by Grace Kwinjeh | The opposition movement in its different shades and stripes must never be a laundromat, a cleansing ground for former Zanu PF politicians with a track record of leading violent campaigns against innocent civilians, with impunity.
Savior Kasukuwere’s call to fame in Zanu PF and why there are nostalgic feelings for his ‘heroic’ return, sends chills down my spine, because that call only reminds me of his role in the project to totally annihilate the opposition, it is about a past characterised by violence, torture and killings.
After the mistake of supporting the 2017 coup, one would assume, we have learnt a bitter lesson, we are wiser, are more strategic in our thinking, towards a new narrative, that defines a Zimbabwe led by men and women who have a clean past.
Men and women who will unite the nation, facilitate a process of healing, reconciliation, justice and accountability. Not one person in Zanu PF in its present form or out of it can do that, because Zanu PF by its nature has the DNA of violence, kleptomaniacs who care for no-one else.
I remember during the 2000 elections I was working at Harvest House, when Zanu PF unleashed one of its most violent campaigns in the Mashonaland Central Province.
It was a horror scene only replica of a country at war, with two armed sides, not an attack on innocent civilians. Our support group at the time one evening, brought in truckloads of women, men, children, mutilated, scarred, bloody bodies, open deep wounds, some burnt with open blisters, it was a terrible site. With reports of rape too. We cleared the boardroom for them to find rest and be secure, while we looked for medical help.
Mashonaland Central the Headquarters of the Border Gezi Training Centre, named after the late politician, Border Gezi, became notorious for violence, ‘no go area’ the MDC did not win any of the ten seats in the whole province, in the 2000 Parliamentary elections.
Torture camps had been set up where identified opposition members were targeted, sent there and could only thank their maker if they lived to tell their story.
Not to mention extra-judicial killings, we all remember Trymore Midzi, Pvebve and the well over two hundred well documented cases of our supporters who were mercilessly slaughtered during the violent campaigns.
Kasukuwere must account for the Chaona massacre in 2008, well documented evidence on how on the on the 5th May 2008, he “organized and ferried a group of over 300 youths to Chaona, Mazowe where a lot of people were seriously injured and six people were killed. The youths were wearing Kasukuwere’s campaign T- shirts.”
This pattern would repeat itself in the next elections, over years, in the sealed no go areas, that were closed for opposition campaigns, as Zanu PF sought to totally annihilate the opposition MDC party. The party survived and may Morgan Tsvangirai’s soul rest in peace, the memory of what he stood for not die because of political expediency.
Calling Kasukuwere out in his role in the violence over the years is a must, he has to redeem himself, earn the confidence and trust of Zimbabweans.
The pain of witnessing scenes of attacks, hearing testimonies of victims and burying the dead, brings a notch in my stomach, the trauma in these communities is yet to heal, for them to have the source of their grief unleashed on them as their ‘savior’.
It is demonstrably foolhardy, that Kasukuwere’s current call to fame is violent, thuggish behavior, which is attracting those supporting him, as the only viable possibility of meeting Zanu PF , ‘fire with fire’ in its bloody onslaught against citizens.
It is a desperate and warped thinking, to assume that the very people who tormented and caused untold suffering to us over the past decades, are the ones who should be entrusted with leading us to a democratic Zimbabwe.
As we languish under the new dispensation birthed by a coup many supported under the false illusion we had arrived, two years later nothing has changed, Zanu PF under Emmerson Mnangagwa remains arrogant and intransigent. Its DNA of violence and looting remains the same.
A slow genocide describes the situation in our country, people are dying not because of life threatening illnesses, but a selfish leadership that simply refuses to take responsibility, be accountable to citizens by appropriating resources to important sectors such as health.
Furthermore, this conversation around Kasukuwere’s Presidential ambitions gives Zanu PF a false sense of comfort, that there is life after killing and torturing innocent civilians, only if one joins the opposition.
Kasukuwere is said to be exiled in South-Africa home to hundreds of victims of violence, home to mai Tandare who lost her husband Gift on March 10 2007, after he was shot, point blank in cold blood.
Let future generations judge us correctly, recycling expired Zanu PF politicians would be a serious indictment against us. Not Yet Uhuru.