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Stephen Mpofu, Perspective

ZIMBABWEANS who love our independence and sovereignty and appreciate the sacrifices by the gallant sons and daughters of the soil who laid down their lives when wrestling our motherland from usurpation by those without knees must stop at nothing in preventing the spread of a new political propaganda virus intended to annihilate the Zanu-PF Government in the forthcoming elections after illegal Western sanctions wounded the economy but left the incumbent Second Republic Government unscathed.

In the run up to Christmas and the New Year, Zimbabweans, especially those in the city of Bulawayo through which many diasporans arriving in the country from the south pass, were warned by Local Government and Public Works Minister Cde July Moyo to guard themselves against being infected by the returnees with the new Covid-19 variants now being reported in other countries.

Zanu-PF

The minister’s warning was no doubt shared by other Cabinet colleagues and fellow political leaders who all and the generality of Zimbabweans are aware of the devastating effects already wrought on both our economy and human lives by the Covid-19 pandemic.

But, and surprisingly enough, no Government or political leader has so far said anything about the urgent need for all patriotic Zimbabweans to beware and prevent the spread of a new political propaganda virus trending in news bulletins about Zimbabwe being broadcast by the Voice-of-America radio station in Shona and Ndebele by Zimbabweans in that country.

Earlier this week, for instance, VOA broadcast a story about the arrest in Harare of some members of the Citizens’ Coalition for Change and claimed that the police could only have acted under the instruction of “their commander-in-chief, the President” — a clear political propaganda virus obviously intended to infect the image of our President, Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa who, as every Zimbabwean knows, does not instruct the police to arrest offenders as the latter are qualified and competent to police the laws of our country without the Head of State having to come down to crack the whip on the well-trained and experienced law enforcement agents.

Of course, the disinformation in point above typifies cheap propaganda to besmirch the image of our Head of State and the ruling party, Zanu-PF, which he heads, in a de-campaigning process by the West to try once more to vanquish the Zanu-PF Government in order for lackies who kowtow to imperialist neo-colonial machinations to get into power.
As a matter of fact, it will be interesting to know why of all countries on the globe only Zimbabweans living in America are granted space on radio, to broadcast news about happenings in their country back home in their mother tongues.

What is so special about that favour if not heinously intended to influence fellow nationals back home in their native country to rebel against the Government by revolutionaries who brought back human rights and freedom stolen from them by people from beyond many waters who turned the countryside where the majority of black people lived and still live today, into a periphery of urban settlements that the foreigners set up as their homes away from home?

In one news bulletin about Zimbabwe, a VOA correspondent in Botswana reported that thousands of Zimbabweans living in that country flocked back into Zimbabwe through the Plumtree border post as well as through the bush to join relatives and friends back home during the festive season.
The correspondent added that most of the Zimbabweans who did not possess travel and work documents would find it difficult to return to Botswana, adding that large numbers of Zimbabweans had left their country to live and work in foreign lands because of “the bad situation back home”.

But the VOA correspondent conveniently and deliberately — and for obvious destructive propaganda machinations — omitted to state the fact that Zimbabweans had been forced by illegal Western sanctions which wreaked havoc on their economy to leave their motherland and eke out a living in foreign lands to support families back home while their country’s economy back home remained embargoed under sanctions.

Minister of Local Government and Public Works July Moyo

Zimbabweans abroad obviously paid by their imperialist masters to act as political propaganda viruses against the Government in their native country no doubt communicate the destructive propaganda to their relatives and friends back home by phone or in writing or by advising the latter to listen to VOA broadcasts in order to make good their prolonged stay abroad by endearing themselves well to their paymasters.

In this humble communicologist’s view, the machinations in point mentioned above in this discourse and obviously others to follow as Zimbabweans head into harmonised elections this year, are intended to soil the image of the incumbent Government in order for more Zimbabweans to vote against the ruling party in the forthcoming elections.

The dismal picture painted above by this pen vis-à-vis the political propaganda virus being spread across the nation by enemies of the Government impels political leaders and all other unmitigated patriotic citizens to go the whole hog against any and all disinformation obviously intended to kill a verdict of free and fair elections and in the process put Zimbabwe on a blacklist by investors and other people elsewhere in the world willing to establish good relations with the country if Zanu-Pf is returned to power.
Time is running out for fine tuning Zimbabweans from all political parties as the incumbent Second Republic Government is not against any political party contesting in the forthcoming elections.