The Zimbabwe Situation

August 12, 2009
Abigail Mphisa

War veteran activist Joseph Chinotimba

I WAS part of a group of an estimated 4 000 people who on a Saturday in April 2000 wanted to participate in a march demanding that government take action to restore the rule of law and stop the intimidation and violence which had already claimed several lives on the commercial farms.

As the march was about to start, I watched with horror as the late Dr Chenjerai Hunzvi led a group of “war vets “ armed with all manner of crude weapons – bricks, rocks, iron bars, and batons. They were singing war songs as they charged towards the crowd of peaceful marchers and attacked mercilessly. I witnessed a rock land on someone whom I recognised as Andrew Meldrum, a reporter then resident in Zimbabwe before he was hounded out of the country by Jonathan Moyo.

Although I was lucky to escape unharmed, it was later reported that 20 people had been injured in the mayhem, some seriously. It later emerged that the meeting at which the estimated 200 war vets decided to disrupt the march had taken place at the Zanu-PF headquarters. That is where they armed themselves.

It has to be mentioned that the attack happened while the police, who were out in full force that day, watched disinterestedly while people were being assaulted. No effort was made to protect the marchers even though the march had been cleared by them. Crimes were being committed under the watchful eye of the police but no arrests were made.

The story of our liberation struggle is yet to be told in a manner that incorporates the voices of the underdogs – the victims who oiled the war machinery but have never been recognised. Nearly three decades of dictatorship have ensured that those voices remain buried. We do not have accurate records of who fired shots during the struggle and who did not. Neither our National Archives nor Zanu PF as a party is able to provide accurate records. I remember all too well how the film “Flame Lily” was condemned by the so-called war vets because it highlighted how the rape of female combatants was rampant in the struggle.

As a teenager in high school, I had brief interactions with the then guerrillas. I attended quite a few all-night vigils which left my younger sisters and I wondering at the substance of what was discussed at these vigils. There were brief lectures about why the war was being fought but the most part there was singing, dancing and the denunciation of sell-outs.

Interestingly, the sell-outs were invariably the well-to-do such as the villages’ hard working master farmers, teachers and businessmen. Usually there were no thorough investigations to establish the authenticity of reports on who was a sell-out and who was not before cruel punishment, which often resulted in the death of the accused, was meted out.

Current war veteran leader Jabulani Sibanda

When it became common knowledge that a number of cousins and some other young girls had been raped and impregnated by some of the guerrillas, our parents sent us off to town. Though some of the guerrillas claimed to love the girls they made pregnant, to date, none have come back to look after their offspring. It has to be pointed out that some guerrillas were gentle, respectful and genuine in their quest to have villagers understand why they had taken up arms.

However, others were crude, disrespectful and often demanded that villagers slaughter their chickens, goats and sometimes cattle to feed them. There was this awkward claim by some guerrillas that they would not eat okra because it would affect their fighting prowess!

As has been said by many other people before, it was in fact the peasants who bore the brunt of our liberation struggle. Apart from having to cook, clothe, and provide sexual services (and many a time under coercion), the highest casualties of the war were among the unarmed civilians who were sometimes mercilessly used as human shields.

It was the peasants who had to carry out reconnaissance work for the guerrillas – a dangerous assignment which resulted in the loss of many lives. The war effort decimated whatever little wealth the peasants had. Teachers and rural business people bought clothes, beer and cigarettes and were often also expected to make huge cash donations.

Many went bankrupt while failure to donate whether or not one could afford it often resulted in one being labelled a sell-out, an offence punishable by death.

It is therefore extremely painful that, having contributed so much towards the war effort, the peasants have had to relive the pain and suffering experienced during the liberation struggle, first through Gukurahundi and then since the formation of the MDC in 1999. This is happening at the hands of the so called war vets – a mix of the genuine ones and many fraudsters who have realised that the tag “war vet” bestows many privileges to those who are willing to carry our acts of violence on behalf of Zanu-PF.

While war veterans aligned to the Zimbabwe Liberation Platform have spoken out against the horrific deeds of their colleagues in the Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association, many genuine war vets in influential positions in government are quite happy to allow the war vets to carry out barbaric acts in their name.

The late Dr Chenjerai Hunzvi

While the story of the war vets after independence has been that of poverty among the low ranking of the lot, we must not forget that at independence they received demobilisation payouts which gave many of them a good start. In fact, the ZIPRA ex-combatants pooled their payouts together and formed the company, NITRAM through which they bought numerous properties that included hotels and farms.

Sadly, the properties, which were supposed to benefit the thousands who had pooled their resources together, were confiscated by the government after it was alleged that arms caches had been found on the farms.

Largely a dormant organisation since its formation for the purpose of lobbying government to assist the members who had fallen on hard times, the Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association was virtually non-existent in Zimbabwe’s political spectrum since its formation. It was not until the late Dr Chenjerai Hunzvi became its chairman in 1996 that the dynamic medical doctor transformed the once dormant group into a potent force and one of the most threatening groups to grace our political landscape.

Hunzvi read Mugabe the riot act and the strongman capitulated. A huge payout of unbudgeted $3 billion Zimbabwe dollars was made to some 50 000 “war vets” against the advice of then Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa. Analysts say this marked the beginning of the downward spiral of the country’s economy.

What is astounding is that, even though Mugabe knew there were no more than 27 000 war vets, he still allowed almost twice the number to receive payouts. Thus, he effectively created a private army. This private army has committed many a heinous crime in the name of “protecting the gains of our liberation struggle”.

Indeed this group does need to protect the gains of the liberation struggle because the $2 000 monthly pensions that they squeezed out of Mugabe in 1997 were actually higher than the wages of many in employment.

We Zimbabweans are a truly unique people and never do anything in moderation.

Aside from the fastest shrinking economy outside a war zone, we secured the number one spot in unemployment rate, cholera cases, and the rate of inflation. We have also managed to secure the top spot in electoral violence and displacements in our region. And now, coming to our war vets, we are the only country in the world where that status is accorded to thousands who never fired a shot in their lives. To add insult to injury, this lot, apart from being leeches, a truly parasitic bloodsucking lot, has been clinging to the national purse without signs of ever letting go.

Where other nations can look up to their war veterans for role models in matters of discipline and heroic deeds, we have to contend with the following headlines;

Governor, war vets fight over farm
Purported war veteran threatens lawyers
War veterans continue to harass MDC supporters
War veterans extort cattle from farmer
War vets threaten to take over companies
Police watch as war vets loot shops
War vets say they will go back to the bush
Chinotimba implicated in the murder of MDC official
Villagers forced to pay $100 tax by war vets
War vets vow to force judges off the bench
War vets beat villagers into voting for Zanu PF
Hunzvi in fresh $45 million scam
War vets attack Standard reporter
War vets extorting money from farmers
“You are Zanu PF or you shut up”, war vets tell villagers
War vets, ZRP. mobilise against MDC mass action
War vets take terror campaign to the towns
Ex-combatants and Zanu PF supporters invade and loot Ruenya Granite Company

Other stories had to do with the war vets’ assault on the Canadian High Commissioner, the blunt threats on diplomats and the looting of the Zimbabwe Ex-combatants (ZEXCOM) investment fund by its own chairman, Chenjerai Hunzvi. There were also stories of how Hunzvi’s Budiriro surgery had been converted to a torture chamber during the run up to the 2000 parliamentary elections. Reports were made to the police but they refused to prosecute him.

It was perhaps in the case of Chenjerai Hunzvi that our political leaders displayed the depth to which they had embraced evil. During his tenure at the helm of the Zimbabwe Liberators War Veterans Association he managed to put his organisation in the forefront of destroying our country with impunity and with both moral and material support from those in power.

They would sometimes besiege farm owners, preventing them from either leaving the premises or receiving visitors for days on end. Journalists were threatened, cars and other farm equipment damaged, houses burnt and even dogs killed. Violence and inflammatory rhetoric became the war veterans’ trade mark and it has continued to this day.

At the beginning of the land invasions in 2000, the High Court issued an order that invaders vacate the farms they had invaded. Hunzvi issued a statement to the effect that he and his followers had no intention of observing such laws since they were laws of the white men even though we had been independent for two decades by then.

They danced on Justice Gabby’s desk and trashed his office with the blessing of Justice Minister Chinamasa while the police watched.

As it turned out, Chenjerai Hunzvi proved to be the biggest fraudster of all time.

Admittedly, he did serve jail time for his political activities during his youth, as was the case with many Zimbabweans during Ian Smith’s rule. He however did not fire a single shot during the liberation struggle. His ex-wife Wieslawa, a white Polish woman who bore him a son but later fled Zimbabwe to escape violence and abuse at the hands of her husband had this to say; “He was a cruel and vile man who took delight in beating me. And as for the war, he never fired a shot. He saw no action at all”.

In case some readers may want to dismiss Weislawa’s statements as the ranting of a scorned woman, Hunzvi’s fraudulent war credentials and tales of wife battering were exposed by many. The man who could have vouched for Hunzvi, the liberation luminary, “Black Russian” Dumiso Dabengwa categorically stated that Hunzvi did not see any combat within ZIPRA.

Having managed to worm his way into the highest echelons of Zimbabwe’s political spectrum, Hunzvi became the medical doctor of choice for war vets who looted the war victims’ compensation fund. Not to be outdone by other looters, the good doctor claimed for an astounding 117 percent disability for among other things “post traumatic disorder”. This from a man who was partying in European capitals before ending up in Poland where he obtained a medical degree while the war raged on!

Needless to say this daylight robber was never prosecuted.

Ironically, the three men who rank among the most notorious and prominent of our war vets, the late Hunzvi, Joseph Chinotimba, and Jabulani Sibanda, never saw combat. I would say one of the greatest insults our President ever visited on the people of Zimbabwe was to declare Hunzvi a national hero.

Apart from being a fraudster of note, his name appears in many human rights abuse reports as having been personally responsible, apart from issuing orders to his supporters, for beating opposition supporters with iron bars, torturing some at his surgery in Budiriro and throwing petrol bombs at vehicles driven by opposition supporters.

The Budiriro residents, who were terrorised by this man while the police refused to take action, were actually forced to board buses that took them to the national shrine to honour their tormentor. Yes, a man who stole, mercilessly tortured his countrymen, abused his wife and abandoned his son graces our national shrine. What kind of nation have we become that celebrates evil to such a shameful extent?

Is it possible that our erstwhile liberators cannot tell the difference between Zanu PF and the nation of Zimbabwe? They fought in order to bring liberty to the country and now they are fighting even harder to curtail it. Not once have we seen them demonstrate against government’s failure to reduce poverty among the peasantry that gave them succour during the war years.

Not once have we seen them fight for the rights of those they claim to have fought for. We have seen them organise million men marches for the very architects of Zimbabwe’s destruction. Outstanding war vets such as the Mujurus have remained mum, while the late General Vitalis Zvinavashe threatened a coup if Tsvangirai won the election.

Indeed, the so called war vets are nothing more than Robert Mugabe’s private militia and they simply cannot deny the fact.

What a tragedy.

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