| Looking Back to Look Ahead |
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A Photo Essay by Cont Mhlanga
Zimbabwe my beautiful and beloved country, we are in 2008. For those of us that made it, let’s praise God and our Ancestors. Congratulations to all of us. Each one of us can now look back to 2007 and evaluate it for themselves. This is what I will do and share my opinions with you. In summery I look back at 2007 with sadness Zimbabwe!
I look back and see all those blessed great and not so great artists who chose not to speak for the ordinary suffering people through their beautiful works of art, and that makes me feel sad. The Reserve Bank Governor of my beautiful country who aims to change a country’s currency within 14 days during the rain season just because he is fighting less than ten well politically connected cash barons that he knows and spoils a festive season for the ordinary people across the country makes me twice as sad. Zanu PF supporters who got free land from government some seven years ago, still turning to government for free farming inputs despite the fact that it takes crops three to four months to grow, most inputs which they sale in the street markets while the country imports food and villagers survive through food aid from World Vision makes me even more sad. Factories and shops that shut down or even operate at 10% capacity producing only enough to fuel the street and house market economy that has since become the country’s main economy makes me sad.
A nation that in 2007 totally failed to generate even one day healthy foreign currency reserves makes me sad. Increasing poverty and disease for the majority of the people makes me sad. The police commanders who arrested artists and shutdown theater houses in an independent and democratic country makes me sad. National airwaves that are controlled by government and closed to private players makes me sad. The MDC that continues to fuel the reasons of staying divided and then attempting to negotiate with Zanu PF on behalf of the suffering Zimbabweans makes me sad.
Thousands of skilled personnel that were forced by the current politics and economics of the country who left to give quality service to other nations while their own country and population gets worse makes me sad. Children of government officials who are being persecuted by the world for the sins of their parents makes me sad. Countries slamming sanctions on government leaders makes me sad. Toothless civil society that chasses donor funds failing to network and mobilize the citizens for action makes me sad. A government that protects thieves and corrupt party members and civil servants makes me sad. Sadc and AU leaders who continued singing praises to the president while Zimbabwe and its people burned makes me sad. A President who runs the country’s economy to its knees and confidently seeks re-election and brags in the press that he will win despite all the suffering and challenges facing the electorate that he has failed to find lasting solutions to for the past ten years, makes me extremely sad. I look back to 2007 with sadness!
Liberation War Veterans
How ever what makes me so sad that it gets over my head is the nation’s liberators the War veterans who marched the streets endorsing the President and suppressing democratic processes within the ruling party and ultimately demanding that a man who’s track record of failing to find lasting solutions to challenges that are bringing difficulties to the ordinary people of Zimbabwe for nearly a decade speaks for its self, yet they want him to be life president of the ruling party and of Zimbabwe even if this has become out of fashion and not applicable for present day global politics. Who did these liberators liberate and who are they serving? Who are they speaking for given the evidence of suffering that the ordinary citizens are experiencing before the comrade’s own eyes. Was it not these same now suffering ordinary people that sheltered, clothed and fed these same liberators during the war of liberation who they are now turning away from, choosing not to stand by them during these difficult times just for the sake of one individual? I look back to 2007 with a lot of sadness!
I was in Harare during the thousand men and women much and took photos. When I look at this photo I always say to myself, this was not going to be possible with ought the role played by the War vets, the people’s war vets, my comrades! When I look back I wonder why these War vets have such a short memory! Especially the ZIPRA Solder!
Not so long ago in the late 90s, it is these same liberators who blocked this same President to speak at one of the Heroes Acre funerals and blocked his motorcade demanding compensation and accusing him and his government of corruption, abuse of the Compensation Fund and of neglecting the liberation fighters. They literally forced him to get the monthly pay outs they get up to this day by protest. No one was ever prosecuted for abusing the Fund. The President did not give them the pay outs on his own, he had to be forced to take care of them. But in 2007 the same liberators call him the best president the ruling party and Zimbabwe will ever have and they want him to be life President. Is it a case of short memory or is it a case of the liberators selling out the ordinary people to this one individual?
The Land
Until the War vets joined the ordinary landless people in 2000 against this same President, he and his government had even a program in place and a reserve police force to remove landless people from farms that they occupied.
Remember the Nqama Settlers in the Rhodes Estate at the Matopos as far back as the late 80s to the early 90s? Remember the Lake Alice landless villagers in Matabeleland North in the mid 90s who where removed by force because the land had been allocated to animals and not to people? The landless people also fought running battles with the then Governor Mabhena in the Nsuza area in the 90s for land and they where repeatedly removed by the police and the army. They are many such examples across Zimbabwe that took place well before 2000 and the classic one that I will remember for ever is Ndabaningi Sithole and his Churu Farm. Ndabanengi Sithole was the first leader and politician to respond to the need of the landless people. He is the man who piloted in his farm what today the liberators and this government call A1 Villagized. An army was sent to his farm and every one evicted and his farm taken by the state for piloting A1 resettlement. In all cases this president through his governors removed them with force and the media called the landless people squatters.
The War vets joined the call by landless people for land, They occupied a farm and gave this same president 30 days to address their members land demands. When the force was ready to be dispatched by the then Minister of Home Affairs to go and evict them this president swung sides and joined the War vets saying no police and army will be sent to remove them. All of a sudden he was on the fore front now leading the gospel of the landless people needing land. The war vets realizing that they had for the second time defeated and arm twisted the president to their agenda, they ran riot in all farms and the rest is sad history and since then the land issue has become a run away cow with no one to plan and strategically implement.
Never did the president that they now claim to be a great people’s leader who should be life president ever plan and initiate land redistribution on his own with his government. In fact he was against it till they scared him out of office in 2000. And knowing this president as I do, he will do anything at any cost to stay in office and achieve his ambition of being the first and the only Life President of Zimbabwe. Today millions of people are suffering and the War vets have turned against them. They have sold them out to the ambition of this one man who only wants to be life president of Zanu PF and Zimbabwe no matter how he performs in office.
The Zipra Solder, one of the finest solders ever produced in Africa was hunted by the same president like a cat hunting rats. Those that were caught were killed like stray wild dogs. Even their relatives wives and children where shot dead, others burned alive and some buried in shallow graves. Some Zipra Solders went into hide ding, even disguised themselves and some disassociated themselves with the liberation struggle to save themselves. Others went underground while others left the country to this date. Others turned their backs to compensation from this president and his government in protest to date! Some of them still qualify under discriminatory circumstances for national heroes status and its always some miscommunication as they end up at the ordinary Lady Stanley Cemetery! Their indigenization economic initiative, farms, factories, schools, equipment was taken by this same president. Their liberation war records were destroyed while their liberation songs were eraised from the music libraries of the national public broadcaster! This president wanted to wipe out the memories and the history of the Zipra Solder. They had to be remembered in history only as dissidents. Yet some of these Zipra solders today mobilize youths promising them hog wash and toyitoyi for the same president to be life president calling him the best leader the country and Africa has ever produced! Is it a question of short memory on the part of these Zipra Solders?
But why are these people’s liberators so comfortable with the ambitions of one person who wants to be life president when there are so many other able leaders within the ruling party that can lead the party and lead Zimbabwe to a better and greater future, in the expense of the ordinary masses that they gave their lives to liberate in the first place?
The picture of the War vet driving this new tractor on the highway sending his sweet heart to the city narrates the whole answer of why the War vets have turned their backs to the masses. This is his tractor given to him for free by this president’s government. He has no land to farm and stays in the city. He hires it sometimes to plough for loyal party members most of whom do urban stream cultivation. He gets free diesel and makes free money! Its better this War vet can drive, others can’t even drive, do not have farms and stay at cities or rural growth points, but where given these machines just because they are War vets and want the president to be life president so that he can allow them to get more free gifts from the national economy.
They control all government hand outs meant for the people and give themselves the best and pass what is left to those that support the ruling party. Most of them bought their first car or furniture with money earned from political activities just like some who did so because they where a member of parliament or senator!
They do what they do for selfish reasons and not for the future and the development of the economy of the country.
Not so far back towards the 2005 elections the War vets realizing that non War vets ruling party officials had some benefits over themselves accused the officials who tried their best to run a political party responsibly (despite failing to uproot corruption among senior party officials) War vets accused them of selling out to MDC and failing to campaign for the president and went in to take over the party structures at village level, ward level, district level and some at provincial level. To this date some war vets are still scheming to take over provincial and national posts of the ruling party and kick out the senior nationalist. This is after the War vets themselves had failed to grow and expand their empowerment company to empower their membership through hard work.
They hijacked the party from that year on and ran riot interfering with every public administration from district councils to ministries and later moved on to private companies and in some cases to mediate conflicts and sit kangaroo courts in families. It was once common to hear ordinary people in Zimbabwe say ‘….I will report them to the War vets…’
The War vets knew know one could control them, not even the president of this country who they had twice held into ransom and succeeded.
IN 2007 they moved a complex step further and started using the ruling party to loot the national economy to the extreme. Every turn around economic intervention initiative
How ever not all War vets are lazy schemers who want to hide behind the role they played during the liberation struggle to loot and get everything free for themselves from the national economy. Some work and have worked exceptionally hard since independence for themselves, their families and their country. I look at those with pride and to them I give my respect!
To those that have become national schemers and tricksters in the name of defending Zimbabwe and in the name of protecting the masses I can only say to them Comrades this is not the reason why the masses went to war with the then White Administration of this country. Stop yourselves from receiving what you have not worked for. You have inspired a nation of dealers and non productive schemers who have become unproductive and chase after get rich quick schemes. You cannot fix anything Comrades by not being accountable to anyone. You have introduced bad politics of unaccountability in this country. You have reversed the gains of the people’s independence and freedoms for ordinary people during 2007 and for that Comrades I look back at that year with Sadness.
I hope in 2008 you will inform and remind each other Comrades, that none of you was born a War vet. People locally and across the world invested their fortunes to make you the War vets that you are today. They had hope in you that you will lead by example and work for the future generations of this country to inherit a better country from yourselves and from all of us.
Cont Mhlanga |
