Roki, Maneta victims of Zimbabwe violence
By Kupakwashe Kaponye
The brawl between Big Brother Zimbabwe representatives Rockford Josphats (Roki) and ManetaMazanhi in the house last week can be blamed on Zimbabwe’s political leaders who have created a culture of violence, MDC-T Bulawayo South MP Tabitha Khumalo said on Friday.
Khumalo was addressing a roundtable meeting between the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (Jomic) Organ for National Healing and Reconciliation and Integration, Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission and the Zimbabwe Republic Police in Harare.
She said the fight that led to the immediate eviction of the pair showed how the youths have adopted the culture of violence from the elders. The roundtable was about building and upholding peace during the electoral process joining together political parties and law enforcement agents.
“Young people are fed with the belief that we are a violent country, the older generation created a monster that needs to be killed. This is evidenced by Roki and Maneta’s fight in Big Brother Stargame, the people of one nation fighting each other,” said Khumalo.
Khumalo said as a measure to arrest violence in the country, Jomic donated 1 000 soccer balls for youths across the 10 provinces so that their minds would not remain idle forcing them to resort to political violence. “Through donating soccer balls, it is Jomic’s aim to unscrew youths from being screwed by politicians,” she said.
Khumalo added that Jomic was trying to build communication skills among people of Zimbabwe so that people from different political divides are united. Oppah Muchinguri, the Zanu PF representative in Jomic, said Finance minister Tendai Biti was not taking them seriously as they were underfunded.
“The Minister of Finance Tendai Biti should take Jomic seriously. There is no budget allocation for Jomic. It is a constituency entity that is donor-funded. Biti should allocate funds to organs of peace as we move towards elections,” she said. NewsDay
