Mugabe Lying To Himself

-The Zimbabwean native, who now lives in exile in Britain, emailed this op-ed to Booker Rising:



After the so-called crushing of the ZCTU protests [two weeks ago] and the mass arrests and near murder that followed; surely ZANU PF could be lying to themselves if they say the mass action was not a success. Like in the past there are so many positives that have emerged from this from all the madness with which ZANU PF confronted this latest action by the people.

I am totally against the near murder of our leaders in Zimbabwe but for the first time in the history of this new revolution we are now seeing a leadership so prepared in confronting the regime. And look at a government that is so prepared to embarrass itself by fighting against the defenceless. It is also ironic that they chose to do so at a time when their President, Robert Mugabe was attending the Non Aligned Movement Summit in Cuba.

One will see the preparedness of ZANU PF not only to butcher its own people but to move away from the very core principles of NAM which are to promote the sustenance of peace: through the acquisition of freedom for all! What Zimbabwe shamelessly did was first to show that they will deny that freedom to their citizens and secondly make sure that the form of peace they will be given will be “silence”. Yet like I said there is a clear show that this has strengthened the resolve of the oppressed masses even further, and now Zimbabweans all over the world are more determined to liberate themselves than the oppressor is determined to oppress them.

Not that we have never protested before, no. Not that we have never seen the wanton beating of people and mass arrests; no. I for one have been beaten up, arrested, and messed up in several ways in these protests; and so are the comrades that I can single out; Patson Muzuwa who is now here in the UK, Innocent Mupara, Nkululekho Sibanda, Dhewa Mavhima, Tendai Mutyambizi-Dewa, Crispen Kulinji, Tom Tawanda Spicer, Durani Rapozo, Elliot Pfebve etc all currently in the UK and departed comrades who died from the sword of the enemy again through these mass actions such as Tonderai Machiridza, Edward Mukwasi, Appleby Kokoba; Ropafadzo, Talent Mabika, Tichaona Chiminya, Effildah Pfebve, Trymore Midzi etc. But in the past it wasn’t the leaders who were at the front, it was others and so at that time because of what was happening around us, and the reluctance of the leadership to be in front, some decided they had to leave since they thought the leadership didn’t believe in the struggle they were telling us about. But things change, some of them very fast. We now seem to have a positive leadership; very proactive in the struggle and so ZANU PF has been shaken to the apex of its madness; left, right and centre they can show the full nakedness of their decadent political ideologies; not only the thighs, not only the pants but of course the full view of the genitals too! It’s not the zip that is down anymore, the pants are down as well!

The thing is Zimbabweans have been too long in the queue and no amount of force can be used to turn them away at the gate, they are demanding their freedom and they are doing it with a force never shown before. There is a sudden resurgence of the spirit of Zimbabwe, that realisation that we are our own liberators and now there is no turning back. Events last week in Zimbabwe followed positive events in the UK for example were the MDC External Province of the UK successfully held a Congress to elect a new leadership. This is unparalleled in the history of Zimbabwe, not even ZANU and ZAPU during the liberation struggle managed to have such vibrant structures in Europe! This is a clear sign that the struggle we are fighting is inheritable; it is capable of a legacy and the legatees are there in the Diaspora. A cause that is inheritable is not capable of defeat and this is why the inheritable cause that was the First Chimurenga or Umvukela became the fire that the Second Chimurenga was and that fire was never extinguished. The same goes for the ANC, formed in 1912, it was five years before the birth of its most popular hero Nelson Mandela in 1917. Needless to say the struggle would later identify with him fifty years on with the Rivonia Trials in 1962 and the miracle that his story became with his ascendancy to be the first black President of South Africa in 1994.

Robert Mugabe on Wednesday didn’t even use his regular police forces to crush what he thought was dissent; he didn’t even have the power to summon them because they too are fed up with a decadent rhetoric that roams houseless in the battle for hearts and minds. He used an equally decadent product, the Youth Militia or Green Bombers who have been taught to rape their own mothers and sisters shamelessly in broad daylight. They had the temerity of kicking an elderly and defenceless woman such as Mai Lucia Matibenga. That Mugabe has resorted to that kind of behaviour is of course not good for an octogenarian but nevertheless shows the desperation that the government back home is in. They think the incidents will frighten people to back down. By nearly murdering Matombo, Chibhebhe, Matibenga, Raymond Majongwe, Thabitha Khumalo etc they are trying to sound the same for Morgan Tsvangirai, Isaac Matongo, Thokozani Khupe and the other MDC leaders since they have all promised to lead from the front. They are trying to say that they too will face ZANU PF’s full wrath.

They are thinking that if they kill those people then the fire is extinguished. No, the fire is not extinguished by removing the flame! You have to extinguish the source of the fire. For if you do not do that only one fan is enough to rekindle it. The struggle for Zimbabwe is now capable of re-kindling itself; there are legatees all over ready to take over even if the current crop of leadership is disappeared. There are several young activists both in Zimbabwe and in the Diaspora: Remember Moyo, Harris Nyatsanza, Lynnette Mhlanga, Wellington Chibhanguza, Linder Mtimbanyoka, Alois Phiri, Yeukai Taruvinga, Tendai Mutyambizi-Dewa, Vincent and Jameson Mashakada, Innocent Kanjedzana etc all of these young people are a generation of leaders who may not even be 30 years of age and they are capable of assuming leadership if all of us are killed in the struggle and because the retirement age is sixty-five; they each have more than thirty-five years to carry on the fight on behalf of us. Mugabe is panicking because people power is being unleashed onto him. He can not withstand anymore and he has begun repeating the same mistakes that put him in the place he is today; the disproportionate use of force. I can recount them: the Gukurahundi massacres of the 1980s which was the disproportionate application of force against twenty-two military renegades whose main purpose was to protest against unequal treatment in the army. The right thing would have been to call for a military commission to investigate these allegations but his reaction: the demotion and eventual dismissal of all senior army officers who were ex-members of ZIPRA, the sacking of all serving PF-ZAPU cabinet ministers and the dissolution of the government of national unity; the mass arrests of all leaders of ZAPU; the unleashing of Gukurahundi in Matabeleland followed by the atrocities there. Result; ever unhealing suspicion between Ndebele and Shona in Zimbabwe, ever-present tension in Ndebele and Shona relations in Zimbabwe; Matabeleland politically became a no go area for anything Robert Mugabe and talk of an Ndebele homeland became a stark necessity. Mistake number one for Robert Mugabe.

Mistake number two; so-called Unity Accord in 1987. Failed to cease the opportunity for political posturing and make Joshua Nkomo the first post Unity President; instead Nkomo was just a senior minister. Result the Unity was a stillborn baby.

Mistake three; after a successful campaign to end apartheid in South Africa and to stop the civil wars in Mozambique and Angola; he failed to cease the opportunity and resign. Result; the emergence of a Nelson Mandela whose style of leadership would be revolutionary and would change the very concept of leadership in the entire world. Mugabe was overshadowed.

Mistake number four; at ZANU PF Congress in 1999, he failed to read the changing times and make John Nkomo the president of ZANU PF and possibly Zimbabwe. Nkomo then was riding the crest as a no-nonsense minister having fired corrupt mayors and under-performing governors as the Minister for Local Government. Such leadership renewal would have neutralised the then new political party MDC.

Mistake number five; used violence against MDC supporters in 2000. The party was still young and not a real threat but people begun to sympathise with it. As a result the ZANU PF approach negated it in the eyes of traditional supporters who then went in droves to MDC in protest. As a result MDC won 57 seats, by far better than even the predictions of its leaders who had thought MDC would manage between 20-40 seats.

Mistake number six, he ignored advice even from the likes of Chenjerai Hunzvi and Border Gezi after the 2000 parliamentary elections that violence against the opposition should cease as it was time for nation-building. Violence continued at the instigation of Robert Mugabe; commercial agriculture was destroyed and the country slid further into chaos.

Mistake number seven, he refused to allow international observers to observe the 2002 Presidential Elections. Anyone who has monitored elections before knows that EU Election observers and any other international observers are really useless as they in fact do not monitor anything. They will always come to the verdict that elections were free and fair even where rigging is there for everyone to see. This is why Ugandan and Nigerian elections received the free and fair verdicts even though local independent observers were stating otherwise. Mugabe himself knows how the West rushed to congratulate him for winning freely and fairly in the 1996 Presidential elections where he contested against himself after the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole and Bishop Muzorewa had pulled out citing an unfair playing field.

The recent mistake has of course been Operation Murambatsvina which has turned virtually every living Zimbabwean against Robert Mugabe. All the Robert Mugabe mistakes have been the disproportionate response to very simple things and each time he does that he creates more enemies. It is now clear that pain is being used as a method of intimidation. But just as is happening in Matabeleland where the sons and daughters of those killed have decided to carry on with the struggle and are demanding even more than what the generation before them was demanding; then the people of Matabeleland and the Midlands were demanding to be taken as people, for Mugabe to stop subjecting them to a police state; such simple things. He thought he silenced them by unleashing Gukurahundi on that generation. The current generation has evolved and are demanding even more; they are demanding the birth of the nation of Mthwakazi; thanks to Mugabe they have been radicalised and not softened. The same for the other crop of activists; the current generation of opponents are demanding free and fair elections, democracy, dignity for their women and right to work and sustainable pay and worker rights for their workers. Mugabe is beating them out of these legitimate demands. But the next generation sees their leaders being humiliated; they are being radicalised and will not stop at demanding the above, no. They will demand the death of Robert Mugabe and his cronies. The next generation is being radicalized and their anger will not stop with Thabo Mbeki’s diplomacy, no! Their anger will be absolute, reverberating across the world and not even the sweet tongue of the UN Secretary General would stop them. They may only be stopped by the intervention of the UN blue berets.

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