By Bernard Bwoni
It
starts off with dramatic pictures of a group of young people in threatening and
boisterous poses, throwing stones and burning tyres in the middle of roads.
There is commotion and prancing, singing and scuffles. There is senseless
damage to property, wanton disregard to the rule of law and a deliberate provocation
of law enforcement authorities to react. Stones and boulders are hurled in the
direction of law enforcement and that stirs them into action and rightly so.
That precise moment the law enforcement officials move in is the exact moment
that is captured on a smartphone device. This is the image that is instantly
whisked away and uploaded on social networks sites Facebook and Twitter. The
prolific cyberspace warriors play with words to enable them to access and
appeal to their intended audience's emotional side. These are very specific
words and statements that are used repetitively to tamper with the targeted
audience's emotional corner. They will use headings like "Zimbabwe is
burning", "Total collapse", "Murdering and raping regime on
the brink of collapse", and many such wordings to go with specifically
captured images to induce instant panic. This is the caption that is shared by
many on social network sites and in so doing creates the false impression that
Zimbabwe is indeed burning or on the brink of a total collapse. These
cyberspace warriors are not based on the ground in Zimbabwe but rather entirely
in the diaspora. They are hostile towards the Zimbabwe government and will not
have first-hand information of what really is happening on the ground but will
have the resources to create that false reality effectively. Their primary
focus is to cause cracks within the ruling party to pave way for the real
forces behind their keyboards to effect regime change in the country.
A
picture of unruly youths burning used tyres in the middle of a road in Epworth
is then taken up by Western media sources, made into a matter-of-fact story and
that becomes the world version of news headlines about Zimbabwe. What the
country has been subjected to since the land reform programme from 2000 onwards
has been a systematic economic warfare meant to bring the country down to its
knees. It is a warfare that the country has been struggling to cope with or
contain hence the niggling economic difficulties that persist and continue to
hold the country its own economic hostage. Zimbabwe has always played catch up
to the economic traps that have been set in her paths since attaining
independence in 1980. This is a country with a fully equipped and staffed defence
college, one of the best armies in Africa, a very good police service (minus
some few bad apples) and an intelligence service that outwitted Simon Mann and
his mercenaries. These are national institutions that should be formulating 50
year plans to counter such economic warfare and acts of economic terrorism
against the country. There has to be serious failures somewhere on the part of
the country’s intelligence services if certain economic crimes and acts of
economic sabotages continue to resurface in nearly exactly the same format. It
boggles the mind that hundreds of millions of dollars if not billions in cash
have illegally been siphoned out of the country through our national borders
with no one noticing? This is hard to believe but this has left the country
with crippling cash shortages and this is now threatening the security and
stability of the nation. How can this sloppy scenario have been allowed to
prevail in the full glare of the country's security services? How can the
country be milked dry of its entire forex whilst it has a feared and fully
functional intelligence service? Or maybe the intelligence service in the
country don’t have a role to play in financial crimes against the country? Is
it the police who should be monitoring such national security breaches?
This
is a serious matter, the security of Zimbabwe is paramount and today that
security is under imminent threat owing to either omissions or sloppiness
somewhere along the way. The threats that the country faces are of an economic nature
and these have a real and immediate bearing on the survival of the nation. The
obvious cases of embezzlement and money-laundering are all economic crimes
against the state and the question to pose is, economic crimes and economic
terrorism, whose responsibility is it to counter these? Is there any hawk-eyed
monitoring of the national economy from a national security threat point of
view? What strategies are in place to counter the growing threat of economic
terrorism or economic warfare through deliberate sabotage against Zimbabwe?
The
Fast Track Land Reform Programme in Zimbabwe invited the wrath of those who
wanted to maintain a status quo where the blacks were side-lined in most
economic activities of the country. The regime change agenda is about power to
restore economic advantage to a select minority. The false fear that is being
fed to the gullible is meant to redirect the masses away from the necessary
economic trough towards the unproductive and unpredictable political furnace
that does not seek to empower economically. The idea is to trivialise black
economic empowerment and magnify the political case through falsified headings
and headlines of a "burning Zimbabwe". The cyberspace warriors hate
the state with a passion, and have gone as far as dig up archived images and
videos and sharing them as current affairs. There are many images that are
being borrowed from war torn parts of the continent and being passed on as the
current state of Zimbabwe. There is a twisted level of desperation on the part
of these cyberspace warriors and those who they do their bidding for.
At the
beginning of the article I mentioned that it is imperative that the country's
economic and financial department of the intelligence services has to
prioritise long term plans to robustly defend the country's economic and
financial space in this world. I am sure there are such plans and blueprints in
place. If not, then there must be something wrong somewhere. The real
stakeholders (not those burning tyres and threatening to shut down Zimbabwe)
behind the economic warfare against Zimbabwe are very patient and have long
term plans of crippling the economy until the status quo of yesteryear is
restored in their favour. The proactive and effective response would be counter
long term plans and strategies.
In
today's economic warfare being waged against Zimbabwe, the accuracy of details
is not important to the perpetrators. It is the falsehoods being peddled by the
cyberspace warriors with very high success rates that is emphasised. Their
deliberate and inaccurate representation of details has been gaining more
traction than the real cause that government of Zimbabwe has been pursuing to
empower and improve the lives of the ordinary previously marginalised black
people of Zimbabwe.
The
agitation and threats to shut down Zimbabwe are all part and parcel of this
economic warfare, same as the disruption of any efforts by the government of
Zimbabwe to re-engage with the West to bring investors into the country.
The
disabling and destabilising effect of induced false fear has been eating away
at the core of the Zimbabwean national fabric. The objective of this false fear
is to dismantle the engine that drives government which is the ruling party.
The cyber warfare on social networks and WhatsApp has been unrelenting,
methodical and precise to appeal to the masses' emotional and vulnerable
centres to agitate and incite them into whatever action, mostly unproductive
and illegal. The messages can instantly be believed and it is only after a
while when one looks deeper, that one realises the packaged untruths and
falsehoods. It is quite powerful to the point of appealing to some sections of
those being attacked, that is ZANUPF party members themselves. It is a message
with neither attitude or altitude but rather 'drill-it-into-the-head'
properties. It is aimed at angry and vulnerable people. The false fear induces
instant panic and makes one despise the "system" without even looking
deeper into the meaning. The ruling party needs to guard against false fear
because it easily converts to real fear that can have potentially destructive
outcomes. The ruling party needs to stay focused on the job at hand, that is
efficient service delivery and improving the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans.
Remain people-orientated, remain true to the core principles of the party and then
the party is onto a winner.
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