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(NEWZIMBABWE) Mthwakazi trio: nothing to lose but their chains

COMMENT - It is outrageous for any Zimbabwean not to respect the suffering of the people under the racist regime of Ian Smith. It also shows why the MDC is unfit for government of a country that is majority Shona.

Mthwakazi trio: nothing to lose but their chains
by Dinizulu Mbikokayise Macaphulana
29/03/2011 00:00:00

“We must die as Mthwakazians,” said Mthandazo Ndema Ngwenya, “so that we may live fully and freely again.”

This was about twenty years ago at the Large City Hall in Bulawayo when Ndema was addressing a gathering of troubled Mthwakazians of the Vukani Mahlabezulu grouping. It was a few days before the Ndebele poet and novelist met his tragic death in a suspicions car accident.

As l write today, Paul Siwela, John Gazi and Charles Thomas are enduring torture, insult and injury at the infamous Khami Prison where they are being held for distributing fliers that suggested that Mthwakazians should seek freedom from Zimbabwe.

The pain and humiliation that the three Mthwakazi Liberation Front cadres are enduring is part of the “death” and the dear price of freedom that Ndema prophesied will be paid by Mthwakazi. There will be pain, sweat, tears and blood before the victims and survivors of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Zimbabwe can “live fully and freely again”.

I write in this article to observe a few hard and old lessons that Mthwakazians and all those under the sun who love freedom can learn from the doings of Robert Mugabe’s genocidal regime in Zimbabwe. The refusal by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights to represent the trio, the courage of the Abammeli lawyers, the pretences of those who claim to fight for freedom and justice in Zimbabwe are all sobering anecdotal lessons that must urgently jolt all of us into an awareness of the true condition of political orphanage and neglect that the endangered people of Mthwakazi are suffering in Zimbabwe.

I write also to observe that these many trials and tribulations of the brave Mthwakazians are just but many layers of bricks on the growing case against Mugabe and his genocidal Zanu PF government and their backers in the MDC-T and NGO sector in Zimbabwe. These pains of Mthwakazi are but the inevitable labour pains that herald the birth of a nationhood whose freedom and pride will catapult Mthwakazi to the exalted comity of the world’s brave nations.

For those among you dear readers who do not know, this is your time to understand. The mass graves and many human skeletons that Mugabe’s PR machine has been showing on TV of late, and trying to blame them on Ian Smith and the Rhodesians, are actually remains of Gukurahundi victims.

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Four truck loads of villagers were abducted from Ezinyangeni in Nkayi in December of 1984. There are also truck loads of peasants that were seized from Maphisa in Kezi and Mgodi Masili in Tsholotsho. It is known that all these Mthwakazi people who were never seen again by their loved ones are buried in various mass graves across Mashonaland and Manicaland.

To attempt to blame this evidence of manslaughter and genocide on Ian Smith and the Rhodesian regime is a ploy by Mugabe to temper with evidence of his crimes against humanity. Before Zanu PF tries to abuse skulls and skeletons for cheap propaganda purposes, Perence Shiri, alias Black Jesus, should tell the world where he buried the Mthwakazi villagers that he stole in 1984.

Mugabe and his goons can fool a few people here and there, but not all of humanity will buy into his desperate attempt to blame his own crimes on Smith and the Rhodesians.

The reason why Mugabe sent soldiers to react so violently to diamond panners in Chiadzwa in 2009 is not that the people were stealing diamonds but that some of them had began to stumble on some mass graves as they dug for the precious stones. There are several spots in Manicaland and Mashonaland where Gukurahundi victims lie buried in shallow mass-graves.

It is also known that some commercial farmers who were shot and killed during farm invasions in the year 2000 in Murehwa and Nyamandlovu were on farms with Gukurahundi mass graves. On all this land that has a wealth of evidence against him, Mugabe has settled his close and trusted army chefs and CIOs.

One of the telling lessons to be learnt from the case of the Mthwakazi trio is the conniving and conspiring nature of some civil society entities in Zimbabwe. The refusal by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights to support the defence of the Mthwakazi trio is cinematic of how most civil society organisations in Zimbabwe who claim to fight for justice and freedom are actually in the dark business of conspiring with Mugabe and perpetuating genocidal discrimination against Mthwakazians who are deserving of support.

These NGOs cry about “human rights” and the “crisis in Zimbabwe”, raising millions of dollars from donors under the pretext of championing democracy, when in actuality they exist only to abuse donor monies and secretly perpetuate Mugabe’s political agendas.

The humanitarian, political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe has provided so many jobs and so much money for these pretenders that some of them do not even wish for a solution to the Zimbabwe problem. In their project proposals applying for donor funds they are so loud about Gukurahundi, but when the dollars come they invest the money in their pockets and in other projects in support of other agendas while the survivors and victims of Gukurahundi wait for freedom, patiently.

The brave and resolute stand of the Abammeli lawyers who delinked from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights in protest is a rich lesson for Mthwakazians and all fighters for freedom. Kucaca Phulu, Sindiso Mazibisa, Robert Ndllovu, Matshobana Ncube and advocate Lucas Nkomo have refused to endorse corruption and discrimination. It is the same spirit that was displayed by the late
Welshman Mabhena when he refused to be “buried with crooks and thieves.”

It is this spirit of rejecting nonsense and rejecting genocide and mass murder that guarantees the future for the brave and long suffering people of Mthwakazi. Wherever they are, the Mthwakazians must refuse Mugabeism and reject the demons of genocide in all their pretences and sophistications, in Zanu PF and in the corrupt and bogus NGOs that pretend to be fighting for human rights when their job is to protect Mugabe.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda came out strong on “Why Gaddafi must be stopped.” On the other hand Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni was at sixes and sevens on the issue, complaining about the negatives of international military intervention in Africa. I agree with Kagame that world military powers must intervene and be encouraged to intervene militarily in African States where dictators butcher their own people under the pretext of phony nationalism and imaginary sovereignty.

Kagame notes that “in the course of 100 days in 1994, a million Rwandans were killed by government-backed genocidaires and the world did nothing.”

It is the same with Mthwakazians who were slaughtered in their thousands and buried in shallow mass-graves all over Zimbabwe and the world looked aside. Now that the world has shown that it can intervene with force as in Libya, Mthwakazians must weigh their options and scream out their problems knowing that never again will Mugabe unleash the army against civilians in Matabeleland without risking Libyan consequences.

The reason why Mugabe is now blaming his mass graves on Smith and trying to temper with the evidence of genocide is that he knows that his victims and survivors are back to haunt him and that his trial is beckoning in the not so distant horizons. Mthwakazians should summon up the courage and the energy, the world is no longer deaf and blind to genocide Africa.

I am only reminded of Plato, the ancient Athenian Philosopher who quotes the poet Homer who says “when you please the gods by fighting for justice and freedom, the dark earth bears wheat and barley, the trees hang heavy with fruit, the sheep steadily give birth, and the sea waters yield many fish.” The people of Mthwakazi have nothing to lose but their chains as the Apostle Paul observed.

Now that Paul Siwela and others are paying the dear price, and now that Mthwakazians throughout the world are awakening and realising that it is them and only them who will be their own liberators, the struggle of Mthwakazi must continue unabated.

The many NGOs in Zimbabwe that talk about the “crisis” and “human rights” but are just appendages of Zanu PF and MDC-T must be known for who they really are.
Dinizulu Mbikokayise Macaphulana is a Zimbabwean student based in Lesotho. E-mail: dinizulumacaphulana@yahoo.com

Labels: IAN SMITH, MASSACRE, MDC, MDC TRIBALISM, RHODESIA

posted by MrK @ 2:27 PM