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(HERALD) Gukurahundi: Both sides should apologise

Gukurahundi: Both sides should apologise
Saturday, 21 July 2012 20:26

Former Zanu-PF Politburo member Cde Dumiso Dabengwa (DD) stunned many people when he left the party to re-launch Zapu. Before people could understand what was going on, he declared his support for Simba Makoni during the 2008 presidential elections. Our Assistant Editor Munyaradzi Huni (MH) went to Bulawayo last week and sat down with the “Black Russian” to discuss these issues. For the first time, Cde Dabengwa speaks frankly about the dissident and Gukurahundi eras.

MH: Cde Dabengwa, people would want to know, in your own words, who exactly is Dumiso Dabengwa?

DD: That’s very difficult to answer. I am myself, I am the same person I was all along and I have not changed.

MH: Ok, what person have you been all along?
DD: Well, I have been myself and I believe in being myself.

MH: Where exactly does Cde Dumiso Dabengwa trace his roots?
DD: Well, I trace my roots from my parents. Born at Ntabazinduna reserve and I trace my roots from my upbringing as a young person, meeting different people who became renowned politicians at a later stage like (the late VP) Nkomo who was at Tsholotsho school called Mavela Training College. It was a skills training college for agriculture, leather work, carpentry, building, etc, and my father was an agriculture instructor at the school.

MH: Where did you grow up?
DD: I grew up there, saw people like JZ Moyo, Joshua Nkomo. I was very young then and they told me I did not even recognise them, but they interacted with my family and they knew me. Nkomo used to tell me that he used to handle me as a baby and each time he held me I would wet on him, and we laughed about it. I went to Mzingwane after that, from Mzingwane that is where my parents were teaching, then to Ngwenya Mission (John Tallach), from Ngwenya mission they left and this was a Presbyterian missionary school, then they went to Serima Mission school, this was an Anglican school, from Serima they went to Kutama where I met the likes of Charles Chikerema and a number of people that became prominent businesspeople and politicians. From there I went to Thekwane Mission, which was Methodist. On my matriculation again I met a number of people, Zvobgo, Hove and a number of other people who became prominent politicians in the country.

MH: Are you from Mat North or from the Midlands, where exactly do you come from?
DD: No, my roots are in Ntabazinduna under Chief Khayisa (Ndiweni), Bubi District.
MH: Cde Dabengwa, what influenced you to join the liberation struggle?
DD: A number of things really. First it was way back at Kutama when I was doing my junior certificate and we read magazines and saw what was happening in South Africa and compare it to what was happening at home. Nkomo came to Kutama mission and I was still young then and so it did not really make much sense then except to know this was Nkomo, the same Nkomo that used to carry me at Tsholotsho and he also visited later on at Thekwane and by then we were grown up. As students we noted what he said when he addressed us on a casual, informal way at Thekwane. He told us what to look forward to unless we worked to support the struggle for the emancipation for our people. He said the future would be bleak for us. And I remembered those words very well. And later when I then started working first as a temporary teacher just for one year at Serima Mission where I taught the likes of Lookout Masuku and then came to Bulawayo and worked for the Bulawayo City Council as a clerk in the welfare office. When the ANC leadership was arrested and the ANC was banned, a number of people were detained at Khami Prison and people from here, people from Malawi like Aleck Banda, for instance, and people from Zambia were detained at Khami Prison. All the relatives that came to see these people were passing through our office and I was made in charge of registering the visitors to Khami Prison.

MH: What ideology do you believe in, Cde Dabengwa?
DD: Difficult again to talk about ideology. I believe in social justice.

MH: Tell us more about Dumiso Dabengwa, the freedom fighter.
DD: Well, it was during this period as a clerk in the social welfare office when I began following the ANC. I was not a member of the ANC but we went to their meetings just to listen and we were beginning to appreciate the things they were saying. Later on I got a job at a bank and I got a practical experience of being discriminated. I was working in the bank with my qualifications which were just as good, if not better than some of my white colleagues, but I earned half the salary of what a white colleague earned and that drew my attention to the real discrimination that was taking place. I got the feeling we had to do something. There was no need to complain. There was nowhere to present your case and the only way we realised was to fight for it.

That led me to join the liberation struggle and joining the youth movement in the first place and participating in a number of activities in the NDP youth organisation and later on Zapu and later on being one of the volunteers to go and train.

MH: Where did you go and receive your training from?
DD: We got to a stage where after the attempts by our organisation ZEN to try and solve the problems of the country peacefully, we realised that the regime was not prepared to give in. (Ian Douglas) Smith pronounced words like “there would never be majority rule in his life time” and that told us that there was no way we were going to get what we wanted unless we fought for it. We actually pushed the leadership to say enough is enough and we are ready for the struggle.

MH: So where did you go for your training?
DD: I went through Zambia and after Zambia we were sent out to the Soviet Union, that is where we trained.

MH: We hear that you were nicknamed the “Black Russian.” How did this come about?
DD: That nickname came later on in the ’70s towards the end of the liberation struggle when Zimbabwe security forces, the Selous Scouts, invaded a place which we called Rome and we had nicknamed it The Vatican where the intelligence headquarters were in Zambia. They bombed the house and later on searched the house where they found some documents relating to our training in the Soviet Union. They claimed that they had destroyed the headquarters of the Black Russian.

MH: So when this building was bombed you were actually there?
DD: I was supposed to have been there, but the night before Lookout Masuku insisted that I should not be staying at the house. I left the house during the night without them realising that I had left and they came in the early hours of the morning and bombed the place.

MH: Cde Dabengwa, some people say during the liberation struggle you were more in the intelligence rather than a commander. How do you explain your role during the liberation struggle?
DD: I was the chief in reconnaissance, which is military intelligence. I did all the reconnaissance of the crossing routes from Kazungula right across the border. I walked almost every mile of that river looking for the best crossing places for our comrades. I would say from the time we returned from 1965 up to the early ’70s I was responsible for reconnaissance work. The big battles that we had, the operations we had with the ANC, the Hwange Operation, the Sipolilo Operations, I was responsible for making sure that the two operations were carried out smoothly and passed without any interception by the enemy.

MH: So would you say you were more of an intelligence officer than a commander?
DD: When you are in the military, I don’t know how you separate it, you are talking about the commander in a battlefield and you are talking about another aspect which is reconnaissance which is intelligence. No battles would succeed if there has been no preparation, intelligence information about how the comrades should proceed. Military intelligence is the precursor to the military operations, they prepare the ground for the military to be able to come in and battle it out. Later on I covered the entire intelligence aspect of the party.

MH: Which were some of the key operations that you participated in during the liberation struggle?
DD: Well, right from the beginning, as I said, it was the reconnaissance of the crossing routes, and I have mentioned the two battles — the Hwange Operation, that is where my head got injured. I worked with Chris Hani as he was the intelligence officer in the ANC in South Africa and so we worked together. I was supposed to have taken his team across right up to the Hwange National Park but got injured in the process. A few months after that we were then engaged in the Sipolilo Operation.

MH: During the liberation struggle what was your relationship with comrades like Nikita Mangena, people like Lookout Masuku because we also hear that during the liberation struggle there was a fight for the leadership of Zipra?
DD: No, there was never any fight. Our first commander was Ackim Ndlovu; from 1965 to around 1970 he was the commander. After that it was Nikita Mangena. When Nikita Mangena came that is the time we had established the revolutionary council and that is when the name Zipra came in (Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army). When Mangena became the commander, we then formed the war council which was chaired first by JZ Moyo and it was also chaired by Chikerema. No, no by

the time Mangena came in, it was chaired by Jason Moyo because Chikerema had left. I was the chief of intelligence as well as secretary to the revolutionary council. A few years after that, Nkomo came in and took over as head of the army as well as commander-in-chief of the army, Zipra. Then there was a war council formed that was chaired by Nkomo, deputised by the late Munodawafa and I was secretary to the war council.



MH: So in terms of seniority by training. . .
DD: In terms of seniority I was senior to them both (Nikita Mangena and Lookout Masuku), I was always above them. I was always senior to them. There was never any fight in Zapu because commanders were by appointment and there was no way you could fight to take over the command of the army. You were appointed into that position and that is it.



MH: Some time ago I read a book by Ken Flower where he wrote that it was easy to fight the Zipra forces because they believed in fighting in large numbers and because of the airpower of the Rhodesian forces it was easy to “harvest” these forces. What do you say to this statement by Ken Flower?
DD: No, Ken Flower was writing exactly like a person who did not participate in the battle. Our strategy in fighting beginning from the ’60s was to send small units. One section of men, which usually comprised of about eight men. We later increased the number to the level of a platoon, which is about three sections which would be between 24 and 30. That’s how they operated and they never operated in bigger numbers. It was only towards the end of the ’70s, 78-79, when Nkomo came up with the strategy in 1977 which he termed the turning point and the idea of the turning point came about as the result of the semi-liberated areas. These were areas where the Rhodesian forces would no longer come because they knew that if they came they would not have it easy. Nkomo said we now must take the battle right into the interior of the country so we started training battalions which would comprise from almost 600 to 800 men depending on the weapons that they were going to carry and these were trained in order to come into the semi-liberated areas and be able to take over those semi-liberated areas and run their administration.



The guerillas would continue pushing into the interior of the country and these battalions would move in to defend the semi-liberated areas. So Ken Flower does not know what he was writing about.
MH: Cde Dabengwa, you spoke about the Hwange campaign, when you look back do you think the Hwange campaign was a success considering the casualties you suffered during this campaign?
DD: This battle has been completely misconstrued by people both here at home and including by people in South Africa. This happened at the insistence of the ANC in South Africa. At that time the ANC had been using the route through Botswana and they had given instructions to their men, their guerillas, that please if you are stopped by the Botswana police or the army, don’t fire at them, surrender. We don’t want to fight our own brothers. So each time they were going through this route, they would be intercepted by Botswana police, captured, taken in, charged, put into prison and, after serving their prison terms, be sent back into Zambia. They got tired of that. Meanwhile, the South African military police were now patrolling along the Zambezi River because they wanted to understand how the guerillas operated. So the South African military police joined hands with their Rhodesian counterparts. The ANC then said, look, we would rather send our men through



Rhodesia than through Botswana because in Botswana they can’t fight back when intercepted. In Rhodesia, the South Africans are already there fighting together with the Rhodesians against Zipra and so we might as well join hands with Zipra to cross through. If our forces are intercepted by those forces we can fight together with the Zipra forces, but the idea was to cross. In the Hwange Operation there were at least 30 ANC comrades against almost 60 Zipra comrades.



MH: Away from that campaign, Cde Dabengwa, how would you describe your relationship with the late Vice-President Nkomo?
DD: I knew Nkomo when I was in the NDP youth, we worked under him similarly in Zapu, he led us except during the break when they were in detention back home and we remained in Zambia. I found him a very fascinating man first from our youth days when we used at times to accompany him to meetings and we played the hide-and-seek games. For instance, I remember one time he was going to address a rally in Nkayi and we would make a plan and say we need a decoy. He would send some people in his usual car, let them go on the official route towards the venue of the meeting in Nkayi and he would use another car that they would not expect him to be in.



Nkomo played these games with the police. He was also very fatherly, he would listen, he liked calling the youths together trying to find out what their aspirations were, what they wanted to do and so on. When we pushed him that we wanted to go for training, he was very emphatic in getting us to understand what we wanted to do. He told us that once you are holding a gun, whether you fire or not, those guys will fire at you, are you ready for it? He got us to understand how to organise ourselves and be able to do things, like sabotage secretly without anyone knowing.



MH: How would you describe your relationship with the late VP Msika?
DD: VP Msika was a disciplinarian, we worked with him, he was in charge of the youth movement, a very dynamic person. If you did not listen, Msika would take you on, he would really box you.



MH: Cde Dabengwa, let’s now turn to the dissident era. What is your understanding of what happened during this period?
DD: The dissident era has remained completely unanswered to a very large extent to me. However, what was obvious was that when we started the integration exercise, some of the developments that took place then were certainly very unsatisfactory to Zipra, and it was very evident that they would lead to disgruntlement of Zipra comrades. For instance, we agreed right at the beginning that as the forces integrated the most capable ones would be rewarded if they wanted to remain in the army and so it was mainly those guys who had already trained into the regular battalions of Zipra that volunteered to go into integration. When they went into that integration exercise most of the Zipra forces came out tops because by that time they were already well trained to fit easily into the army. However, the Zanla comrades complained when the Zipra comrades always excelled, and it was decided that if number 5 unit of the battalion is headed by Zipra, number 6 must be headed by Zanla. They said don’t worry about their capabilities, so you had guys who were better off, better trained, being commanded by guys who were not as good. That caused a bit of the problems. As these things started happening, you would find Zipra guys being accused of this and that and finally being thrown out of the army.



MH: So this led to the dissident era?
DD: That led to the dissident era. There are guys, for instance, up to this day who have been fighting for their case as a battalion, there were about 60 of them in one battalion and they were just being accused of something that was not a fault of their own, and they were thrown out.



MH: What role did you play during this era?
DD: I left during the integration exercise. I left more or less when the first phase of the integration had been completed. During the second part of it that’s when these problems started showing and I had then decided I was leaving. There was Rex Nhongo (the late Cde Solomon Mujuru) as commander. Rex was my junior; he was recruited by Zipra; he was trained by Zipra; then he defected to go to Zanla. He was under us. Tongogara was my counterpart, I had no objection for him to lead me, because we trained almost at the same time. We went through everything together, we used to work together and there was no problem. I would not have objected to falling under Tongogara’s leadership, neither would he have objected falling under my leadership, but when it was Rex, it was a different piece of cake altogether. So I said I would rather retire and I left Masuku to take my place. Masuku was a commander of the Zipra forces already so I decided to give back the army to Masuku.



MH: So when you left the army, what were you doing?
DD: I retired and came to Bulawayo and started a business. We actually started a business with other colleagues who were out in Zambia doing their own things, one was working with the railways and the other one had been a farmer in Zambia. We got together, formed a company and we were going to go into business.



MH: Cde Dabengwa, we hear that during the dissident era there were so many atrocities that were committed. We were young at that time, and we really want to understand what exactly happened?
DD: Well, I didn’t see much of that myself because it was at that stage after I left the army. To my surprise we heard that the intelligence, the Rhodesian Intelligence officers, started talking about arms caches in some of the areas that were camped by Zipra. We knew that after the disturbances which occurred in some of the camps, Chitungwiza, for instance, another one in Kwekwe, Entumbane, after those fights between Zipra and Zanla, some arms were cached. It was after I had left, there were arms caches everywhere. Zanla had arms caches at the farms around the Goromonzi area where they had a camp. Some were caching in weapons so that they will be able to use them for criminal activities like robbery, for instance, quite a few cases of that nature, but there was also the caching in of the arms because there was a lot of mistrust. The Rhodesians had said in other places once we have managed this integration process successfully and because at integration they were surrendering their weapons, once you have surrendered your weapons, we are going to deal with you. So the caching of weapons was done by both sides as a result of mistrust of what the Rhodesians wanted to do and so at almost every camp there were weapons that were hidden both by Zipra and Zanla because we were not sure of what next was going to happen.



But there was also a deliberate element by the Rhodesian CIO which was mainly white at that time. This came out during our trial after we had been arrested and were thrown into Chikurubi, where the Rhodesians at one of our big camps, the Gwayi camp, where they led certain elements in Zipra, the guy who was a commander of Zipra and they got him to go and cache weapons. At that time, Zipra had started buying farms and they got him to go and cache in a lot of weapons at a farm in the Gweru area, some of the weapons were cached at the Zipra farm which is along the Khami Road. It later came out in court that the Rhodesian intelligence CIO had deliberately tried to have Zapu accused. They cached those weapons in order to say that we were plotting to overthrow the government. Neither Masuku nor myself knew about those plans, in actual fact it came out in court that guys who were responsible for caching out those weapons were doing that under the instructions of the commander, Ben Moyo, who said you hide these weapons and neither Dabengwa nor Masuku should know about it because they are sellouts, they are working with the government, and they must never get to know about it.



Later the same CIO guys then created a story and connected us to these arms and said those arms were cached under our instructions because we were in cahoots with Nkomo and we were working to overthrow the government. Our charge was treason for the attempt to overthrow the government, a story that was deliberately created by CIO.
(Emmerson) Mnangagwa himself was in charge of that CIO. After the discovery of those weapons, the police met and they agreed that there was a conspiracy by Zapu to overthrow the government and that is what happened. We got arrested and there were these guys in Zipra who had already been chucked out of the army, some of them disgruntled, who then said “what did we fight for?”



They said after all the sacrifice we are now being thrown into jail and some of the elements then started doing some robberies, sabotaging and in the process the army was sent after them and that’s what happened and that’s how dissidents got created.



We also now know, because even books have been written about it, that some of these guys who left were recruited by the South African intelligence and sent to South Africa, retrained by the SA army and these were the guys who were sent in as Super Zapu to fight against government forces and committed acts of sabotage and that sort of thing. So there was a mixture of disgruntled Zipra and guys who were saying our leaders have been arrested, we fought all these years and we are now nowhere and the guys that had been trained in SA who were doing it in order to destabilise Zimbabwe.



MH: Let’s turn to the Gukurahundi era, what also happened during this time?
DD: There was this dissident element, as I have already said, and government’s reaction rather than try and solve the dissident issue in a more objective manner they resorted to what was said, we were in prison, they said this was all a Zapu strategy and Zapu must be destroyed. They said we must first destroy its head and (Joshua) Nkomo became the target. They said every Ndebele is a dissident and therefore must be destroyed. That’s the Fifth Brigade which was trained by the Koreans. They went around killing innocent people, any young person was supposed to be a dissident and was supposed to be shot, women and old men who happened to be Ndebele in an area were said to be dissidents. That is what we understand happened. I was not there. I was in prison throughout that era.



MH: Why has Gukurahundi been turned into some political football at the expense of the people who really suffered?
DD: Because we failed to heal it properly. It’s like in a family, somebody kills a neighbour’s son, for instance, and that person all he can say is that person has been killed there is no apology for it and they want to leave it as it is. I don’t think there will be peace between those two families but if the other family comes along and says sorry our son is the one who killed your son we are sorry about it, this is really bad and it shouldn’t have happened. One must get that element of healing the wound and it can only be done when the other family sees that it has done the wrong thing and it apologises for it.





MH: But, Cde Dabengwa, the President described what happened as “a moment of madness.”
DD: Is that an apology? Do you call that an apology? When the amnesty was declared and even those people, the so-called dissidents, who were responsible for what happened, they should have offered an apology to the government for all that happened and the government was supposed to do the same. We should have a public apology from those dissidents that were operating at that time and then the element of healing should have immediately taken effect.



MH: So we have a situation where both sides have not apologised?
DD: The government has not apologised and the dissidents have not apologised. The victims remain bitter and, of course, people start politicising the issue. That is the unfortunate part of it. From my own point of view this is what should have happened.



MH: Is there a way we can harness all these emotions around the dissident and Gukurahundi era to create a strong post-colonial state?
DD: I remember after my release from Chikurubi, Nkomo telling me that they wanted to start this process, they went to one of the places in the Kezi area, where there is a mine shaft where people were thrown into and they were told by the people even the names of the people who were thrown into that shaft and showed the President. They said as leadership both him and the President should go there and have some of those people extracted. The President said he was going to be busy but (the late VP) Muzenda would come. However, after extracting some bodies from that area Nkomo waited for the whole day and Muzenda did not come until they decided to have the remains that had been extracted buried. This was part of the healing process which I am saying should have been done.



MH: But, Cde Dabengwa, finally on this issue of Gukurahundi, do you hold any grudges against anyone about what happened during that time?
DD: Look, when I got released from prison after almost five years and after going through 17 years in the bush during the armed struggle and I get back home, I get accused of a crime I did not commit. I am discharged by the High Court of the country but I am detained for five years. When I came out of that I said I would not forget what I went through but I hold no grudge against anybody and, similarly, over the Gukurahundi thing I don’t, but it is something that needs to be redressed and we would have failed if at the end of the day we all pass on having not resolved this unfortunate incident.



MH: Now, we move on, Cde Dabengwa, do you believe that Zimbabwe should remain a unitary state?
DD: Yeah, yes, certainly, it has been a unitary and it should remain a unitary state, but there should be some devolution of power.
MH: What is your definition of this devolution of power and how do you see it contributing towards nation building?
DD: Devolution is a very healthy manner of governing. You give all the participants in the different parts of the country a feeling they are participating in the governance of the country. That they are part and parcel of the decision- making process in the country because you give them the power to do that.
They are in charge of their natural resources, they benefit from those natural resources and it creates competition between the provinces or regions and they are able to interact with each other, copy from each other and work to outdo each other.



MH: But some people say Zimbabwe is too small for devolution and this may cause divisions in the country?
DD: Zimbabwe is by no means smaller than Cuba. Cuba recently adopted devolution. Switzerland is such a small country, but it has got a devolved governance, many countries have devolved governance. And, in actual fact, you find that there is more participation by the people in a devolved state, that is when people feel they are actually contributing to the actual governance of their own local area, but when everything is centralised, you have problems. Everything depends on what central government has to say.



MH: But don’t you think this issue has not been well received in some quarters because it has been presented a Matabeleland issue?
DD: I have travelled the whole country and I have found support for devolution of power in Masvingo, I have found it in Manicaland, I have found it in some parts of Mashonaland West where they would feel much better if they had devolved power. It’s not an issue for Matabeleland only. The other day under this democracy institute we were talking to other parties like Zanu Ndonga, we were talking to the Democratic Party, we were talking to MDC 99 by Job Sakala and all those parties are for devolution of power and they are not Matabeleland parties. So devolution is a very popular proposition from all over Zimbabwe, not just from Matabeleland.



MH: Cde Dabengwa, you were in Zanu-PF and you left to re-launch Zapu. What does your Zapu stand for?
DD: First, I did not join Zanu-PF. I never joined Zanu-PF. We went into Zanu-PF as Zapu, we integrated with Zanu-PF to become a new party all together



MH: So you integrated to become what?
DD: We would have preferred to be called Patriotic Front. Simple Patriotic Front. During the liberation struggle when we were in Mozambique, we actually had formed the Patriotic Front. We should have fought the elections in 1980 under one party, the Patriotic Front. Everything had been done, we in the military had agreed to merge our armies together even before independence, we were going to create one party which would have come in to fight that election in 1980 as the PF, but at the last minute, Zanu reneged on that and went on to register their participation in the 1980 election as Zanu-PF, which forced Zapu to then also say we are going to participate in that election as PF-Zapu. That was very unfortunate. We had worked very hard during the liberation struggle to bring the two parties together under the Patriotic Front. When the people in Zapu realised they continued getting a raw deal under the merged parties, in Zanu-PF they then decided enough was enough and they decided to pull out of this Unity Accord. So they pulled out, they did not form Zapu they went back to Zapu, they went in as Zapu and they came out as



Zapu minus, of course, some of the elements that decided to remain.



MH: But who are these people who left, who went back to Zapu? Many people only know you.
DD: I did not leave at that time. When this thing started, a delegation left here from Bulawayo to go and talk to Msika and they said, VP Msika, you are the one who is now acting President of Zapu.
By the way, Msika always said he is not Zanu. He is Zapu in Zanu-PF.



He said it publicly at meetings and I said the same publicly at meetings and every time we would talk even at Politburo we would say it. So we never lost our identity completely as Zapu and so when these people went to see Msika and said, Msika, we think things have come to a head, we don’t want to be associated with those presidential elections that have just come to an end where people have been killed in order to vote for a presidential candidate. We think we have seen enough of this and we don’t want to remain part of a party that uses these tactics in order to win an election.



MH: Which elections are we referring to here?
DD: The presidential.



MH: Of which year?
DD: 2008. After all those atrocities that took place in central Mashonaland, in the Mutoko area and so on, and they said we will not remain part of a party that uses these tactics we want to pull out. Msika said we went into this unity arrangement together, but if you people think you have had enough and you want to withdraw from the Unity Accord and go back to Zapu, no one can stop you from doing it. You go and consult all the Zapu people in all the provinces and if they agree with you, call a congress and make your decision to withdraw. No one can stop you from doing that, but you have to call a congress. It is at that stage that I was invited. I did not go to Msika and I was not part of the people that withdrew.



MH: We later saw you supporting Simba Makoni in the presidential elections. Whose project was Mavambo?

DD: Our idea was to make sure there is no winner and we succeeded in doing that. Our thinking at that time was if there is no winner, at the facilitation stage people would come together to an indaba and be able to discuss what is the way forward and the GPA should have included other people, other political parties, leaders of civil society, the war veterans should have been included, it should have been wider. We think it would have come out with a better structure for the implementation of that GPA agreement.



MH: So you didn’t want President Mugabe to win and you didn’t want Tsvangirai to win so that there would be a coalition government?
DD: The coalition government would have probably remained what it is now, but that GPA body that came out with that decision would have been a wider body. That consultative body would have been a wider body than what it was. There would have been wider consultations, people would have come out with a better structure



MH: Who funds Zapu?
DD: It’s the people, individuals.
MH: We also hear that at some point you got funding from the ANC (of South Africa), how far true is that?
DD: No, we have never had any funding from the ANC, not so far.



MH: When you went back to Zapu, are there colleagues you were with who were supposed to join you later in Zapu who are still in Zanu-PF?
DD: No, I wouldn’t say that there are any colleagues. When these people came out and they made an announcement that they were pulling out of Zanu-PF, it remained to individuals to decide whether they were coming along or not and this is exactly what happened. I went also to join them. I did not lead that.

MH: Who are these people?
DD: It started with the province of Bulawayo, the whole province of Bulawayo. They debated it at their meeting and they decided to send a delegation to Msika and that’s how it started and after that this province went around in all the provinces to identify the Zapu members there, and these are the Zapu members who came to the first congress to make a decision.

MH: There are reports that you were against the 1987 Unity Accord and you clashed with the late VP Nkomo over this issue. What was your alternative to the Unity Accord?
DD: I thought we should have been able to find an honourable way of sorting out problems that had arisen because of Gukuhurandi, the dissident element. We should have found a better way of sorting all this out. We went into the Unity Accord and we were doing it in order to save lives, but I never thought this was the best way. But I did not clash with Nkomo. He called me because I had decided I would stay away from it completely and had decided to go into business and forget about politics completely.

Nkomo called me and it is him who then persuaded me and convinced me that was the best route to take. I finally agreed. I didn’t clash with him.


MH: As a project for nation building, do you think the Unity Accord has delivered in that sense?
DD: It managed to stop the fighting and the things that were going on, but it did not solve the problems. It did not come out with a solution to the healing of the wounds and reconciliation. It has not been successful in that aspect

MH: Cde Dabengwa, what exactly are your differences with Zanu-PF?
DD. The differences are in the approach to things. The differences are mainly in the failure by Zanu-PF to attend to that thing that we fought for during the liberation struggle, to deliver to our people what we fought for, that’s the main difference. I don’t think their party is any longer focused on actually ensuring that we achieve those goals which we set about as we were fighting during the liberation struggle.

MH: Some people say to you this issue is more about wresting power from Zanu-PF than anything else?
DD: I would be more comfortable attending to issues pertaining to the development of this country and actually retiring and taking my rest enjoying my contribution towards the development of this country than being involved in politics as I am just now. I will be much happier if I could. But I found myself being asked by the people to lead them in Zapu and their requests were overbearing and I accepted.

MH: So in your analysis are we likely to have an outright winner in the coming elections?

DD: My analysis is that there are few chances of anyone coming up with an absolute majority to be able to form a government. If this analysis is correct, then you will have split votes spreading to the parties and that will create room for a coalition arrangement. The aim is obviously to win and have an absolute majority, but if it is not feasible, we will end up with, not a government of national unity, but a coalition arrangement.

MH: You have attacked another political party that has its roots in Matabeleland, Mthwakazi Liberation Front. What is the difference between Zapu and Mthwakazi?
DD: Well, I have not attacked them. Let me say I have differed with them on their approach. The Mthwakazi approach is that one of going back, according to them, to a division of the country into two, what probably they would want to call, I don’t know what they would call it, Matabeleland and Mashonaland and I am saying no that’s not what Zapu stands for. We are a unitary state but we must devolve power to the province.

MH: Don’t you think that your political career was better in Zanu-PF than now in Zapu because it seems now you have reduced yourself from that national figure that you were to a regional figure?
DD: No, I have not. Zapu has lots of support in other provinces throughout the country.

MH: But you don’t think your stature has been reduced now?
DD. It’s not about me, it’s about Zapu. I put the party first. I could be a leader today, I could be out tomorrow. I might not even stand as a presidential candidate for Zapu because somebody else might. The leader of the party does not necessarily become the presidential candidate when the elections come. The people choose who is going to represent them as their presidential candidate and that has not been decided. It will only be decided when the elections are announced

MH: Is there any possibility of Zapu going into a coalition with any of these other parties other than Zanu-PF?
DD: At the end of the day after the election results, Zapu will not be averse to go into a coalition arrangement with any party that shares the same values as it does.

MH: Cde Dabengwa, you were the Minister of Home Affairs for quite some time, 10 years — you sat in Cabinet with President Mugabe, you also sat in meetings with him during the Politburo. Tell us how your relations were during that time and how would you describe President Mugabe?

DD: We had very good relations indeed, there was a time in the early ’90s, as Home Affairs Minister each time we met he made it very clear that, ‘please if there is anything that worries you, don’t wait until we meet at Cabinet’ and we used to sit over a number of issues for many hours.

MH: What would you say are some of President Mugabe’s achievements?
DD: As a leader in the government, certainly there were achievements that were made, but I think, unfortunately, later on we were made to suffer a setback. He made lots of achievements in education and health.

MH: What do you think of the land reform programme and the indigenisation programme
DD: The land, that’s what we fought for but the manner in which it was implemented wasn’t good. I remember sitting in the Politburo one day and saying please before we move our people and allocate them land why don’t we first make sure that there is infrastructure that has been developed, there is water, and the people can survive in those areas, the schools are there, the clinics are near, let’s not just move people because we now have got the land and move them haphazardly into these areas. There were three land commissions where we spent lots of resources and came up with very good recommendations, but we ignored all this.

MH: What are your views on indigenisation?
DD: Indigenisation is a mess, no one is against indigenisation. It’s the manner in which it is being done. The people who go around grabbing people’s assets without working for them and without knowing exactly how to utilise and make those things productive.

MH: Cde Dabengwa, during the early stages of the drafting of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), you were still minister, is that so? What role did you play in the drafting of POSA?
DD: Quite a big role. I was the one, I was the mover to replace the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act and we sat down with Minister Mnangagwa, we agreed let’s get the views of other people, we called in the Law Society, we called in civil society and we went through and debated POSA. Together we come out with a final document which I presented to Parliament and I sweated to get it through Parliament and when it went to the President for signing, to this date I don’t know what happened, but it never got approved.

MH: Have you ever thought of re-joining Zanu-PF?
DD: No! Never! I think Zapu stands to contribute more to this country as Zapu than as an appendage of another party. And I think Zapu has a history in this country as the first political party and I think it must be able to carry its identity right through for both the younger generation and for posterity. It has a history to protect.

MH: So if by-elections are to be called, will Zapu field candidates and what do you think will be your chances of winning?
DD: About the chances I don’t know. I was speaking to colleagues in the party and drawing their attention to the possibility of the by-elections being called anytime soon, particularly after the Supreme Court ruling, and I asked them are you ready? Do you think we are ready to field candidates and they gave me the confidence that they are ready and that we have got chances of winning.

MH: Where do you see Zimbabwe in the next five to 10 years with all the developments happening now?
DD: I’m very optimistic about the future. I think we have learnt a lot during the last few years and that we are going to emerge after this as a united party, as a united country, a nation state that has got respect for human rights and that appreciates the values for which our people suffered and sacrificed their lives for.

Labels: DUMISO DABENGWA, GUKURAHUNDI

posted by MrK @ 3:16 PM