"Intellectually bankrupt" view Gukurahundi as tribal just as did Mugabe and for same selfish reasons N Garikai

“The Great African Afro-Centric philosopher Mwalimu Julius Nyerere said that those that are politically and intellectually bankrupt turn to ethnicity and religion as their major tool for mobilisation. I will add that human rights business persons from the region also found it profitable to package and sell the Gukurahundi story as a story of a tribal supremacy,” you said.

Mwalimu Julius Nyerere said many insightful things and that is certainly one of them. There is no doubt that the nation was dragged to into Gukurahundi and many, many other serious political and economic blunders by men and women who are “politically and intellectually bankrupt” – Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs.

There are those who have insisted Gukurahundi was about “tribal supremacy” and have again and again argued how some regions of Zimbabwe have lagged behind in terms of development to support they initial claim. It is all nonsense as no part of Zimbabwe has been spared the ill effects of the 90% unemployment rate, collapsed health service, etc., etc. Those pushing the tribal supremacy diatribe are themselves no different from Mugabe and his cronies for they too are politically and intellectually bankrupt.

“It is interesting to note that Dr Obert Mpofu presents an intellectually valid case in his weekly column. We were misled into assuming that Dr Obert Mpofu was intellectually defunct, most people insult Obert Mpofu saying he has a big body with a small brain but this time the intellectual in Obert Mpofu jumped out and came to play. The articles by Obert Mpofu are rich in-depth and intellectual argument which takes the spotlight off the emotional side of the debate that has been touted by Gukurahundi business persons,” argued Ncube.

If the truth be told the people who said “Obert Mpofu (said of many others on both sides of the political divide for the same reasons) was intellectual defunct,” were telling the true – the truth is never an insult.

Obert Mpofu, like so many other Zanu PF and MDC politicians, has sat in cabinet for donkey years and never once raised the Gukurahundi issue until now when his power and influence is waning. Anyone with common sense much less acclaimed intellectual acumen would know one must hit the iron whilst it is still hot and should know it is futile doing so when it is cold and hitting it with feeble blows.

"Let bygones be bygones, if Government is to be dragged into formally apologising, this will open closed wounds which may be catastrophic to the party and government," said Obert Mpofu.

Gukuranhundi was a key event in Mugabe and Zanu PF’s agenda to impose the de facto one-party dictatorship that has defined and dominated Zimbabwe body politics these last 39 years. There is no doubt that an honest, open and no-holds-barred discussion of Gukurahundi would finally reveal the sinister motive behind the genocide, the ruthlessness of those executed it and its disastrous consequences.

What “open closed wounds” is Mpofu wittering about when the hundreds of thousands of the genocide victims’ relatives continue to suffer from ignorance of what happened to their relatives and the nation at large continue to suffer from the corrupt and oppressive dictatorship.

An open and frank discussion of Gukurahundi will reveal Zanu PF for what is is – a party of corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs who stopped at nothing to impose the Zanu PF dictatorship.

The decades of Zanu PF misrule has destroyed the country’s economy forcing millions of ordinary Zimbabweans into a life of abject poverty. The economic meltdown has not spared the Zanu PF ruling elite and the party has been falling apart as leaders started fighting over the fast-shrinking national cake.  the party has become a victim of its own decades of misrule. Revealing the names of those behind the Gukuhundi massacre, the wholesale looting, etc., etc. will certainly accelerate the implosion of Zanu PF. A catastrophe for Mr Obert Mpofu and his Zanu PF colleagues but golden opportunity for the nation to finally get rid of the corrupt and tyrannical regime and finally get on with the important task of rebuilding the nation from the ruins Zanu PF left behind.

In an interview on BBC at the height of the Gukurahundi massacre, the late Dr Joshua Nkomo was right in insisting that Gukurahundi was not about tribal or regional domination but rather about Mugabe and Zanu PF domination. The tragedy to Zimbabwe is that the dictator and his cronies got their wish and the nation has paid dearly for it.

If Mnangagwa and his November 2017 putsch thought they would revive Zanu PF’s fortunes and extend the dictatorship’s hold on power; they were wrong. Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” has failed to attract any investors and the economic decline has continued. Zanu PF’s iron grip on power is feeble, the dictatorship is in its dying days.

It will be a great pity if the nation is going to be dragged into yet a tribal or regional squabble or worse by those who pushing the Gukurahundi massacre as a tribal war to disguise their own selfish agenda just as Mugabe and his cronies did in the 1980s. Our people have suffered these late 39 years, they want peace, justice and a chance to live a normal life!