ZANU led by Robert Mugabe won a British supervised election in 1980. Soon after independence Mugabe hires North Korea to train the brutal fifth Brigade. Joshua Nkomo and other ZAPU senior members are invited into government. Shortly thereafter they are dismissed on flimsy allegations of harbouring arms of war. The government swiftly moves in to confiscate properties including farms belonging to ZAPU. In a public statement in 1982, Mugabe states that, “ZAPU and its leader, Joshua Nkomo, are like a cobra in a house. The only way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and destroy its head. Early 1982, the fifth Brigade, in an operation codenamed, gukurahundi (wipe out the rubbish) is unleashed into Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces in search of dissident elements. The gukurahundi murder, rape and torture those accused of harbouring dissidents. Thousands of ZAPU civilian supporters are killed in what was later acknowledged by Mugabe as a moment of madness being the years, 1982 to December 1987.
Joshua Nkomo returns from exile in 1986. After negotiations and consultations, on 22nd of December 1987, Joshua Nkomo leader of ZAPU and Robert Mugabe leader of what started in 1963 as a breakaway faction that later formed itself into ZANU, and the then ruling party sign an agreement popularly known as the 1987 Unity Accord. Ongoing massacres in Matabeleland and the Midlands are then halted.
In correctly redefining this day, it is important that Zimbabweans realise and appreciate that it is not the signing of the paper or agreement that makes this day important rather the events that led to the signing of the accord. The 22nd of December must now therefore be redefined as a commemorative day for all those who were murdered for their political opinion and membership of a political party that authored and gave birth to our independence. This is our own holocaust day, and there is nothing worth dancing about on this day. An appropriate remembrance of those who lost their lives, those who were raped and those who were tortured by government sponsored terrorists is surely not a multitude of musicians and bands dancing to some skokocha tunes from morning to morning in a stadium in our city of Mutate.
It is now public knowledge that Dumiso Dabengwa has led a successful reversal of that deal and pulled ZAPU out of the 1987 unity accord. This renders the unity accord defunct and over. Anyone who continues to dance and party, in commemoration of the day they married a partner who has long since divorced them will surely have their state of mind questioned. There is no more unity to celebrate and surely there is no wisdom whatsoever in the continued wild revelry and partying for a unity accord that has long been terminated and died.
Tariro Shoko writes in his personal capacity from Sakubva Township of Mutare in Zimbabwe. Email address shoko.tariro@gmail.com
Post published in: Opinions