Dear Friends,
I don’t know whether you have been following the recent discussion on SW Radio Africa involving Tendai and Welshman. The last transcript has just been published and this excerpt is important:
“Violet: And, finally, you know, some have asked why the visionaries and luminaries in the MDC are wasting time and breath and fulfilling Mugabe’s agenda by fighting each other. Now, does the old saying ‘there’s strength in unity’ still resonate with the MDC intelligentsia and pro-democracy movements in Zimbabwe Professor Ncube?
Professor Ncube: Of course it does, and there’s absolutely no doubt that a single MDC united will have a much better chance, a stronger chance of actually dislodging the regime than a divided MDC. As we said at the beginning, the only person who is laughing all the way to the bank in respect of all the things which are happening on the ground to us as the opposition movement, as the democratic movement in Zimbabwe, is Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF. So we are very, very alive to that.
Violet: Tendai Biti?
Tendai Biti: Well, I think as long as the vision remains alive and as long as all of us have hard looks to ourselves and in ourselves, I think time might heal us and I think that we should keep the flame alive. You know, I studied history; history is very funny; so many things have happened in history, so no one should write the democratic movement off. Far from it.”
Welshman has been so heavily vilified in the last year – he has been accused of being in league with Mbeki and Zanu PF. I have listened very carefully and studied all these allegations for a year and I have to say that I have not seen a shred of reliable evidence yet. On the contrary despite the errors of judgment on some issues that Welshman has made (as all of us have from time to time) I do not see someone who has been happy about the divisions in the opposition, or someone who engineered them as alleged. On the contrary I have personally witnessed someone who has been deeply distressed by what has happened and who desires unity – as evidenced by this excerpt. If I am wrong in this I am obviously a very poor judge of character and fact; and Welshman should be awarded an Oscar!
I think the time has come for us to reconsider who has actually been responsible for the divisions in the opposition. This time we must consider hard evidence and not mere unsubstantiated allegations. And if anyone has hard evidence of these allegations against Welshman could it please be produced so that we can assess it. If there is in fact no such evidence then we would all benefit from recognising who is in fact still committed to the vision of a new democratic non violent Zimbabwe and start working with them.
Congratulations to both Tendai and Welshman for their positive comments. Congratulations as well to Violet Gonda for this superb series. In my book all are patriots worthy of our praise and support.
Regards,
David