Open Letter to Mugabe on Mat'land aka Bukalanga Farm Takeovers

Ndomudumilisa Tate Robathi Mugabe, nengube ndiziba zwangu kuti lukwalo gogu amutowogubala. Pamwe mwe waboSungwaha kene boKadzaha benyu unowogubala akapindisila mbiko kumuli.

Your excellence, I want to believe that being the all powerful man that you are who has eyes (CIOs) everywhere, you have certainly heard of the reportedly irregular acquisition of farms in Maleme (Matobo District), Esigodini (Mzingwane District), and many other such places in Matebeleland, aka Bukalanga.

Your Excellence, I am a young man from this region, a Kalanga to be specific, whose ancestors have lived in this very land for about 2000 years. The bones of my Fathers are buried in this land. I was born after independence in 1982, but make no mistake, I know without a shadow of doubt that one of the key reasons why the Liberation Struggle was fought was the dispossession of land from Africans by those of European extraction.

Your Excellence, I have heard that you have 6 or 7 degrees, which leads me to judge you a fairly intelligent man. I have just a few questions to ask you. Since the late 90s to 2000, you have widely and sometimes eloquently spoken of the need to reposses land from the Whites and return it to landless indigenous Africans. No doubt that is a noble goal.

What I no longer understand now is: why are you going on to take land from Whites in the land in which lie the bones of my Fathers and give that same land to men of Shona extraction? Your Excellence, in your famed intelligence, do you see this move as being in line with the liberation values and the goals of the land reform programme?

If indeed farms in Matobo have to be taken away from their White 'owners', then why are you giving them to men from Mashonaland who happen to work in your office, instead of to the local landless communities of Matobo, Mzingwane, Bulilima-Mangwe, etc? That is my first question, Your Excellence.

My second question is: if the Liberation Struggle was fought to reposses land from Whites who had forcibly taken it away from Africans, don't you think that as a result of your or your office's actions, another Liberation Struggle to reposses land forcibly taken from Bakalanga, BaSotho, BaNambya, Vhavenda, etc by those of Shona extraction will follow sometime in the future? (I have deliberately left out the Ndebele because I am aware some of your own stock consider them invading settlers of recent origin in this land.)

Your Excellence, do you want to leave a legacy that will plunge this country into War? If it was wrong for the White men to horse-peg our Fathers' land, please tell me why it is right for Shona men to do the same to our Land. Is this about righting past wrongs and ensuring justice or it is about power and greed? Your Excellence, are you sanctioning a new form of colonialism, Black on Black Colonialism?

Have you in your intelligence forgotten that Whites would take our Land and arrest us for 'trespassing'? In what way is this different from the recent arrests of Maleme villagers for daring to demand that Land that benefits them, Land in which lie the bones of their Fathers, be left in their hands than be allocated to a 'settler' from Mashonaland? Are you aware you're in the process of igniting a Civil War?

In all your wisdom or lack of it, where do you expect the landless villagers of Matobo, Gwanda, Venda, Bulilima-Mangwe, Umzingwane, etc to settle when you take the Land of their Fathers and give it to men of Shona extraction? In any case, are you really telling me that there are no more farms in Mashonaland, Maswingo and Manicaland to allocate to these men of Shona stock?

Those are just two of my questions to you, Your Excellence. I don't hope to receive a direct response from you, but I am sure you get my point. Let me close by reminding you that nearly all wars in history, from the Holy Land to Europe to America to Africa, have primarily been fought over land rights. You can destroy a man's language, deny him economic opportunities, but to take away his land, aah, that's to awaken the tiger within him.

I hope in your intelligence you get my point. Don't blame us when War breaks out, and this time, it won't be Gukurahundi style where you had all the guns and we had nothing. Then you were a darling of the West. Now, I need not tell you. Please do not jeopardize the future of those of your own ethnic stock through your stupid decision.

Ndaboka zwangu imi n'Kalanga weBulilima-Mangwe. TjiKalanga tjikati nti'nti tjalila ntondolo koga nlidzo ndiwo ntikini. Tjibvapo tjiti dzake dzili njizi dzabe whobana. Dzingabe dzili njizi kumuli maShona nasi, koga hhuba zwinhu zwihanduka, ndomubudza mowozwinyila makanyu!