At the turn of this century, it came up with one of the biggest lies—that the land reform programme was meant to empower landless blacks. The lie has been repeated so often that even people I regard as sensible have swallowed it.
Of course, that was hot air, for I know that the party, following the formation of the MDC in 1999, needed something to hang onto. Untidily parcelling out land to hapless locals, most of the time on hilly and unyielding plots, became a populist strategy that Zanu (PF) seized upon to regain relevance in Zimbabwean politics.
Needless to say, prime land went to the party’s fat cats, most of whom still hold onto multiple farms despite repeated calls from the architects of the fast track land redistribution programme to surrender some and remain with one. Again, needless to mention that when it started, the blitz was carried on the maxim of one-man (woman?)-one farm, another lie in itself.
What has not been told is why the party timed the seizure of commercial farms for 2000 – after two whole decades in power. I am not ready to listen to the myth that it was because Britain had refused to meet the costs of resettlement and white commercial farmers had failed to play ball regarding the willing buyer-willing seller principle. What happened in 2000 could have started way before, with much order, of course.
Secondly, after exhausting all the mantras regarding the populist land grabbing strategy, and with the MDC still a force to reckon with and a living threat to its hold on power, Zanu (PF) decided to tell the world that the people needed economic empowerment through the infamous indigenisation policy.
Now every foreign company is quaking in its shoes as Tyson, as the Youth and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere is known in party circles, goes about grabbing shares from foreign owned companies left, right and centre. I see that Zimplats is regarding the recent signing of the indigenisation implementation deal with the government as “historic”. That makes me immensely sad.
What the architects of this policy have forgotten to tell me and other like-minded people is why economic empowerment has to take place by grabbing other investors’ rights and shares. For instance, why did the government not just go ahead and invited people to start mining on the land it took away from Zimplats in the 1990s, rather than forcing the multi-national to surrender 51 percent of its stake?
Clearly, there are so many mining claims that remain untapped. Why did government avoid seeing the sense of pegging these off and asking interested people to buy shares from these?
Again, the party has, ad nauseum, told us that Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC are puppets of the West and Zimbabweans have no business voting them into power, to the extent of blocking people’s wishes at the ballot.
This is difficult to accept, because Zimbabwe has a discerning population that knows what it wants. How could all those professors, technocrats and other learned people easily fall for a Western lie of subtly seeking to taking Zimbabwe back to the UDI period? This is uncorrupted nonsense.
This leads me to the next lie. For decades, we have heard politicians from the party brag that Zimbabwe cannot be a victim of neo-imperialism BECAUSE “this country’s liberation was watered with the blood of the people”.
Right from the start, let me point out that I don’t seek to trivialise the sacrifices that were made by those who are dead. To the contrary, I cherish their contributions. It is a fact that we would not have become an independent country had these brave men and women not made the ultimate sacrifice.
My beef is with the politicians who ride on the back of the blood that was spilled during the war of liberation. The question I want to ask is: Whose blood are they referring to?
The plain and painful truth is that those that now shout loudly about spilled blood are people whose direction is in direct contradiction with the aspirations of the people who died, the martyrs. They are a few individuals who are now reaping the fruits of the thousands who put their heads on the block for the sake of an independent Zimbabwe.
I am sure that some of the people we hear today talking so much about the war never pulled a trigger or tasted the horrors of the war front. I know, also, that Josiah Tongogara, during the Lancaster House talks in 1979, had to restrain those that continuously threatened to go back to war if their demands were not met. He plainly told them that, as the leader of the fighters at the front, he knew what dying meant, and exhorted the negotiators to compromise.
In fact, he told them in no uncertain terms that, without the talks, the war might drag on for decades. I therefore find it nauseating when I hear some people, who are lucky to have survived and are sharing the cake among themselves, shout loudly about spilt blood.
With elections slowly approaching, I am sure we will hear more about this, but I urge Zimbabweans to know the real truth: Yes, Zimbabwe came through other people’s blood, but those that are invoking it are the most insincere.
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Post published in: Opinions & Analysis