By Dr Masimba Mavaza- Al Jazeera published the previously much-trumpeted documentary film, but the documentary turned out to be worse than a dumb squib; in fact, it turned out to be a pathetic and sorry attempt at election campaigning by and on behalf of CCC.
Before it aired, the documentary was allegedly hailed as a smoking gun to expose Zanu PF and its leaders as engaged in gang crime, looting and money laundering.
The documentary is its own critic.
Its contents demolish any semblance of credibility in the sad piece of work.
“The whole hullabaloo about illicit gold is plain codswallop and balderdash “to quote from Ambassador Christopher Mutsvangwa. “The country’s detractors coalesced around George Soros and his Open Society Institute of Southern Africa are clearly miffed and terribly disappointed that Zimbabwe has reverted to and resurrected gold as the reference anchor of the United States Dollar.”
For years, hyperinflation has been the bane and bugbear of the besieged Zimbabwe economy. The Ango-Saxon world and its European kith and kin launched a concerted economic attack. The goal was to force Zimbabwe to its heel so it could cry ‘Uncle ‘. As the infant global currency of new baby America, the fiat US dollar was deployed to decimate the Zimdollar fiat money inherited from colonial Rhodesia mercilessly. The desperate currency scenario called for creative innovation.” Cde Mutsvangwa added.
The main player who allegedly represents President ED is Angel Hurbet. We all know that he is the presidential ambassador at large. In the documentary, he is filmed making the most outrageous claims, saying that he can do everything, including signing treaties on behalf of the President. Surprisingly, Al Jazeera took the ambassador seriously.
We all know that treaties are international agreements. We all know that the Second Republic has not signed any treaties. No sane person can believe such an outlandish claim. Therefore from the outset, it is clear that Angel is bigging himself up to entice what he thinks is business. He was trying to inflate his ego.
Nothing in the documentary reasonably links the Honourable President to Mr Angel’s claims, other than his manifestly wild and incredulous claims. No sober mind can conclude that objectively AB was acting, in his quest for fatal business, as an agent of the President.
The fact that Angel is the ambassador for the President does not mean that whatever he does with his life is for the President. It does not mean that wherever he goes, whoever he meets and whatever he says is for the President.
CCC is a collection of lawyers who pretend they do not understand the dynamics between an employee and their employee. There is a criterion for separating the actions executed on behalf of the employer by the agent from those executed by the employee for his benefit. This criterion is laid under the legal concept of vicarious liability.
Vicarious liability means that the employer is legally responsible for the actions of the employee that are done by the employee within the scope and course of the employee’s duties. Not every remote act falls within vicarious liability.
Angel as an ambassador, is employed to represent the President lawfully. It is absurd to assert or even to insinuate that criminal association or anything he was filmed to be doing or saying falls within the course or scöpe of his duties. In all that Angel was doing, he was on a spree of his own.
Every day, employees misuse their employment positions to gain personal advantage by acting as if they have the employer’s authority. Those occasions constitute fraudulent activities. Any innocent persons potentially exposed to such fraud must conduct due diligence to verify all key representations. If they do not, they have themselves to blame, not the employer.
The makers of the document could not reasonably believe it. They must have known, and they knew that the representations were false. They willingly engaged so that they would produce and sell the documentary.
CCC’s collaborators desperately wanted a vicious campaign tool. The timing of the documentary’s release, a few months before the harmonised elections, is telling.
Together with CCC, Hopewell has no programme and no alternative to offer. They are the masters of a negative campaign. They offer nothing other than negativity and scandalisation. Even in African culture, it is taboo for a young man to try to woo into marriage a young woman by simply demonising his rival. If he wants to marry the young woman, he must show her that in his father’s house, there are hundreds of cattle and large fields: she will be fed and cherished. Just claiming that his rival is a witch, without evidence, is pathetic and May not win him a sensible lady.
We join CCC and Hopewell in this documentary because even though they did not help make it, they are running with it in their campaign forums.
We should all say that if the documentary has merit in it, people will be arrested on evidence. It is not enough to stop anyone without proof. We should conclude with what was said by ambassador Mutsvangwa “The fulminations in the Al Jazeera documentary won’t change an iota of that virtuous national currency scenario. Zimbabwe is back to the future of gold. The national currency ingenuity is well ahead of the ongoing hiatus of the Saudi Arabia-threatened United States Petro-dollar, the fledgling Chinese Petro-yuan and the prospect of the Indian Petro-rupee.
The Munhumutapas and Changamire royal ancestors can only be smiling at this new ingenuity by their posterity offspring.”
NOTE-Dr Masimaba Mavaza is a diplomat and Zanu PF sympathiser based in the UK. He writes in his personal capacity.