Dabengwa quit Zanu PF over sour grapes

By Brian Chitemba

Dumiso Dabengwa’s claims that he pulled out of Zanu PF to revive Zapu because of widespread violence in the run-up and aftermath of the 2008 elections, which left several thousands homeless and hundreds dead, maimed and missing, has exposed the hypocrisy which Zimbabwean politicians have for the electorate.

Dabengwa is a former Zanu PF politburo heavyweight who served in that role since the December 1987 unity accord signed between President Robert Mugabe and the late Joshua Nkomo, collapsing Zapu into Zanu PF.

Although Dabengwa championed the revival of Zapu after the election defeat of his preferred presidential candidate and former fellow Zanu PF politburo member, Simba Makoni, he had been in the wilderness politically for close to a decade since he had failed to win a seat in Bulawayo since 2000.

Since the formation of the MDC in 1999, the writing was on the wall for all former senior Zapu cadres in Matabeleland, particularly in Bulawayo and Matabeleland North.

After failing to win a seat in the 2005 parliamentary polls, Dabengwa probably realised that his fate had been sealed and the only way to resurrect his relevancy in Matabeleland would be to dump Zanu PF.

And so it came as no surprise when he openly backed the presidential aspirations of Makoni. This paved the way for him to formally leave Zanu PF because he had betrayed the party’s highest decision-making body outside of congress by turning his back on Mugabe, who had been officially endorsed.

However, a closer analysis of events shows that Dabengwa and his colleagues’ revival of the party they had willingly collapsed into Zanu PF was a matter of sour grapes.

Besides being perennial losers in parliamentary polls, the benefits of continuing to serve Zanu PF were fast slipping because all former senior Zapu leaders literally served at the pleasure of Mugabe, who continued to appoint them non-constituency MPs in order to give them ministerial positions.

This move was beginning to cause fissures in Zanu PF since the likes of Dabengwa and present former Zapu leaders serving in government andin Zanu PF cannot deliver the Matabeleland vote, yet they continue to hold senior positions without the mandate of the people.

While Zapu claims that it merged with Zanu PF on December 22 1987 to end the Gukurahundi killings which left an estimated 20 000 people from Matabeleland and parts of Midlands dead, the question Dabengwa and his colleagues need to answer is why it took them over 21 years to realise that the unity accord was dysfunctional.

Dabengwa termed the killings, maiming, disappearance and intimidation of people in the run-up to the 2008 presidential run-off poll as genocide in his speech celebrating what would have been Zapu’s golden jubilee.

This genocide was the reason Dabengwa gave for pulling Zapu out of Zanu PF. This is laughable when compared to the infamous Gukurahundi massacres. Dabengwa himself served a jail term during those disturbances and yet he gladly accepted to serve his former jailers after the signing of the unity accord.

This leaves critics questioning Dabengwa’s sincerity. If Dabengwa is so sensitive to  the Gukurahundi genocide, why did he agree in the first place to serve a party with a well documented history of violence, even against its own cadres?

If he was as principled as he now wants people to believe, he should have declined to serve in the unity government from 1987. In fact, that accord ushered in a new constitution which gave Mugabe uncontested powers, and yet Dabengwa quietly served.

Dabengwa was in charge of the police as Home Affairs minister in 1998 when the government used brute force to crush demonstrations against food price hikes. Why didn’t he quit government in protest against the government’s heavy handedness then?

So was the revival of Zapu in the genuine interest of its marginalised  former cadres or a push for personal political ambitions by whipping up  people’s emotions?

Political analyst Nyamutatanga Makombe said Dabengwa, like any other politician, was using the issue of violence as a currency to trade for political mileage.

“They (politicians) raise concerns on crimes against humanity when it’s only politically convenient instead of approaching the issue in a sober manner,” said Makombe.

Makombe said the unity accord was justified since Nkomo wanted to save innocent blood shed by the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade, but attributing the Zapu revival to the 2008 violence was hypocritical.

“Dabengwa was no longer a Zanu PF member by June 2008 because he backed Makoni in March. Both Makoni and Dabengwa expelled themselves from Zanu PF way before the March harmonised elections, so Dabengwa is not sincere in claiming that the Zapu revival was forced by the June violence,” Makombe said.

But Dabengwa, a former Zipra intelligence supremo, said the late Vice-President Joseph Msika also approved the Zapu revival through a consultative congress in December 2008 before an endorsement congress in May 2009.

Zapu spokesman Methuseli Moyo said it was obvious that his party had joined the unity accord because that was the only way it could save the lives of ethnic Ndebeles.

“Every Zimbabwean is indebted to Zapu for signing the unity accord,” said Moyo. “Otherwise the country could have gone into a full-scale civil war. Simply, Zapu had no option but to join Zanu. What else could Zapu had done?

“Dabengwa was leader of the Zipra intelligence unit, and not a Zapu leader exactly by then. Like he always says, he was commandeered by Nkomo against his will into the unity accord. There was no way Mugabe and Zanu PF would have signed the accord if key military figures like Dabengwa remained outside.”

Moyo said Zapu hoped they would influence Zanu PF positively to end political violence although it was in vain. The period between 1988 and 2000, Moyo said, was the most peaceful and there was a lull in political killings and abductions.

“Who was the minister of home affairs during this period? It was Dabengwa. When he left government and the home affairs portfolio in 2000, all hell broke loose,” said Moyo.

Makombe questioned the role played by Dabengwa to discourage the violence which escalated between 2000 and 2008 when he was part of the Russian-style Zanu PF politburo.

Moyo was adamant that the 2008 violence led to the Zapu pullout saying the “mini-genocide” convinced Zapu that Zanu PF would not change its violent ways.

“We revived Zapu because we have always been Zapu, even during the unity accord it was always known that Dabengwa and others were Zapu. Zapu is a brand name which has obvious political advantages at home, in Sadc and internationally. Also, there are outstanding issues such as Zapu properties and Gukurahundi which only Zapu can resolve.

“Again, Zapu is the mother of politics in Zimbabwe and the founder and authentic liberation movement of Zimbabwe whose name and objectives must never die. The people also said they wanted their Zapu and not a new party,” Moyo said. Zimbabwe Independent