Opinion / Columnist
Death in Zimbabwe is used as a tool
22 Jan 2015 at 09:40hrs | Views
The bodies of the Botswana accident victims have arrived back in the country. The nine are Menson Ncube, Davison Sibanda, Eunice Moyo, Sharon Moyo, Liston Mlilo, Nozithelo Sibanda, Langelihle phiri, Boniter Ncube and Methuseli sibanda. May their souls rest in peace.
To the rest of Zimbabwe, these 9 are just part of a statistic but to their families, they are people with faces whose death has robbed them of friends, parents, sisters and brothers. No matter how you dress it, their death can never be justified. Peculiar to the accident are many questions arising,
1. Where were these people going at such speeds at night?
2. Why were they not carrying passport?
3. What is the government doing about the accident?
4. What is the political sphere of Zimbabwe saying about the accident?
It so emerges that these young productive members of the society were en-route to the neighbouring South Africa for a better employment.
Instead of testing the Zambezi crocodile infested river, these nine preferred a longer route that would get them to South Africa via Botswana.
The question is why? why risk so much to run away from Zimbabwe? Well, since the black Friday of November 14 1997 when war vets were given unbudgeted 50,000 dollars each, our economy sneezed. To add icing to the cake, in 2000 the same war vets killed the agricultural sector with blessing of the government by the chaotic land reform programme. As a result, our currency slid down to un-imaginable levels, factories closed as government officials took factories from whites in the name of indigenization.
Since 2011, over 55,000 people have been retrenched, 4,600 companies folding. So these young men were economic asylums running away from a burning economy in Zimbabwe where the poor remain more poor while the rich and elite take 5 million holidays to the Asian nations and VP Mphoko refuses a splash $3 million house paid from tax papers money saying its "too small" for him, he needs a more expensive house. This is the government these young men and women were escaping from.
These young people were escaping from a government whose minister of state of Manicaland Chimene said companies should retrench any one who supports the opposition and only employ people who support the Zanu-PF party. Where The education has become a prerogative of the rich.
Local schools have degraded to shameful levels while the rich and the elite politicians take their kids to learn outside the country. Where the health sector is more dead than alive (Chinotimba 2014, parliament). No one cares about the education of future of young people in Zimbabwe any more.
These young men and women failed to see the vaĺue of their stay or education in Zimbabwe while the sons of Presidents twit and insult the downtrodden suffering people. Farming is now a risky adventure as the Manzou incident shows. Black farmers are now being deprived of their own little pieces of land despite court challenges stopping the first lady from acquiring the land.
These young people saw it fit to escape the burning Zimbabwe.
Its not much uprising that the government of Zanu-PF prefers to be silent on the accident. For starters, acknowledging the incident would be putting the government on the spotlight for failing to create jobs for its hungry citizens. As a result, the government adopts a monkey see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil attitude. It prefers burying its heard in the sand. These young people died in a foreign land and hence the Embassy of Zimbabwe and the Foreign Affairs office has to be notified and was notified of the repatriations. Up to today, no official government statement or condolence message has been put up. Since the days of gukurahundi, this government has treated Ndebele people (and worse of late) as worse than pigs and dogs. People in Matabeleland have been denied the same opportunity of employment and education as their Mashonaland counterparts (seen by transfer of companies from Bulawayo to Harare and failure of government to finish the NUST, Gwanda and Lupane universities on time. Even then, people employed there are Shona people mostly from lecturer to groundsmen.
The favouratism can also be seen by swift government condemnation of the Zupco bus accident which resulted in death of 22 people (may their souls rest in peace). This particular accident received wide spread publication and attention from the government. It was declared national disaster while the families of the departed received state assistance. The Tsholotsho families are left to fend for themselves despite clear calls that some families lost more that one person in the accident.
Maybe its because the border jumpers had no passports that is why the government is disowning them. If only the government had decentralised the processing of papers of identity maybe these young people would have been carrying passports. If one has a problem with birth or any document needed, they are told the mistake will be corrected only in Harare. And because who ever will be correcting the mistake (especially of language spellings) has no idea of the particular language, usually mistakes will be returned back as they were. End of the day people are frustrated or can not get money to travel to Harare hence they abandon the quest to get proper traveling documents. Some of these people have parents who died during Gukurahundi madness, since the government is denying it, the affected people can not obtain death certificate of parents so as to get the necessary papers if traveling. People have funny names in their birth certificate all because the registry person is Shona and cannot understand Sotho.
It's the fault of the government for failure to provide all the necessary basic needs to its citizens. It's the fault of the government for failure to provide decentralisation which its citizens voted for. It's failure of the government that it has failed to protect its own citizens when courts declare their stay at Manzou as legal while the Home Affairs office working with the first family disregards the court rulings. It's the fault of the government in its failure to lure foreign investment to build industries so people wont need to go to be slaves in foreign land.
May the souls of the departed rest in peace.
To the rest of Zimbabwe, these 9 are just part of a statistic but to their families, they are people with faces whose death has robbed them of friends, parents, sisters and brothers. No matter how you dress it, their death can never be justified. Peculiar to the accident are many questions arising,
1. Where were these people going at such speeds at night?
2. Why were they not carrying passport?
3. What is the government doing about the accident?
4. What is the political sphere of Zimbabwe saying about the accident?
It so emerges that these young productive members of the society were en-route to the neighbouring South Africa for a better employment.
Instead of testing the Zambezi crocodile infested river, these nine preferred a longer route that would get them to South Africa via Botswana.
The question is why? why risk so much to run away from Zimbabwe? Well, since the black Friday of November 14 1997 when war vets were given unbudgeted 50,000 dollars each, our economy sneezed. To add icing to the cake, in 2000 the same war vets killed the agricultural sector with blessing of the government by the chaotic land reform programme. As a result, our currency slid down to un-imaginable levels, factories closed as government officials took factories from whites in the name of indigenization.
Since 2011, over 55,000 people have been retrenched, 4,600 companies folding. So these young men were economic asylums running away from a burning economy in Zimbabwe where the poor remain more poor while the rich and elite take 5 million holidays to the Asian nations and VP Mphoko refuses a splash $3 million house paid from tax papers money saying its "too small" for him, he needs a more expensive house. This is the government these young men and women were escaping from.
Local schools have degraded to shameful levels while the rich and the elite politicians take their kids to learn outside the country. Where the health sector is more dead than alive (Chinotimba 2014, parliament). No one cares about the education of future of young people in Zimbabwe any more.
These young men and women failed to see the vaĺue of their stay or education in Zimbabwe while the sons of Presidents twit and insult the downtrodden suffering people. Farming is now a risky adventure as the Manzou incident shows. Black farmers are now being deprived of their own little pieces of land despite court challenges stopping the first lady from acquiring the land.
These young people saw it fit to escape the burning Zimbabwe.
Its not much uprising that the government of Zanu-PF prefers to be silent on the accident. For starters, acknowledging the incident would be putting the government on the spotlight for failing to create jobs for its hungry citizens. As a result, the government adopts a monkey see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil attitude. It prefers burying its heard in the sand. These young people died in a foreign land and hence the Embassy of Zimbabwe and the Foreign Affairs office has to be notified and was notified of the repatriations. Up to today, no official government statement or condolence message has been put up. Since the days of gukurahundi, this government has treated Ndebele people (and worse of late) as worse than pigs and dogs. People in Matabeleland have been denied the same opportunity of employment and education as their Mashonaland counterparts (seen by transfer of companies from Bulawayo to Harare and failure of government to finish the NUST, Gwanda and Lupane universities on time. Even then, people employed there are Shona people mostly from lecturer to groundsmen.
The favouratism can also be seen by swift government condemnation of the Zupco bus accident which resulted in death of 22 people (may their souls rest in peace). This particular accident received wide spread publication and attention from the government. It was declared national disaster while the families of the departed received state assistance. The Tsholotsho families are left to fend for themselves despite clear calls that some families lost more that one person in the accident.
Maybe its because the border jumpers had no passports that is why the government is disowning them. If only the government had decentralised the processing of papers of identity maybe these young people would have been carrying passports. If one has a problem with birth or any document needed, they are told the mistake will be corrected only in Harare. And because who ever will be correcting the mistake (especially of language spellings) has no idea of the particular language, usually mistakes will be returned back as they were. End of the day people are frustrated or can not get money to travel to Harare hence they abandon the quest to get proper traveling documents. Some of these people have parents who died during Gukurahundi madness, since the government is denying it, the affected people can not obtain death certificate of parents so as to get the necessary papers if traveling. People have funny names in their birth certificate all because the registry person is Shona and cannot understand Sotho.
It's the fault of the government for failure to provide all the necessary basic needs to its citizens. It's the fault of the government for failure to provide decentralisation which its citizens voted for. It's failure of the government that it has failed to protect its own citizens when courts declare their stay at Manzou as legal while the Home Affairs office working with the first family disregards the court rulings. It's the fault of the government in its failure to lure foreign investment to build industries so people wont need to go to be slaves in foreign land.
May the souls of the departed rest in peace.
Source - Juice Juicey
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