War collaborators hopeless about compensation

WAR COLLABORATORS in Matabeleland South, who worked with the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (Zipra) during the liberation war, have said they are losing hope and becoming inpatient with the government's delay in compensating them for the role they played during the liberation struggle.

They said there has been no progress in their issue since independence 35 years ago and of recent they were promised to be registered but nothing was going on, on the ground.

The collaborators popularly known as Mujibhas said the information they have is that their counterparts in Mashonaland have partly benefited from government yet in the southern party of the country the government is still silent on the issue.

Mncedisi Dube from Mtshabezi area at Ukhozi village indicated that during the war he was a war collaborator who worked with the Zipra fighters, who operated in Mtshabezi and surrounding areas between 1977 and 1979.

He said the promises made by Zanu PF government after elections have not yet been fulfilled.

"The issue of collaborators is not transparent here," said Dube. "People are still not aware of where to go. We are still not benefiting from government as promised, for what we did during the war yet we laid our lives for the safety of villagers and Zipra forces."

In December last year the same war collaborator had raised the same concerns saying they were in danger of being killed by Rhodesian soldiers during the war when they were being sent to the shops to buy cigarettes by guerrillas. He said they were at the same time monitoring the situation on the ground so as to report to the guerrillas what was happening in the area.

Dube said that meant they were in danger of being killed by the Rhodesian soldiers had they known they were collaborators.

He said in 1983 after independence, Gukurahundi genocide soldiers deployed by the government descended at Mtshabezi where they burnt his father's home accusing him of harbouring dissidents.

Dube had also said sometime 2013 they were made to fill forms to facilitate their compensation and the forms required them to write their names and the names of the liberation war fighters who operated in their areas whom they assisted during the war.

Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association chairman Christopher Mutsvangwa then said as a new leader of the organization and minister of War veterans he needed time to look into issues affecting war veterans, war collaborators and detainees and soon he will deal with them. Mutsvanga's mobile number was yesterday not reachable to establish progress on the issue.

Mutsvangwa was appointed war vets chairman after the expulsion of former chairman Jabulani Sibanda ahead of 2014 December Zanu PF congress.