Violence was never part of my curriculum

By Sibanengi Dube

I picked through the grapevine that Zanu PF produced a list of MDC-T activists at the recent SADC meeting in South Africa who they allege to be unleashing violence against their supporters in Mzansi.

I curiously phoned sources around Johannesburg to feed-fat my inquisitiveness. After three calls, a well placed source within MDC structures in South Africa invited me to his office.

Upon arrival, he threw the document in front of me. Can anyone imagine how shocked I was to find my name on the list of the so-called MDC gangsters? The report alleges that I was part of a mob that beat-up the “shit out of Zanu PF functionaries” who attempted to hold an anti-sanctions meeting at Hillbrow theatre.

The document purported that MDC-T exported violence to Johannesburg. I was also said to be on self-imposed exile. The report also identified as a member of the MDC Veterans Association (MDC VAA).

As a matter of fact, I am not in exile in South Africa. I am not a Political refugee. I left Zimbabwe in 1999 to pursue personal growth, after being fired from by Ziana Editor-In-Chief Henry Muradzikwa.

This followed after writing a story that Dumiso Dabengwa, then minister of Home Affairs was unhappy about. Dabengwa had apparently got carried away during an interview with me and threatened to arrest Robert Mugabe.

I am also not a member of the MDC VAA as claimed by the report.

I never raised even my finger on any Zanu PF person at the Hillbrow Theatre. Instead I assisted the Chairman of Zanu PF, Ndaba Nyoni to remove his colleague, Gift’s black Pathfinder vehicle from the vicinity as members of the angry mob threatened to burn down every car with a Zanu PF flag.

I have never committed any offence in my life, not even a traffic office. I can’t even harm a fly. Violence was never part of my curriculum when I was growing up. I went to Evangelical Lutheran Church schools from Grade one to Form six where I was taught to love, respect, tolerate and forgive. I grew up under the strict watch of my mother, Rev. M. Dube, one of the first female pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

What pains me most is that I had to put my own safety at risk by discouraging people from attacking Mr Nyoni. Nyoni is actually my brother –in-law. When I look at Nyoni, I don’t see politics. Neither do I view him as Zanu PF, but as my brother-in-law.

This is not to say Zanu PF people were not beaten up in Hillbrow. I was actually there when the beating started. I didn’t even have a clue of such a meeting, until a fellow Zimbabwean Tobias Maphosa, alerted me to that development. As a news-man, I knew that something was anomalous with Zanu PF parading its presence in Hillbrow. I then drove to Hillbrow which is about 30 km from my Winchester Hills home.

It is not untrue that MDC-T supporters assaulted Zanu PF characters.

What I observed is that Zanu PF was beaten up by Zimbabweans, mostly victims of the Gukurahundi massacres who migrated to South Africa after the 1980s fifth brigade on-slaughter. Hillbrow is like Bulawayo’s Mpopoma high density suburb, a demarcated no go area for Zanu PF.

The rough area is crawling with angry Zimbabweans with bones to grind with Zanu PF. The visibly hopeless and depressed Zimbabweans want nothing to do with Zanu PF and will not miss any opportunity to exact revenge. This is a fact.

Putting on a Zanu PF T-shirt in Hillbrow is just as good as applying to be shot from the High Rise buildings. The fuming young men needed not to be incited by MDC-T. They just have issues to sort-out with Zanu PF, just like the majority of Zimbabweans who have been voting against Robert Mugabe’s party.

Honestly, will anybody expect worshippers to fold their hands when prostitutes are turning their church into a brothel during a thanks giving session. It is an indelible insult to slaughter a pig in a yard of a Jew. Zanu PF’s presence in Hillbrow was provocation at its maximum and stupidity at its best.

Zanu PF doesn’t seem to learn from history. The former ruling party dispatched its cash master Gideon Gono and Ambassador Simon Khaya Moyo to Johannesburg to encourage Zimbabweans to send foreign currency home. The duo and their large entourage had to be escorted out of Gallagher Estate in Midrand by police after being pelted with eggs and salt shakers by their nationals.