By Dr Masimba Mavaza | Cde Victor Matemadanda who is the National Political Commissair survived poisoning at the hands of unknown killers. Cde Matemadanda inhaled some substances which turned out to be poisonous. Cde Matemadanda narrated how a man came to him soon after they had seen the president off from Marondera, a man pretended to be removing something from Cde Matemadanda’s cap. It was at that moment that cde Matemadanda smelt a horrible stench which almost suddenly made him feel dizzy and sick.
The horror of the attempt on the National Political Commissair’s life was, of course, in the main the ordinary human manner of assassination.
This is always deepened when the victim is assailed at his post, and when the post is a conspicuous one, and when death seems to come because he has been faithful to his duty. Society has more than usual tenderness for what may be called its sentinels, — that is, for the persons who expose themselves in its service, — and the more responsibility it puts on them the greater the tenderness becomes. There are people within the party who are as much impressed by the tragedy as the opposition and the reason was that all felt that it was holding a high place in the party which had made him the victim. Sympathy of this kind, too, was not confined to the NPC It was felt all over the party Structures felt by millions, probably, who knew little or nothing of the NPC’s career, and knew as little of his duties or responsibilities They did know, however, that the President has raised him to great eminence, and that it was because he was eminent that the evil hand with poison was leveled against him; and they felt for him, accordingly, that sorrow which has become almost instinctive with the civilized man, for the misfortunes of those who keep watch and ward while others sow or reap, and spin or weave. But no one who observed the expressions of popular feeling could help seeing that there is no general indignation and regret a good deal of mortification and humiliation. Those who meant to kill him are those who always block the breathing space for the president. They always stay at the president’s farm or office. One wonders when will they ever do their own work. They are the ones who wish to see the Commissar dead.
It had been feared from the day on which he was appointed He acknowledged the existence of the danger himself, in his simple way, when he put the party business ahead of his life. Matemadanda is hated for his stance for the president. He is a well known fighter who stands for his principal. Matemadanda is known for his fearless stand against party violence and he broods no nonsense. He stands against Those familiar with deeds of violence.His diplomatic approach has seen tens of thousands, during the previous five years, come to party without represented aggression, lawlessness, conquest, and oppression. When one reads, in fact, of the ferocious language towards him, and towards those who believe in him. the readiness of the enemy’s mind at that period to think of the killing of a hard worker even in cold blood as, somehow, not murder, the wonder is that whose interest are these murderous serving.
The generation of those who began the war had never known to refuse to accept a previous quarrel as justification of a homicide, or, in other words, had never seen malice prepense treated as of the essence of blood-guiltiness. ZANU PF does not need these malicious blood sucking vampires pretending to be patriots.
When Matemadanda was appointed however, the peaceful habit of mind was probably more widely diffused through the country than it had been since the foundation of the government. There have been poisoning enough, Heaven knows, during the past five years, but there never has been, heretofore, the dislike of bloodshed as a remedy for private wrongs which now exists in all structures of the Party. There are unmistakable sign of the growth of a public opinion hostile to dueling, and a fortiori hostile to all violent modes of redress for either real or fancied wrongs.
No NPC had as much reason to think himself safe or less reason to suppose that it would be prudent to make access to him more difficult.
There had been no known dispute about his appointment. His appointment was at the pleasure of the president Matemadanda is a man of singularly genial temper. There was nothing in his career to excite envy, hatred, or malice. He had won his way to prominence by arts which nearly every Zimbabwean admires, and there was a large element of pathos, which everybody felt, in his final triumph. Matemadanda stood against Mugabe publicly and this earned him some nights in prison. He was embarrassed but he stood resolute. He is never petty his focus is to serve the Party the nation and the President. It is his resolve which has created such enmity.
Not only, then, did he seem, in the popular eye, to be protected by the protection which Senior officials as distinguished from sovereigns, are supposed to enjoy, but by the peculiar immunity which in the Party is always enjoyed by the poor boy who fights his way up to distinction, and is not ashamed of his beginnings.
The attempt on Matemadanda’s life was done by those who have formed a clique around the president and are lining up their own support to enhance themselves as demigods. These are the ones Matemadanda faced head on to free the president from the dead wood. For his part he puts his life in the path of danger. Matemadanda represented a system which existed, to all outward appearance, for the benefit of the nation the party and the principal, and to destroy the idea Matemadanda stands for was to shake the system. Matemadanda may be in the office for a short period during which those who think he has wronged them know there will be no am peal from him, and that all men in power will make it their duty to question the justice of his decrees. In fact, it needs no deep examination of the nature and function of royalty to see that some of its traits must readily suggest assassination to men with a grievance, and either not afraid of death, or very confident of the efficacy of their means of escape. The sentiment of loyalty is the one moral defense which it possesses which the presidency does not; but this is comparatively feeble in our time, and never was strong in more than a very small circle. It has a dangerous tendency to rouse a sort of reactionary hatred among persons who do not feel it, and yet are called on to acknowledge it as a political agency.
The very idea of a man raised above the law, and claiming reverence without regard to his personal merits, has become to hundreds of thousands, in our day, a highly inflammatory idea, which kindles fanaticism of protest, before which loyalty, even in its best days, would have to pale its ineffectual fires.
but there has probably never been a time when so many fairly moral and rational men would think so little of killing a man as a means of promoting a much desired political change.
There is no doubt that we must owe our safety, such as it is, far more to the growth of belief in the possibility of bringing about desired political changes by peaceable means than to increased mildness of manners or increased horror of assassination. The NPC’s office is not hereditary; it can only be filled by a man whom, whether worthy or not, the majority thinks worthy. It is elective, and nobody can enter on it with any glamour of divine light about him, or with any special claim to “the grace of God.”
The President is always a man who appoints one from the people, and destined to return to the ranks of the people as one of themselves. The term of the NPC is short. Even the most impatient of his enemies has not long to wait before seeing another person gracing the office. So trying to kill him does not help. Everybody whom he offends has the relief, and indeed luxury, of abusing him. The law puts no restraint on the terms in which he may be assailed, and even lying about him has in practice an impunity which does not attend it in the case of any other man in the country.
There are people who do not give the president a chance to be the president. They always stick around the president stoping any other person to see the president. These are the ones who are clearing those who do not bow to them Their unsoundness and inability to succeed consists largely in a quality which is prominent in savages, but in them is ascribed not to insanity, but to imperfect development, — namely, want of tenacity of purpose. They seem to have done a variety of things with a certain amount of ability—small, to be sure, but still sufficient to enable him to earn a livelihood, if he had stuck to any one thing. Instability, combined with inordinate vanity, brought him to want, and want made him tricky. But until he shot the President no one thought him too insane for all share in the worlds work. When he shot him, therefore, it was not unnatural that people should listen to his explanation of his act, not as a defense, but as an elucidation of the kind of motives by which this very large class to which he belongs are acted on. That his talk was silly is nothing to the purpose.
Two thirds of the talk one hears in a bar-room, for instance, is silly. It becomes important when we remember that there are thousands of persons like him afloat, that is, persons capable of forming plans under a delusion, and pursuing them for a short period with determination, the delusion being one which a man might entertain without rendering himself thereby liable to confinement.
People who seek to assassinate others are more fanatical than the other and they belonged to the same category of unstable, flighty, and vainglorious people who seek to achieve fame by a single blow, and find all ordinary pursuits and industries too monotonous for them.
It is to be observed, too, that it is the spoils system only which makes the hostility of the the losers to the NPC a matter of eager interest to this class.
The office of the NPA is blessed with a hostile atmosphere from those who will be posturing for positions in fact, with all the inconveniences, and has none of the advantages, of a progressive party.
It ought to be a settled rule of ZANU PF polity, that no man or body of men shall profit by assassination. Nothing should pass by murder, in the shape of either dignity or emolument, to any person holding a position of any status.
These cowards who sought to kill Matemadanda do not live under law, and as long as they do not live under law they will constitute in a certain sense a dangerous class, and will be surrounded by a still more dangerous class, composed of those who would like to eliminate any threat to their positions.
Comrade Matemadanda has survived this attempt but there are lessons to be learnt. People must learn to co exist. We can mot all have one thought but we can have one goal. The party must investigate these criminals witches and wizards. They are demons and highly demonic.
The comforting thing is that Matemadanda vows to serve his President and his nation despite an attempt to his life.
ZANU PF shall never be intimidated by few malcontents.