The bloody reverse hate of a telling tribalist President Mnangagwa
President Mnangagwa

President Mnangagwa

Reason Wafawarova Correspondent
In a piece titled “The Bloody End of Crocodile Politics,” one acerbic writer by the name Dinizulu Mbikokayise Macaphulana, whose birth name is Jethro Mpofu, raised issues of national interest that cannot go unchallenged. I understand the assumed pen name is also a cover for the writer’s fugitive status after a brush with the law more than a decade ago.

Without offering any solid evidence, Macaphulana asserts that pronouncements by President Emmerson Mnangagwa on commitment to deal decisively with corruption are mere “crocodile tears.” He makes unsubstantiated claims that Mnangagwa is a “beleaguered man.”

In Mcaphulana’s mind Mnangagwa has always been a beleaguered man — beleaguered by Patrick Zhuwao, Jonathan Moyo, Kasukuwere, Grace Mugabe, Sarah Mahoka, Mandiitawepi Chimene, and the in-utile Pelekhezela Mphoko.

At the peak of factional fighting within ZANU-PF, Macaphulana made dramatic predictions in hysterical favour of Mnangagwa’s demise. He celebrated the alleged poisoning of Mnangagwa and openly hoped for the worst.

He hailed the astringent public attacks on Mnangagwa by the former First Lady Grace Mugabe as sophisticated political manoeuvring engineered by a “genius” by the name Jonathan Moyo — an imagined Einstein of political strategy that Macaphulana so tribally owned as a guided weapon in defence of a supposedly endangered tribal species found in some part of Zimbabwe.

It is unfortunate that Macaphulana uses a veneer of intellectualism to peddle fanatical tribalism in the name of academic analysis. Sadder is the fact that he abuses the misfortune and tragedy of Gukurahundi to secure publishing space for some online publications. His political knowledge is wholly embodied in Gukurahundi, and he has not written about anything else in his life.

Here is a man who does not only believe that he is the custodian of all Ndebele memory, but also believes that his opinion is the definition of remedy to every wrong that ever happened to the Ndebele people.

Now Macaphulana finds grace and honour in demeaning Tsvangirai’s health as “poorly,” and also finds convenience in hailing Cde Mugabe as “aged but durable”. These descriptions are then juxtaposed with a description of Mnangagwa as “fragile and truly getting to palliative measures.”

If the military’s codenamed Operation Restore Legacy was “targeting criminals around the Head of State,” as reported when the intervention occurred, it then makes no sense for Macaphulana to argue that the first criminal around Mugabe was Mnangagwa. Put simply Mnangagwa was nowhere near Mugabe when the military intervention happened, and there is no way he could have been targeted.

The military clearly said they were after criminals whose crimes were of a national security nature — a threat to the principles of the revolution for which ZANU-PF stands. Specifically, the military said the criminal purges masterminded by Jonathan Moyo and Saviour Kasukuwere were now destabilising the country.

Just before CDF Phillip Vallerio Sibanda made a Press Statement to announce the end of Operation Restore Legacy I had a call from a panicking Ugandan journalist. He said, “Reason, is it true that there is serious fighting between General Chiwenga and Mnangagwa; and that the General has announced he will be doing a Press Conference at 9:30?” He went on to say it was alleged another “coup” was about to happen.

I promised I would immediately check, which I did, and I got the assurance that nothing close to that was about to happen. I was briefed of what was going to happen, which is now in the public domain. The journalist was relieved to get my assurances, because apparently he admires Gen Chiwenga, and hopes to have such a man in Uganda.

Like the Ugandan journalist was made to believe, Macaphulana also has feuding soldiers in his head, and he has already announced “a brewing civil war in the land.” He confidently announces, “the coup makers cannot agree on anything past, present and future.”

Obviously this is an exaggerated wish whose sole purpose is the joy of imagining Mnangagwa’s in hot trouble. So we are told while Mugabe was empowering the people of Zimbabwe Mnangagwa was protecting whites, and Macaphulana predicts a Mnangagwa reversal of the land reform programme. He even tells us that whites and “angry Afrikaner right-wingers” sponsored the ZDF generals “for years”.

The idea is to contrive an exciting dilemma where we are told Mnangagwa is now faced with expectant white paymasters on the one hand, and uncompromising black voters on the other.

According to Macaphulana, Mnangagwa either has to anger the whites and face international isolation, or anger the blacks and dismally lose the vote. The writer is a lousy fantasiser, and frankly his assertion does not even rise to the level of nonsense.

Mnangagwa has pronounced himself unequivocally and clearly on both the land question and the indigenisation policy. The revised approach to the latter has already been announced in part by Patrick Chinamasa.

On the land question, Mnangagwa did not depart from the Mugabe policy position, saying those displaced former white commercial farmers are entitled to compensation for only the developments they made on the farms, and that only underutilised land will be taken over by government for redistribution to more deserving citizens.

It is hard to believe how these pronouncements can cause international isolation, or how they can anger the black voter. But Macaphulana has a self-assigned mission to dramatise Mnangagwa’s problems. He hopes the exaggerations can translate into trouble for Mnangagwa.

Then comes the insanity of the expediency of Gukurahundi. Macaphulana says land reforms were in part meant to mix up Ndebele and Shona people so the latter could make the former forget the misery of Gukurahundi. Conversely, one would then think that Ndebele people like Jonathan Moyo who applied to be resettled in Mashonaland were doing it so they can always make Shona people remember the evils of Gukurahundi. This is not only preposterous, but also the height of stubborn insanity on the part of Macaphulana.

The land reform programme benefitted Zimbabweans on the basis of where land was available for resettlement, not on the basis of where the beneficiaries hailed from. Equally, the movement of people across the ten provinces of the country is driven by the individual need to do so, not by tribal considerations.

It is not the duty of Robert Mugabe to let the people of Zimbabwe remember or forget any part of the country’s history, including Gukurahundi, and equally Mnangagwa has neither will, intent or capacity to close chapters of history. Macaphulana thinks Mugabe and Mnangagwa will define public opinion on the country’s history, and that simply does not make sense.

Every country on this planet wears a black armband of historical injustices, and our country is no exception. We collectively wear the black armband of dark parts of our history. From these dark moments we must not seek to start more conflicts, we must not seek to reignite emotions of anger, we must not seek to promote bitterness, we must not seek to expediently exploit tragedies in pursuit of selfish personal goals.

This is what Macaphulana wrote about Gukurahundi, “The chapter is not closing and the plea of insanity is not holding either.” It is the reasons given for this unhelpful resolve that makes sad reading.

Macaphulana views Operation Restore Legacy as an attack on Ndebele people, simply because one Jonathan Moyo happened to be on the receiving end of the military intervention. What does that make of Robert and Grace Mugabe, the two most affected in this intervention? Makes them “genocide victims” too?

Then the personal wars against Emmerson Mnangagwa — all tribalised in the hope that all Ndebele people may start smelling blood just because Mnangagwa is now the Head of State. Macaphulana suddenly becomes the custodian of all Ndebele feelings, unilaterally represents Ndebele opinion, and writes that Ndebele people have been “energised” into massive collective anger by the ascendancy of Mnangagwa.

Macaphulana does not only collectivise his personal bitterness into an imagined Ndebele purse, but he also wants to internationalise the same. He writes that “betrayed Boers and angry Rhodies” are “threatening to raise the stick of The Hague for Mnangagwa”.

While Macaphulana claims to be in contact with the said Rhodies and Boers in South Africa, may he be reminded that Gukurahundi is a mid eighties matter, and at law the ICC only deals with matters that occurred at the inception of the Court, that is on and after July 1, 2002.

Any trials for matters preceding this date would have to start with the establishment of a special Tribunal, normally passed through a United Nations resolution. Examples are the tribunals that were set for Sierra Leone and the former Yugoslavia. Macaphulana pontificates on the Mugabe legacy, asserting that the iconic nationalist is only popular in Africa, not in Zimbabwe.

There is a huge difference between the succession politics that saw the demise of Mugabe and his legacy as a nationalist and a Pan Africanist. Zimbabweans are aware of the principles and ideology of Mugabe, and they are not about to forget all that just because a bitter tribalist has suggested that they have forgotten.

It is not easy to smear the legacy of a gallant fighter who stood the test of time against dreadful and deadly onslaughts from the world’s most notorious powers of oppression. Zimbabwe louds the Mugabe legacy, Africa idolises the man as that last voice standing for African justice, and indeed the world acknowledges that Mugabe is an iconic character, only fallible to the power of his own people – never ever to an attack from foreign powers.

Macaphulana wishes Mnangagwa dead in his writing. While such hate is expected of a narrow-minded tribalist whose history is littered with grave criminal violation of the law against women; one cannot rape an incumbent government with a mere pen — threatening to dismantle a whole national establishment with mere bitterness.

Macaphulana thinks he can scare Zimbabweans through his pen. He says “a monster” is ruling the country; the way mothers do when they want children to behave, “sleep now or else a monster is coming to eat you.”

No one is scared because everyone knows that this is no more than the vomit of a tribal midget with the self-esteem of a mosquito, a poor soul afflicted by both inferiority and perfect foolishness.

There is no genocide coming in 2018 and there is no need labouring on that point. There will be no violence. Election 2018 will be free, fair and credible as promised by Mnangagwa on more than one occasion now.

I do not believe that election to be free, fair and credible to Macaphulana at all — not until he develops a free, fair and credible mind of his own. The man leads a sorry life of bitterness, has this imaginary status of tribal importance, and he walks like a victim, talks like a victim, thinks like a victim, and will probably die a poor victim.

We are one people as Zimbabweans; and we must not allow ourselves to stand on any side of imaginary tribal battle lines. ZANU-PF without Jonathan Moyo and the G40 cabal stands reformed and more democratic than ever, and will help in developing this country into a better democracy.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

  • Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in SYDNEY, Australia.

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