Luke-ing the Beast in the Eye: 27 June — when the cornered State went rogue and brutalized citizens for voting for change

Today is June 27, that vile day in the history of Zimbabwe’s bloody and bloodied politics!

They first asked you whether you wanted it in “short sleeve” or in “long sleeve.” Only that these were not shop assistants asking their customers whether they wanted their shirt or blouse in short sleeve or in long sleeve.

These were in fact ZANU PF vigilante groups 18 years ago led by the army that were asking whether you wanted your arm chopped off from the elbow (short sleeve) or you wanted it hacked off at the wrists (long sleeve).

Zimbabweans had overwhelmingly voted for change in the watershed poll of 29 March 2008, leaving Robert Mugabe and his regime shocked to the core. The results had numbed them for a good 5 weeks as they sought to contrive a run-off plebiscite which was scheduled for 27 June 2008.

In order to overturn the result of the comparably free and fair plebiscite of 29 March 2008, army units led by a serving military general were deployed to each of the country’s 10 provinces to ensure that Mugabe won the contrived 27 June 2008 run-off poll.

In the lead-up to 27 June 2008, thousands of people across the country were killed for daring to vote for change.

Mothers were maimed, raped and brutalised. Others were abducted and either callously killed or left for dead.

Dear reader, at this point it is pertinent to state that when the army brutalised citizens in June 2008, the Minister of Defence was Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa and the Commander of the Defence Forces was General Constantine Dominic Nyikadzino Guvheya Chiwenga.

So there’s no saint between them..Same WhatsApp group. Ndikunzwei futi muchiti pane mutsvene pavaviri ivava.

As the army went on the rampage brutalising communities in the countryside, many across the country’s villages fled their homes and sought safety in the mountains as a rogue State and its full machinery got unleashed on a hapless nation.

The bloody chant of ’27 June vaMugabe mu office” sent a chill down many a spine as the military sought to brutalise the nation in a despicable bid to overturn Mugabe and ZANU PF’s dismal electoral loss of 29 March 2008.

At a personal level, during the five weeks in which Zanu PF withheld the election results of 29 March 2008 and unleashed untold violence on the people, I became a victim yet again.

On 15 April 2008, I was arrested while in the company of friends by a combined unit of the army and the police at the popular Mereki braai spot in Warren Park, Harare.

I was to spend a whole month in prison on a trumped up public violence charge, barely a year after I had spent several months in D-class prison on trumped up terrorism charges that eventually collapsed..

But what happened on 15 April 2008 was that I had flown into the country only the previous night from a SADC summit that was held at Mulungushi conference Hall in Zambia, where I had accompanied President Morgan Tsvangirai to petition SADC Heads of State to put pressure on Mugabe to have the poll results released.

They said I had brought money to pay some hooligans who had torched a bus in.the area the previous day as the nation went on a spontaneous demonstration to have the results released.

Of course, criminals took advantage of the spontaneous demonstration and torched a bus. My three colleagues and I were slapped with public violence charges, which of course collapsed after a month in detention.

Strangely, the night of 14 April 2008 that the bus was allegedly torched is the very night I had landed at Harare International airport from Lusaka, via South Africa.

But all that became useless before a State hellbent on detaining us.

But more violence was to be unleashed across the country well after I and my three colleagues had been released from prison.

From that horrendous year of 2008, 27 June will never be just an ordinary date in Zimbabwe.

27 June will forever remain shorthand for Zanu PF’s untold violence.

27 June has etched itself in memory because of what became the State’s mindless bloodletting against the people of Zimbabwe.

Indeed, for the people of Zimbabwe, 27 June will forever be an anecdote for unmitigated State-sponsored violence.

27 June will never be an innocent dictum but will forever be an aphorism synonymous with a brutal and murderous State.

And they have just put finishing touches to yet another crude act of violence in this sordid month of June of 2026.

. And this time it’s violence on the Constitution of Zimbabwe, which Constitution now lies still and prostate in the dark rictus of death.

Only a few days ago, we witnessed the Senate embalming what once was the country’s Constitution but that now lies in state, awaiting ED’s bloodied hand to recreate it in his own image!

Among the callous, matchete-wielding batterers of our national Constitution was one Senator closely known to me, or so I thought.

But perhaps this particular Senator was poised for parliamentary treachery from the very outset, ever since he got personally deployed to the House by one Sengezo Tshabangu, that notorious thief who ghosted in from nowhere, pilfered an entire political party and stuffed it in his filthy pocket, of course with the help of ZANU PF and the State.

This Senator acquaintance of mine treasonously voted Yes to CAB3, choosing to be given direction by his own tummy and the filthy lucre now being generously dished out by Zanu PF oligarchs, which lucre the same oligarchs are even shamelessly using to do online shopping of cheap and desperate souls on the political market, as Paul Tungwarara recently did.

So in keeping with the sadism synonymous with 27 June, Parliament—in its collective sense—has just brutalised the Constitution to become a zealous accomplice in the commission of this gross act of treason.

So in the week of the 18th anniversary of the unmitigated brutalisation of a nation, they have now gone beyond the puny violence against the people. With neither shame nor compunction, they have now gone further to brutalise the supreme charter of the land.

It’s all in keeping with the demon of 27 June.

Since 2008, 27 June became more than just a date in Zimbabwe.

27 June became ZANU PF’s totemic salutation.

Desr reader, 27 June was not just a bloody campaign. It became an anecdotal showcase of the vile power of the State in Zimbabwe.

Violence became a State programme, though of course initial warnings had come through Gukurahundi.

And just like Gukurahundi, the 27 June 2008 violence was abetted and driven from the very apex of the State.

Following the murder of thousands of innocent Zimbabweans in June 2008, almost all of them MDC supporters, the then MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of the run-off poll on 22 June 2008, five days before the contrived run-off plebiscite.

In his withdrawal statement, president Tsvangirai said though he had won the credible election of 29 March, he had decided to pull out of the run-off because he would never sacrifice the people for power.

Tsvangirai famously stated in his statement that he did not wish to walk to State House on top of dead bodies and graves and as such, he was pulling out of the contrived run off poll.

SADC, the AU, the United Nations and the rest of the world agreed with Tsvangirai and dismissed the bloody, June 27 contrived run-off poll as a charade.

They all said the only credible election in Zimbabwe had been that of 29 March 2008 in which the MDC had prevailed over ZANU PF and in which Tsvangirai had shellacked Robert Mugabe.

Thiat bold declaration by SADC, the AU and the UN paved the way for the formation of the inclusive government, which would provide respite and the much needed fillip to the brutalized people of Zimbabwe.

So today, June 27, is a solemn day.

We must all take a moment today to remember the innocent souls that were callously murdered by the State, including the many whose “short sleeves” and “long sleeves” will forever bear testament to the brutality of this bloody cult called ZANU PF.