By Sibanengi Dube
Polishing-up Robert Mugabe’s tattered image is no longer achievable because the geriatric politician has transgressed against Zimbabweans beyond any retional disputation.
This explains why everyone is shocked by City Press News Editor, Japhet
Ncube’s column where he laboured to portray Mugabe and South Africa President Jacob Zuma as victims of British imperialism.
Ncube depicted Mugabe as a liberation icon, and justified his clinging to power as retaliation to the British’s attempts to dethrone him. Why would the British want to dethrone him we ask? Has Mr Ncube been to Zimbabwe lately?
If Ncube had bothered to familiarise himself with the history of Mugabe’s early attempts to be President for life, he would have realised that the issue was once brought into parliament but was shot down by the late maverick former Zanu PF leader, Dr. Eddison Mudadirwa Zvobgo.
The Sunday Newspaper’s celebrated News Editor even dared to portray Mugabe in the same light with Zuma and praised the Zanu PF leader as having taken the land from the whites and returned it to the blacks.
I ask again, when was the last time Mr Ncube was on a ”reposesed ” farm in Zimbabwe? Isn’t it funny that so many black Zimbabweans are running away from the ‘FREE’ land given to them by the saintly Mugabe and crossing crocodile infested rivers to get to South Africa?
“Yes it could have been done better, but Mugabe wasn’t fight his people, he
was getting back at Britain,” continued Ncube. As to why a respected journalist of Ncube’s calibre, offered his spin-doctoring services to the much hated Mugabe whose political career has passed its zenith, is difficult to merit even as a passing sneer.
How does Ncube sustain his theory when people dying from hunger and easily preventable diseases in Matebeleland, Chihota, Mberengwa, chikwalakwala and Mbembesi?
It is neither my intention to question the credibility of Ncube nor to launch a public personal attack on him as I have for all along viewed him as a senior member in the fraternity. My interest is fixed on raising a different view of how he interpreted the Mugabe-Zuma and Britain equation, which I believe is highly erroneous, misleading and outrageous.
Bundling Zuma and Mugabe in the same bracket is a scandal of the first order. This is a clear disrespect of the truth and a crude comparison of the incomparable.
Zuma is a popular ANC President who is still in tune with the electorate. Mugabe does not even have the blessing of the electorate to preside over Zimbabwe. This is a recorded fact, which can be easily verified. Any attempts to blur such a bold and shouting line between the two is tantamount to raping facts. This is too much of a mismatch.
Mugabe attracted international derision around 2000 after Zanu PF’s political mamal glands started spewing poison that drastically shrinked democratic space in Zimbabwe. There is no dispute of any kind that Zanu PF under Robert Mugabe visited upon Zimbabwe the worst human rights violations ever recorded in the modern times.
Zuma ‘s human rights record was not the reason why the British media hurled insults at him. The former MK intelligence supremo was a victim of lack of intercultural appreciation by the British media that interpreted Zuma’s polygamous marriages as a sign of disrespect for women.
This is clear, simple and straight forward. Zuma has a good human records and mingling him with someone with a human rights record that is within satanic proportions is either iniquitous or wicked or both.
For Japhet Ncube to put his head on the block by declaring that Mugabe “never fought his people”, is either an indelible insult to Zanu PF victims or a blatant sign of recklessness or both. Zimbabwe history is littered with tales of several thousands of people who disappeared in the hands of Zanu PF thugs.
Mugabe has on a several occasions boasted on national television about how Zanu PF was capable of unleashing intense violence on its opponents. Mugabe’s administration created screaming international headlines for demolishing houses of urban voters for sending it packing in Urban constituencies.
I am not persuaded that Ncube is not aware of Operation Get Rid of Filth (Operation Murambatsvina). This is the first of its own kind. History has never witnessed a catastrophe of a level where a government launches home razing binges. I can’t fathom how a fellow Scribe Ncube would not view this as a fight against the poor masses.
My feelings are shared by fellow Zimbabweans, exiled in South Africa, who are still to come to terms with Ncube’s vituperative piece.
Such utterances are insults to all the Zimbabweans who have been killed, maimed, tortured and jailed by Robert Mugabe’s regime. Ncube is figuratively flashing his middle finger to young Zimbabweans who are out of school because of Zanu PF’s stage managed chaos.
It is also disturbing to note that Ncube who is entrusted with the power of
the ink is overtly singing from the same hymn book with Mugabe. He
described the British people as “petty people with egos bigger than their
country, which is as cold as their hearts.” This is the exact vocabulary
that were mouthed by Mugabe in Muzarabani during the 2002 presidential
campaigns.
In last weekend’s column that enjoyed acres of space and accompanied by
his picture by-line, Ncube wantonly ascertained that the “West has more gain
from Bob leaving office than the average Zimbabwean.” I suppose Ncube is
oblivious of the fact that there are still some Zimbabwean activists who are barred from resettling or visiting their country of birth.
Their only sin was to express a views which are at variance with Zanu PF’s. The endless list include tafadzwa Musekiwa, a forme MDC MP who is exiled in UK, Basildon Peta, an investigative journalist, who fled to South Africa for his own safety, Gabriel Shumba, a human rights lawyer who was savagely tortured by Zanu PF secret apparatus, Solomon Chikohoro a former MDC security chief, Mambo Rusere, a renowned MDC activists and…………many others. Is this not tantamount to fighting fellow Zimbabweans?
Zimbabweans stand to regain their sacrosanct right to elect leaders of their choice without reprisals. It is criminal for anyone to attempt to disparage such a birth-right, which was snatched from Zimbabweans, by Mugabe. As a journalist Ncube should be conversant with information making rounds in whispered over tones about Mugabe’s victims, whose decaying or decayed bodies are sleeping in unknown and unmarked graves.
Answers to these mucky and grimy questionsare still waiting to creep out from cover of darkness as soon as Mugabe leaves office. Then who is to benefit from Mugabe’s exodus, Mr Ncube? The West or ordinary Zimbabweans, like me, Taurai, Jimmy, Velaphi andSithokozile…….? The list is endless.
Trying to convince readers into believing that Mugabe took the land from
whites and returned it to ordinary black is as cruel as feeding babies with
poisoned colostrums. Zimbabwe was shared among Zanu PF chefs as the masses were used invading machinery. No wonder why some Zanu PF fat cats have more than five farms each.
The gullible and restless supporters of Zanu PF were dumped into ranches and wildlife farms without any clue of neither how grow a tomatoes nor breed swine. They never accessed title deeds of the land they were made to occupy and the majority were later chased out as ‘authentic ‘ recipients (chefs) of the invasions circled into the loots.
Is this the type of land redistribution which Ncube elected to celebrate?
The experienced wordsmith’s column was premised on what he claimed to have been whispered by a former head of state during a function in Maputo as few years ago. He claimed the whispers to be a warning shot against future targeting of African leaders by the West.
The identity of the former Africa President was not revealed by Ncube, raising question marks over the authenticity of the alleged discussion. May be the whisper came from Fredrick Chilumba, former Zambia President?
Sibanengi Dube is the spokesman for the MDC-T in South Africa but writes here in his personal capacity.
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