Jonathan Moyo's Letter On Why Matabeleland Should Vote For Chamisa Tomorrow
Mthwakazi Omuhle,
VOTE FOR NELSON CHAMISA FOR MATABELENAD TO HAVE GOOD HOPE, AGAIN, AFTER 38 YEARS OF FEAR
It is with profound frustration that I’m compelled to write to you this letter from exile because of unfortunate circumstances surrounding the unprecedented Army attack on my home when General Constantino Chiwenga sent more than 25 heavily armed soldiers whose mission based on what we now know was to kill me, harm my family, loot and damage our house on 15 November 2017 at the commencement of the military coup that unconstitutionally ousted President Mugabe and enabled Emmerson Mnangagwa to illegally grab executive power as President of Zimbabwe.
A lot of other horrific things have happened in our country in the intervening months, despite self-serving claims by Mnangagwa and Chiwenga that there’s a new administration or new dispensation in Zimbabwe that has brought new freedoms and better hopes for Zimbabweans. It is clear that nothing has changed nor can change under the same Mnangagwa and Chiwenga who have for some four decades championed and enforced the marginalisation of Matabeleland.
On Monday 30 July 2018, that is in two days, Zimbabweans are going to the polls to vote for a new president, councillors and members of parliament. This election is happening not because it has been called by Mnangagwa who is illegally in office after he used the Army to remove President Mugabe but because Zimbabwe’s Constitution requires that these elections must take place before 22 August 2018. It is therefore important to not that the elections are not a gift from Mnangagwa but a requirement of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
Since 1980, the people of Matabeleland have been asking one question that remains unanswered: when is Independence coming to Matabeleland? While some ZanuPF politicians from Matabeleland and their handlers in Harare will predictably misconstrue this question as suggesting secessionism or some other separatist nonsense, what the people of Matabeleland mean by saying Independence has not come to the region is simply that the peace, sense of belonging and development that the rest of the country has enjoyed since 18 April 1980 are unknown in Matabeleland.
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What Matabeleland has known since 1980 is gukurahundi between 1980 and 1987 when the Unity Accord was signed; systematic marginalisation between 1987 and 2018; and profound nondevelopment and underdevelopment marked by abject poverty between 1987 and 2018. In fact, the brutal truth about Matabeleland is that the human condition in most of the region’s rural communities has remained as it was during King Lobhengula’s time.
Bulawayo, which was the country’s industrial capital has been deliberately deindustrialised since 1980 through negative policies such as the crippling of the National Railways of Zimbabwe, the Cold Storage Commission and the textile and clothing sector along with the forced exodus of other industries to Harare and elsewhere. Gold rich Matabeleland South was reduced into a korokoza haven for gold barons from outside the province.
Matabeleland North, which hosts the majestic Victoria Falls, Hwange National Park—the country’s largest natural reserve—among other photographic tourist attractions and hunting concessions is Zimbabwe’s poorest province whose God given natural resources continue to benefit outsiders at the expense of locals.
Health and educational facilities as well as services in Matabeleland are deplorable and rank as the worst in the country. The A-Level STEM programme introduced in 2016 by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development exposed the deep structural reasons why children from Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South provinces have become the forgotten lot in the country’s system of basic education due to systematic neglect rooted in the
Gukurahundi years.
Against this backdrop, the election on Monday 30 July 2018 is as important for Matabeleland, and indeed the rest of Zimbabwe, as was the 1980 election. So, please understand that when you go to vote on Monday, you will not be just voting for a president, a member of parliament or a councillor. On Monday you will be voting for Independence to also come to Matabeleland finally, 38 years after it came to Zimbabwe.
On Monday you will be voting to choose whether Zimbabwe shall continue with Mnangagwa leading the same ZanuPF government and system of governance that we have had for 38 years during which your and my relatives or friends in Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands provinces were tortured, maimed, raped or massacred during Gukurahundi. Over the same period, the whole of Matabeleland region was starved of food and development as a deliberate policy of marginalisation under brutal ZanuPF rule led by President Mugabe and operationally enforced by Mnangagwa, Chiwenga, Perence Shiri and Sibusiso B Moyo, who are now controlling the Army-run government that ousted President Mugabe last November.
On Monday you will be voting to choose whether Zimbabwe now has an historic opportunity to make a fresh start with the MDC-Alliance and a new untainted leader, Nelson Chamisa leading the Second Republic, after 38 years of ZanuPF rule in the Frist Republic during which tens of thousands of our kith and kin were tortured, maimed, raped or massacred while the whole of Matabeleland region was deliberately underdeveloped and marginalised.
On Monday you will be voting against a 38-year-old evil system based on the evils of: (1) entitlement; (2) illegitimacy; (3) violence; (4) corruption and (5) impunity; all which have impoverished Zimbabwe materially, morally and spiritually and all which are the reasons behind the systematic marginalisation, non-development and underdevelopment of Matabeleland.
On Monday you will be voting for change, for new republic, under a new generation of inclusive leadership spearheaded by Nelson Chamisa who is 40 years old and has solid experience as a legislator, a cabinet minister, a lawyer, a pastor, a family man whose better half hails from Matabeleland and who is a good, untainted person capable of making a fresh start.
On Monday you will be voting for devolution, which is already in the Constitution but which ZanuPF and Mnangagwa have refused to implement.
Devolution, which is strongly supported by ubaba uCde Dumiso Dabengwa, will end margainalisation, nondevelopment and underdevelopment in Matabeleland. On Monday you will be voting for good hope over fear. Indeed, you will be burying the fear that has eroded the confidence of Matabeleland after 38 years. With your vote for change on Monday, Matabeleland will have good hope, again, after 38 years of fear inflicted upon the region by the FEARSOME SECURITY trio of Mnangagwa, Chiwenga and Shiri with the rest of their callous cabal.
There’s no need to recount the horrific details of the personal, family and community tragedies and suffering we have endured over the last 38 years. In the same vein, there’s no need to recount the efforts we have made over the same period to reach out to ZanuPF and its security cabal led by the Gukurahundi trio of Mnangagwa, Chiwenga and Shiri in the hope of finding truth, peace and
reconciliation.
The self-evident truth that we must now deal with ahead of the July 30 poll is that the Gukurahundi trio of Mnangagwa, Chiwenga and Shiri are not willing to acknowledge their atrocities, let alone to redress them. This is reason enough for Matabeleland, and indeed the whole of Zimbabwe, to reject this BRUTAL trio. With Mnangagwa as the Gukurahundi point-man, this trio served as the engine and glue of the First Republic for 38 years under President Mugabe. It is in this context that
President Mugabe has said Mnangagwa and Chiwenga are traitors who betrayed him when they ousted him in a military coup last November. This is because Mnangagwa and Chiwenga were President Mugabe’s right-hand men; and as such, they too must go.
The Army-run ZanuPF is bent on dividing Matabeleland. They spent most of today distributing flyers exalting some 10 reasons why the region should vote against inevitable change. Please ignore the divisive nonsense. Every vote counts. Matabeleland cannot afford to throw away the presidential vote by allowing its vote to be divided by Mnangagwa through his sponsored candidates. That would enable evil to triumph. Voting for a person who we love and respect but who has not chance of winning the national election for the presidency will be an irresponsible betrayal of the country. Worse, such a vote would provoke the tears of the dead, massacred
during Gukurahundi.
Vote for change. Vote for a new republic, the Second Republic. Vote for Great Zimbabwe. Vote for Nelson Chamisa. Forward with Unity. Forward with One Zimbabwe. Amandla ngaWethu. Chisa Mpama Chisa. Guqula iZenzo Guqula.
Professor Jonathan Moyo
