Zimbabwe liberation process is a work in progress

War vets have no bigger or smaller stakes than any other Zimbabweans if their sacrifice was genuinely reflective of national interest.
 
Issue needs contextualizing. For thirty-six years Zanu has run the country on whims and emotional motif based on self-rewarding as payback to a cause that was national and a devotion for freedom by all. Let the truth be told that if people had been privy to the fact that at its end the struggle will select a few and seek to reward them at the expense of all others people would have preferred colonial status to outright abuse under pretext of independence.

All governments under the sun have national heroes and veterans. The wrong is not in the fact that one picked up courage and went to fight for freedom. The wrong is in turning gains of the struggle into fermenting an animal farm plan that seeks to reverse the noble act into a savage way of considering sacrifice as personal. The word sacrifice looks beyond self. It actually considers the possibility of being unable to see the act and deed of freedom when it matures. It is therefore a noble act of giving to those not yet born, an attribute that accepts the legacy of being born in freedom out of someone sacrifice.

From the outset in 1980 Zimbabwe leadership has been extremely weak, attracted rather to corruption than the price paid for freedom as a national interest born reward to all irrespective of race, color, creed, religion, tribe, disability or any other human qualification to discredit equality. If anything, the word pension is designed to award service given to the country and/or company over time. Good thinking would factor from the outset a pension for vets disabled or unable to self-support after the liberation struggle. Other generous schemes would be beneficial if worked from a national perspective than from a then liberation movement that today has finished part of its function at a point in time of history.

If we were to consider payment as a loan, what type of loan would it be to veterans that that does not have an end in sight? Economic recession affects nations and they consider scaling down debt. What education has Zanu government put in place to make veterans understand differences productive sector and service sector? Because of government, brutality and annoyance with freedom of speech and writing all we have had intellectuals do in Zimbabwe is leave the country and take our skills elsewhere.

Needless that we remind ourselves of Mr. Joshua Nkomo and Zapu political party who had taken war vets demobilization earnings in the 1980s for farm acquisition that Zanu criminally reduced to an act of treason.    A decision to creating self-sustaining farms shot down by a criminally inclined Zanu government, turned Zapu then into a criminal causing unnecessary loss to many lives in Zimbabwe. The nation watched with mixed feelings as Zanu announced victory over dissident activities uncovered organized under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo. Tension rose in the country it became criminal to talk against Zanu and politically right to talk against Zapu and their veterans as enemies of the state.

The country was divided and people begun blaming each other tribally when in fact the cause was Zanu's utter incompetence to govern country affairs, results of which today keep recurring and Mr. Mugabe keeps pumping money to silence the veterans whose cause has become too personal without national focus.

The people needs reminding that veterans alone cannot run the country. We all have to take   responsible roles then the country will run transparently with accountability under rule of law. It is no rule of law when veterans approach Mugabe and get a deal behind parliament to allocate resources otherwise destined for the national distribution for a few in the name they matter more than others. Injustice does not lead to justice but compound acts of corruption and deepen social injustice. Apart from these shortcomings, Zanu has resorted to favoritism, in order, shorten the expectations of her cry-babe veterans; there is no single self-sustaining project started by Zanu benefiting veterans. Farms were invaded none of those farms are productive to the scale they were prior to invasion.  A spirit of total dependence and claim-get mentality installed in many able-bodied citizens who should be fending for their needs appears rewarded. Zanu has physically, mentally and emotionally caused land damage and traumatized the people from responsible to irresponsible citizens.

 It is doubtful whether Zanu put out an economic plan creating employment and empowering veterans so they can be self-sustaining. If they could not do it for the country, how could they dare do it for veterans? How do you scale down a debt if you seek to reward only therefore increasing costs for those referenced as liberation fighters without raising an equal amount from the economy? In 2013 Zanu promised to create a million jobs and all she has managed doing so well is cause more division among citizens. What then is the role of veterans if their voice is only loud on matters that concern their personal survival rather than on matters of national concern?

Zanu has created a legacy when people look to it as if she has solutions when all she has done is to create situation when citizens become farm grabbers and attackers of others who make progress. Zanu begun diamonds mining after 2006 when the De Beers company that had started mining diamonds had packed her investments and left. Recently (2015) up to US$15 billion, revenue accrued was not accounted. War veterans are quiet and cannot see anything wrong without with such gross mismanagement. If these citizens cannot see broadly on economic areas that disable growth and development then they should trust working together as the best answer than employ selfishness to ruin the country.