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Panganai Kahuni Correspondent
Tears of joy ran down our cheeks as comrades stood at attention in the maiden military parade mounted by the 21 Infantry Battalion, the pioneer battalion of the Zimbabwe National Army.

It was unthinkable to ever imagine that these comrades clad in smartly ironed military gear had previously been jailed in Khami Maximum Prison for frivolous reasons by the Rhodesians.

Rufaro Stadium was filled to capacity. Some ecstatic Zimbabweans perched themselves on roof tops, tree tops, electricity pylon poles, high precast walls, roof tops and on top of buses and lorries. April 18 was a day when Zimbabweans were filled with joy and happiness celebrating the fall of the Union Jack and the raising of the Great Zimbabwean Flag.

Even those who, during the liberation struggle, were working with the Smith regime, joined the freedom fighters and the patriotic masses of Zimbabwe in celebrating the dawn of a new era; the era of freedom and social justice. April 18 1980 was a day when progressive Zimbabwean masses celebrated their resilience and sacrifice.

It was a day people celebrated their freedom that had become a reality after years of torture and subjugation by the barbarous and inhuman white colonial settlers.

Sadly, today some of us have joined hands with our erstwhile colonial masters in destroying the gains ushered in by our Independence, freedom and social justice. The brotherly and sisterly atmosphere that every citizen exhibited on the maiden day of our freedom, the love for one another that fostered neighbourliness, the comradeship that cut across the whole gamut of our mankind on April 18 1980, seem today to have evaded the revolutionary soul of some of our comrades. Some seem to have disconnected themselves completely from the revolution and April 18 should remind us of where we came from and how principled we should be to the causes of that revolution.

As the country was in a celebratory mode our erstwhile colonial masters were busy strategising on how to divide and infiltrate agents of neo-colonialism.

Some of our comrades became heavily compromised. April 18, the brick and mortar that connects us to the liberation struggle seem not to exist in some of our comrades who now claim Rhodesia was better than Zimbabwe.

This is how bad Western infiltration doctrine can be if a nation is not vigorously reminded of its ideological grounding. April 18 is a day which must always remind Zimbabweans to remain connected to the revolution.

If our deeds and practices smack of corruption, favouritism, nepotism and individual amassing of wealth, then our future is doomed. If our politics is that of hating liberation freedom fighters then our liberation history will soon be extinct. If our politics is that of calling for sanctions and making the Zimbabwean economy scream, with the hope of getting into power through the back door, then patriotic Zimbabweans will vote us out of such demonic political practices.

In his long term strategy, the enemy skilfully used political terms such as good governance, democracy, rule of law and human rights as a vehicle to create neo-liberal politics in our people, especially those in the academia. The packaging of these evidently correct political terms was done in a manner that made most people forget that Zimbabweans had fought a bitter war in order to enjoy these tenets of mankind.

As Zimbabwe began to assert itself by claiming back its land and natural resources in fulfilment of tenets of good governance and democracy, private media propaganda went into overdrive demonising the revolutionary party Zanu-PF.

Aided by a legion of neo-liberal academics and journalists, the media propaganda spread like veld fire burning and destroying all gains that had been ushered in by the dawn of Independence achieved after a bitter struggle.

The Western and private media onslaught on our economy had devastating effects such as hyper-inflation and closure of industries which resulted in the high rate of unemployment. Sadly, the enemy was being aided by most of our own academics in institutions of learning and journalists in the media industry. These Zimbabwean black academics and journalists acted like the Rhodesian African Rifles who celebrated the slaughter of fellow Africans in Zambia and Mozambique by siding with America and Britain in destroying the very economy that sustains the millions of lives in Zimbabwe.

Many Zimbabweans died because of the call for illegal sanctions by the MDC formations and the writing of falsehoods by private media journalists.

The falsehoods written by those journalists and doctored research papers by the evil academics from institutions of higher learning were used by the Americans and British to suffocate Zimbabwe’s economy resulting in multitudes of people dying of hunger, school children failing to attend classes, industries closing and raising the unemployment rate.

Sadly, today these people (neo-liberal academics and journalists) still call themselves democrats when their hands are soiled with the blood of people they killed through hunger caused by their evil activisms. Unfortunately, they still litter our streets regardless of their evil and treacherous actions that saw millions dying. Sadly, this callous practice only happens in Africa particularly in Zimbabwe and never in America, Britain and the West as a whole.

It should be noted that when the West sees an opportunity to divide and rule it will expertly exploits it to its full advantage. In Ghana, when Nkrumah and his party embraced the concept of indigenisation and beneficiation of raw products, the West infiltrated Ghana’s ruling party and the CIA orchestrated a coup by Kotoka.

History tells us this has happened across the globe in countries such as Guatemala, Chile, Libya, Zaire (DRC) etc. Sadly, the people of these countries never enjoyed the glorified economic developments as promised by the inhuman, unethical and murderous West. Today they are still living in poverty. The West, particularly Britain, America, France and Australia are good at disconnecting people from the gains of their independence.

In disconnecting nation states from their Independence, the West uses terms such as the moderates and hard-liners. People should remember how the West referred to some Zanu-PF politicians as hard-liners and others moderates. The strategy was to align the moderates to the West in pursuit of safeguarding Western interests.

In search of disconnecting people from observing the principles of protecting and defending their hard won Independence, the West also uses the term democracy in founding and funding opposition political parties.

As the West advances the so called-democratic principles which in the first place they failed to apply during colonial rule, they also fund NGOs and civil societies who then propagate neo-liberal democracy in support of Western interests. Imagine how the West is funding up to 1000 NGOs in Russia today and how it funded 3000 civil society organisations (CSO) in Zimbabwe.

The question is why CSOs are not found in Western capitals doing the same treacherous work?

The other question is why the West after 2013 elections abandoned CSOs?

The answer is simply that CSOs had failed to disconnect people from protecting and defending the gains of their liberation. The CSOs, like neo-liberal academics and journalists, acted in the manner in which Selous Scouts slaughtered people during the liberation struggle, by way of advocating for illegal regime change.

In that regard, CSOs, neo-liberal academics and journalists including the so-called moderate politicians, are not connected to April 18.

Thus there is need for the Zanu-PF commissariat department, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Youth Development to continue putting strategies to reconnect the nation to April 18 by way of educating people to shun corruption, nepotism, amassing of wealth, relativism and favouritism. There is also need for state institutions such as the police and the judiciary to exercise zero tolerance for corruption and criminal behaviour in the manner exercised by Provincial Magistrate Mthombeni who sentenced to jail the corrupt Air Zimbabwe executives.

Hail April 18 which connects us to our liberation history and that reminds us to remain vigilant!

 Panganai Kahuni is a political, socio-economic commentator.