Shamiso Joylene Mtandwa | Villagers and community leaders from Matobo District are up in arms against plans to host this year’s 21st February movement in the district, in celebration of President Robert Mugabe’s birthday.

According to ZimEye sources in the district, senior members of the community met last week and resolved to make presentations to ZANU PF authorities in Matabeleland South asking that the event be moved from the district “due to ongoing land conflicts with government and unresolved Gukurahundi issues” in the area. Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa has also been fingered in the land conflict.

The sources say communication to the effect was made to the Minister of State for Presidential Affairs in the province, Abednico Ncube, who is also the Minister for Rural Development and Preservation of culture.

According to the sources who insisted on not being identified in the media, Minister Ncube shot down the presentation from the villagers which has led to the villagers vowing to take the issue into their own hands.

“Since the Minister has refused to listen to our delegation, we will then fight in our own way to the last measure to make sure that this event does not take place in our district,” said one of the sources.

Villagers in the district have been experiencing mass evictions from their traditional villages in the district to make way for government planned land programmes. Over 55 families from four villages in the area are currently involved in a serious land rift with government where they have been evicted from about 500 hectares of land to make way for an expansion of a government farm under the Agricultural Rural Development Authority ARDA.

Across the district a senior Central Intelligence Officer (CIO) is in the courts fighting to evict a local white commercial farmer and villagers in Maleme Village, in a bid to take over their land for himself. In both incidents villagers have ended up being arrested for resisting the evictions.

The proposed venue in the Matopos National Park is a few kilometers away from the country’s most sacred Gukurahundi atrocities killings site at Bhalagwe where thousands of people were butchered by the ZANU PF linked Fifth Brigade force and thrown down the disused mine.

The villagers feel that the presence of ZANU PF within the periphery of the site to celebrate Mugabe’s birthday and life will be an insult to spirits of the dead who to date, thirty years later, have not been appeased and also to the people of the area who accuse Mugabe of being the chief architect of Gukurahundi.

“This will be the biggest disrespect that ZANU PF can do to us as people of Matobo coming to celebrate Mugabe’s life a few kilometers away from the people he wantonly murdered and has refused to accept responsibility for their killings,” vowed the elderly source.

The proposed venue also lies a few kilometers from the area’s trusted spirit medium site of Njelele which most of Matabeleland visit when the region is under spiritual attack. The villagers claim that they have presented their complaints on the land grabs to the mediums at Njelele and it will not be easy for ZANU PF to hold the function in the area since the spirits are angry at the ruling party.

In a related incident which sources claim is part of their resistance, ZANU PF Chairman for Matabeleland South province Rapelani Chione was on Friday involved in a mysterious road accident while on his way from Beitbridge to Matobo to inspect the proposed venue for the event.

“It will not be easy for them to come to Matobo and this accident must be taken as warning shots to them. Worst things are bound to happen if they insist on coming here against the wishes of the people and the ancestors,” said the superstitious source.

No comment could be obtained from senior ZANU PF authorities in the province on the issue. However, ZANU PF Provincial youth secretary Emmanuel Ncube who is Minister Ncube’s son showered praises to the 21st February movement organisers for choosing Matobo to be the venue of the event which celebrates President Robert Mugabe’s birthday claiming it to be the best possible venue.