PF-ZAPU Rats to Sinking ZANU-PF Pirate Ship; Adios Amigos!

by T. Tut Shanga; 2nd November 2008

After spending more than twenty merry years joined by the hips to Mugabe and his cronies, former PF-ZAPU stalwarts are making a lot of noise and threatening to leave the so-called united ZANU-PF. They are displeased by the terms of the government of national unity, so they claim. While things were going fine and dandy, they lived high on the hogs. Now, to use Eddie Cross’ wild-west allegory, as high noon approaches, they are trying to scoot out of Dodge City. It is not going to work. The only place they are headed to is straight to political boot hill or the slammer.

When PF-ZAPU decided to get swallowed by ZANU-PF, it was logical that the Ministry of Home Affairs would be controlled by a minister with ZAPU political ancestry. The nation had hoped that the ministry would save as a bulwark against the abuse of power by the security agencies. After the harrowing Gukurahundi war crimes, we expected a minister with a strong backbone to stand with the people against the likes of Mnangagwa and Perrence Shiri, the prime actors of said Gukurahundi genocide. To our disappointment, the nation got one political invertebrate after another as Minister of Home Affairs.

Dumiso Dabengwa, a victim of the Gukurahundi crime who lived to tell the story, was one such invertebrate. As a matter of fact, he was worse than that. As soon as he was Minister of Home Affairs, Dabengwa became an enthusiastic enforcer of the very laws that had caused him grief. Way back in 1998 when the Zimbabwean people wanted to chase Mugabe and his gang away, soldiers armed with live bullets were unleashed on the people. Dabengwa was quoted stating that the government had no option but to use the army to restore order. It was startling that he did not send the same soldiers to stop people who tenuously claimed to be war veterans as they went on rampage and opened the floodgates of hell. Zimbabwe has never recovered ever since.

When Dabengwa, a man with impeccable liberation-war credentials concurred with the use of soldiers to shoot and kill protesters, the former victim had turned into a villain. Whatever high moral ground former ZAPU ministers had, it was irretrievably lost by Dabengwa’s stance. Police officers were brave enough to protest to Dumiso Dabengwa over the misuse of the police to enforce ZANU-PF orders. It was not just the officers who protested. In a sign of how low his reputation had gone, politicians in Matebeleland accused Dabengwa of siding with ZANU-PF. Pity these politicians for not realizing that the top echelon of ZAPU had, by then, become comfortably part of the Mugabe patronage system.

Dabengwa’s tenure at the Ministry of Home Affairs served as a reminder of how impotent the former ZAPU ministers were. Gukurahundi-style violence was unleashed on the nation but nobody heard a squeek of protest from the Minister of Home Affairs. Where we expected protectors, we got collaborators. Where were these ZAPU folks during Operation Murambatsvina and Operation Mavhoterapapi? I doubt Father Zimbabwe would have countenanced any of it. Sadly, the good Old Man was already in the company of angels and the greatest spirits of our land. How we miss that selfless super patriot in these dire times.

If the ZAPU wing of the ZANU-PF bird of prey was serious, it should have insisted on appointing an ex-ZIPRA cadre as police commissioner. We are stuck with Comrade Chihuri instead. Little wonder the guilty parties are laughing their teeth off while people starve!

Speaking of which; it seems as if Augustine Chihuri has more power than Minister of Home Affairs Kembo Mohadi. Mohadi’s inability to arrest ZANU-PF militias and unwillingness to protect MDC supporters exposes him as a purely ceremonial figure, the equivalent of a pitiful bulldog that has no teeth. Former ZAPU ministers are now raising Cain from the dead because Tsvangirai wants the Home Affairs Ministry. The protests and threats to dismember the presumably united ZANU-PF would be funny if the situation in the country was not tragic.

Reports have it that Mugabe is quite apoplectic over the disintegration of ZANU-PF along tribal lines. Very good! If a monster is tearing itself apart the best thing for everyone else to do is to watch the spectacle from a safe distance. As far as the blighted nation is concerned, ZANU-PF cannot crumble fast enough. It would be good riddance, the day this monster goes up in flames.

The mere fact that they still think of the Zimbabwean political landscape defined along tribal demarcations tells us that the people in ZANU-PF are out of touch with reality – or do I repeat myself. Resorting to visceral tribal sentiments for political cover is a cheap political trick of discredited politicians.

The ZAPU wing is also said to be disgruntled at the slow rate at which former ZIPRA members are designated heroes. Someone needs to tell these disgruntled former ZIPRA forces that the hungry Zimbabwean people are looking back to the days of UDI and agreeing Rhodesia was super after all. In Rhodesia people did not fight with crows over grain spilt on roadsides nor did they subsist on roots and wild fruits like Cromagnon or Neanderthals of yore. Were the proud people of Zimbabwe liberated so they could be stripped of their dignity with the whole world watching? May be the disgruntled parties need to tell us where the honour is in the whole humiliating exercise. If anything, it would be more honourable to refuse the meaningless honours.

Somehow the points of objection raised by the former ZAPU stalwarts as they propose to file divorce papers are wholly without merit. The boys want to flee from the inevitable consuming wrath of the Zimbabwean people. These boys must take us for a pack of fools. Though they had eyes, they did not see the evil perpetrated by ZANU-PF during their political cohabitation. They had ears but the ZAPU boys did not hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth as the children of Zimbabwe suffered.

These are rats that are now frantically trying to jump from the sinking ZANU-PF pirate ship. Sorry boys, it is not going to work.