THIS week we focus on Professor Pamela Machakanja, the Director of Africa University’s Institute of Peace, Leadership and Governance (IPLG).
The IPLG, as we have already noted in this series, trains staff for the regime change sector under the guise of academic programmes.
Pamela Machakanja is the drone that spawns and converts our children into enemies of the country of their forefathers for the benefit of those that enslaved us for 450 years and colonised us for a further 100 years.
After obtaining a Bachelor of Education and a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Zimbabwe, Pamela was moulded into an agent of regime change against the African revolution through an intense programme of Peace and Security Studies at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom.
While at Bradford, she also obtained a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies, a Master of Arts degree in Peace and Conflict Resolution, a Diploma in Research Methods in Social Sciences and a Diploma in Leadership and Policy Development.
To complete the package, Pamela also did a Diploma and an Advanced Diploma in Negotiation Skills at the International Negotiation Academy in South Africa.
Machakanja uses her research and academic skills to promote regime change against President Mugabe mainly through teaching and writing.
She, however, spends significant amounts of time executing non-governmental organisation (NGO) programmes designed to effect regime change.
It is from her published articles that one can judge how dangerous Pamela is with her pen.
In one of her recently published ‘research papers’, Pamela seeks to delegitimise and demonise post-independence national symbols and holidays such as the Heroes Acre, Heroes Day and the Independence Day.
She says, in part, “Interview results, however, reveal that those opposed to the current official representation of this event (Heroes Day commemoration) believe that Heroes Day has lost its meaning.
“In their view, liberation values and aspirations for peace, prosperity and stability are no longer attached to the event.
“Critics, especially opposition political party members and some university students have urged people to shun all commemorative events arguing that the women and men who laid down their lives for freedom would be astounded at the misery that has since gripped the country.”
In the foregoing quotation, Prof Machakanja hides behind presumed respondents to rubbish the Heroes Day as “having lost its meaning” and therefore must be “shunned” because of “the misery that has since gripped the country”.
The quoted phrases are expertly designed to achieve the effect of denying the ZANU PF government the popular support it may be gaining from commemorations of national holidays associated with the liberation struggle.
The phrases are part of a well-rehearsed regime change vocabulary which, only the Prof herself, and not her respondents, is trained to articulate for effect.
By using academic research to peddle rehearsed regime change sentiments bequeathed her by her Caucusian bosses, Pamela Machakanja poses a much greater threat to the country than Morgan Tsvangirai.
The greatest danger Machakanja poses is that her ‘research papers’ are mistaken for scholarship and will be quoted by students and academics long after she is dead.
Ability to distinguish between scholarship and propaganda is a preserve for the few.
This is why we view Pamela Machakanja and her institute as a serious threat to this country.
The five or so qualifications that Pamela had to do in the same field of study clearly suggest that she was thoroughly groomed for her current job.
Before deployment at IPLG in 1997, Pamela had a brief stint at the University of Zimbabwe where she was a lecturer in the Faculty of Education.
Prof Machakanja is about 61 years of age and appears to hate the limelight.
Evidence in this respect resides in the fact that, although she is the Director of IPLG, she uses the title of ‘Associate Director’, which, to the ordinary person, implies that she is not the one in charge at IPLG.
Also, in the NGO sector where Prof Machakanja is deeply involved in that sector’s efforts to remove President Mugabe from power, she prefers not to assume the position of leadership in any project, even in areas where she stands out as the expert.
A good example, in this respect, is her position of Deputy Chairperson of the National Transitional Justice Working Group (NTJWG).
The NTJWG is a group of eight people leading over 40 NGOs working together to document evidence that will be used to send ZANU PF officials to jail in the event that the MDC comes to power.
Judging by the number of papers Machakanja has written on transitional justice, she is clearly the expert on the subject but, in the NTJWG, she yielded to Alec Muchadehama who is the chairman.
In other words, in the murky world of NGOs, Pamela prefers to lead from the rear to protect her image as an academic.
ZANU PF should be scared of Pamela and the NTJWG for the reason that, because of its revolutionary history and pervasive influence in the country, the West is convinced that even if, one day, the MDC wins a national election, it may not be able to rule Zimbabwe as long as ZANU PF’s structures remain intact.
This is why they have put in place the NTJWG and institutions such as the ZPP of Jestina Mukoko, to document alleged violations of human rights against MDC officials so that the ‘evidence’ can, at the right time, be used to send to jail, most senior ZANU PF officials, rendering the party unviable in the process.
It is only after ZANU PF has been destroyed that the MDC can hope to govern.
The evidence gathered by the NTJWG and its ancillary structures is deposited with the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) whose headquarters is in New York with the regional headquarters situated in Cape Town, South Africa.
Pamela Machakanja is a big proponent of transitional justice and has written a lot on the subject stressing the point that there should be “retributive justice,” which means, there should be no clemency and no amnesty for people found guilty of committing crimes against the MDC.
The background to the NTJWG is that in August 2003, 70 Zimbabwean NGOs met in Johannesburg, “to address the issue of how past human rights violations ought to be addressed”.
It was at the symposium that the decision to create institutions, “not only to investigate and seek truth, but also to recommend criminal prosecution, provide redress and reparations for victims, and lead to the healing of the nation”.
It is necessary that we appeal to Zimbabwean academics to resist the Western habit of using our people’s thirst for education as a launch pad for a new form of slavery targeted at the mind.