently reminded us that “Job is a street kid”.

“We shouldn’t take him seriously. He is no threat politically to anybody. He loves being in prison.

He loves getting photographed in chains,” he indicated in one of his interviews. Kikikiki.

Yet Chamisa imperceptibly moves and strikes like a snake.

Do you still remember how, as Tsvangirai’s blue-eyed boy, he hounded the late

Trudy Stevenson, Promise Mkwananzi, Elton Mangoma, Tendai Biti et al from MDC after they challenged Morgan’s authority?

Do you remember how he hounded Thokozani Khupe, Douglas Mwonzora and Lwazi Sibanda, among others, during Tsvangirai’s burial in Humanikwa village on February 20, 2018?

Do you still remember, too, how the violence later visited Khupe and her lieutenants, such as Abednego Ncube and Obert Gutu, in Bulawayo on March 4, 2018, where cars and property were destroyed, as Chamisa defended the opposition presidency he had usurped when Tsvangirai’s body lay in the morgue a day after his death? It is a macabre history.

But in all this, Chamisa remains in the shadows, from whence he strikes.

You see, never has the opposition been so divided as today.

The splits and intrigue are unending. We now have Welshman Ncube, Biti, Sikhala, Mkwananzi, Sengezo Tshabangu and many others jostling for leadership in the opposition.

The likely inexorable collision of these belligerents in the opposition will be a train wreck.

The scriptures, in Matthew 12: 25, remind us: “Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.”

When Chamisa eventually launches his “blue” project, the struggles are likely to intensify.

Put simply, the Western-sponsored opposition in Zimbabwe has all but collapsed, never again to emerge as a formidable front.

At sixes and sevens

Without a beachhead to launch their continuing campaign to oust ZANU PF, which they view as a pebble in their shoe insofar as their interests in the region and beyond are concerned, and with confidence in their proxies in Harare hitting rock bottom, especially after Chamisa chowed down on the more than US$3 million he was given by the EU for the 2023 elections, the West, particularly the United States, is now in a pickle.

Harare also proved to be impregnable. The CIA covert actions, including under the guise of non-governmental organisations, continue to be blunted.

Bishop Lazi told you how some American spooks masquerading as Senate aides were ran out of town in 2022 after being caught red-handed meeting up with some representatives of civic organisations they wanted to recruit for their regime change project before the 2023 elections.

The Americans were so incensed by this that Joe Biden is understood to have raised the issue when he met President Cyril Ramaphosa on September 16, 2022.

The Bishop warned them before that in President ED they are dealing with a tough customer.

Here is a man who shaped Zimbabwe’s post-independence security architecture.

In Portuguese, they call such people segurança.

A lot is also going on for Zimbabwe. Even when the odds are against it, what with the El Niño-induced drought, falling prices for minerals on the world market and the burden of obtaining sanctions, Harare continues to plow ahead with massive epoch-defining infrastructure development projects meant to leapfrog its modernisation and industrialisation programme.

The discovery and operationalisation of multi-billion-dollar projects in lithium, a strategic metal that would likely shape future economics and politics, as well as discoveries of oil and gas, are adding winds to its sails. And Washington wants in on the action.

You should read the US’ Integrated Country Strategy for Zimbabwe, which was recently compiled by former US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Charles Ray and Michael Walsh.

It clearly states that “Zimbabwe’s strategic importance to the United States is as a potential growth hub for Southern Africa”.

Critically, it recommends: “In coordination with appropriate US government departments and agencies, the US Embassy Harare should develop a roadmap for American and Zimbabwean policymakers that depicts a strategic pathway for transforming Zimbabwe into a growth hub for Southern Africa, in a way that simultaneously advances US national security and foreign policy interests and SADC (Southern African Development Community) economic prosperity and opportunity.”

However, as the world evolves and the unipolar world gives way to a multipolar one, the era of Pax Americana, which saw the US emerge as a predominant and unrivalled power after World War II, is fast eroding.

This is why Russia still stands, despite the barrage of sanctions against it, as it looks elsewhere in an evolving world for mutually beneficial partnerships and trade.

This year, Moscow’s economy is expected to grow by 2,6 percent, compared with 2,1 percent for the US.

Its unemployment is at a record low. Zimbabwe, too, is riding on a wave of the new world order.

So, dear reader, you should look at Washington’s theatrics last week, when it purportedly reviewed sanctions on Zimbabwe, in this light.

Our resolve and indomitable willpower to reach the promised land, with or without sanctions, is unbending.

Bishop out!