Be careful Madam Mujuru! Some lines are not supposed to be crossed

It's one thing to be a politician, it's something else to try and ride on people's emotions especially when it concerns death. An example is Dr P. Dzamara who has ridden over the disappearance of his brother Itai Dzamara and now he has turned Itai's disappearance to be more of a political survival antic than true grieving. Justify it all you can but just know that there is a fine thin line of humanity that gets crossed when we politicise death or demise of a person. A contrasting example to the Dzamaras is Cde Gen Solomon Mujuru's, MHSRIP, death on the 15th of August, 2011. Dr Joice Mujuru you really acted as true leader on this unfortunate day by refusing to politicise your husband's death. You treated it with decency and dignity. That is commendable madam. Then enter the Gukurahundi Bhelingwe mine mass graves visits in 2016! The fine line between grieving and politicking with death gets blurry, all hell breaks loose. Dignity gets questioned.

Dr Joice Mujuru Iam sorry but you have raised eyebrows through your suggestion that you will be visiting graves of people who perished during the Gukurahundi genocide. Just to remind you madam, the Gukurahundi genocide is that government supported tribal extermination exercise that happened while you were in parliament and your husband was the then commander of the ZNA. It boggles the mind then if you Dr Mujuru start shedding tears for the Gukurahundi genocide victims today, 36 years later. We are left wondering if this is a genuine gesture or just a political gimmick done to hoodwink people of Matabeleland who have always felt neglected by the government in many issues to do with governance, especially on the issue of Gukurahundi atrocities.

The most striking question to Amai Mujuru is that you will visit these graves as who in particular? How do you connect to the Gukurahundi victims? How sincere is this connection? When did you realise that humans with a right to live were killed during Gukurahundi genocide? The most prominent questions though are: Where were you when these people got killed? What did you do then? What was your contribution to Gukurahundi? Remember you were in parliament since 1980. Or maybe you will resort to the Zanu-PF Gukurahundi genocide default response and tell us that you never heard of Gukurahundi then just like all the Zanu-PF guilty leaders as well as the current ZimPF leadership currently touring Matabeleland and addressing non-Shona speakers in pure Shona and totally shunning the local language and customs. Ethnocide at its best if u ask me.

Maybe it's true that leopard can't change its spots no matter you change its environment, a predator will always be a predator. The Zanu-PF tribal superiority mentality agreed in 1963 still reigns high in Zanu-PF and former Zanu-PF people as they expect Non-Shona speakers to understand Shona yet they themselves never even try to speak or understand as single sentence in Ndebele language, a language widely spoken in most parts of Zimbabwe.

Amai Mujuru are you also going to tell us that in Mt Darwin there were no atrocities targeted at MDC supporters since 2000 till today? Atrocities which directly or indirectly contributed to your winning your mash central parliament seat? Remember the 15 houses that were reportedly burnt in the area under Chief Chiweshe.? Have you come out clean on your commission or omission contributions in the political violence while you were in Zanu-PF?

Back to Gukurahundi issue, when you get to Bhelingwe what will you do? Will you do your Shona customs? Iam asking because you seem to be comfortable in thrusting Shona language to non-Shona speakers whenever you hold rallies in Matabeleland. What will you tell those departed souls? If really you were concerned of the Gukurahundi victims why did you not think of compiling the list of victims while you were in government and had the power and resources? And now that you are out of Zanu-PF, are you trying to win back the sympathy of the grieving people by dancing on the graves of their departed fathers and mothers?

People don't need you to politicise the mass graves at Bhelingwe. Dance all you can on the mass graves Amai Mujuru, shout the deepest Shona or English but you will never raise the dead. Do you even know that most of the 20 000 victims were murdered for not being able to speak fluent Shona? Their sin was to be non-Shona speaking. And now we have a Shona speaker coming to salvage political glory over the mass graves! Lord help us!. Maybe the departed forget quickly, but just know that the living do not easily forget nor are they easily fooled.

Amai Mujuru may I advise you one thing? Visiting the graves is not the paramount thing in Matabeleland or around the Gukurahundi genocide. The most paramount thing at this moment is you telling us of the atrocities you committed while in government. What is important is you telling us who killed our parents both during 2008 rerun and Gukurahundi periods. No need to visit their graves, we know they are dead! You are not Jesus hence you will not raise the dead madam.

Since we know HOW they died, we are mainly interested in knowing WHY they died, WHO ordered their deaths and WHAT was your contribution in their demise? Are your hands clean? We have the Roman Catholic commission of inquiry on the Gukurahundi genocides, we are interested in its publication and have findings made public. We have people who were left orphans and some left with injuries due to Gukurahundi genocide, why are you skipping these living and going to see the graves of the dead people as if you will breathe life into them? Is it for Maximum political mileage?

Do you even know the customs of the Kalanga, Ndebele and other tribes that were victimised during the Gukurahundi madness? Did you visit the people who witnessed Gukurahundi to tell you exactly how their brethren were maimed by government soldiers? Why jump the ship and politicise the grave? Where is the difference then between your ill-timed Bhelingwe visit and Mugabe's funeral political speeches? We are so underdeveloped in southern part of the country madam. The mass grave-site visit will do nothing to alleviate our poverty or give closure to these heinous acts except to open up old wounds which you are not even qualified to heal.

Madam, may I ask? If u start with grave visiting while the survivors are still traumatised beyond normalcy, who will accompany you? Whom will you be with, because I personally don't see myself going to Bhelingwe mine knowing that it's the place where my brother could be buried? I still need counselling. I still have visions at night especially during violent election periods on how my brother was dragged off from our small mud hut on the 23rd of July 1983. That was the last I saw or heard of him. I still live with the fear that Zanu-PF will come and abduct the remaining Ndebele and kill them. What if Zanu-PF follows us after your visits and we disappear in their endeavour to obliterate all credible Gukurahundi witnesses from the map of Zimbabwe? What will we do? What security will you give us? How will you protect me from BLACK JESUS?

What do you expect your mass grave visit to achieve madam besides restarting the trauma button and have emotions gush out uncontrollably? You will also, Madam in your expensive and quality clothing, drop one or two tears because grief is contagious and few people can escape its claws. But how will those tears help Gukurahundi victims, except to prop up your political image only?

I understand your zeal to connect with the downtrodden masses of Matabeleland but I have four pointers for you to follow. Please read and understand them carefully.

1. First of all learn to address people of Matabeleland in their most widely spoken language which is Ndebele. Never try to replace Ndebele with Shona. It's a sensitive issue and usually it doesn't matter if whether or not you meant harm by addressing a Matabeleland south Gwanda rally in Shona. It just smells ethnocidal to us. The Bhelingwe mass graves are unfortunately also in Matabeleland South region. You don't need to be eloquent in Ndebele. You just need to at least try, practise makes perfect madam.

2. Secondly, push for the publication of the Chihambakwe Commission of Inquiry findings with immediate effect. The Roman catholic published its own findings as well, your job is to clamour for the debating of these findings in parliament and has perpetrators brought to book, hoping you had no hand- directly or indirectly madam.

3. The third point will be rehabilitation of victims of Gukurahundi genocide. Some people were left orphans, some handicapped, some impotent while some traumatised beyond sanity by the intensity and pain of the Gukurahundi genocide. Your job is to visit these LIVING people first and then establish a humanitarian aid organisation to take care of to the welfare of these victims.

4. The fourth point is advocating for the Truth and Reconciliation commission establishment to deal with all these issues to do with the genocide that wiped out a massive 20 000 humans mostly from Ndebele speaking tribe.

5. After making all investigations, bringing perpetrators to book and making amends to compensate the victims, finally, you can assist with proper reburials, not a politicised reburials. Some of the victims were not even political but their crime was just their failure to speak in Shona or just being pregnant or just being at a wrong place and wrong time.

Matabeleland people are past the Zanu-PF inspired child games madam. We need proper solutions not these smoke screen fly by night pretences which disappear with the rising sun. It's not a matter of tribalism but an issue of being human to other people's plight. It's not a matter of tribalism either but a matter of being realistic. Hope you will find it helpful to give an ear to the little things highlighted here.

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Sindisiwe Mkandla <sindisiwemkandla@gmail.com