SELF-IMPOSED new Ndebele King — Stanley Tshuma — has trashed the 1987 Unity Accord signed between Zanu PF and former PF Zapu, and declared that Matabeleland region would now be referred to as Mthwakazi kingdom.
BY RONALD MOYO
Tshuma made a strong political statement at Bulawayo’s Large City Hall on Saturday, where he unveiled a new Mthwakazi flag and announced September 12 as the day of his coronation.
“Mthwakazi is a kingdom, not a republic. All agreements to incorporate it into Mashonaland are null and void,” Tshuma said in apparent reference to the Unity Accord signed on November 22, 1987 between President Robert Mugabe and the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo to end the Gukurahundi massacres.
“King Mzilikazi never signed such an agreement, King Lobengula never did, and I, Mzilikazi II, never signed any agreement. So I will never observe any of those agreements. You will hear people saying those who swallowed us swallowed poison. What poison? You are the ones who are dying and suffering while those who swallowed you still live,” he added.
Zanu PF national spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo declined to be drawn into the issue yesterday.
“I have no comment,” he said before terminating the phone call.
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In the early years of independence from British rule, Nkomo was accused of trying to overthrow the government after an arms cache was allegedly found at several former PF Zapu properties dotted around the country.
At the time, Nkomo defended his decision to sign the unity agreement, saying it was a necessary circumspection to stop the massacres which targeted Ndebele-speaking people in Midlands and Matabeleland regions.
An estimated 20 000 people were reportedly killed during the era as a government-sanctioned military outfit, the Five Brigade, hunted down perceived PF Zapu dissidents.
In 2009, former Home Affairs minister and PF Zapu intelligence supremo Dumiso Dabengwa broke ranks with the Zanu PF government and relaunched Zapu, accusing Mugabe of treating ex-Zapu leaders as inferior to their Zanu PF counterparts.
