Are national leaders only those who join Zanu ? How come the birth of Gukurahundi was Joshua Nkomo’s support as Zapu leader? Why was Nkomo in Zapu harassed and terrorized and portrayed as a regional leader, hence tribal, and when he joined Zanu PF he became a national leader embraced by all? Do national leaders only have to be tied to Harare politicians? Is the 1979 Grand Plan a myth?
The same narrative is seen today in MDCT; anyone outside the Big Tent, as long as he is a Ndebele is seen as regional leader, yet if that leader is from elsewhere he is not given the regional tag. Have I heard anyone saying Tendai Biti is a regional leader? No! Have I heard anyone saying Simba Makoni is a regional leader? No! Why did Morgan Tsvangirayi and his supporters call Welshman Ncube a regional leader after the 2005 split and not before? What pissed Manheru for him to see in Dumiso Dabengwa a regional leader? Chii chakabaya pamwoyo paManheru doro rikapera mumusoro? Dabengwa is more worthy a national liberator than most living fools in Zanu PF today who are clothed in fake history. It is not Zanu PF that accords a leader a national hero status because Zanu PF is also a mere political party like any other with the exception that it is in power and is able to abuse state apparatus to remain in power.
A Christmas beer or two is no excuse for Manheru to write insensitive and diabolical nonsense on a supposedly national paper. Nathaniel Manheru should not make himself excuses out of his chrismas gluttony for the nonsense he wrote. Like all genocide monsters, why do they want the victim to be ashamed of being a victim that they made him to be? They kill your mother, father, brother, sister and dog and neighbours; laugh at you and turn around to ask if you are not ashamed that you are a surviving victim. This is what I find to be the unfair stigma Gukurahundi victims face. Reading Nathaniel Manheru’s article; Southern Zimbabwe, Ending an overdue myth, one is left wondering if the man or woman has ever lost a relative through the hand of someone. For him to say he challenges the Gukurahundi victims to come forth and discuss Gukurahundi in the media is more of an insult than asking for a discussion. Why not ask the perpetrators to come forth and own up, and tell the nation what happened, why they did it and what they suggest should be done to make good their crime? Could that even not make the victims come around and say, ‘let us reason together?’ For the perpetrator, who includes Manheru, who is assumed to be closely linked to President Mugabe, to come out blaming the victims without even showing any remorse, let alone see anything amiss with the Gukurahundi genocide smacks of arrogance, if not mere posturing to ingratiate himself with the real perpetrators. His whole article is an insult to the people of Matabeleland who bore the bulk of suffering for supporting Zapu, despite their being Khalanga, Ndebele, Sotho, Venda, Nambya, Tonga, Shona-speaking, or anything for that matter. He should have tried to defend his Gukurahundi in a better way than to be divisive simply because there is a massive complaint against the bastardisation of Sindebele language. Surely and truly, when I learnt Ndebele and later Shona, I never spoke the languages correctly! But is learning a language as an individual then an excuse for national companies and parastatals to make adverts that have wrong spellings on a national language? Why has it suddenly come up? Are there no Ndebele people who can write the language properly? Why does Manheru see it as a joke like correcting an individual how to pronounce ‘tasvika’ ‘Despicable tribal narrowness’ is from people who can not speak one of their national languages. I found nearly everyone in Bulawayo speaking Shona yet one can not easily find any one in Harare who speaks Ndebele. Who is that despicable narrow minded tribal bastard who has stopped my fellow Zimbabweans in Harare from learning iSindebele? Yes, ‘the western educated, elitist, so-fluent-in- English’ who may include me, have a right to complain about what is wrong and propagated by political intellectuals like Manheru as right!
What is this man Manheru referring to as the ‘Gukurahundi myth?’ Is he really saying it’s a myth? That it never happened? Sure? Where does he find in Gukurahundi as an ‘opportunity for a shelved debate?’ He goes on to link Dabengwa, blaming him for the failure of the government project to provide Bulawayo with water via MZWP? What crass patronizing of those who made an effort? How did Manheru’s government dissolve MZWP? Why is Matebeleland still dry with a black Zanu PF government in power for 34 years? Why are Bulawayo companies daily relocating to Harare? The man abuses his being in government by insulting the wronged! The man is ironically reviving the very debate his masters pray should be shelved for ever. The man is crudely opening the wounds and reviving the raw pains still being felt by kids who watched their parents burnt in huts, who watched their fathers and mothers bayoneted alive, the pain we feel for our relatives and friends and classmates we lost because his master had momentarily lost his mental capacities during what he called a ‘moment of madness!’ How so arrogant, base and utterly stupid and insensitive to posture over a national shame and blame the wronged for feeling victimized? How so arrogant to ask the people of Matabeleland and Midlands not to ‘own’ their pain from the Gukurahundi era? When it comes to Gukurahundi, Manheru has no right to tell Matebeleland when to cry, mourn or shut up! Like his masters he belongs to the Hague for his moment of madness he still exhibits today. He naively comes out as if defending his masters when in actual fact he wants to cast a doubt over Gukurahundi and hence shamefully justify their continued rule over their victims. To me he is an unrepentant common criminal who shows no remorse.
Atrocities, hence his saying it’s a ‘myth.’ ‘Who profits from this opportunity shelved debate on Gukurahundi? Or its occasional dusting and lifting off this strange shelf?’ How he makes me feel the pain of helplessness and nothingness as I watched my cousin die staring at us asking if we will eve meet again in heaven. Ohh brutal insensitive man, how dare you be the swordsman who trivialises a collective pain? How I see and feel the fear and pain of the cousins who sang glorious Adventist songs as they were led away never to be seen again. How l see the pain of fear and nervousness as kids asked the remaining elders, ‘Ubaba uphenduka nini?’ when no one was brave enough to tell the kids that their father had been butchered by their own government.
Manheru, Gukurahundi can never be shelved! The Gukurahundi victims will never shut up!!! Anyone appointed as Zanu PF leader from Matebeleland will be examined, measured and judged according to his role at that ‘moment of madness’. It is not for you to tell victims to rejoice, sing, feel ashamed or keep quite! It is not for you to tell Matebeleland how to feel about the Gukurahundi genocide. It is not for you to tell people when to dust it off and mourn, or to shelve it. Pain comes at anytime, and more so when some appointments or promotions take place to revive that pain. Yes, the people of Zimbabwe, in particular from Matebeleland, have a right to demand to know the role Mnangangwa and Mphoko played during that moment of madness. Dabengwa, as one of the victims has a right to demand for an explanation from those who incarcerated him. For you to try to cheaply and sheepishly trivialise and divide Matebeleland so that Gukurahundi is forgotten as people focus on their narrowly defined national priorities camouflaged under ethnic groupings is itself being narrow minded, shallow and naïve, because Gukurahundi affected everyone. Everyone has a right to speak of it, even those who were not personally involved because it affected them indirectly. Gukurahundi is indeed a national issue as it affects our national collective conscience and national cohesion. It is the genesis of our post colonial struggle. It is only a sincere debate, discussion and reparation that can help to heal it not posturing after during a festive period. It is insensitive to try to gloss over what happened so as to make Mnangagwa acceptable.
No, 1987 Unity Accord did not cure Gukurahundi. It is being naive and insensitive to say 1987 cured it. The 1987 Unity accord served to stop the massacres! It did not cure anything for no-one was sick at all, except those leading individuals suffering from their moment of madness that needed curing! 1987 stopped the unnecessary and unwarranted killing of people but was no cure at all.
You can not call for a debate from the victims leaving out the perpetrators. Have you called out on Emmerson Mnangangwa, Perence Shiri, Robert Mugabe and others to come forth and explain to the nation what happened, to explain their role and ask for forgiveness? You should not be crass on what you have never experienced. At high school I learnt that, ‘Chinokanganwa idemo muti watemwa haukanganwi.’
Your posturing makes one implore Matebeleland voters to see for themselves what Harare represents to them; to see that the 1979 Grand Plan was never a myth but real; http://malema.byo24.com/index.php?id=iblog&iblog=105.
Maybe it is high time Matabeleland voters changed tact and voted wisely. The likes of Manheru have brought out their dirty secrets and skeletons long hidden in their political cupboards and are no longer ashamed to tell the Matabeleland voter the truth about what they think! To the likes of Manheru, Prof Jonathan Moyo never lost his father through Gukurahundi because it is a ‘myth’. To all of us, we never lost relatives and parents because Gukurahundi is a ‘myth’. To them Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku were never arrested because Gukurahundi is a ‘myth’. To them there are no Gukurahundi orphans out there without birth certificates and national identity cards because Gukurahundi is a ‘myth’. To them we should be ashamed to say we are victims of Gukurahundi because to them it never took place. Yes, to believe such men and women and put our lives in their hands leaves us facing another Gukurahundi in the near future. This can affect any sons and daughters from any region Manicaland, or Masvingo. The time to condemn it and stop Gukurahundists and denialists from doing so by all means is now!!
IT TAKES GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING FOR EVIL TO PREVAIL…