Rhosarian 2019

The Rhosarian 1/19
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whom they call a pan Africanist, father of the
Zimbabwean nation and a hero turned villain. I
personally do not suffer from this conflict.
Liberation hero?
Credited by some for his gallant role in leading
Zanu in the last very short leg of the liberation
struggle from 1975 to 1979 – only four years – he
gets far more credit than he deserves.
The gallantry and heroism, according to his
closest comrades, is manufactured.
His recruiter into the liberation struggle and
companion on the surreptitious journey to
Mozambique, Edgar Tekere former secretary
general of Zanu PF, spoke in his book, of a
reluctant, scared and unwilling participant of the
struggle into which he was foisted because, with
his multiple academic degrees, he spoke and
wrote well compared to the other guerillas.
Much like his cousin and nationalist James
Chikerema who spoke of the narcissistic and selfabsorbed
young bookish boy who threw tantrums
and abandoned other boys when they herded
cattle. Revelations that would help illuminate the
man’s behaviour in later years.
Brutal approach
He wanted everything done his way.
He never tolerated dissent during the liberation
struggle and after. He stoked controversy on his
role in the death of Josiah Tongogara, the Zanla
commander in 1979 in order to ostensibly
consolidate his control over Zanu PF. Tongogara
preferred a united front under Joshua Nkomo.
After independence, having decided Zimbabwe
would be a one party state, he demanded and
required full compliance and loyalty. When his
comrades questioned it, they were sidelined or
worse.
He brutalized Joshua Nkomo and his party for
resisting the one-party state. He coveted and
desired absolute power. Always wary and spiteful
of contenders to power in Zanu PF.
He jettisoned erstwhile right-hand comrades
like Edgar Tekere, Edison Zvobgo, Dizikamai
Mavhaire, Margaret Dongo, Enos Nkala, Solomon
Mujuru, Moyo Mutswangwa, Didymus Mutasa,
Emmerson Mnangagwa. Then he toyed with
THE FLAG
October 2019
them by bringing some of them back when he felt
they had learnt their lesson.
The lesson that there is only one leader. And
his name is Mugabe. He maintained a divide and
rule system built of fear and suspicion. His
comrades both feared him and mistrusted each
other and could never muster a revolt against him.
Attempts to do so were sure to be fatal with
many dying under suspicious circumstances –
usually car accidents, alleged poisoning or other
undisclosed sudden illness – methods which his
comrades readily used against each other.
To ensure his comrades toed the line, he built
a zero-sum, kill or be killed, do-or-die party system
in which you were either in or out. Once out you
either fled into exile or were stripped of everything
the party had allowed you to accumulate.
Gukurahundi
He was aloof and cold. Vengeful and
unforgiving. In 1980, fearful of Joshua Nkomo,
his party and better trained guerillas, he spent
considerable resources to build his own army
militia answerable to him and ready to do his
political and ethnic bloodletting.
The Gukurahundi or 5th Brigade was a private
army with instructions to kill, rape, torture and
plunder Joshua Nkomo and his supporters into
submission. He did not stop, until 20,000 people
were dead. He would never have stopped had
Nkomo not capitulated and sworn allegiance to his
authority. Only total submission and subjugation
assuaged Mugabe.
There is nothing in his record that shows
benevolence or democratic credentials. He never
sought to build a nation but stoked and amplified
tribal differences advantaging his Zezuru clansmen
and entrenching a sense of exclusion and
marginalisation amongst other clans.
In the 1980s he spoke of destroying opposition
Zapu and he kept his promise through Gukurahundi
killing thousands of its largely Ndebele supporters.
He left a country more ethnically divided than it
was when the liberation struggle began. He
ethnicised politics and politicised ethnicity,
conveniently labeling the multi-ethnic Zapu as a
Ndebele party as a pretext to destroy it.
His demagoguery left Zimbabwe collectively