Emmerson Mnangagwa
Mugabe and his lieutanant Mnangagwa were directly responsible for sending the North Korean trained 5th Brigade to massacre nearly 20 000 people, mostly of the Ndebele tribe in the Matebeleland and Midlands province.
Needless to say, these two have never been held accountable, as they have hidden behind their powerful offices – Mnagagwa now being the Vice President.
Nevertheless, no matter how powerful their positions are, the people’s determination is even more powerful – and no army can stop a determined people.
To add insult to an already excrutiatingly painful injury, Mugabe is planning to celebrate his birthday just a stone throw away from where numerous bodies of those he massacred were dumped by those who murdered them.
Such callousness and spitting in the face of the Matebele people can never be unchallenged.
He has to be held accountable.
The people of Matebeleland have to rally together in their tens of thousands and descend upon these birthday celebrations and forcefully arrest Mugabe and Mnangagwa – as civil arrest.
All those affected by Gukurahundi – including those in the diaspora – should come together on this day, to finally bring these murderers to justice.
Even if no police station in Zimbabwe will be bold enough to take them in, the shock, and global humiliation and attention that these men will suffer due to this besegieing will be worth it.
This should also bring the issue to the forefront of global politics, so that all of Mugabe’s murderous activities, including the most recent ones from the year 2000 – whereby hundreds of opposition activists were murdered in cold blood.
Additionally, other activists, such as Itai Dzamara, were abducted by this same Mugabe government, and are still unaccounted for.
In fact, we can never ignore the numerous opposition supporters who are still being brutaly assaulted and houses torched to the ground by Mugabe’s hooligans.
Mugabe can not be allowed to go scot free, as this sends the wrong message both to other leaders – that they can freely massacre their own people, and get away with it – and to innocent civilians – who will view the global community as condoning such leaders.
The world recently witnessed such an incident in Gambia, as the murderous former leader was allowed to freely stay in Equatorial Guinea, without facing justice.
Although the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU) should be highly commended for its strong stance against the former Gambian leader, when he was refusing to relinquish power after losing the December 2016 election, these organisations should step up organs to bring such leaders to book, not offering them asylum.
Mugabe and Mnagagwa should be the first examples that Africa can truly hold its leaders to account without fear or favour.
However, it starts with the affected people themselves, as they need to take the first steps.
They can not just sit back grumbling, and yet doing nothing concrete, whilst gripped by fear.
Mugabe’s birthday celebrations in Matopo are the perfect opporunity to strike the blow that will show the world that we are serious.
If the world sees how determined the people are, and how they are willing to put their own lives at risk, in order to bring justice, then the world will come on board.
The world will never join up with people who do not seem determined enough.
The time for mere keyboard activism and venting one’s anger on social media, and at any Shona person you meet on Kombis is over.
It is now the time to directly confront the people truly responsible for Gukurahundi.
If Zimbabweans genuinely desire change, we need to adopt the spirit of Joshua Nkomo, and other true heroes, who were prepared even to die for their beliefs.
Half-hearted demonstrations – whereby people fear to be arrested, beaten up, or killed – will never work.
Let thousands upon tens of thousands descend on Mugabe’s birthday celebrations in Matopo – not to celebrate his life, but to capture him and have the whole world see.
We have to be willing to sacrifice everything, because it is ‘all or nothing’, and there is no ‘middle way’.
~ Kudakwashe Marangwanda is a UK based political activist
Post published in: Featured