Mugabe's youth league conference closing remarks - Full-text

President Mugabe's closing remarks at the 6th National Conference of the Zanu-PF Youth League

PAMBERI neZanu-PF, pambili lokubambana, pamberi neYouth League, neYouth League, nokugona, nokugona, nokubatana, nokubatana, neZim-Asset, neZim-Asset, pasi neMDC, pasi nevanotikanganisa. Icho! Icho! Icho! Ndinotenda, ngiyabonga.
Cde Vice President Mai Mujuru
Cde Chairman S.K. Moyo
Cde vedu veAdministration VaDidymus Mutasa
Commissar Cde Shamu
Minister vedu veHarare province Mai Miriam Chikukwa,
All members of the Politburo, Central Committee here present,
Other members of the party from the provinces who might be here as guests,
Our newly elected leadership of the Youth League,

Members of the Youth league all of you from various provinces as representing not just yourselves but others you have left behind,
Representatives of the Women's League who might be here,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Comrades and friends:



We came in order to fulfil our mission. The mission by way of our mandate, of the constitution that once in five years we must have a National People's Congress but that before that Congress, the Youth League and the Women's League must meet at their conferences and in accordance to our constitution, select their leaders, make the necessary changes if necessary, pass their resolutions which will be later on placed before the oncoming National People's Congress side by side with other resolutions especially those which will come from the Women's League and also from the main body.

I want to say to you all, congratulations, makororokoto, amhlope on your having accomplished your mission.

It was hard work I know, very hard work. You travelled long distances those of you who come from outside Harare but you knew you were moving on a road, not a very smooth one, rough one, in order to arrive where you will converge together with others from other sides who will have walked similar rough distances.

And your efforts brought you here together, therefore, because you were determined to be good ambassadors of your provinces and indeed good ambassadors of the party. You obeyed the constitutional instructions that compliance, obedience to the constitution is a great act of discipline in itself. A party which just moves blindly does not know what road to follow, meets as and when it pleases, without any regularity is a party in chaos.

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You have the past to draw from, to learn from and it is that past which has fed into you the way to do things properly. This is the way.

And when you get back you must always say the way is not what I think, is not what anybody else just thinks, it's the way the constitution thinks. Look at the constitution it will think for you, it will tell you when you should meet in your various provinces and when you should check even your province into meeting as and when it is time for you to do so. It is just that act that I want to praise you for, obey.

Well, you are not individuals, you are members together of a party that has all along been united.

We derive our strength from unity, Zanu-Zapu. That unity subsists and we have forgotten we were two, once upon a time, for the journey we have walked from Independence has been a journey of wonders true, with hitches here and there, but all the time remembering that the struggle we fought made us one.

The very fact that we are Zimbabweans who cherish the history of our people, the fact of the struggles that were fought before and we having fought the Second Chimurenga together on various fronts, that is our history we must cherish. You are born out of it, you are sons of that history let no one deprive you of being the sons of that history, the history that has made you and me Zimbabweans, the history that has made us.

Take off and throw away the false jacket that we were forced to wear that read Southern Rhodesia.

We no more wear it. We were forced to wear it. Our parents, grandparents were forced to wear it for nearly a century, 90 years, 1890 to 1980. Now we wear our own self-made jacket which reads the Republic of Zimbabwe and you are the makers because your parents, your ancestors, your own comrades, some still alive, some we celebrate in a few days time because they are gone, some of those were gone and all these combined making us what we are we are, sons of Zimbabwe, Zimbabweans in full.

And so when we sit here as the youths we are sitting here as a people with a legacy, a legacy that we carry on our shoulders and legacies are never dropped, they are passed on from generation to generation.

The legacy of freedom and independence, the legacy of ownership, sovereign ownership of our natural resources, the legacy that Southern Rhodesia was born again as Zimbabwe on the 18th of April 1980 and that birth will continue to be celebrated every year in the future because it's a rebirth and you are carriers of that multifaceted legacy.

You came to this meeting full of ideas. I am glad that you have gone through the process of putting your thoughts down, of merging them with the thoughts of others and producing what is now that volume of resolutions. Thank you for those resolutions. They speak of your demands, they speak of your ideas, your recommendations as to how you would want to see our country's natural resources, the wealth of our country turned into the fortunes that build our nation, that build you, that will build those who will come tomorrow as our future sons and daughters, future generations.

We will again look at them at Congress together with you and it will not be the many of you on that occasion. Perhaps not exactly everyone who is here is going to attend but we hope many of you will attend Congress and then when they are blended and looked at and one by one examined and those of them which should be expressed
by way of statutes, new laws will take that form. Those of them which do not need to be transformed legally but merely obeyed we will ensure Government obeys them.

You would want to see your status made better, opportunities created, sure this is also our wish and that is why I said as I spoke to you on the first day that for you to take advantage, seize opportunities that the country offers you need to be prepared as participants, the necessary education, intellectual, physical skills, some experience and necessary discipline in you.

You must be prepared to perform in the area best suited for you to participate in. Discipline, that creature we call discipline, what is it? It expresses itself by way of our acts. There is an opportunity — you want to do mining, you combine A,B,C, D, E and F and you form a company. A fund is organised for you. You have the necessary engineers to help you, you start your business and then midway we discover others don't come to work, some do come, they choose to come as and when they like.

Others take to drink, others to womanising you can never, never succeed that way. But if you have that discipline it means you have also the focus. It is easy to say we want opportunities but it is an extremely difficult task to take up those opportunities and utilise them properly.

You are an accountant well trained you get the job and you play with figures and start now a fraudulent exercise of stealing money through the pen. You open a bank the same thing happens, well trained, you join twosome, threesome.

You say gentlemen I am an accountant, he has done finance and you have done business studies and we have all done economics in addition and we have worked somewhere, we have experience and let's start our business. We want to help people and you advertise, clients come, they deposit their money with you and you start looking at yourself ‘Aah no I am building a house', the other says, ‘You know I need a car. Can't we give ourselves loans from the deposits?' Already you are proving you are not disciplined, you are not supposed to do that.

Just now we have that mess, the majority of our banks started by our young people well educated are facing liquidation. We are trying to serve them from liquidation, Ministry of Finance and Cabinet, because people have used the monies wrongly or they have gone out and taken loans from elsewhere which they cannot pay.

So discipline, discipline, discipline, but there are others who have remained very moderate, very modest knowing that a business does not yield profits overnight, you must struggle if you put in capital you will not recover that capital easily you must work and work and toil.

You must come to a level they say you are breaking even that means your costs and your earnings balance and then that slight margin of profit and then that margin begins to grow but you have to be patient, patience, patience, patience.

Patience is also a virtue, if you want to earn and earn easily aah, come to the informal sector, you have a garden you grow, three months vegetables you are selling on the market et cetera , chicken run yes, we have people with farms and the youngsters are saying aah tinodawo mapurazi, I don't know whether you can run a farm, it's a difficult proposition I must tell you and people think the larger the farm the better not necessarily so on a 50 hectares farm you can do wonders I have seen women do wonders on just two hectares if not one hectare of a garden which is well watered with irrigation, I am thinking now of my wife mavegetables atinodya come from just next to the house there, drip irrigation, you get potatoes, you get vegetables of sorts we get green maize.

I am not talking of the farm just the garden so people can make money on a 13 hectare plot kuvillage kwaKutama, most of you have been there just now mukaenda munonoona pane wheat crop of course the Manyame river is not far from us we draw water from the Manyame river it's about just, I reckon I am spoiled by the British, I reckon in miles and I don't know about these kilometres and so on, it's just about a mile and we have a pipe to give us water for just watering.

We have maize and we have just had 52 tonnes from there and on the side we have a piggery ndakapihwa nguruve dzekutanga navaZhanda ivava Deputy Minister of Agriculture then huku. We keep just about 4 000, 5 000 and that enables us to look after the home and look after a few people who work so they don't have to come, even the fees dzevakomana vangu I pay from what we earn there, kumusha.

The farm is not yet breaking even, we are yet to break even that dairy which gave you yoghurt it's not breaking even yet we are still putting equipment. Hatisati tasvika patinoti tinosvika we have just acquired maequipment from Italy and so on to get to butter stage and cheese stage and it has taken us time but patience, I am saying patience, please be patient. So there it is, please be patient but act properly but you must be people admired, admired by your own children, give example to those around you.

We will do our best we will try to create even financial sources for you to have loans but you must be people whose activities are a model, model for your children and model of others around as I said.

Yes you fought, those of you in leadership, yes you won.

I know there have been hitches, ndinoziva zvangu kuti vakuru vamwe vakamboedza apa nepapa, some monies and so on. Get away from that! Mukaita tsika yekujaira kupihwa mari and you want to act nekuti ndatopihwa mari kana ndisina kupihwa mari hapana chandinoita, you are spoiled already.

To me you don't deserve to be a youth leader at all. If you allow other people to buy you and if you have voted because ndakapihwa mari nangana kuti ndivhote nepapa nemutowo uyu ende ukavhotawo nemutowo iwowo nekuti wapihwa mari, goodness me, you are rubbish.

You are just rubbish, dirty rubbish as the person who has given you money both of you. The giver and the given are alike but we know, you have emerged, most of you are not like that but some are like that we know and kumusoro kwedu kune vane tsika iyoyo, vanonotsvaga mari yekuti vatenge kuti vadiwe, kutenga kuti udiwe. You are not political prostitutes, are you? Some people will want to make you political prostitutes.

Ndozvinoita vakuru, vamwe vemuno mudhorobha umu, anopihwa mari aiwa, nhasi ndirikuda kuenda chimbondipaiwo. Mudzimai wake omupa mari zvakanaka adhakwa: ‘Hapana angangonditsvagira chichembere apa nepapa', chekudii futi? Eh, aiwa let us be well disciplined people, lead our Youth League well.

We have to take care that we don't destroy ourselves and destroy the party. Vamwe vakangomirira kunzwa, Izvozvi vangavakangomirira kuteya nzeve, takanzwa vanaTsvangirai kuti aah eh takanzwa kuti ukuku kunenge kwaita kusanzwanana kuparty uko aiwa ndozvatinoita. When something is wrong we say something is wrong.

But tinenge tichidaro neconstructive way patacorrectana kudaro tinocorrectanaka and we move after the corrections, in this way you have made a decision, these are your leaders obey them tomorrow.

We will respect them from the top and we will ensure that you will not be made puppets by those of us who are in the Central Committee or Politburo, aiwa hatidi kudaro. There should be co-operation, good co-operation between the Youth League and the elders of the party, you and the Women's League muchicooperata zvakanaka that's what we look forward to.

I want to thank you for the resolutions that you passed and I thank you also for one the recognises the little deed or gesture that we did my wife and I but that is only part of what we felt we should do and in the past that is how we built what we are today. Maleaders pachavo were making immense contribution, Vana Chitepo the whole house being given to us for our then President Joshua Nkomo to use in Highfield, you see, paMushandirapamwe paya apa kwese, taingoti nhasi tirikudya kwaNkala nhasi tirikudya uko here and there taingosiya mari kuti mai vatenge nyama. Mota takangosiya mota, chimota chandakatenga kuGhana ndakachisiyira vaMuzenda ndikazochiwona chasiyirwa Sabina, vaMuzenda vabuda ende ndakazochiwona chakutokandirirwa nehuku mazai ndikati baba iwe kani makatadza kungoitazvenyu chizumbu chokuvhara, chokuti mvura isarege kunaya zuva rirege kupisa mota yangu an Opel Rekord, two door and blue as blue as the sky, the only one I had bought in Ghana ndichanyenga futi.

Vakazochichekwekweretsa vanaJohn Mapondera vakati we want to revive it hameno kuti chirikupi pamwe kuMagaba uko hachisati chadzorwa kwandiri. Well, well these things happen ndozvataiitaka.

Takazoona zvakawanda zvaparara, Mapondera bought me, Hosiah I was sorry I was not able to go to commemoration a few days ago but he was a very kind man, not very political but very kind hearted, Hosiah Mapondera, waive muzukuru. Tichibuda Kudetention takanzi handei sekuru takaenda kushop along Beatrice Road ndofunga aive nehukama navo kana aivapaboard ikoko, zvakanzi no, on my account a dozen shirts, ndakatengerwa a dozen shirts naHosiah, I will never forget that but handina kudzipfeka, taive KuHighfiled, 4475 takubuda ndakadzisiya mumabox dzakachengetwa, ndakazodziwana? Baba iwe tadzoka, dzakaenda kupi? Apa nepapa vana Innocent, dzakatorwa dzese mumabox ndozvakaiitika izvozvo not just to me but to others as well and in some cases vana vakashaya vanovachengeta zvakanaka vaive nevanasikana it was a disaster for families anyway those things happen but this struggle is over, we now have our independence, we have our natural resources, we are now living in homes.

We want our lives to be better, our children to be better, we must work for that, so with that I would want to say to all those who were able to manage and organise you takangokupayi chairman he was here all the time that is VaS. K Moyo vaMutasa along side according to the constitution we should be doing your minutes, helping you do your minutes, vananaShamu vese vanga vainemi nevose pakati penyu vangavachibatsira vemacommittees tanga tinavo and other members of the Central Committee vangavachibatsira I want to thank them all vakatibastirawo nezvipo we thank them all. Of course you are going to write letters to them to express our gratitude and appreciation for those of them who made contributions towards the success of this Conference.

Well this is Sunday now, it's a Pungwe we have had today handiti, and I am sure you are tired now especially those who had to vote matwo places iwayaya. Yah I understand it was very rigorous maballots acho but the results are what we have been given and we congratulate Chipanga he is the deputy we shall, at the National People's Congress, be appointing the overall leader of your organisation but as I say we are ready to give assistance and let us all be united and the messages we have got including the last one they all enjoin us to unity.

We must be united and that says United We Stand, Divided We Fall we have heard this before in the African National Congress that is Forward Ever, Backwards Never that is what we are. Well you are the frontrunners, you are the frontrunners without your role in the front tina abadhala, isu vakuru hapana zvatinogona kuita tiri vanhu vemachair.

We will meet yes, go to meetings, but you have got to be organising the meetings alongside us and kuti party inzi yabudirira it's you, your dynamism, your unity first and foremost of course unity and that unity must have discipline to assist it so we look forward to working together and I want to end up once again by saying congratulations to you all we are together and I am there because of you thanks for all you have said about me, compliments you have given me and we look at the people and we are driven by your interests, the people's interests.

Without your support we are nothing, without your support Mugabe would not count for anything in the face of vanaObama and so on but with your support, unyielding support, I feel we can't be defeated as we defend our country and resources and say to ourselves Zimbabwe is free forever, Zimbabwe will never be a colony again, pambili lokubambana, pamberi nekubatana, forward neYouth League, pasi nevanotenga Tatenda.