War vets aren't an opposition wing!

There are particularly two stories that have caught my interest over the past week. The stories regard veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation struggle, who, as we are all aware, held an indaba with their patron, President Mugabe, last Thursday.

It is a trite point to make that the meeting was much anticipated following extraordinary events that had caught up with the war veterans' movement in relation to the power politics within the ruling party, Zanu-PF.

Not least, there were elements in the movement that appeared hell-bent to escalate what appeared to be a rift and misunderstanding between partners in the Zanu-PF establishment.

But Thursday was come – and it passed with the war veterans meeting their patron and presenting to him their grievances, which the latter promised to address.

Interestingly, it appears this did not go down well with some sections of society – the political society.

This is no better captured than in one story in the opposition-leaning private media.

"War vets waste Mugabe ouster chance", reads the story.

We are told that, "After President Mugabe had seemingly staved off further dissent against his controversial rule from the opposition, much was expected from the country's once fearless liberators to confront and remind him of the ideals of independence.

"Instead, they took turns to ask for Government positions, material privileges and access to wealth-generating instructions, among issues that dominated their wish list.

"The meeting was also reduced into a Zanu-PF rally when the ruling party's slogans were chanted throughout, accompanied with the party's trademark fist-waving gesture of triumph."

Then opposition parties took turns to decry how "war veterans could have done the nation a favour by asking Mugabe to resign".

"This is a squandered opportunity to correctly and sincerely advise Mugabe to step down," said Kurauone Chihwayi of the smaller MDC.

He added: "War veterans betrayed the nation by bootlicking Mugabe for their own welfare, forgetting to save the country that they liberated."

MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu is quoted as saying: "Up until such a time that the war veterans are bold enough to openly call upon President Mugabe to step down on account of his advanced age and failure to stop the haemorrhaging of the national economy, the status quo shall prevail."

MDC-T supporter Jacob Rukweza, being passed off as a "political analyst", is quoted as saying war vets "have the obligation as former freedom fighters to protect their own legacies and the legacy of the war of liberation".

You would be hard-pressed to believe that the Western-sponsored opposition would surely have expected war veterans to do a hatchet job of regime change on their behalf.

Since when have veterans of the liberation struggle become an appendage of the opposition?

War vets may have had their grievances against the system and some individuals, but to ask them to pursue regime change on behalf of the opposition that fronts the Western enemy they fought against only yesterday is too much to ask, surely?

This may yet tell us a lot of things about the opposition in this country.

The opposition is desperate. It is.

It is naïve. It is.

It is ahistorical – and again it is.

It is also clueless and myopic.

It is also silly.

It is too childish to expect that war veterans are ready to throw out the baby with the bath water and renounce President Mugabe.

This is something that they may as well hear from us today: Zimbabweans may suffer a lot, especially economically, but they know that the suffering they endure is because of the punitive sanctions that the opposition MDC called for and which Americans thought would "separate" President Mugabe "from the people".

That economic warfare, which recently was buttressed by America imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe's two largest fertiliser companies, Chemplex and ZFC, has wrought all economic and social ills in the last 16 years.

It is typical that under the cover of war, conventional or otherwise, various ill deals, corruption and behaviour are wrought.

The MDC and its Western friends – which are Zimbabwe's enemies – had hoped that people would be broken down by suffering and a chap called Morgan Tsvangirai was even rubbing his hands in glee at the suffering of the people.

People know better, and that is why they reject the opposition at the polls.

War veterans are trusted to know better to safeguard the sovereignty of the country even under extreme conditions.

In the liberation struggle they had a song about a hard place that does not kill; or bed bugs that sting but won't kill.

And now to expect these veterans, or any normal person for that matter, to turn fleeting political grievances into a regime change machinery is to ask too much.

The likes of Gutu, Chihwayi and Rukweza have every right to feel disappointed, but it is their myopic baby to nurse.

Life is not that easy.

Apparently, these guys have not quite understood these dynamics and another opposition figure, Luke Tamborinyoka, who happens to be Tsvangirai's spokesman, is out making a fool of himself regarding the same war veterans.

He told us in an op-ed in an opposition paper on Sunday that his party was going to conduct a march on April 14.

And, hold on, one of the things he said MDC-T would be marching against is, "… the harassment of our war veterans. The MDC will be marching to urge this Government to respect our war veterans who were brutally assaulted by the police. We in the MDC believe veterans of our liberation struggle deserve to be treated with respect."

Oh, surely, the gods must be crazy!

The unsophisticated guys in the opposition have such a fertile imagination.

It is interesting to envisage war veterans suddenly turning around to support a Western puppet called Morgan Tsvangirai because they have had a few issues, which are not entirely exclusive to them as a demographic, anyway.

This is the same Tsvangirai camp that would readily reverse policies and programmes such as land reform and indigenisation, which war veterans fought for.

It is simply unconscionable.

If the opposition is serious about courting war veterans it must do better than these puerile stunts.

War veterans, like many Zanu-PF members and supporters, are principled and ideologically grounded.

They are not turncoats.