Matabeleland braces for Sibanda onslaught

By Nomalanga Moyo

The people of Matabeleland must brace themselves for an onslaught by Jabulani Sibanda after the ex-combatants leader indicated this week that he will be heading that way by the end of the month. 

Sibanda is currently on the campaign trail in Mashonaland where he claims to be carrying out a revolution against the MDCs, whom he accuses of spearheading Satanism, the NewsDay newspaper reported Friday.

Explaining his crusade, Sibanda told the paper:

“This is a continuation of the revolution to make our people understand what our people went through during the liberation struggle, what they have achieved and what we would have wanted to achieve and the difficulties that we face and how we can move forward under those difficulties to achieve total freedom.”

He said this will then be followed by “a 10-million-vote-for-Mugabe campaign to “show that Satanism fronted by the MDCs is not allowed in Zimbabwe”.

But Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) official Paul Themba Nyathi said Zimbabweans should ignore Sibanda rather than be afraid of him, “as he has no capacity to inflict injury to anyone”.

Nyathi told SW Radio Africa Friday: “Jabulani derives undeserved mileage if people are afraid of him. He is someone who is seeking relevance by threatening violence. We know that factions in his party have disowned him, so he has no structures and no capacity.

“He is just an attention-seeking nobody who needs to ask himself why he continues to disrespect Zimbabweans by suggesting that his message of violence is in any way related to the cause for which the liberation struggle was fought.

“The fact that Jabulani does not ask himself these questions raises questions about his credibility as a genuine war veteran.”

Nyathi, who is also the MDC’s treasurer-general, said Sibanda’s hate speech against the two MDCs typifies ZANU PF politics of “name-calling and throwing cheap labels around if they are losing an argument”.

“Those of us who have been in the struggle for much longer than Jabulani know that the MDCs have nothing to do with his Satanism. And I also know that the people in the MDCs are working tirelessly to correct the damage that Jabulani and his party have inflicted on Zimbabweans.”

Nyathi revealed that although concern had been raised within JOMIC regarding Sibanda’s terror campaigns, not much had been done to rein him in, with the various factions of ZANU PF merely disowning the war-vets leader.

In April, JOMIC co-chair Elton Mangoma of the MDC-T told this station that the committee could not act on Jabulani as it does not have arresting powers. He said the monitoring group would be referring “such issues” to cabinet. But Nyathi indicated that this was yet to happen.

Sibanda is one of a handful of individuals, including President Robert Mugabe, who remain on the European Union sanctions list, and is accused of carrying out a sustained terror campaign since the 2000 land invasions.

Last month, the leader of the War Veterans’ Association told a gathering at Chinhoyi University of Technology that he “hates whites”, and described Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai as an “agent of the devil” and threatened violence in Zimbabwe should ZANU PF lose the forthcoming elections.

We could not get a comment from Sibanda as he was unreachable by phone. SW Radio Africa