The following are my personal comments regarding the Prof Jonathan Moyo saga. My comments should never be attributed to any of the organizations l belong to;
The Prof Jonathan Moyo saga: Is it a coincidence?
In mid 2005, l had an opportunity to be invited to a dinner in Rivonia, Johannesburg with Prof Jonathan Moyo. It was shortly after he had won the elections in his rural constituency as an independent candidate after his firing from ZANU(PF) following the now famous Tsholotsho declaration. We are told that, the main objective of the Tsholotsho meeting sometime in 2004, was to plot the elevation of the now Vice President Hon Emmerson Mnangagwa to the position of Vice President. At the time, the political contest was between Mnangagwa and Dr Joyce Mujuru, now leader of Zimbabwe People First.
The dinner happened at the time when Prof Moyo was advocating for what he called ,"the 3Rd way". This was a political project , whose main aim was to find an alternative between ZANU(PF) and the MDC. At the time, his views (which he still holds) was that, the MDC was a project of imperialist forces and that ZANU(PF) had betrayed (he has changed ) the ideals of the liberation struggle, and therefore, according to him and his friends, it was critical to establish a third way movement.
So when my comrade, Dr Churchill Guduza (now Deputy President of Mthwakazi Liberation Front) invited me to the dinner,I was a bit uneasy , but l could not have refused a chance of engaging Prof Moyo on his political views.
During dinner, l asked Prof Moyo why he supported Hon Mnangagwa given his alleged involvement in the Gukurahundi genocide in the 80s. The Prof was very frank, he said, "you know Cde Dube (by then l was a Dube) ,Mnangagwa is the only person who can make resources available for developmental projects in Matabeleland and Midlands". The reason advanced by Prof Moyo in that dinner, was that , Hon Mnangagwa felt he needed to be accepted by the people of Matabeleland and Midlands following his involvement over Gukurahundi. I latter had a breakfast meeting with Prof Moyo towards the end of 2005 and that was the end of our contact. In all our engagements, he came across as a person who had passion for development in Matabeleland and of course very ambitious.
When news broke out last week, that Prof Moyo is a target of some law enforcement agencies, my mind ran back to the engagements we had over dinner and breakfast in 2005.
Firstly, the Mlevu family (Prof Moyo's father family) is reported to have taken a decision to rebury Prof Moyo's father. It's said that, his father was killed by the Gukurahundi in 1982 and was not given a decent burial by his family. The reburial of Prof Moyo's father will afford the families of those who lost their loved ones to seek permission to rebury their relatives, that is, if they know where they are buried. This would open a new debate around the Gukurahundi genocide. A person like Mnangagwa (who is fingered and has political ambitions) would be the last man to want this to happen.
It is common cause that, Prof Moyo belongs to G40 and Mnangagwa belongs to Team Lacoster. The decision by the Mlevu family is seen as the Prof Moyo decision to spite Team Lacoster. As expected, Team Lacoster can not just fold arms, they ought to act fast. The only way they can stop G40 from embarrassing them (through the reburial of Moyo's father) is to throw Prof Moyo in prison.
I have had some of my comrades saying, some of us are jumping to defend Prof Moyo because he is a Ndebele. Far from it. Prof Moyo is a victim of the Gukurahudist who will do everything in their power to stop us from knowing what really happened during Gukurahundi. We want to know what happened to our relatives who went missing in the hands of 5th brigade. We want to rebury our relatives who are buried in shallow graves.
While it is wrong for anyone to use state resources to advance the political interests of ZANU(PF) , it can not be equally correct to use state apparatus to silence those who want to give their relatives , victims of Gukurahundi, a decent rebury.
In my political activism, l have never believed in an animal called, "coincidence". It can not be coincidence that, in the same week that the Mlevu family want to rebury their loved one,their son is to be thrown in some dirty police cell.
Ngqabutho Nicholas Mabhena!
This was a direct extract form his facebook page
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