Hunting Rats Instead of Big Game: The Insanity of Zimbabwean Politics

Had hardworking Jonathan Moyo been the Minister of Defence or the Minister of Mines during the GNU when we lost our vast deposit of alluvial diamonds, today Zimbabwe would have been richer by a whopping $15B. Imagine that kind of money with which to buy basic drugs and medical equipment, rebuild our roads and bridges, construction of new power stations, new hospitals and so on and so forth. Would we be running around the world begging for money to pay our loyal soldiers?

Speaking of which, we are told that soldiers were deployed at Chiadzwa but the diamonds were heisted out of the country as if no one was watching. Has anyone asked the former minister in charge at the time to give an account on what was really going on at Chiadzwa? The British Daily Telegraph had a report in which it said that a rudimentary military-style airstrip had been constructed at the place where the diamonds eventually disappeared into the thin air, or perhaps some smog-laden air in some alien city not African. From appearance alone, the airstrip looked like the kind associated with the handling of robust military aircraft. If such aircraft were involved with what we have to call a massive heist, is it possible that our loyal soldiers missed all this, I wonder? How about the minister? Was he aware of the activities at the diamond fields? If he was, what did he do about it, and when?

On the other equally curious hand, the Minister of Mines at the time of what has to be considered nothing else but an act of grand larceny and treason seemed to have been too busy to pay attention to what was happening at the diamond fields since he was apparently quite preoccupied running a personal bank that "coincidentally" collapsed with the sudden disappearance of all the diamonds, or perhaps running to India.

There are questions that need to be asked. These questions have to be asked since there seemed to have been a puzzling nexus conjoining the Ministry of Defense and the bank owned by the Minister of Mines. The New Zimbabwe newspaper reported an incident of violence at one of the branches of the minister's bank. An irate soldier is said to have seized a bank computer when the bank failed to disburse said soldier's salary. How did such an ephemeral bank end up with the task of handling our soldiers' salaries?

Questions have to be asked. We have $15B that cannot be accounted for. The people of Zimbabwe, from Plumtree to Zimunya, have to know what really happened to their diamonds. Nothing ever disappears into thin air without a trace, nothing whatsoever! In this new period in which the transfer of monies across international border is detectable to the last red penny, someone must have the records of what really happened.

Hunting for this massive amount of money is the only deal that must count in Zimbabwe. Do not ask serious Zimbabweans to go into a forest teeming with wild big game such as buffalo, sables, wildebeest et cetera and tell us to forget about such big game. If, in place of going after big prey, any serious hunter of great renown asks his fellow hunters to chase after rabbits, an act so stupid the big game are alerted to the imminent danger they hastily gallop away, that expert hunter has to be ignored or be dismissed as hapless and hopeless. Right now, in Zimbabwe, we are actually being asked not only to forget about catching the big game but even the puny rabbits. Chase after wild and inedible rats, we are being told. Such madness is what we consider serious hunting, so it seems.

At any rate, President Mugabe made the mistake of not giving these aforementioned ministries to Jonathan Moyo. Given that Moyo has very high work ethics and moral rectitude, the evidence of which is quite clear to anyone who genuinely cares about educating our people, was likely to run the two ministries in a very professional and efficient way as well as loyalty to the people of Zimbabwe. Jonathan Moyo is sane enough he will not ask us to trap rats in lieu of the plentiful big game. To his credit and for which we owe him a huge debt of gratitude, President Mugabe understands this quality. If there is one minister who has demonstrated the capability to play a significant and nation-rescuing effort and, in the process, salvage the president's legacy that has been badly soiled by the thieves and liars the president trusted to serve the people of Zimbabwe loyally and selflessly, that minister is Jonathan Moyo.

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