Cannon fodders in Lupane District are women and children - Lupane is a liberated area!

It is considered patriotism to declare Lupane a liberated district in a government ruled by Zanu PF. Whoever declared it is just playing with the lives of women and children in that area. We are licking the wounds and pain of Gugurahundi atrocities that were meted on all genders and ages and Zapu party holders in Mathebelelands and Midlands. Whoever declared Lupane area as liberated is openly provoking the Zanu PF to react, and they will react with impunity: all genders and ages will be overnight victims and casualties of conflict. But the cannon fodders will be women and children who will not make it to flee to neighbouring South Africa to get protection from King Zwelithini.

We did not need to go that channel at all. There was not even one day the people of Mathebeleland engaged with the incumbent government to dialogue, revisit the painful history of the early 1980s and put the process of national healing as a priority number one. I will just assume that if you declare this area as liberated, it will provoke civil war! Who is prepared for civil war at this point in time? Which country will come to the side of Mthwakazi to defend them? Is this move ever been thought through and it was seen as the last option: what was the first option, which dialoguing with "THEM" failed and as a result force is to be the option? Who will be casualties in such a conflict: Women and children? Whoever is behind this declaration of liberated zones must have put their biological children away from Lupane: are living in South Africa, UK or America and elsewhere. It is the poor women and children who will surely be cannon fodders, will be put on the line, sacrificed to force Zanu PF to dialogue.

Zanu PF government will indeed react, they are waiting for such provocation from Mathebeleland, what they did not accomplish in 1983- 87, it will accomplished in 2017/18 decimate them all. We have seen conflicts around the world and very few came to fruitful international interventions. If you calculate with international intervention, they may never come to your assistance. Alone South Africa will not assist. We see how the government of South Africa sups with Zanu PF; is hand in glove with Zanu PF, we see how President Zuma is close and near to Zimbabwean government's Mugabe's chest. South Africa can let you in as refugees and asylum seekers: and you are kept away from the crime scenes. But it is the women who cannot afford to leave their homes and livelihoods. We have experienced, seen and lived the pains that go with the displacements of peoples in conflicts; it happened during the Bush war of Ian Smith Regime era, it happened after independence during the Gugurahundi atrocities, it happened again during the farm invasions of the Millennium, it happened again in 2005 during Murambatsvina, how bad the violent 2008 general elections were. In 2016 there were uprisings of #This Flag movement that were brutally quashed and silenced by the police and army. Who came to our rescue? We say a big NO to violent conflicts because it puts the lives of women and children at risk. No man will be by their side in combat!

Surely the situation in Mathebeleland is bad; we are the most marginalised societies in Zimbabwe. Something big larger than life should change in Zimbabwe. There are many democratic spaces that can be used to remove this murderous government of Zanu PF, this incumbent is even eating its own children under the impressing that they looked like goat, we had to eat them. (by the way goats are the currency options in Zimbabwe: respect GOATS) There many options in our hands to turn around the situation in Zimbabwe, in retrospect almost all rural areas of Zimbabwe cry marginalization and we should all know this. Chance should not be Lupane alone but it must be holistic and country-wide. The entire country needs a new start: give the Zanu PF the red card, they have failed dismally, they know this.

Alone in the new constitution there is a sound clause that we should take on board when Zanu is removed from power, DEVOLUTION. About 60% of the population voted for this devolution and hence it was adopted in the constitution. If that is implemented we shall be able to regionally enjoy our independence when we determine our own destinies. South Sudan was given its separate state, can we sincerely speak of peace in that country. We have also seen how Mthwakazi parties have attacked one another in the public; we thought they conceal their differences from all of us. Those differences were a sign that if given a separate state of Mthwakazi peace is not guaranteed either.

It must be absolute bravery to declare a region a liberated area, heroism is not to demonstrate absolute violence to get peace. The ability to engage with the worst enemy and defeat the enemy using democratic means is absolute heroism. It is not heroism to put lives of vulnerable societies on the line to achieve whatever goals. We learnt it hard in the 1980s how the international community turned a blind eye on the Gugurahundi plight. It's not that they did not know, in retrospect they were wholly aware of the brutality of the Zapu/Zanu conflicts. What makes you think that if you provoke war someone will come to our rescue this time round? This is poor calculation strategies I must confess, self-serving and youthful.

Our women will be targeted: rape will be used to punish this very movement that has declared Lupane a liberated area. Your children are in safe places of this global village, so please do not play with the lives of the vulnerable in our societies. Most of those peoples are still to recover from the Gugurahundi atrocities. I personally feel the pain when such reckless utterances are made without obvious strategies on the ground. Some of us have relatives in that area. Their livelihood have been destroyed by heavy rains, the food securities are chronic in those very areas, now you are subjecting them to total seclusion from getting their food rationings. But your own children are enjoying food abundance and good quality education in foreign lands.

There is better future beyond Zanu PF. This regime must be removed and we start afresh. Many countries even Germany are talking about building multi-cultural societies, we are trying even to cut the country into many segments. The women want to live in peace and we look after our children in safe environment. The dispensation will give us the devolution and we build our societies and we need security to be able build our communities. At some stage we shall have to learn to live together in harmony with the peoples of Mashonalands. We must learn that inclusion is the buzz-word in the global village.  

Such a brutal regime can never be in government for long, we see the cracks in their bitter succession wars. We shall see a better Zimbabwe with a different political, economical and social ethical ends. I am of the opinion that devolution will create opportunities for self determination without having to break away from each other.