Tribal war erupts at Nyathi area

Tribal war between the Ndebelels and Shonas has reportedly erupted at Nyathi area of Matabeleland as the rival groups brutalised each other over the occupation of a mining space in the area.

A human rights activist Bekezela Maduma Fuzwayo said Nyathi community in Matabeleland North was on fire as Shona and Ndebele speaking people were brutalising each other over the occupation of mining spaces in the area.

"If reports are correct that the Shona people coming from outside the area have dominated all the mining claims at the expense of locals are true then there is a serious ethnicity problem that needs urgent attention," he said.

"Someone somewhere in government needs to urgently take serious the cries of the people of Zimbabwe for an amicable devolution of power principle where the generality of Zimbabweans is demanding for a preference being given to local people to benefit in their area's resources."

He said there is an apparent feud in the country with people from the Matabeleland Regions complaining of marginalisation and being denied opportunities to benefit from their local resources which they claim are being taken over by people from other regions but some system seems to be deliberately ignoring this cry and facilitating further frustrations on the people.

"People in Matabeleland have a strong belief of the existence of a document called The 1979 Grand Plan which prescribes that Shona people must occupy as much of Matabeleland as possible and take over as much wealth as possible from the region," he said.

"Seeing the silence that is there from government and responsible authorities on this brewing storm in Nyathi and on the existence of the Grand Plan, there is absolutely no reason that one can try to give to make the people of Matabeleland not to believe that the Nyathi occupations are not part of the prescriptions of this plan."

He said Matabeleland is currently trying to go through a healing process where by there is some sectors within the communities who are advocating for a national reconciliation and to give nation building a chance while others are lobbying for a cessation of the region through the restoration of the Jameson Line boundaries of 1893.

"It is incidents like this happening in Nyathi that further fuels the feud between the Ndebele and the Shona and makes this country extremely ungovernable. Logically, by now a rightfully thinking leader somewhere in Harare should have come down to the ground and allowed reason to prevail and ordered the Shona speaking occupants of these mines to vacate the mines and let the locals have the majority occupation," Fuzwayo said.

"In as much as it can never be tolerated by the people of Manicaland to see a hundred percent occupation of diamond mining fields by Ndebele speaking people from Nkayi the same should logically be the case in Nyathi."

"I already can see some faces saying that this is tribalism. Its not tribalism at all but basic human nature principles. No community can ever allow itself to be dominated by people from other communities in their own areas."