Blessing Taona Denhere: Is the spectre of June 2008 violence upon us?

You don’t need to be a political scientist or a student of politics to realise and fathom that the political and electoral contests are in full swing, in the teapot shaped country sandwiched between the Zambezi river to the north and the Limpopo river to the south.

Thus, for the past six weeks the social media space has been saturated both by the electoral and political twitter spaces, debates and the political campaigning paraphernalia of a plethora of political protagonists angling to contest the 26th March 2022 by-elections.

Moreover, the political landscape has also been punctuated with political rallies that are in full swing. Coupled with the fact that, the electoral enclaves where these by-elections are taking place are emblazoned and plastered with a colourful rainbow of campaigning posters for each respective candidate.

Historically and especially since the turn of the millennium, elections in Zimbabwe have always been a high octane electoral game. Thus, it’s always been a zero sum game where the winner eats it all and eats it now. Therefore, the forthcoming by-elections are not an exception.

Accordingly, the battlelines have been drawn between the two main arch nemesis, that is the ZANU PF led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the Citizen Coalition for Change led by Nelson Chamisa.

As such the last two weeks witnessed the rising of the political temperature within our political ecosystem. Consequently, the apocalyptic ghost of State sanctioned terror and brutality reared its ugly head again in Chitungwiza, Kwekwe and in Harare East constituency.

Therefore, this opinion piece seeks to situate these deplorable and reprehensible acts of politically motivated violence within the historical context of apocalyptic state sanctioned terror and brutality that was visited and inflicted upon the social and political support base of the then Morgan Tsvangirai`s MDCT in June 2008.

I am thus enquiring whether, the dark stormy clouds of the June 2008 repressive terror and violence are slowly gathering on the horizon as we march towards the 2023 General Elections.

Are the darky stormy clouds of 2008 slowly gathering on the horizon?

It is a well documented historical fact that, whenever ZANU PF is faced with a formidable political and electoral opponent, it resorts to its tried and tested tactics of scorched earth obscene violence, terror and brutality.

Suffice it to say that, even the first post independence elections which were held in March 1980. Notwithstanding the fact that ZANU PF was not in power it still nonetheless deployed terror and violence against the PF ZAPU of Joshua Nkomo and the UANC of Abel Muzorewa.

Both Nkomo and Muzorewa lost a considerable number of their supporters at the hands of ZANLA guerillas who had violated the ceasefire agreement by remaining in villages and liberated zones, thereby not reporting to the assembly points.

These ZANLA guerillas acted as the shock troops of ZANU PF in repressing and intimidating the supporters and electoral candidates of Nkomo and Muzorewa. As a result both Nkomo and Muzorewa could not campaign in Mashonaland heartlands and Manicaland heartlands.

This was one of the reasons Lord Soames and the Commonwealth Observer Mission contemplated banning ZANU PF from participating in the 1980 General elections. However, the political costs of banning ZANU PF were so enormous that it would have triggered another bloody civil war.

Needless to say, that this systematic pattern of State sanctioned intimidation infused with terror and banditry persisted throughout the 42 years of post independent Zimbabwe.

Thus, Joshua Nkomo and PF ZAPU where again subjected to another episode of State sanctioned genocidal and ethnocidal repression known as the Gukurahundi genocide between the years 1982 to 1987, with the ultimate goal to decapitate and annihilate the socio-political support base of PF ZAPU so that ZANU PF can institutionalise and legislate a de jure one party state dictatorship.

The next political player to be subjected to this same terror and repressive tactics was Edgar Tekere and his Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) political party. Tekere`s and ZUM`s political crime was that, in 1990 they had dared to challenge and scupper ZANU PF plans of institutionalising one party state hegemony in Zimbabwe.

Accordingly, the epitome of ZANU PF obscene terror and brutality was when the firebrand Patrick Kombayi who was the frontrunner in the Gweru urban parliamentary election, pitting him against the Vice President Simon Muzenda, survived an assassination attempt, after he was brutally shot by CIO operatives and left for dead.

Fast forward to the 2000s, MDC as led by Morgan Tsvangirai became another justifiable political opponent to be brutalized and terrorized into submission at the hands of the ZANU PF government.

Thus,throughout the first decade of the 21st century the MDC had a great number of its cadres extrajudicially murdered and terrorised by the ZANU PF government repressive machinery and personnel.

Accordingly, the June 2008 Presidential election runoff will be vividly remembered as the period where Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDCT paid a heavy price. During that period it became an open killing season with impunity for ZANU PF supporters in cahoots with the military.

There was blatant and wanton militarized and State sanctioned terror and brutality that resulted in more than 200 deaths of MDC supporters. With Tonderai Ndira as the prominent MDCT martyr of that June 2008 violent period.

Additionally a large numbers of the MDCT supporters were also injured and internally displaced during this apocalyptic orgy period of State sanctioned terror and brutality, which have been classified as the “mini Gukurahundi”.

Moreover, the 2018 harmonised elections were also plagued by the post electoral State sanctioned violence that led to extrajudicial deaths of six innocent civilians at the hands of the military.

Needless to say that, this historical anthology of systematic episodes of State sponsored terror and violence, is very essential in order to fully contexualise the small dark stormy clouds of political violence that are slowly building up in our political sky.

Thus, the emergence of the CCC as a formidable political force had inevitably scuppered the authoritarian plans of the ZANU PF government of establishing a de facto one party state propped up by their puppetry trojan horse the MDT/A led by Douglas Mwonzora.

Therefore, because of the robust and frankenstein electoral and political clout of Nelson Chamisa and the CCC, consequently the CCC and Nelson Chamisa automatically put themselves on collision course with the ZANU PF repressive machinery, in the similar circumstances confronted the PF ZAPU, the ZUM and the MDC/T under Tsvangirai and partly under Chamisa.

Therefore, it is not by accident but rather by design that we are witnessing State sanctioned brutality and repressive violence being deployed against both the leadership and rank and file of the CCC.

Unfortunately, the licence to kill and brutalise the CCC with impunity was issued by the Vice President Chiwenga during the ZANU PF Kwekwe rally. At that particular rally VP Chiwenga, like a loose cannon and a political assornist he recklessly told the ZANU PF supporters in genocidal terms that the CCC would be crushed like lice.

This is particularly disconcerting considering the traumatic history of Gukurahundi Genocide and Rwanda Genocide, that is the same dehumanising and infrahumanising language was deployed against the Ndebeles and the Tutsis respectively.

Consequently, it was not a surprise that, soon after the incendiary and inflammatory utterances of VP Chiwenga, a young CCC supporter Mboneni Ncube was extrajudicially hacked to death and other 23 supporters of the CCC were also hospitalised with gruesome injuries, after being attacked by the machete wielding ZANU PF supporters.

Moreover, there was also an image of the CCC supporter in Chitungwiza with a gushing knife wound in her head. Her only crime was for holding alternative political views in support of the CCC. Suffice it to say that,this pattern of State sanctioned brutality undergirded by impunity is continuing unabated with increasing boldness and ferocity.

Thus in the early hours of the morning of the 3rd of March 2022, a four men gang wielding machetes and guns raided the home of the CCC VP Tendai Biti, who is a Parliamentary candidate for Harare East by-elections. The four man gang inflicted deep cuts and gruesome wounds on Mr Biti`s security guard, who was left for dead.

Prima facie, this did not look like an armed robbery gone wrong, since no attempt was made to steal anything. Nonetheless, the circumstantial evidence points to a systematic politically motivated violence designed to intimidate and threaten Mr Biti since this came hard on heels of a series of acts of violence and intimidation deployed against Tendai Biti and his campaign team, ever since the by-election campaign went into full swing.

However, what is particularly concerning and worrying is the fact that machetes were used to inflict the death of Mboneni Ncube and also to grievously injured Mr Biti`s security guard.

This is due to the fact that machete was the same weapon of choice which was used to inflict genocide at an industrial scale in Rwanda against Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Conclusion

It is gradually becoming abundantly clear that the dark and stormy clouds of apocalyptic State sanctioned violence against opposition political movements, particularly the Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC) are incrementally building up within the political and electoral sky of Zimbabwe.

Therefore there is increasing danger and possibilities that, as we approach the 2023 General elections, the political sky of Zimbabwe would be overcasted and fully enveloped by dark stormy clouds, that will likely usher in a heavy torrent of State sanctioned brutality, terror and trauma against the Citizen for Coalition for Change leadership and its political and electoral support base.