MDC - International

Further Info

Watershed staff worked with immigrants and refugees from Zimbabwe. At the time of the workshop, a controversial recount of election results had just been carried out and the Movement for Democratic Change were trying to gain control of the country from Robert Mugabe, who had been in power for many years. The workshop took place over three days at the Pierian Centre and was led by Aikaterini Gegisian, Paddy Uglow and Tom.

Transcript

MDC, actually, it started as a trade union, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, general secretary of the movement, and after years of disgruntlement with the government of Zimbabwe, it decided to transform itself into a political party, which is the Movement for Democratic Change. And in 1999, had a rally in Chitungwiza.

Most of the people (who) were disgruntled with the regime in Zimbabwe went to that rally. It was a great day indeed for us, to have an opposition to challenge Mugabe. And I included was there.

There was now a friction concerning my wife. She was being told that they could not trust her any more in the office. They actually carried out their threats in actually telling her that, “You shouldn’t come to the office. You have got to stay home.”

She stayed home, and when we tried to ask whether she was still employed or not, that’s when it was said, “There is no place for you here.”

There are too many tribes in Zimbabwe: The Shonas in Mashonaland, and the Ndebeles in Matabeleland. These are the two major tribes in Zimbabwe.

The army was composed of the ex-ZANLA (Zimbabwean Afrikan Liberation Army) forces, ex-ZIPRA (Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army) forces and a few… Rhodesian forces that were incorporated into the army in the 1980s when we had the independence.

The ZANLA forces and ZIPRA forces never really worked together, and when they came together after independence, friction started, and that friction led to a mutiny, and it is that mutiny and the clashes which pursued which led now to emergence of a dissident group in Matabeleland.

The government decided to train what we call a Fifth Brigade to pursue the dissident elements in Matabeleland.

Because the government failed to track down the dissident element, they turned their vengeance on the innocent civilians, and over 20,000 innocent civilians were massacred.

I wouldn’t say it was one of the reasons of the creation of the MDC; what I would say is there are so many factors building up from the people against the government.

All the government promises were merely rhetoric: They promised development, they promised jobs, they promised everything but no - none of these things materialised. We had a lot of the workforce redundant. A lot of projects which they had promised never kicked off from the ground. The government was to embark on transferring power, from the minority to the majority of people in Zimbabwe: The people of Zimbabwe never enjoyed any power at all!

Matabeleland was excluded from the economic radar. It was excluded from the political participation…

Because of the genocide, the people in Matabeleland felt that the government of Robert Mugabe was not there for them, and when the opposition was formed, the people of Matabeleland saw MDC as a party that would revive their aspirations.

We have won the parliamentary elections. We are in the majority. That’s a real step forward in terms of governing the country. What now remains is the presidential elections. That is the only hurdle that we have got to cross. All those areas of the constitution we are not happy about: we have power to turn the constitution and rewrite it for the benefit of our people, and bring back powers to the people.

All those people who committed atrocities in Zimbabwe, they have got to be tried for those human rights abuses. We have had massacres throughout the country; we have had tortures throughout the country now.

Our leadership indicated recently, after the 29th March elections (2008), that they were going to pick up members even from the opposition parties, because the opposition now is the government - MDC is now the government; the opposition now is the government – to form a government in order to harmonise the situation in Zimbabwe.

The MDC in Bristol was formed here in the Pierian Centre. Since that formation, we have never looked back. We are one of the strongest branches in the UK: we have again, just two weeks ago, another successful hosting of the elections of our youth wing in Bristol, hosting the UK and Ireland executive, hosting the South West district, and hosting the election task force – it was such a great day – a wonderful day. And we succeeded in the two occasions.

Our constitution is open, for all you guys. Everybody, anywhere in the world to join hands with us, and become a member of the MDC with equal rights. Oh yes – we second to none so far!

Credits

Army picture created by sokwanele (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Bullet picture created by xtoq (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Bullet holes picture created by boris (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Cartridges created by munir (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Empty desk created by Dave Child (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Money picture created by Gregor Rohrig (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Robert Mugabe picture created by aheavens (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Poster pictures created by frontlineblogger (flickr.com, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Protest picture created by koffiejunkie (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Protest picture created by ruudb0y (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Protest picture created by randomtruth (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Soldier picture created by youngrobv (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Soldier picture created by hdptcar (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Voting results picture created by frontlineblogger (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

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