Exclusive extract from Morgan Tsvangirai’s new book

This entry was posted on 30 September 2011.
An extract from the Zimbabwean Prime Minister's new biography

Morgan Tsvangirai: At the Deep End is the story of a man who through everything he has endured has remained committed to working for peace and democracy for all in his country, and in the process become a beacon of hope for a beleaguered nation.

Read below for an exclusive extract from the book, as Prime Minister Tsvangirai speaks openly about dealing with the Mugabe regime:

I signed the Global Political Agreement because my belief in Zimbabwe and its peoples ran deeper than the scars I bore from my ten-year struggle against Mugabe’s dictatorship. I went into an openly loveless marriage out of my hope for the future. That hope was, and still is, far stronger than the grief I felt for the needless suffering in my personal past.

For more than two years I worked hard to make the loveless marriage with Mugabe work. Serious problems threatened our strange union but I remained pragmatic and positive. Mugabe was unsure whether he needed the MDC, despite his advanced age and desperation to clear his soiled record. In one of our routine Monday meetings, he confided that the hawks in Zanu PF were piling pressure on him for conceding to the demands of the interparty agreement that had led to the current coalition.

The situation was equally difficult for me; similar accusations were being made against me – not from the same sources, though. The people were getting impatient with the slow pace of change, with Zanu PF’s reluctance to honour what it committed itself to, with delays in a full return to peace and security.

My experiences spurred me to dig deeper into the African political psyche and to sharpen my vision as an African, born in a colonial setting and matured under a post-colonial tyranny. For the transition to survive, I had to be cautious. Publicly, I went out of my way to assure the nation that all was well. I forfeited my militancy and never sought to humiliate Mugabe as an opponent. I could see the dangers of taking off my boxing gloves and engaging in yet another political fracas with Mugabe and Zanu PF. Had I done otherwise the transitional government would have collapsed within weeks of its formation.

The private sector, civil society, villagers and peasants, the MDC and the international community were anxious about the pace of change. I found myself deep in a steamy melting pot. Only hope kept me going in the face of extreme provocation and unfulfilled Zanu PF pledges. My biggest headache stemmed from a reluctance to embrace change from the security sector – a fundamental requirement for stability and national renewal. The security establishment has a decisive and compelling influence on whatever the transitional government might seek to do.
While Zimbabwe bore the classic hallmarks of a post-war conflict, the 15 September 2008 peace deal was a purely political agreement. It left the status of a highly politicised security sector intact. That was a mistake. By the time I raised the subject for national consideration, Mugabe and Zanu PF had become terrified and withdrew to their traditional comfort zone – the military – for safety.

I realise now that any talk of ‘security sector reform’ must refer to a long-term programme, perhaps over the next generation. To shift the outlook and behaviour of the security establishment from what it has become – an enforcer of the nationalist mantra of the Mugabe regime – to what it needs to be – the underwriter of a true democratic dispensation – is going to be a monumental and time-consuming task. Habits die hard. The dogs of war, once they have their teeth into victims, cannot easily be wrestled from their grip and retrained as watchdogs for peace and non-partisan national, humane and human security. What we needed in the transitional period was alignment of the security sector to the goals of the Global Agreement. That this alignment did not occur was an indictment of Mugabe’s own breach of faith: he had signed but he did not carry out the spirit of the agreement by calling his security forces to order. The security forces should be enablers, not spoilers, of change.

[Copyright © Morgan Tsvangirai with William N Bango, 2011]

Under no circumstances may any of the contents be reproduced without the publisher’s consent.

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