ONE summer evening when I was doing my Form 4 education, under a mango tree at the outskirts of our homestead in Bikita, sitting around a glowing fire, I vividly remember my late father passionately explaining to us why he had committed all his wealth to assist the guerrillas in their fight against the white colonial minority rule.
BY EVERSON MUSHAVA
“The whites are racists, they took all our prime land and they had segregation and repressive laws,” his deep voice still reverberates in my memory, close to two decades after he passed on. His lecture was laced with deep-seated emotions, his face fast turning pale as he recounted how he used to slaughter the cattle he had acquired as payment from various clients for his traditional healing prowess. His hatred towards the white men was enduring, and indeed justified.
“All our dignity as a people was lost. We had no option but to fight and reclaim our independence.”
Touched by my father’s emotional account, some few days later, I decided to get more from my cousin; a war veteran whose liberation war name was Comrade Tongoona.
His account would help me understand more about the liberation struggle for use in my “O” Level examinations, I thought to myself. If my father’s account was emotional, then Comrade Tongoona’s was painful.
“We joined the war to liberate our country. There was no monetary reward for that, but the desire to reclaim our land, freedom and independence from the whites,” he concluded, his eyes turning red, his voice oozing with vigorous emotions as if he was readying for another combat.
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Comrade Tongoona’s account was very consistent with what most war veterans and government officials have said, as I later came to realise.
But 36 years after independence, some observers say the way war veterans have conducted themselves has diverted from their original liberation war values. They fought for independence, but after the same was achieved, they have been accused of working with governing political leaders to deprive the masses of the same right they fought for.
Their demands as reward for participating in the war have become astronomical. But their influence is waning, just a fortnight ago, they were battered by the police in Harare for convening an illegal meeting.
This was indeed a new chapter in the lives of the war vets. They never needed a police clearance like others to gather for a meeting.
Their influence was monumental, right from demanding the War Victims Compensation Fund and to the events leading to the fast-track land reform programme in 2000.
They have run terror electoral campaigns on behalf of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party, they have assaulted and killed in the name of the party and they have violated the country’s laws with impunity.
They have violated the very tenants they fought for, such as freedom to belong to a political party of one’s choice and freedom to vote for a person of one’s choice.
Questions have been raised on whether the ex-freedom fighters still remember what they fought for. United Kingdom-based Zimbabwean lawyer Alex Magaisa said the once-respected war veterans were fast losing their glare because they have isolated themselves from the people through their selfish demands.
In his memo to the war vets after their embarrassing encounter with the law enforcement agents, he said like the Animal Farm scenario, they have begun to see themselves “as more equal than other animals.”
He said the war veterans had trivialised themselves by narrowing down their cause to the defence of one person, Mugabe, at the expense of the majority of Zimbabweans they had fought for and the liberation ideals and values they had fought for.
“No-one can begrudge you for supporting Zanu PF, it is your party, you have a long way and everyone has a democratic right of association. But you did not fight that one man could rule the country all his life, or for a single party state,” Magaisa wrote.
“You did not fight to deify one man. You fought for independence, democracy and freedoms which the colonial system had deprived you and your fellow citizens. But years later, you nurtured and encouraged a system that emasculated the same right including the freedom to gather and demonstrate.”
War vets have always threatened to go back to war if MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai won in an election. They have led a violent campaign on behalf of Zanu PF that has left many people dead and thousands displaced. Political analyst Alexander Rusero said war veterans are a critical mass, but since 2000 they have started behaving like mercenaries.
“During the liberation struggle the slogan of the day was ‘The wage of the struggle is freedom,’ not anything else,” Rusero said.
“That is what distinguished freedom fighters from mercenaries. Sadly now the difference between freedom fighters and mercenaries or criminals is somewhat blurred. The war vet of today is quite different from the real war fighters who went to war, the majority of them who are in rural areas.”
Rusero added: “What we now see are men in suits who have an exaggerated sense of contribution to the independence. They exhibit exaggerated enthusiasm of having liberated this country, such that the younger generation now question whether really the war was fought or it is just a scripted narrative crafted by crooks and extortionists masquerading as liberators of this country.”
MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu said there were still some genuine war veterans out there but they were falling victim to Zanu PF factional fighting and years of neglect by the ruling party.
“Sadly, because of years of neglect by the Zanu PF regime, the majority of war veterans are poor and living in destitution. They are now susceptible to manipulation by the feuding factions within Zanu PF. As they say, he who pays the piper calls the tune,” Gutu said.
Some war vets are said to have led the ouster of Vice-President Joice Mujuru and are now leading a campaign for Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa to succeed Mugabe.
Mugabe has responded by suspending the war veterans’ leader, Christopher Mutsvangwa for an effective three years from Zanu PF.
Last week, some war veterans apologised to Mujuru for being used in her ouster and being used during elections since 1985, antagonising the values of the liberation struggle.
Indeed signs of divisions in the war veterans camp have started to manifest, with other realising they have diverted from the core values of the struggle while other do not seem to have learnt anything from their misgivings, continuing to pledge loyalty to Mugabe and Zanu PF that has continued to abuse them for their own benefit.
