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Dumisani Sibanda, Sunday News Correspondent
“I’M a hero, a war veteran bafana bami,” says a 58-year-old man with a threadbare work-suit which clearly had known better days.
The man — who through his appearance could pass for a hobo — is pushing a cart in Bulawayo’s Central Business District and is talking to a group of boys from one of the former A schools in the city that used to be for whites only during the colonial era laughing at his dreadful appearance as he “drives” through the streets while whistling.
Just a stone throw away a shoe cobbler of more or less the same age as the pushcart operator is busy on the shoes but not so busy as not to notice what happened and apparently knows the Scania man as these push cart operators are called.
“Don’t worry about those born frees, comrade,” says the cobbler comforting the pushcart operator. “They don’t know that if it wasn’t not for the likes of you and me, they would not be allowed to walk on the pavement, let alone go to those schools they are enrolled at. If we were not in the war front we could have gone to school like their parents who are now swimming in opulence because of our sweat.”
The pushcart operator nods in assent to his comrade before wiping the sweat streaming down his face like the waters of the Mighty Zambezi River.
“You are dead right my friend Cde Bazooka,” says the former ex-fighter as some on-lookers with expressions of “spare us please” written all over their faces watch the two as they emphasise “death” in their brief conversation.
This could easily pass for a real life experience mirroring the life of war veterans in the late 1980s when most who were not absorbed into Government were wallowing in abject poverty as they did low paying menial jobs such as being a cobbler, pushcart operator or gardener.
Consequently, instead of walking heads high the former freedom fighters are looking downwards in shame and regret as if to say, “if only we had known”.
This is why in 1990, the likes of Cde Charles Hungwe, now a High Court Judge, formed the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association, with the welfare of the former freedom fighters as its mandate. Cde Hungwe was the organisation’s first chairperson.
Seven years later, the war vets, then under the chairmanship of the late Dr Chenjerai Hunzvi, felt enough was enough and took to the streets to protest their neglect.
The demonstrations were intense and just when Zanu-PF’s detractors were thinking, “we got you” and were singing funeral dirges for the ruling party, the war veterans met President Robert Mugabe where they voiced their concerns.
After that meeting, the Government unveiled a Z$500 000 as gratuity perk for each former liberation war fighter which was equivalent to $20 000 but each ex-combatant was given Z$50 000.
Back to our anecdote, when the monies for the war veterans were deposited in their bank accounts, there was excitement with bizarre stories being told about war vets and their packages.
“Hey, Cde Volunteer, leave that scorchcart you are driving through and go and check your bank account,” said Cde Bazooka, in a new suit, nice shoes and being driven in a taxi after throwing away his shoe-cobbler’s apron.
In fact, his friend Cde Bazooka did not notice him but the message about checking his bank account he had just opened to receive his package made him leave his cart which used to be his prized possession as it was his livelihood in the middle of the street and rush to the bank. Wind fast to 2016, we have seen exchanges between war veterans and some members of Zanu-PF’s Politburo in what has been branded a factional war pitting what has come to be known as Team Lacoste and G40. President Mugabe is on record ordering the warring groups to stop the factionalism.
Things came to a head in February, when police fired tear-gas and used water cannons to disperse war veterans who had planned a march to the Zanu-PF Headquarters in Harare. President Mugabe apologised to the war veterans over the incident but said they should heap blame over it on their national chairman Cde Chris Mutsvangwa for failing to inform the security ministries of the meeting.
But President Mugabe who is the Patron of the War Veterans Association has agreed to meet the ex-fighters including Cde Mutsvangwa whom he fired from Cabinet and removed from the ruling party’s Politburo.
The meeting is pencilled in for Thursday and indications so far are that Cde Mutsvangwa will be part of it despite protests from Cdes George Mlala and Mandiitei Chimene who claim they suspended him from the association.
But the High Court had ruled that Cde Chimene et al should not masquerade as the new leaders of the association. The Thursday meeting is largely expected among other things to discuss the welfare of the former freedom fighters.
It is therefore everyone’s hope that issues involving war veterans that are causing discord within the ruling party will be ironed out so that the relationship between the ruling party and the association of ex-combatants remains intact.
Once again, President Mugabe is expected to play the unifying role in resolving these problems in the same manner he did when there were demonstrations in 1997 leading to the Z$50 000 packages for the war vets.
The association of the former freedom fighters and the ruling party have actually stuck together through thick and thin going back as far as 1998 when the ex-combatants got involved in the “first partisan, political involvement of the war veterans since independence” in opposing the National Constitutional Assembly which was pressing for a new Constitution of Zimbabwe.
In 2000, when the Western funded MDC had just entered the political stage, the war veterans went back into the “bush” as it were as they took leadership of the land reform programme which they posited was one of the reasons they waged the armed struggle.
At the time, there were about 4 500 white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe who owned about 75 percent of the prime land in the country while the blacks who form the majority were condemned to areas pejoratively referred to as “reserves” some of them tsetse infested barren lands.
When Government embarked on the land reform programme after the farm occupations, one of the guidelines was supposed to be that 20 percent of the resettlement land should go towards war veterans as a way to improve their welfare but this was not followed to the letter.
After the historical exercise to correct the land ownership imbalances which received world-wide attention, the war veterans remained a vital instrument of the ruling party in the 2005, 2008 and 2013 elections and tried to show the masses that the MDC was a “Trojan horse of Western imperialism”.
So, Zanu-PF detractors who see the party capitulating and view the relationship between the ruling party and war veterans association going separate ways might just be better advised to hold their horses and stop celebrating but wait for Thursday.
After all, don’t they say, “All is well that ends well”.
Online Reporter