Zapu - Repeat bunglers, cascading disasters

When you are that powerful militarily and that organized politically as Zipra and Zapu were, respectively, and get disarmed that easily by external actors through the surrogacy of Zanu, you have to simply admit to a fundamental flow in yourself too.

And when you don't surrender at your worst moment and surrender when the tables have turned in your favour, you must also admit to your own madness.

But when you go on eternally believing, as Zapu does, that a surrender document is cast in stone when your political adversary has never regarded it as such and continues not to regard it as so, you must admit you long crossed the threshold of failure to being simply silly. You only need to listen to people calling themselves Zapu speak, from wherever they stand.

Readers will notice that I make no mention of the surname 'PF'. Zapu is just Zapu. Sikhanyiso Ndlovu is firing balls of froth from inside Zanu and Dumiso Dabengwa has been goring anthills outside Zanu's parameter wall like a raging bull reminding Zanu that he is still there. Both Zapus rendezvous in needles, and self-inflicted desperateness as Zapu.

A brief analysis about politics.
There is a simple fundamental principle of politics at play here which Zapu totally misconstrued from the beginning. Power and weakness may seem polar opposites in politics, but they sit on the same political plane. Each is powerful in its own way and each must never be discounted for a moment, particularly in an anti-colonial struggle, and especially and exclusively, if you are dealing with British double-facedness. In politics, power and weakness are never absolutes guaranteeing power or discounting it, respectively. And having interacted with the British for that long, for Nkomo to have failed to deal with British double-dipping in 1980 reveals fundamental traits in the Zapu political DNA. Those traits live in Zapu to this day. Those traits are misplaced trust and general lethargy.

But let me briefly recount history for those who may have been too young in 1980 to know.

Throughout, and in the years leading up to and until the 1980 elections, Nkomo and Zapu were the 'darlings' of the Briitish, in particular, always seen as the more polished and business savvy outfit compared to Zanu which was largely seen as just a group of thugs who had just commandeered a political jacket. At Geneva Talks in 1976 one of Smith's delegation is said to have remarked to Smith that the Zanu delegation looked the thugs they were. A mischievous giggle ensued.

Nkomo was fed the opium of power in 1979/80, which Nkomo was happy to ingest, while Zanu, totally devoid of any substance, were happy to be lackeys in a game of power their handlers were already feeding them behind Zapu's back. Zanu's treachery was completed in 1979. This is public knowledge. With Zanu's treachery in 1979 Zapu should have known it was game over, unless Zapu changed their game plan in the light of this new development. They didn't. If they did, then they were painfully predictable.

To come back to my point about power and weakness, if as Zapu and Zipra you have power, you must know you are feared and that no one wants you in power, especially people like the British, and you must know and read every action you see as an attempt or part of a continuum to disarm you politically and militarily. More than that, you must know when power is a weakness, and act to contain its consequences, and when weakness is power, and act to flag it. And where you have the British in the name of Lord Soames in situ to cook the political books, you must know its game over before you even start, unless you take a powerful anti-power antidote, the sort Nkomo and Zapu needed but did not have in 1980.

Because Nkomo and  Zapu had Lord Soames' 'ear' throughout 1979 and early 1980, as they played cry baby, the same Lord Soames was allowing Zanu to deploy its bands of thugs into areas they never operated in, and to make deep incursions into strongholds of Zapu in Mashonaland and Matebeleland controlled and liberated by Zipra during the war. In ceding territory, Nkomo and Zapu donated political power, never mind it was all fraudulent. Nkomo and Zapu saw it but, inebriated with the concoction of polished political power, Nkomo and Zapu were too sophisticated to respond unilaterally and deal with these thugs as thugs, something Zapu and Nkomo could quite easily have done with no meaningful response from Zanu whatsoever, but did not. With that failure to rise above the illusion of a president-in-waiting, Nkomo and Zapu were completely fooled. The rest, as they say, is history.

By manipulating power and weakness, the British were able to lay the political cover they needed for the unfolding political fraud coming in in 1980. Post- the 1980 elections, the British could say, as they did in 1980, that the results of the 1980 elections followed tribal lines and therefore showed that a tribal majority had 'won' against a tribal 'minority'. Grateful recipients of British generosity, Mugabe and Zanu wasted no time in importing that language into the main political discourse of the then unfolding Zimbabwe. That discourse remains the unstated language and practice of Zimbabwe to this day.

Nkomo and Zapu's mistakes in 1980 were elementary. What the British wanted in 1980 was not a powerful person to transfer power to, but a weak person to rent power to. But Zapu's poll position was never a contradiction to that outcome, nor incompatible with it. But Zapu's body language, and actions, showed the British that Zapu had now fully drunk illusory power and could now be completely eliminated. The British struck. With one strike, Zapu was history. We now know Gukurahundi was two things rolled in one: a mop up operation and collective punishment of a people outsourced to an excited and excitable Zanu and carried out through the hands of Mugabe and Zanu. Of course, nothing absolves anyone involved in that genocide, of that genocide.

Fast-forward to 1987.
In 1987 Zapu is served the same opium of political power, and Zapu ingests it again. When Zanu faces defeat in Matebeleland, it feeds Zapu with the phantasmagoria of power that, on the face it, only Zanu could afford Zapu.   
By 1986, Gukurahundi had peaked and was well on its way down by 1987. Zanu, not Zapu, was now desperate for a face-saving political exit from Matebeleland. Foolishly, Zapu obliged them. But this time, the principle of power discussed above had been reversed. By 1987 Zapu was weak, but only in terms of formal but not effective power. And by 1987, it was Zanu that needed power in Matebeleland, and the Gukurahundi failure, had showed Zanu that it could not have that power outside Zapu. By 1987 Zapu's power lay in its perceived weakness, so to speak, in playing victim, not in embracing this rented power it was granted by Zanu. Zapu  needed to have prolonged the victimization of its people to a 'tipping point', but, unfortunately, this is the very point at which Zapu saved a Zanu that was staring defeat in the face in 1987, when Nkomo and Zapu signed the so-called 'Unity Accord'.  The anger that greeted Nkomo's action in Matebeleland was undisguised. Clearly, something is wrong when victims reject something that supposedly 'stops' their own killing. Evidently, in signing the so-called 'Unity Accord' at that stage, Nkomo had converted real power into weakness and elevated weakness into a false power. In one stroke of foolish and unilateral genius, opportunity for Zapu was turned to calamity. That disaster stalks Zapu to this day.

Zapu had lost – again!

But how has Zapu dealt with things post- the so-called 'Unity Accord'?
First of all, when you see those who have persecuted you and your people shout and extol Nkomo this hard, organize so-called Umdala Wethu galas, erect Nkomo statues, build airports and name them in his name, and praise and breathe the so-called 'Unity Accord' more than you do as victims of all these things, you must know, unless of course you are Zapu, that your political adversary is now weak and the tables have turned. Zanu's present fear and weakness is written so many times over in its flaunted power. And for Zapu to fail to flaunt the independence of South Africa as a power-maker and power-breaker in the present and unfolding struggle, their known political allies, and force a rift between the ANC and this phony Zanu, is wholly unforgivable and quintessentially Zapu. Imagine if things were the other way round and Mugabe and Zanu smelt change in their favour supported by another country they regard as their traditional allies! Just imagine!!

Secondly, when as counter-signatory to that accord, and as the party victimized and destroyed by and through it, you start extolling the so-called 'Unity Accord' as cast in stone when your counter-party, the party using the accord to victimize and destroy you sees the accord as politically malleable and expediently ductile, you must know you are mad to still stick to the view that the so-called 'Unity Accord' is cast in stone, and for all time.

And what an opportunity being lost to this bungling! Zapu should long have latched onto this schoolboy error being made by Zanu on the so-called 'Unity Accord' and called for a re-visit, for discarding it, or some other crazy suggestion, even Zapu did not wholly mean it.   

In this current hoo-ha over the so-called 'Unity Accord' in relation to the vice presidency of Zanu-PF, once again Zanu-PF is right on the terms of the accord, and Zapu, as usual, wrong. It's an elementary point really. If Zanu doesn't believe either in the spirit or letter of the accord, why should Zapu, the party most victimized and disadvantaged by it? And with Zapu's experience with the so-called Accord to this point, how does Zapu fail to spot this opportunity being presented for free by Zanu and seize on it?

But put aside for a moment that some of the things in that accord, such as the one-party State, the so-called Leadership Code, and Marxism-Leninism are just stupid things really, what substance was ever in that pitiable document of political face-saving by a party beaten to its knees by a brave, defenceless and unarmed civilian population of Matebeleland, for Zapu to cling to? Why not now demand and re-negotiate its substance? And Zapu's political allies are now in power next door, why not create a political ruckus to force the engagement of your allies? But yes, as you can expect, Zapu has let Zanu claim those allies for itself even as Zanu regarded them, together with Zapu, as enemies, and for many years Zanu did all it could, in cahoots with apartheid South African, to prevent them coming to power in South Africa?

But should it surprise anyone that this re-negotiation of the Accord is being blocked, not by Zanu-PF, but by a clueless and ever-bungling Zapu?

On the 'accord' itself as a political animal, there are some short over-arching political questions. If, as Zanu-PF has howled and puffed for 30 years, we are united, why do we need a 'unity accord', 30 years on, even one second after, to tell us so? And who needs a so-called 'Unity Accord' which itself is a festering source of political squabbles, and increasingly, of political wars, and whose terms are applied or dis-applied so selectively and so palpably politically? And if solutions to the so-called 'Unity Accord' is gamatoxing, who holds the gamatox cans? Is it Zapu?

But do all of these things not tell Zapu of trouble in paradise, that that paradise needs Zapu more than Zapu needs to be in that paradise? That there is a lid to a can that Zapu must help Zanu to sit closed, to eternity?

Even more astonishing, where does Zapu see the benevolence of Zanu in all this? Is it Zapu's serious view that their third critical mistake in 30 years will be rewarded with honour and kindness by Zanu? Indeed, that Zanu does not seek the complete and total destruction, not just of Zapu, but of the very memory of Zapu? And does Zapu seriously pretend that all these things we are now hearing about the vice presidency etc are not about exorcising the last ever vestiges of Zapu influence in Zimbabwe and delivering a Zimbabwe that is a complete Shona State ruled completely by the Shona and so delivered with Zapu's gleeful and naïve participation over the last 30 years?  

And to show how dangerous this whole tiny little document is, it included and wrote into its terms a named person. I am talking about Paragraph 3 which reads: "That Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe shall be the First Secretary and President of Zanu PF." Now, what happens if Mugabe dies, just as Mugabe's demise is just a few political breaths away? Does Zapu (and Zanu-PF) realize that the default position of this whole thing is, on this term alone, 'collapse' of that document? And if it is, what replaces it? And does Zapu pretend, now, that it can ever be a factor in a post-Mugabe political scenario delivered in terms of a dog-eat-dog contest in which they don't even control a machete?  

And what is already coming from Zapu is truly shocking, to put it mildly. Already, the usual suspects in Zapu, those that speak without thinking, are talking of a 'gentlemen's agreement' in reference to the so-called 'Unity Accord'. What a thing to say? But if you have spent nearly half a century trying to smile into existence something that does not exist, against everybody's advice, you will always be prone to making such pantomime claims or assertions in the face of serious political issues.

In 1987 Zapu could have negotiated an alternating presidency of Zanu-PF, say, of 5 years duration. Given Mugabe's ego, Zapu could have agreed to let Mugabe assume that role for the first five years of the accord, with Nkomo taking over in the next five. The accord could also have been clear about positions of chairmen and the succession arrangements, including dealing directly with the Ndebele/Shona issue which this so-called accord purported to deal with but without mentioning it. We all know, and have known, that from Zanu's point of view the so-called 'Unity Accord' was about increasing and expanding Shona power and control of the State without the adverse publicity and attendant consequences of a genocide.  

With the deaths of Nkomo and Msika (we all know the Ndebeleness of Msika), virtual guarantors of the 'accord', Zapu saw this problem become a living nightmare, but did nothing. Now, with the death of the insufferable John Nkomo the problem suddenly appears new. And now that the so-called 'Unity Accord' is about to consume them, these individuals in Zanu who call themselves Zapu are jittery and pleading for collective sympathy from the very people they have despised for all this long, when those people warned over and over again against an 'accord' made in the dark by a small group of men and women who had no mandate of the people of Matebeleland to make it.

As Zanu's Zapu now faces the prospect of a second Shona vice president, to make a total of three, Zapu has gagged itself from speaking in terms as it should speak, namely, attacking and shaming this naked and on-going Shonalizationas as such, because they fear being labelled tribalists and being accused of violating the implicit terms of the so-called 'Unity Accord', when the real tribalists in Zanu, using the very same 'Unity Accord, are on the last stages of delivering total Shona rule in Zimbabwe. In contrast, Zanu does not need to worry about that language; it only needs to cite and stick to the acceptable language of 'party democracy'. But, in the end, whether the insufferable Simon Moyo 'ascends' to the so-called vice presidency will make no political difference whatsoever to what Zanu has achieved through the so-called 'Unity Accord' with the collusion of Zapu over the last 30 years.

And today if Zanu wants game over with Zapu, it's game over.

So what should Zapu do now?
In many ways this is a stupid question, because there is nothing anymore called Zapu, purely on the principle of unity. Once you have united you dissolve into something totally new. It's of course different if we are talking of an alliance or coalition. That apart, what Zapu? There are only a couple of individuals in Zanu-PF who call themselves Zapu. I can name them for you in a second: Simon Khaya Moyo, Kembo Mohandi, Naison Khutshwekhaya Ndlovu, Phelekezela Mphoko, Ambrose Mutinhiri, and Skhanyiso Ndlovu. And in the Zapu that says it came out of Zanu-PF, you have Dumiso Dabengwa. That is it! I didn't omit Abigail Damasane by mistake; I just didn't' want you to be one of those queueing for a new monitor early tomorrow morning!

And this is the group of men (and women) who were dispossessed of power and handed the political mannequin of the 'Unity Accord' in the end. They also all have a track record in Zanu, and, excepting Dumiso Dabengwa, continue to be in Zanu. And it's an immutable law of politics in Zimbabwe that you don't associate with Zanu and remain or come out clean! Even Joshua Nkomo died in 1999, a political shell, already without the Zapu brand and incapable of ever recovering it.

The stage is now set for fatal error number three in 30 years, all of them coming courtesy of a Zapu that seems to learn nothing.

People would be right to feel that they cannot invest any hope and political premium in this group of men (and women) if people still hope to come out right soon. Unless Zapu upped their game, and pretty soon, and dug themselves out of this so-called 'Unity Accord' and came back to the people for the way forward, they should just as well accept that they are these serial bunglers cascading to disaster with no hope of anyone ever redeeming them anytime in the future.

And deceiving a people, and people, is never without sad consequences, as we have already seen countless times before. Honour granted by thieves and thugs, however grandiose, will always be shame.