War Vets want Mujuru "forgiven" for factionalism little do they know she is NOT the sinner!

When Zimbabweans went to war to end white colonial exploitation and oppression that was simple enough; what was not clear was what kind of political system the country was going to have in its place. We have never taken the trouble to define where we were going and how we were going to get there. We did not have a vision. We assumed that black majority rule, without saying what this animal was, would deliver freedom, liberty, human rights, economic prosperity, etc., etc. and we will all live happily ever after.

 

 

“A nation without a vision is lost!” wrote Magari Mandebvu in The Zimbabwean. After 35 years of independence we are truly lost. The nation is economic ruins and the political chaos exemplified by the dog-eat-dog in fighting in the ruling Zanu PF party, is threatening to drag the nation into the abyss.

 

The Zimbabwean has reported of sharp differences in the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA), underlining the tragic danger of sending out men and women to risk all for a cause but with no clearly defined value system and vision.

 

“There is a silent war among the war veterans. One group is arguing that Mujuru and other comrades must be taken back,” ZNLWVA member told The Zimbabwean. “They insist that no sin is too big and some of them have actually been in contact with senior members of the People First movement to try and persuade them to ask for forgiveness and return. They think that Mujuru must be allowed back.”

 

Sin! So what sin did Mai Mujuru commit? These War Vets believe she has committed a sin because they have no clue what the elective congress was about.

 

On paper Zanu PF is supposed to hold elective congress where the top four positions in the party are filled by congress delegates in a free vote. But ever since Mugabe assumed the leadership of the party in 1975 he has engineered everything to ensure his name was the only one in the hat for the top post and then, instead of congress election the remaining three positions he has always ended nominating the candidates.

 

The first time when it appeared as if congress delegates were going to have a vote was 2004 when the party needed to fill the VP post after the death of Simon Muzenda. Mnangagwa had amassed support from six out of the ten party provinces, he was set to win. But just before the congress, Mugabe unilaterally and unconstitutional added a clause to the party’s constitution demanding that at least one of the top four position was to be a woman.

 

So once again Mugabe, by hook and by crook, ended up subverting the democratic process so that he appointed Mai Mujuru making her beholden to him.

 

In 2004 elective congress things were set to be radically different because this time Mai Mujuru had amassed eight out of the ten provinces behind. If Mugabe allowed the election to take place this would be the first in the party’s history that the party would have one of the top four position, other than his position, will a popular membership mandate. He did not want this to happen so he had to do something to stop the elections.

 

He accused Mai Mujuru of “factionalism”; getting 8 out 10 provinces behind her was now a crime, a sin, called factionalism. Ten years ago when Mnangagwa had amassed 6 out of 10 provinces behind him it was not a crime because Mugabe had devised a dirty scheme to stop him being elected. This time he decided that canvasing for support would be a crime.

 

Mai Mujuru and her supporters are the victims of Mugabe’s total disregard of the party’s constitution; they are not the sinners but rather Mugabe sinned against them by accusing them of this fictitious crime called factionalism.

 

Even those War Vets like Jabulani Sibanda whose had supported Mujuru going into the congress and thus found themselves being purged out of the Zanu PF under the same charge of factionalism are just as confused!

 

“As People First, our mandate is to unite the people of Zimbabwe, no matter who they are,” Sibanda told The Zimbabwean. “We will be working with all the other political parties to ensure that this country goes back to the founding values of freedom and justice.

 

“If you walk into Zanu (PF), these values are now non-existent. We might have had problems with Tsvangirai in the past, but we are prepared to give him a chance as we are of the opinion that people change with time. We can’t judge him on the basis of history.”

 

Until the purge Jabulani Sibanda had considered MDC and the other opposition parties that he is now embracing the enemy and the only thing that had changed here is that he had been purged out of Zanu PF. If he had understood the “founding values of freedom and justice” which included the fact that Zimbabwe was a multiparty democracy then he would have never treated the opposition as the enemy.

 

The political confusion we are seeing in the War Vets is replicated in the rest of society, Police, Army, CIO, civil service and in the high echelons of power. We need to take time out and add flesh to the bear skeleton of the “founding values of freedom and justice”, define our national vision. We failed to come up with a common vision before independence; instead of defining a national vision during the “Pungwe!” (All-night rallies!), the time was wasted on empty rhetoric and meaningless slogans.

 

After 35 wasted years of grappling in the dark we need to implement all the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA as the starting off point in defining a common destiny!