Open Letter to Jonathan Moyo

Dear Jonathan,

I have always known you to be a drama queen of Zimbabwean politics, but even the best actors should, at some point, be reminded of the need to exude some semblance of reality in their stunts. It is against this background that I have decided to write this open letter to you on your recent utterances against Zapu leader, Dr. Dumiso Dabengwa.

If the comments attributed to you were just meant to rubble-rouse and keep you relevant for the next cabinet appointments, I would understand. You have been shown the door from both Government and Zanu (PF) before and logic says that, to remain safe from the next evictions, you should do what you have always done best – praise-sing those who wield the power. But as you dance and try to impress, you should be careful not to step on the toes of those who draw no entertainment from your actions.

I will not delve into the Mphoko versus Dabengwa rift because, having met and spoken to each of these esteemed leaders a number of times, I find them worthy to be respected.

While I appreciate that you are paid to talk, you should not go overboard as you seek to win favours from your bosses.

Of particular concern to me was your audacity to brand Dabengwa a "sell-out and a charlatan". Did you say this with a straight face? You, of all people Jonathan? Were you in a praise-singing trance? Maybe I need to remind you of events of the past; hoping that, at the end of it all, you and I will get the real idea of who one of the charlatans of our time is.

There is one man who, in the 1970s, allegedly ditched the Mgagao military training camp in Tanzania and went off to America to study, while the war raged on to liberate Zimbabwe. That man deserted with a lunatic, but the lunatic was recaptured and convinced to train and fight for his own liberation.

During that time, Dabengwa led the armed struggle that brought independence and thereafter, worked with Solomon Mujuru to build the national army out of the three hitherto rival armies from the war – the Zipra, Zanla, Zipra and the Rhodesian Front.

Somewhere along the line, when Robert Mugabe was seized by his "moment of madness" he arrested Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku on false treason charges that you and I know very well about. That "moment of madness" killed 20,000 innocent civilians, including your own father and mine. At the signing of the "Unity Accord" in 1987, Dabengwa, without restitution from the Mugabe regime, agreed to offer his loyal service to the people of Zimbabwe. He worked with his jailors to preach the gospel of peace and reconciliation in that process. It was under Dabengwa's era as Minister of Home Affairs that the Zimbabwe Republic Police became one of the world's most respected police forces and briefly transformed into a people-focused force.

When Mugabe turned the police against the people, Dabengwa resigned from his government post in 2000. When Mugabe refused to step down from power, despite his glaring failure to lead the country out of a political and economic crisis you had helped create in your first stint as Information Minister, Dabengwa left Zanu (PF) in 2008. You even praised him for that when I sought your comment on a Zimpapers article that had accused the former Zipra intelligence supremo of being a "sell-out" for leaving Zanu (PF) to join hands with Simba Makoni in that ill-fated Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn project. You even stated that those who called Dabengwa names were being disrespectful of the man who had suffered both in the hands of the Smith rule and in an independent Zimbabwe.

Ironically, you now have the temerity to call Dabengwa a "charlatan" and a "sell-out". Are you for real? How can a liberation war deserter have the audacity to so cheaply manipulate history by denigrating real liberation heroes just because they belong to the other side of the political divide? I find your hypocrisy to be legendary.

I was disappointed when you went back to Zanu (PF) because that, to me, was tantamount to selling out, but I somehow had believed that Jonathan Moyo the Second was a born-again man. I now realise I was wrong.

In my world, a sell-out is someone who had the temerity to turn his back and run into the comfort of America while the war raged on to free his motherland from colonial rule, only to return years later, to join the gravy train and then start lecturing people on sell-outs and the importance of the same liberation struggle he deserted.

My idea of a sell-out is a perennial political flip flopper who took the people of Tsholotsho on a ride - posturing as their saviour, only to take them back to Zanu (PF) when they felt they had made a good political choice.

A sell-out is someone of no clear political standing, whose utterances are driven more by the need to impress certain quarters to achieve a selfish end than a desire to reflect the truth.

I find a sell-out to be a 57-year-old man who thought that at 86, Mugabe should have resigned because his "continued stay in office has become such an excessive burden to the welfare of the state and such a fatal danger to the public interest of Zimbabweans at home and in the Diaspora that each day that goes by with him in office leaves the nation's survival at great risk while seriously compromising national sovereignty," but turns around to parrot that at 90, the same Mugabe has all the answers to the country's problems.

A sell-out is someone who would praise-sing his father's killers to achieve selfish gains. That is a real sell-out - someone who betrays not only his kith and keen, but sells his own soul as well. And Dumiso Dabengwa is not that kind of man.

It is common knowledge that you are fast-losing your hair; do not make us believe that with it also goes a big chunk of your brain.

Mxolisi Ncube is an exiled Zimbabwean journalist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He writes here in his personal capacity and can be contacted on ncubemxolisi90@gmail.com