So-called war veterans hoping to fool us again?

By Tanonoka Joseph Whande

After independence, the people of Zimbabwe noted with concern, shock and dismay the systematic entrenchment of dictatorial tendencies, personified by the President and his cohorts, which slowly devoured the values of the liberation struggle in utter disregard of any existing Constitution.

Who could have said that?

For 30 years and more, we all witnessed how the president neglected and actually abandoned the people.

But only just last month, so-called war veterans said that the people who were being neglected were the actual backbone of the war of liberation.

Unbelievably, they meant us, the povo, the ‘commoners’, yet we knew it before, during and after the war.

In their daring communique, the war veterans said the very same things that the people of Zimbabwe have been saying since independence.

But it was the so-called war veterans themselves who made our situation worse by supporting Mugabe at those times that we needed them most.

It was the war veterans who killed our fellow citizens, threatened our judiciary and beat up villagers in support of Mugabe.

It was the war veterans who demanded and received huge payouts, pushing Zimbabwe into fiscal problems that destroyed our economy which still persist to this day.

The war veterans killed the very same people who helped them liberate the country. On Mugabe’s behalf, they killed fellow white citizens to take over property.

They fought for ‘one man, one vote’; they fought for the people to make their own choices then forced us to vote the way beneficial to themselves.

They fought for the individuals’ freedom of expression, association and hope only to take it all away for their self-serving reasons.

The war veterans want people to be free as long as they can control them. They have killed so many of our people after independence.

Now Mugabe does not need them anymore because they compromised their worthiness among the people.

Mugabe used them to destroy themselves; now, they are suddenly awake with no real friends on either side.

Were it not because of the war veterans, Zimbabwe could never have landed in the situation it is in now.

I do declare that the so-called war veterans are a bunch of malcontents against our people; they are failures even within the “rewards” they demanded and received from Robert Mugabe who showed his limited capabilities as soon as he took office.

The war veterans helped Mugabe destroy the country but now that there is not enough to share between the Mugabe family and the war veterans, we hear from them again.

I am not convinced that the likes of Matemadanda and Mahiya think two-pence of the people of Zimbabwe.

I do not believe that Chris Mutswangwa cares about the so-called ‘ordinary person’.

Mugabe and his family, along with their friends and relatives, want most of it and have side-lined the war veterans.

In every pack, there exists a joker: remember greedy Grace and her own growing brood of off-springs?

Remember the factions after the factions had been dealt with? The war veterans always supported Mugabe even when he was at his worst.

How the hell did war veterans feel when they saw thousands of people showing up to support them at court…the very people they have been terrorizing for 30 years?

At first, I appreciated the stance taken by the war veterans of Zimbabwe several weeks ago when they issued a document critical of their ‘patron’ Mugabe, actually accusing him of having dictatorial tendencies.

“We note with concern, shock and dismay the systematic entrenchment of dictatorial tendencies, personified by the President and his cohorts, which have slowly devoured the values of the liberation struggle in utter disregard of the Constitution…as demonstrated by…the deliberate neglect and abandonment by (Mugabe) of the masses, who are the foundation upon which the liberation war was fought and won,” the war veterans said in a communique.

Have they finally come to their senses?

Are they aware that it was them who destroyed the political and economic independence of Zimbabwe because they thought, as they do now, that they are better and more deserving than any other Zimbabwean?

They are bitter, not because they care about Zimbabweans; they are bitter because they are being side-lined by a little girl who was not even born in Zimbabwe but who now threatens their continued feasting on the national treasury.

Grace Mugabe is a threat to war veterans and now they come to life against Mugabe himself because their welfare is threatened.

I do not trust the so-called war veterans because, since independence, they were never part of us. They have always supported our oppressor and demanded payment which was granted to them out of our pockets.

Now, Mugabe is in his wife’s corner so they come to us for support.

Who are the war veterans and what have they done for the people of Zimbabwe since they declared that they had liberated the country?

Were they ever with the people they claimed to have liberated or were they and still are with those in power who give them money?

Speaking of Heroes Day Commemorations, Douglas Mahiya, a war veterans’ spokesperson out on bail for now opposing Mugabe, said: “It is no longer a day for us to celebrate because there is nothing to celebrate anymore.”

Why? Is it that they are not getting any more money or that they feel sorry for continuous abuse of people?

Mahiya added that war veterans would not be attending the commemorations. Why?

I welcome the war veterans to a reality that we have known and painfully lived with for 35 years.

It is my hope that they stop this mercenary attitude of theirs. Without the people, no political leader can survive.

Without the people, no cause can be won.

Only the people can honour and respect a war veteran, not an Act of Parliament or the whims of a foolish president.

Mutswangwa, Mahiya, Matemadanda and the rest of all the aged war veterans, including that Chimene thing, who can no longer do three push-ups in a week, are you with the people or you want to continue screwing the very same people whose support you want?

Are you coming to us because of Grace? Do you want money for yourselves or freedom for the people?

We know what mercenaries are; we also know what saviors are.

You are no saviors but you may repent before the people and get some dignity back.

If the youngest freedom fighter was 18 years old in 1980 on return from the war zone in Mozambique and elsewhere, how old would he or she be today?

The so-called war veterans should stop this rubbish of double dipping; they must be real. It seems to me that they are more of mercenaries than repentant liberators.

On one hand, they want support from the people they have betrayed over the years and, on another, they want to stay within the group that betrays the people because the war veterans benefit from the misery of the people.

War veterans are so unrepentant that they, once again, want to choose a president for us.

You fought for the people so as for them to make their own choices.

Don’t fight your battles in an effort to give us Mnangagwa, Grace Mugabe, Tsvangirai or anybody. Stop it!

Veterans do it for country and for the people, not for themselves.