Deputy minister genocidal utterances condemned

Dear Editor,


Your paper deserves the support of all Zimbabweans and indeed the world for being a truthful platform for the voiceless and defenceless. Siyabonga. As a former  ZPRA  combatant who fought in the trenches to liberate this country, I found the statement by the Deputy Minister Energy  Mutodi, a painful reminder  of my journey of shame. Having contributed to the  ZPRA War Veterans Fund, after demobilisation, the properties that we bought with our sweat were confiscated by the ZANU-PF Government on whose behalf the Minister has declared the Ndebeles in Zimbabwe as stateless refugees  and South Africans.

I escaped Zimbabwe from Lupane nak*d after swimming across Bubi river were the 5th Brigade shot to death in February 1983 ten unarmed ex-ZPRA combatants and have lived in South Africa ever since. They were shot for.  being Ndebele. The pretext of this annihilation of ZPRA was the alleged discovery of armes caches on ex-ZPRA properties. The actual reason behind the attack was to dilute the ZPRA and Umkhonto Wesizwe alliance that was fighting side by side to liberate both Zimbabwe and South Africa with the late respectable Chris Hani commanding one of the joint battalions. The other reason as confirmed by Mutodi was ethnic cleansing of the foreign South African Ndebeles. Gukurahundi which was an evil and vile Government masterminded ethnic cleansing, was a brutal attempt to halt the independence of South Africa through the destruction of its ZPRA  supported base.

The disclassfied information shows diabolic connivance between Harare and the Apartheid regime with Robert Mugabe placing it on record that ZANU-PF will not assist South Africa in its quest for independence.  One wonders how that was a sacrifice for the independence of South Africa. It is therefore not surprising to hear genocidal threats against Ndebeles on the basis that they are foreigners in Zimbabwe.Such threats must be taken seriously and recorded as Rwanda Genocide and Gukurahundi Genocide were both preceded by reference to other tribes as cockroaches.

For a Minister in Government of to seek to claim that they are accommodating 3 million South Africans in Zimbabwe referring to the  Mthwakazi nation is treasonous. I am waiting for Simon Khaya Moyo to respond whether it is now new Government position that he is a refugee and that Cain Mathema was granted asylum by the Zimbabwean Government.

The root cause of the challenges in South Africa are not very difficult to a reasonable mind. The idiotic ZANU PF supporters are roaming the streets of South Africa in millions and without documents. The jewel of Africa inherited in 1980 from the Gukurahundi supporting British have been decimated into an unrecognisable ruin. The hospitals are graveyards.  The roads are pitfalls of death. The schools are abyss of ignorance and hunger. People are drinking sewage water and packed like sardines in unserviced ZUPCO buses. In 1980 the country had more than 100 planes and today it has one ramshackle plane that only God's grace has kept in the skies. Unemployment is around 98% with the current economic meltdown it will shot to 100%. Inflation is now estimated at 700% with pensioners earning around 200 rands per month if not less. Zimbabweans as described by Energy Mutodi are a poor potrait of misrule and institutional collapse. In the midst of all this the shameless leaders hire private jets and fly to Singapore and China for colds and flue treatment trapped in flirtatious glamour of looting and thievery. They demand that South Africa must look after Africa. That it must open its borders and allow undocumented influx of untraceable millions to roam its street.  The claim that ZANU-PF contributed to South Africa's independence is a fallacious attempt to rewrite history.  The attempt to hold the South African country hostage and to ransom by failed African states must be dismissed as cheap hypocrisy.  The Zimbabwean Government kept two South Africans in Chikuribi prison for two years after their lost their passports at the border  as illegal migrants. They were kept under degrading conditions for two years not long ago. South Africa must apply the rule of law fearlessly. The borders must be tightened and nobody without legal documents must be in South Africa.  They must scrap out all the permits and new identity document to weed out all the shenanigans. Citizens are taking the law into their hands with dire consequences because the South African Government is failing to enforce laws. The must apply the rule of law without fear or favour from the border to the coast.

It was ZPRA that contributed to South independence and was rewarded with Gukurahundi that killed more than 20 000 innocent Mthwakazi people. My entire family was burnt in a sealed hut as dissidents and to hear the pontification on xenophobia by Gukurahundi disciples is heartbreaking. I bear  bitterness but the Lord will avenge the lives of my family who Mutodi has confirmed were killed because in Zimbabwe as Ndebeles they were foreigners. Mthwakazi had been declared stateless and South African.

The Government has not distanced itself from the wicked and genocidal utterances of Mutodi. He has no shame at laughing at the genocidal murder of Ndebeles and their exclusion and marginalisation as refugees in their own country.  Yet he seeks to lecture South Africa on human rights and governance. What kind of a person can allow his conscience to be impervious to human suffering that he pepetrates? He wants to use the Ndebeles in Zimbabwe as a bargaining chip with South Africa and claim he allowed them to settle on the Western side and accommodated them? There is is not madness but is genocidal language that demands world attention.

Sobohla Manyosi. You are spitting at Ndebeles today, and tomorrow it will be you as evil has no permanent friends. In the 1980s the white farmers in Zimbabwe were even given protection by ZANU-PF against fake dissidents created to deceive the world.  They never bothered to condemn Gukurahundi with Britain taking a front row seat as one of the cheerleaders of Gukurahundi but a few years later the same evil turned against them and the rest is history.  Inyathi ibuzwa kwabaphambili. The Shonas were dancing on top of Ndebele graves during Gukurahundi and indeed repeating the same satanic statement of go back to Zululand. Just last year in Harare the regime although in a friendly way turned against its Shona people who are the only Zimbabwean according to the warped mind of Energy Mutodi. The few examples demonstrate that evil must be condemned without ambiguity regardless of the victim.

Uzaqoqwa yikuhlwa. Ababuyisi baphambili. Hanna Juba bazakuchutha phambili. We have a proud history as Ndebele people. Your threats have brought us together and we shall defend our rights to the fullest extent. We conquered the British not once but three times and we are still standing.  We overcame more than 15000 Gukurahundi soldiers with nothing but ubuntu bakithi and today contrary to the wishes of the genocide of Gukurahundi the Mthwakazi  nation remains unshaken. Kulele kunye kukubili ngabe kuyavusana. May the Lord judge you and your descendants harshly for your utterances and all the crimes that have been committed against humanity.