Grace Mugabe slams sanctions

The West imposed illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe to scuttle the land reform programme as they feared its success will be contagious on the African continent, First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe has said. Addressing mourners at the funeral of Dickson Chingaira, popularly known as Chinx in Harare yesterday, Amai Mugabe said the land reform programme was a huge success and other African countries were already copying it.

"The whites were intimidating us because they feared that if the land reform programme in Zimbabwe is a success story other African countries will follow suit," she said.

"Now we can actually say it has been a success story and you can see what is happening in countries like South Africa. That was their (whites) fear. So they wanted to gag us and I am happy Chinx was singing hondo yeminda yatokura. Namibian President was here on a State visit and he said President Mugabe, you are my source of inspiration. You are my hero. Va(Sam) Nujoma liberated Namibia, but my duty as the President of Namibia now is to ensure that land returns to its rightful owners.

"Ndozvaitya varungu kuti zvinozoita contagious. The issue of land can never be suppressed because population is growing as well as the demand for land. So land is what Chinx fought for.

"We used to have good life here, but sanctions were imposed on us. Everyone knows that sanctions were imposed on us because President Mugabe said he wanted to give land back to the people. Chinx supported that through his music. They said why have you done that? We are whites and superior to you. We cannot be challenged by black people. We also blindly fall into that trap and fight among ourselves. They will be laughing at us."

Amai Mugabe, who is also the zanu-pf Women's League secretary, called for unity among Zimbabweans.

She said divisions and factionalism were counterproductive.

"We should all accept that Chinx has left us, but we should remember what he has done for us," she said.

"Tisaite mazvake mazvake. I am saying wherever you are you should remember that there are some people who died for this country. Chingaira has succumbed to cancer, but those who participated during the war know what was happening that there were sellouts that were being sent with clothes laced with poison. So we are now having some non communicable diseases. We should not forget that there are people who died to liberate this country. At times we tend to forget that. We alter our environment through our actions.

"There are some who forget that unity of purpose is important among Zimbabweans. We have infighting through factionalism and can we say this is the respect that we are giving to our heroes like Chinx?

"As the First Lady of this country, please let us unite as Zimbabweans. We have children and those children should know the history and ideology of our country."

She hailed the role that Chinx played during the liberation struggle.

Amai Mugabe said Chinx was a polished musician.

"We feel so much pain when people pirate and reproduce other people's work," she said.

"Some people take advantage. When you are singing it requires thoughtfulness until people say this is my best song. It takes time. After composing a song one just comes and pirates that song and Mukoma Chinx gets nothing. There are so many talented artistes - very polished musicians out there. At times they do not even go to music school, but it will be just a talent that they have. They then decide to use that talent to earn a living and you see someone who does not want to work pirating that music. That is not good at all. It is called piracy. I think law enforcement agencies must descent heavily on those people."

Dr Mugabe also counseled the Chingaira family to remain united.