Statement on Mangaliso Ndlovu's insensitive and violence-laden utterances

The inflammatory, violence-laden and dangerously insensitive utterances by one ZANU PF chairperson for Matabeleland South, Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu, in which he referred to one opposition party as "confused cockroaches" should be condemned in the strongest possible terms by any individual or organisation of a sound disposition.

The disorganised remarks, whose diction is genetically derived from Emerson Mnangagwa's March 1983 sadistic hymn book, which referenced the people of Matabeleland as cockroaches. Those unfeeling utterances  immediately led to the massacre of multitudes in Ciwale in Lupane during the ZANU (PF)-instigated gukurahundi genocide of 1980s decade. We are shocked but not surprised by how Mangaliso Ndlovu, a Member of Parliament for the poverty-stricken Bulilima East Constituency, resident in Matabeleland and a survivor of the genocide, could open his unscrupulous exhaust pipe in such a vile manner. His excitable behaviour, obviously aimed at pleasing Mnangagwa who was part of the architects of gukurahundi is shameless and portrays both Mangaliso and ZANU PF for what they are.

Genocide-inducing utterances such as these are further harming and denting the already tattered local and international image of the country that is reeling under sanctions targeted at political violence and the disrespect of human rights. Calling Mangaliso and ZANU PF to order could be the fitting panacea with no substitute.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia, the Holocaust in Germany and the Gukurahundi genocide in Matebeleland all started with reckless hate speech. Matabeleland is in its current sorry state because of hate language by Mangaliso's party. The people of Matabeleland should never again experience such kind of barbarous gukurahundist behaviour by any organisation or foul-mouthed attention seeker like Mangaliso.

Although Mangaliso claims that ZANU PF  has structure, that aspect has not benefited the people of Matabeleland in general, and those of Bulilima East in particular. Poverty is rife in Matabeleland South. The road infrastructure is in shambles and nonexistent. Living conditions are dire and purely animalistic. The gukurahundi genocide has not been resolved. It is a combination of these factors and others that has given birth to opposition political parties to which the people of Matabeleland South democratically subscribe.

If ZANU PF was organised as Mangaliso claims, the country would not be in the mess that it is currently in; having even no currency of its own, coupled with a hugely underpaid civil service, poor service delivery and dilapidated government infrastructure.

The remarks by the stony-hearted Mangaliso are very inconsiderate of the suffering of the people of Matabeleland in the form of both physical gukurahundi of the 1980s and the current ongoing non-physical one which is in the form of deliberate but veiled exclusion of the region through secret government policy that is skewed in favour of Mashonaland. The pitiless and unsympathetic genocidal vulgarity by Mangaliso Ndlovu speaks of him as a chiseled and grafted beneficiary of gukurahundi and corruption in his political party to the point of thinking through his mouth.

Although we are vehemently opposed to Mangaliso's childish hate speech as the Freedom Alliance, we do not subscribe to unstrategic structurelessness and unpredictability of any organisation that seeks political power because that is undeniably retrogressive in all manner of fact. Government demands structure, predictability and overt democracy rooted in the dictatorship of terms by the masses and not self-fueled individuals. Only constitution and subsequent adherence thereof, give structure and predictability of action in future and in all circumstances including international friendship.

As opposed to the insensitivity of ZANU PF and undemocratic practice by anyone anywhere in Zimbabwe, the Freedom Alliance proposes a very responsive and proactive government that is not wobbly structured but democratic and propelled by the people in real terms. That is a government that will neither incite genocide no disrespect victims and survivors thereof.

We strongly believe that Mangaliso's vile remarks should give a befitting moment for the people of Bulilima East and indeed the whole of Matabeleland to vote wisely and reject genocidal minded individuals like him and ZANU PF, his political party in the forthcoming general elections.

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