“Will you be celebrating Zimbabwe’s 36th
Independence Day on Monday?” asked DJ Sodza of his Zimnet Radio listeners?
The quick and short answer to that for any thinking
Zimbabwean has to be a NO! What is there to celebrate?
18 th April 1980 was supposed to be the day
every Zimbabwean became a full citizen of Zimbabwe to claim and enjoy all the
freedoms, human rights and dignities denied to the blacks by the oppressive and
racist white colonial government. The cold reality is that the majority of the
people have been systematically denied their freedoms and basic rights by the
Zanu PF government.
After 36 years of trying to cash the
independence cheques and getting nothing there is no doubt that the ordinary
people have been cheated and given bad cheques! How can we pretend that we are
a free nation when we have been denied a fair share in the nation’s wealth and
a voice in its governance?
Last week Health Minister, David Parirenyatwa,
condemned the one room maternity ward at Chiredzi General Hospital as “unsafe”.
The ward is overcrowded and ill equipped. The ward was built in 1967 by the white
government when Chiredzi was a small outpost serving a population of a few
hundred people. Today it is the referral hospital catering for the health needs
of hundreds of thousands.
As a referral hospital the maternity ward would
have delivered hundreds of pre-mature babies each year, for example, and the
majority of these babies died for the lack of something as basic as incubator! Even
the big hospitals like Mpilo rarely have enough of something as basic as incubators
if they have them at all, let alone backwater rural hospitals like Chiredzi.
Chiredzi hospital’s tragic story was in the
paper side by side with the story of Mugabe’s daughter, Bona, who is in
Singapore to have her baby. Grace Mugabe had left the country to be on their
daughter’s side; Mugabe told the nation.
Mugabe has been going to Singapore for his
health needs for years; in 2012 he made 8 health trips each costing US$ 3
million plus!
There must be a lot more than that none of our hospitals
can provide a good-enough health service for our ruling elite! If the billions
of dollars being squandering on Bona’s baby were spent equipping just one
special ward, for example, it would be comparable quality to any in Singapore.
The idea of having such ward was discounted because other Zimbabwean women would
have used the same ward after Bona and her baby; putting the two on par with
“ordinary” Zimbabweans, unthinkable for one whose grandmother wears nothing else but Gucci
designer shoes.
Whilst cities and towns up and down the country
have failed to supply clean running water for weeks on end at times because of
lack of funds to maintain the service; Mugabe has admitted $15 billion or the
nation’s GDP in Marange diamond revenue alone were looted recently! So there grinding
poverty in Zimbabwe not because the country is poor but because its wealth is being
wasted!
The people of Zimbabwe have known for years
that Mugabe and his Zanu PF party are corrupt and incompetent but they have
failed to remove the tyrannical regime from office because the regime blatantly
rigs elections and uses wanton violence to stay in power. In the 36 years of
Mugabe’s tyrannical rule, over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans have been murdered in
cold blood to establish and retain this de facto one-party cum one-man
dictatorship.
For the masses the struggle for freedom,
justice and human dignity has never stopped; on 18 April 1980 they swapped the
white oppressors for black oppressors. The struggle continues!
Luta continua!
Celebrate? One
does not celebrate the birth whilst the wife is still in labour, especial the
celebration is at the behest of those who are holding back the birth for
selfish gain!
2 comments:
It is a great pity that Jabulani Sibanda, Chris Mutsvangwa, Chinos and many other war vets sold their very souls to the devil, turned against defenseless civilians, for a piece of meat. This is a well trodden path because that is exactly what Zanu PF leaders in all their various shapes and sizes have done these last 36 years; they too have helped Mugabe create this Zanu PF monster for a share of the absolute power and the looted wealth.
How ironic that leaders like Joice Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa, Simba Makoni, etc. only discovered that they had a voice with which to denounce what Mugabe was doing AFTER they were kicked out of the party and powerless to end the madness. Of course they are denouncing Mugabe to impress the voters, what they really want is to fight their way back onto the gravy train!
ZimPF to have its inaugural congress in October.
ZimPF leaders thought the nation will embrace them with open arms and not even ask them to explain what they have been doing all the years they were in Zanu PF. Joice Mujuru even thought she could pass as squeaky clean even with all the years of looting and the amass fortune to show for it. The last six months have been a wakeup call for her and her fellow ZimPF leaders! There is more to come!
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