Ray Nkosi | Several Matabeleland based pressure groups and regional political parties are reportedly grouping up to strongly protest against ZANU PF youth wing aligned 21st February Movement from holding President Robert Mugabe’s 93rd birthday celebrations in Matobo.
Sources within the organisers of the protest told ZimEye.com that over ten organisations that include political parties based in Matabeleland will bus hundreds of people into Matobo, a day before the birthday bash to demand that the bash be not held within the area which hosts graves of thousands of people that were killed during the Gukurahundi atrocities in the eighties under President Mugabe’s watch.
The organisations say that the move by ZANU PF to hold Mugabe birthday celebrations in the area will not be allowed to proceed as “these will be an insult to the spirits of the people the very same Mugabe killed.”
“We will not allow Mugabe to come and celebrate his birthday on the very same graves of the people he killed,” said one of the organisers. “Allowing this to happen will be an insult to the spirits of the people that the very same Mugabe killed. It will be like we are saying they died in vain,” he added.
Meanwhile, reports from Matobo district are that ZANU PF youth deployed into the area to mobilise for the birthday celebrations have been in door to door campaigns threatening villagers of unspecified consequences if they sabotage the event in any way.
According to the villagers soldiers and military trained members of the ZANU PF National Youth Service popularly known as “Green Bombers” have been deployed into the area to intimidate people not to stand against the event being held in the area.
The organisers of the proposed demonstration against the event claim that they will be notifying the police of their intentions to demonstrate as required by the law and will proceed with the action regardless of the possible violence that will be effected on them by the state security.
DEFENCE minister Sydney Sekeramayi was
one of the master mind being highly been instrumental in the post-independence
atrocities committed by President Robert Mugabe’s government that left over 20
000 civilians dead.
Munangagwa , Enos Nkala and Sekeramayi addressed a forced rally in Lupane in
1983 , with Munangagwa describing us as cockroaches whom the North-Korean
trained military unit codenamed Fifth Brigade had specific instructions at
deployment to crack down all of us.
Sekeramayi and Munangagwa speaking in sishona whilst Enos Nkala was interpretor
told us to follow J Nkomo in London or face being thrown into the sea. The
government in 1983 went into a full-scale military campaign against Zapu and
Ndebele people whom the government accussed of being supporters on Cde J Nkomo.
This was after the dissidents attacked cars, buses and trains and destroyed
government construction equipment; they seized several hostages and killed six
whites.
“The 5th Brigade was sent to Matabeleland in January 1983 with a mandate
to be ‘relentless in neutralising dissident elements please google the panorama
videos Gukurahundi 1 and 2 which live interviews of both the Minister of State
for Defence Sekeramayi and Prime Minister Mugabe clearly making their point
clear , Nkomo will be crushed, how can he deny that.
Some of us where dragged from our villages by both police and Gukurahundi to
attend the rallies being forced to sing isishona even though it was the first
time to hear the language. The Press both print and electronic ignored the atrocities
against Ndebele villagers by the all-Shona brigade which was engaged in
indiscriminate brutality and destroyed property, including entire villages, in
several instances.
The ZBC presenter Nyasha Maphosa who
later changed the surname used to potray Nkomo as dissident yet the Mugabe
sanctioned brutality was targeted the elimination of “Zapu as a political
organisation”. (Gukurahundi )-Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa and
DEFENCE minister Sydney Sekeramayi played leading role in the 1983 atrocities with Enos
Nkala being used in the Gukurahundi massarces.