ZANU PF: Arrest Finance Minister!

When in doubt, ZANU PF make the most obtuse, fanciful calls for reactive measures. Jonathan Moyo, a man known for his ulterior motives and underhanded dealings, is calling for Tendai Biti's arrest - because he wants to institute an audit with regards to diamond sales monies going missing...

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"ZANU PF chief propagandist Jonathan Moyo has called for high-handed measures against Finance minister Tendai Biti and other Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) officials for demanding a diamonds cash audit.

The former government minister also wants the MDC leadership arrested for what the country’s biggest political flip-flopper says is their call for sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Moyo’s calls for Biti’s arrest on Sunday in the state-controlled Sunday Mail came barely four days after President Robert Mugabe said he was going to ask the country’s security chiefs to tackle his estranged coalition government partners' support for sanctions.

"Instead of auditing the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation which the US and European Union (EU) want to know for purposes of widening and entrenching their illegal economic sanctions, relevant authorities should probe Biti in the light of WikiLeaks revelations that he is the local linchpin of the illegal sanctions and the law must take its course without fear or favour," he said."

In a normal society, the police would have classed Moyo's call as ludicrous, but since Mugabe does what he pleases, when he pleases, to whoever he pleases, Moyo's call is not without the ZANU PF normal code of practise.

First of all, there are no 'economic' sanctions in place against Zimbabwe. That idea is as fanciful as his call for Biti's arrest.

I have already written - many times - about how Mugabe prevents various personages from entering Zimbabwe... so what is different about the 'targeted' sanctions.

When we enter licenced premises, on the wall should be a sign that read 'Right of Admission Reserved" which is very similar to the control that countries have with regard to unwanted persons entering their borders. What is so different about Western countries not wanting Mugabe and his band of merry men in their countries?

"Apart from calling for strenuous action against the MDC hierarchy, Moyo accuses Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC of sponsoring the latest wave of terror to hit the country ahead of anticipated elections this year.

In his self-serving analysis, the ex-University of Zimbabwe lecturer says party spokesman Nelson Chamisa’s comments on the MDC’s "underground campaign" was an unintentional admission of the former opposition party’s penchant for violence ever since its birth 12 years ago.

However, Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s civil society and western nations blame the latest clashes on Mugabe, and his party - acts which are seen as a tool of cowering opponents ahead of the anticipated elections."

Moyo actually believes if he says one thing, we will believe it, and not question the honesty of that claim. Wrong!

"Biti’s crime, according to Moyo and other ZANU PF sympathisers, has been to order an audit of the Chiadzwa precious mineral earnings amid serious political mudslinging stoked by the octogenarian leader’s desperate wish for the diamonds revenue to be used for civil servants’ pay.

While Mugabe told an Ethiopian mission and crowd in late January that government would avail about US$250 million, Biti quickly shot back and rebutted the claims, saying Treasury had no such money from the controversial gem fields - where up to five mining firms are extracting and auctioning stones in a largely opaque manner."

Robb WJ Ellis

The Bearded Man