Matabeleland and Midlands Genocide: 1980-1987 and beyond - Zanupf's Agenda in the region

We the people of the region affected by the Gukurahundi Genocide must come to a common understanding of why Zanupf did the crime whose impact on our political, economic, cultural and emotional lives has been so devastating. The Gukurahundi Genocide continues to traumatize the region and nothing positive is happening to reverse that impact so that the painful experience gets to closure.

We however have made one major achievement, that is, our categorical refusal to pretend the Gukurahundi crime can ever become an irredeemable past nor become water under the bridge nor bygones become bygones as wished by the chief engineer of the massacre. On behalf of ourselves and our dead relatives, our maimed relatives, our mothers, sisters and girl children who bore the greater brunt of Gukurahundism when they fell victim to the use of rape as a political tool, we continue with courage to demand justice under extremely hostile circumstances including hatred by some of our own compatriots of Ndebele extraction turned Zanupf stooges. The Matebeleland Zanupf puppets feel that our continued talk about the Genocide diminishes their political worth in the eyes of their masters. Their dumb spin doctors are vainly trying to blame the people of Matebeleland and the Midlands for the marginalisation they have been burdened with by Zanupf since 1980. Equating the justice demand to tribalism defies all logic but Zanupfs surrogates in Matabeleland and the Midlands are blindly persistent, they without shame rub salt onto injury in the hope of greater personal rewards from the perpetrators of the Genocide, which come in the form of government positions for the unelected unelectibles. Once they secure positions they display the most incredible levels of blissful ignorance or the better schooled puppets feign ignorance of our aspirations as down trodden people. As expected of all people given positions based on other criteria other than merit, performance can only be dismal and to compensate for the poor performance they find scapegoats in their fellow tribesmen, accusing us of being wreckless and unpatriotic. The most classic case is the recent speak by the Bulawayo Resident Minister Angeline Masuku at the funeral of the late BICC Rev Reuben Mabhena. She savaged our pride as a people but so long there are no known deterrent punishment/consequences to such uncouth and uncivilised conduct, Zanupf's surrogates in Matebeleland will continue to be an excruciating pain where the sun never shines as well as being a huge impediment to the resolution of the problems facing us. Their sole excuse for being in Zanupf is that they claim to represent Matebleland and The Midlands in 'changing things from inside'. How mundane! 'Things' have gotten worse for the region with their prolonged and unwanted stay at Zanupf. While they betray the dead victims of Gukurahundi by working in cahoots with those who butchered their kith and kin the ethnic assimilation agenda rages on without let and they have the audacity to preach to us about the sensitiveness of the Genocide.

As part of peeling off the skin around the aims and objectives of the state sponsored violence against innocent and unarmed civilians, we must first of all expose the falsehoods peddled by Zanupf apologists who for known reasons are doing everything to stiffle public debate of the notorious state sponsored military operation dubbed Gukurahundi. Names of apologists which immediately come to mind are of those who are hopelessly battling to postpone the unavoidable arrival of senility in their twilight lives and they include Stephen Mpofu. They resort to brazen savage primitivity in their incitement of the old and new pharaohs to commit greater crime on defenceless people right under the watch of the Human Rights Commission.

As a result of our persistence in the demand for justice the debate over the military ethnic cleansing operation has now inevitably spilled onto the international arena where its fate will depend to a large extent on our unified voice. The Zanupf strategy since the withdrawal of the 5th  Brigade from the region has been to deploy spineless Ndebele stooges resident in this region to do their dirty work including lying about what exactly motivated them to do the crime. We also need to consolidate our stance on seeing that justice is served in order to withstand incessant accusations, intimidation and threats directed at us by the purveyors of lies who are working so hard to distort and conceal the truth about the mass murders and mass destruction. It has become so clear to them that the matter is headed in a direction whose road end they do not know.

There is nothing that Zanupf did better than Zapu ever since their breakaway in 1963. Zanupfs unwavering pursuit of tribal discrimination to this day can only provide the most reliable insight into the major motives behind the mass murders. Unremediable tribal hatred and unparalled disdain for the people of Matabeleland and The Midlands is the backbone of their 1979 Grand Plan document. The deadly philosophy of tribal superiority which breeds tribal inequalities presents itself as a reincarnation of racial hatred and discrimination that characterised colonial rule. It cannot be implemented by a leader from any other tribe other than Shona in the view of Zanupf. We now, therefore,  understand that what is touted as a Zimbabwean Nation is in fact a monolingual ugly shadow/caricature of what should be a multi- ethnic country. Hence the unrwitten insistence that its leadership is a preserve of Shona people and the Ndebele people can only play a following role. It is a highly contagious philosophy and neither the opposition NPP nor MDC T nor PDP nor numerous other Shona led political outfits are immunised against the infection of tribal intolerance, tribal inequalities, tribal exclusion and tribal supremacy by any stretch of mind. That is why the leadership of such parties for instance is a preserve of Shonas as dictated to by those who pay the piper.

The primitive sentiment of tribalism engulfing Zanupf, which itself is an act of cruelty, found resonance in the coloniser's desperation to destabilise the nationalist movement subsequently derailing the struggle for independence. Up to this day and this moment Zanupf has escaped the need to account for their political conduct since 1963. It is this foundation cornerstone of Zanupf, exacerbated by the secretive nature of liberation operations that accounts for Zanupfs arrogance and refusal to account for anything they do wrongly.

Moses Mzila Ndlovu
ANSA INTERIM LEADER
This article is the first in a weekly series that seeks to expose the real reason why Zanupf killed innocent and unarmed civilians in Matabeleland and The Midlands.