On Tuesday 07 April, we woke up to very sad news of the passing of Liveson Ncube, who died of the injuries sustained from the beatings by the members of the ZRP on the 30th of March.
All the dreams the boy had, are now shuttered. It is so sad to note that the first death was recorded out of the brutality of the State security agent and first before the Coronavirus struck.
According to the report we got from a devastated family member, the 25 year old boy was standing just outside the family house in Old Lobengula when the uniformed Zimbabwe and Zanu thugs pounced on him, beating him to a sponge.
Unconscious, he was hurried to IMpilo hospital where he spent one night before he was discharged showing signs of recovering but with a paralysed side of his body and died on his sleep on Monday night.
As MLF, we express our deepest concern over the treatment our people are receiving from the Zimbabwean government. For starters, we view the the imposition of the 21days lock-down on Mthwakazi as one thing equal to exposing the nation to the deadly corona virus itself .
In a sober and frank sense, no sane leader would impose a 21days long lock down on people who are living in dire poverty and hunger. What are the people expected to live on while locked in their homes?
Mthwakazi has the highest poverty rate in Southern African binary state with its citizens surviving on just below $2 per day. The circulation of money is so much limited that in some parts of Mthwakazi, people struggle for months to put together $5.
Putting these two facts into account, it then says the 21days imposed was and remains too much for the ordinary people who survive on hand to mouth kind of life. Instead of them dying of the virus, they will starve to death in their homes or they will be forced to defy the rules of the lock-down and see them being victimised in the same faction Mr Liveson Ncube was.
As a movement, we condemn not the barbaric treatment that our people are exposed to but also the attempts to sentence Mthwakazi to death by starvation.
It is improper that the government would impose a lengthy 21 days lock down just because of less than 5 cases that had been reported for over a week. It is going to be hard for the people to stand hunger in their homes yet the figures given do not show high levels of the outbreak of the virus in the ‘country’.
What we saw the security agents doing on the hungry people and the report of the death of Liveson Ncube is nothing but a reminder of how our loved ones were killed during the Gukurahundi era.
During that time the food embargo was imposed on the people of Mthwakazi and those who tried to go around in search of food, were treated in the very same manner as Mr Ncube.
We believe the oppressive government is capitalising on the outbreak of corona to keep in check the activities of Mthwakazi people. This is witnessed by the words of Minister July Moyo that those who felt corona like symptoms in them should go to Wilkins Hospital in Harare.
Why are Mthwakazi healthcare centres not equipped with the testing equipment yet those in Harare are equipped.
In as much as we wish our people to be safe from the deadly corona virus we warm Zimbabwe to stop harassing and killing our people. We further urge them all (Mthwakazi people) to take all necessary precaution measures and sanitise as much as they can, as that is all that can maybe save them for now as hospitals in our land are under equipped.
In that light, we plead with the traditional leaders to stand up and engage the nation’s spirit mediums and seek protection for the Mthwakazi masses from the pandemic.