Which way Zimbabwe?

KIANGIOSEKAZI WA NYOKA 

ONCE upon a time, there was a country South of Sahara known as Southern Rhodesia with its capital city Salisbury. The country was under the premiership of a white racist Ian Smith and legitimized his regime 1965 by proclamation of the “Unilateral Declaration of Independence” (UDI) in defiance to his colonial administrators, the British.

The name of the country, its capital city and its leader by any standard may not appear to be part of Africa. It was befitting to condemn it as a “white minority government.”

As if that was not enough, Southern Rhodesia was rated at that time to have one of the top ten beautiful hotels of the world and was the first country South of Sahara to introduce Television Broadcasting in this region after Nigeria. Salisbury used to compare nicely with any other European cities while its population of black majority lived in squalid conditions.Again it is a country whose racist leader Ian Smith fantasized that he could not imagine seeing Rhodesia being governed by a black man in his lifetime. He might have been right because Rhodesia became Zimbabwe after independence in 1980 under the presidency of Canaan Banana with Robert Gabriel Mugabe as the Prime Minister and not any more Rhodesia.

The transformation of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe up to the current situation has been very traumatic silhouetted with the two big tribes, Shona and Ndebele. While Mugabe is a Shona, Joshua Nkomo with his Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) was a Ndebele.

Nkomo is widely believed to have mentored Mugabe into early politics of Zimbabwe and Ndebele would wish Nkomo to have been conferred the respect of being the father of that nation! Mugabe with his Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) was one of the key negotiators in the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement that led to the creation of a fully democratic Zimbabwe.

Elected prime minister and later president, he embraced conciliation with the country’s white minority but sidelined his rivals through politics and force. It is a fact that all was not well following the animosity of these two major tribes that led Mugabe to send his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade to the ZAPU stronghold of Matabeleland to smash dissents.

Over five years, 20,000 Ndebele civilians were killed as part of a campaign of alleged political genocide. In 1987 Mugabe switched tactics, inviting ZAPU to be merged with the ruling ZANU-PF and creating a de facto one-party authoritarian state with himself as the ruling president and Nkomo became the Vice- President.

Before his death in 1999 Joshua Nkomo is said to have reminded Mugabe that he might be dying before realizing their main liberation goal of acquiring land that was grabbed by white settlers who by then were 4,500, hoarding all the productive land. Beginning in 2000, Mugabe encouraged the takeovers of white-owned commercial farms, leading to economic collapse and runaway inflation.

After a disputed election in 2009 he reluctantly agreed to share some power with the rival Movement for Democratic Change. All in all, economic chaos and unfair distribution of land to the veterans and other privileges offered to them seemed to have refuelled the political tension. Political bickering was boiling within the ZANU PF and clearly divisions and purging became obvious.

The war veterans identified themselves as one group mostly enjoying the fruits of independence, and the Ndebele seemed to have been swallowed within ZANU and not forgetting the opposition who were always in the receiving end. However the Army which is part of the veterans had a divided allegiance as seen how it subtly intervened and saved the day by skillfully abandoning Mugabe.

The Grace Mugabe factor was so decisive to break or make the leadership of the aging President Mugabe. Grace seemed to have won the hearts of the youths-group known as G40. Apart from Grace, this group is yet to enjoy the fruits of independence and therefore cunningly supported her bid to assuming power at the expense of the veterans.

They knew this would guarantee their ascendancy to power rather than power going to the veterans. Youths seem to be a problem in all those countries that won their independences through liberation wars.

Countries like Namibia, the youths call themselves as ‘Born Free’ and are pushing to be integrated in the mainstream of leadership resulting into new approach known as a policy of “Unity, Inclusivity and Prosperity (UIP).”

The veterans do have a lucrative package to the envy of those who did not take part in the liberation wars. In this case, the veterans, the elites and the army have increasingly become affluent to the chagrin of those left out in the cold.

They should have emulated the Tanzania approach after sensing a group of politicians were amassing wealth through their posts, the Arusha Declaration was introduced in 1967 before it was too late.

What is happening now, in those countries is just the change of personality; formally it was for the white minorities but now it is the few elite blacks, veterans and the army who have stepped in.

There is a metaphorical thinking like that one of Ian Smith that Veterans would not allow non-veteran to lead this country and actually that is what happened! Joyce Mujulu once the Vice-President now the leader of opposition has called for a fresh audit on the distribution of land to weed out multiple ownership of land.

President Emerson Mnangagwa a veteran himself is very much aware of this and in his maiden speech he said the following, “Brothers and sisters, the people of Zimbabwe, the task before us is much bigger than competing for political office.

Let us all play our part to build this great country, together, as Zimbabweans.” A hard task is waiting for him taking into consideration those youths born after 1980 need that inclusivity policy. Which way now, maintain the status quo or go for radical changes?