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President Mugabe used the grand stage of Unity Day commemorations in Bulawayo on Sunday to deliver a moving call for more unity among liberators.“As war veterans we fought one war, whether Zipra and Zanla,” he said.
“So, get together and come back and be where you belong. Do not get lost. Those are the ones that really make me cry because they were under us, under our command. They should remain with us. The ideology we based our struggle, whether we were friends to Russia or China, was the same.
You don’t take acts of disloyalty, come back, come back, come back. I do not make that to MDC or (Morgan) Tsvangirai, those ones can go to hell. You made contributions to the country. Why should we, on this day, be divided?”
He made the passionate call on a day when he conferred three honours on the late Vice-President Dr Nkomo. It must have hit him that as he led the proceedings, the party that Dr Nkomo left in July 1999, was not exactly the one that is there today after the departures of some former PF-Zapu cadres in 2009.
Statesmen of President Mugabe’s standing don’t cry for nothing. When they do, the tears come from the heart of hearts, not the eyes. The crying part must have been a metaphor, but metaphors are not meant to just dramatise that which is being talked about, but more importantly to convey meaning in the deepest possible way.
That is the depth of meaning and sincerity that the President wanted to communicate when he called for unity in the liberation movement.
Zanu and Zapu prosecuted the liberation war as one, though from two separate fronts. They concretised that unity when they fought as the Patriotic Front in the later years of the struggle. They won the war and were part of the first democratically elected unity government in 1980.
They regrettably drifted apart from 1982 but came back together on December 22 1987 when they signed the Unity Accord and a united Zanu-PF was formed. PF-Zapu leader, Dr Nkomo became Vice-President and former Prime Minister, Cde Mugabe became the Executive President.
The unity has held for 26 years but on its 21st anniversary, in December 2008, a few elements in the former Zapu, led by Dr Dumiso Dabengwa left Zanu-PF. The idea was to “revive” Zapu.
While the President did not mention Zapu or Dr Dabengwa by name in his weekend address, it is clear, he meant his former comrades-in-arms to return to Zanu-PF. He has regretted the departures before, criticised Dr Dabengwa here and there, but the criticism is distinctly not as sharp as that the likes of Tsvangirai and Dr Simba Makoni have suffered.
It tells us that the respect remains and the President is sincere in calling the former comrades back into the fold. It is a gesture that must not be spurned, Dr Dabengwa.
We don’t think President Mugabe is desperate for anything more than simply re-uniting the forces of liberation. He is not looking at getting votes from the Zapu side that left, as Zanu-PF already has them, 2,1 million. Zapu, going by the July vote, doesn’t have them, 25,400 or so. But unity is not an issue of figures on election day; it is about shared values and aspirations.
With the handsome mandate, the President could have gone forward to show those who went about plotting against him and his party — and Zapu under Dr Dabengwa is one of them — that he is in charge. Magnanimous in victory, he has refrained from doing that. It was going to be totally wrong if Zanu-PF had done that; it’s vindictive and immature and doesn’t grow a nation.
That Dr Dabengwa did not promptly spurn the offer gives us hope. He said he did not leave Zanu-PF alone, but led a block. He said he would only respond to the presidential call after consulting the leadership of his party.
That is correct, but evidence on the ground tells us that while the leaders might want to continue where they are, the project does not have as much grassroots appeal as they had envisaged. Professor Welshman Ncube is more popular than Dr Dabengwa; the law professor is almost four times more popular, according to the July election results.
He is only three times more popular than Kisinoti Mukwazhe, a political nonentity. Dr Dabengwa is a very, very dignified figure not worth the political isolation that we think he is on now. Some can argue to the contrary, but we maintain that his real and the majority of his comrades with whom he worked during the PF-Zapu days are still in Zanu-PF.
We hope he and his colleagues in the block will understand and appreciate President Mugabe’s conciliatory call and respond positively. It is not about him personally; it is not about President Mugabe. It is about Zimbabwe.
Online Reporter