A free for all fist fight between suspected ZANU PF supporters and opposition supporters nearly broke out inside a commuter omnibus traveling from Bulawayo to Johannesburg on Thursday evening over comments on Voice of America’s Studio 7 on President Robert Mugabe’s age and continued stay in power.
The driver of the South African registered Toyota Quantum with about 18 passengers and 3 crew members on board switched off the music in the Kombi and tuned the radio into the controversial pirate radio station broadcasting into Zimbabwe on Short Wave and AM metre bands from Washington DC in the United States.
For much of the time there was silence in the vehicle as everyone listened attentively to the no holds barred news broadcast from the radio.
Drama started when People’s Democratic Party leader Tendai Biti was being interviewed on President Mugabe’s statement that Zimbabweans are to blame for his long stay in power.
The PDP leader went to lengths describing President Mugabe as an old man who is no longer capable to run the country and no longer wanted by the citizens of Zimbabwe.
In his description of Mugabe he continuously used a Shona word “harahwa” which means a very old man in reference to the President. One visibly drunk passenger who expressed his poor diction of Shona asked for a translation into Ndebele of the word.
A member of the crew burst out laughing and explained that “harahwa” refers to a sleepy and forgetful very old man who can no longer control his urinary system.
While the majority of the passengers who were mostly South Africa bound burst out laughing at the description, the same did not go down well with about four of the passengers who were going to Beitbridge. The four tried to remove the forgetfulness and self urinating aspect in the description on the translation wanting the translation to just be an old man, “ixhegu” in Ndebele.
An exchange of harsh words ensued between the passengers with the four strongly blaming both Tendai Biti and the crew member for derogatively using the word in description of Mugabe.
While the exchange was still going on, exiled Chimurenga music singer Thomas Mapfumo also came on air being interviewed by Studio Seven’s Gibbs Dube where the musician further took swipe at Mugabe equally describing him as ‘an old useless man who must be removed from power immediately”.
Mapfumo’s comments brought massive cheering from the passengers and more ridiculing of the four passengers who were trying hard to defend Mugabe.
The exchange of harsh words became too hot turning into massive tribal and political slurs amongst the passengers until one of the crew members demanded the driver to stop and refund the four men their money and get them out of the vehicle in the middle of nowhere some 140 km before Beitbridge.
The four passengers refused to leave the vehicle demanding instead to be dropped off at a police station or road block as they “had an issue for the police.”
Their refusal to disembark from the vehicle led to the other passengers demanding for the driver to stop and let them “deal” with the four who they described as “Mugabe’s Shona puppies” deserving to be beaten.
The driver who had also joined in the fracas pulled off the vehicle and took out a huge shambok from under his seat and ordered the four out of the vehicle before throwing a $20 note at them and driving away much to the delight of the rest of the passengers.
Driving away, one of the crew members accused the driver of being too lenient to the four who he described as “stupid CIO agents” suggesting that they should instead have driven into a bushy area and whipped them thoroughly and left them tied on a tree “to give them a taste of their own medicine.”
The kombi successfully crossed the border into South Africa with no Police report against them.