Real war veterans need to return to the people
Thursday 20 August

The issue of Zimbabwe’s war veterans concerns us all.
Bloggers and those who respond are at pains to justify not only the role played by freedom fighters but to also justify some of the grotesque things these war veterans caused for the country and the despicable things they continue to do against the very same people they supposedly liberated.
Granted, it was a difficult, long road to graduate from freedom fighter to war veteran.
Regrettably, many of our liberators failed to cope with the transition and obviously became quite frustrated with their lives, especially measured against what life offered them after liberating their nation.

Admittedly, war veterans have now become very notorious and some of us shudder to think that we were liberated by such mean-spirited, violent people.

So where are our real war veterans?
One thing I know for sure is that these thugs masquerading as war veterans are not the same people who liberated us.

The real war veterans were sidelined by Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF in farvour of heartless thugs like Joseph Chinotimba, who never went to war or saw combat.
War veterans are the pride of any country but, because of Mugabe and ZANU-PF, our war veterans are held in the lowest of esteem.

To that extent, therefore, I do declare that we want our war veterans back.
War veterans belong to the people not to Mugabe or to any political party.
Instead of evoking pride, patriotism, admiration and respect, the term “war veteran” in Zimbabwe invites the very opposite sentiments in the people.

As far back as 2003, I said as much and I find myself having to repeat the same feelings and sentiments six years later.

Regrettably, the term “war veteran” conjures up fear and especially contempt because it has been made synonymous with lawlessness, thuggery, rape, greed, and, quite disturbingly, murder.
And it’s all because of ZANU-PF, which tarnished the image of Zimbabwe’s war veterans. Now war veterans are hated and despised and considered selfish.
And some of them are playing along with destructive charades perpetrated by Mugabe, defeating the very purposes they put their lives in danger for.

It pains me a great deal that we and our liberators find ourselves in this situation, where the liberators have no love or respect for the people they liberated and where the liberated people fear and hide from their liberators.

It is a terrible ending to unimaginable personal sacrifices made by both the freedom fighters and those who risked assisting or accommodating them during the terrible years of the struggle.
Now a sort of cordon sanitaire has been erected between the liberators and the liberated. And it has been done by those who want to further their own mischief.

But here I pose and ask again: “Where are the real war veterans?”
I am talking about the people who saw combat and who risked their lives to save our lives.
I am not talking about people like Joseph Chinotimba, who has been allowed to derail the conscience of real war veterans, just because he can praise Mugabe louder than those who served and helped Mugabe during our struggle.

Surely, not all the war veterans are angry with us? I see some of them on TV, always filled with rage as they try to justify murders and thefts.

I ask myself whether these are the same people who literally shielded us with their bodies while they fought to bring us freedom.

To say our brothers and sisters suffered in their dedicated efforts to liberate our country would be a colossal understatement.
Even today, 30 years on, most of the real war veterans still cannot recount their experiences without breaking down.
They persevered as their comrades fell by the wayside.
They were selfless about it.

They knew they could get killed any time, any day, but they soldiered on, proving that they were fighting more for the people than for themselves.
They lost friends, relatives and limbs.
That was the cost of conviction.

How do thugs like Joseph Chinotimba fit into such a patriotic endeavour?
My compatriots, I plead for forgiveness for I have a confession to make.
I have tried but no matter how I try, I find it impossible to accept that the epitome of a war veteran is in the form of the late Chenjerai Hunzvi, Joseph Chinotimba, Jabulani Sibanda or the angry and bullying people I see on TV.

In so saying, I do not intend to injure the person of the people mentioned.
I only mention them here because they present themselves to us as what a war veteran looks like, thinks, does, expects and wants to do.
I cannot visualize them as those loveable daring vakomana who, because of mutual respect and excellent rapport with the masses, slipped in and out of besieged villages with ease.
Today, I see them on TV frothing at the mouth and angrily waging their fingers at us. They threaten us and call us names, telling us what they say and want is not negotiable. And yet some of them have already killed some of us for holding different opinions as to where we should go; for using the ballot box to retire a president who we think has done enough for the country, not to mention the amount of damage.

Now we are compelled to fear our liberators, to hide from them and to run away from them.
But why? What went wrong?
Our government and ZANU PF failed to honour Zimbabwe’s veterans. They ignored them, especially at a time when they needed to make big physical and psychological adjustments to live and compete in a non-war situation.

For years, the war veterans camouflaged torment with smiles and silence.
But it was too much for them.
I am reminded of Tony Namate’s poignant cartoon of years ago depicting a man foraging for food in a bin.

Asked what he was before he became a destitute, the man replied: “I was a freedom fighter”.
Those freedom fighters graduated into war veterans and this is what Mugabe and his party did to our veterans.
Meanwhile, the people were never afforded a real opportunity to thank their liberators or to acknowledge the sacrifices made by war veterans during the liberation struggle and to rekindle their pride in their heroic efforts.
Now, I ask you, what is Defence Forces Day doing on the calendar?
Why should we honour soldiers instead of honouring our veterans who volunteered to fight for no pay, won and retired decently?

This is one of many insensitive omissions that should not have been.
During his endless ‘Vasco da Gama’ days of endless and useless foreign trips, Mugabe and ZANU-PF could have sourced funds to build a Veterans’ Memorial Hospital to cater for the particular needs of our war veterans.

But they did not.
They “demobbed” them.
And, years later, they gave them more money.
The money Mugabe gave the war veterans without consulting the people implied he cared more about them than the people did.

Yet it was not a gesture of respect or thanks. He was desperate, cornered and faced a rapidly dwindling popular support base.
Mugabe used the destitute war veterans that he had himself made destitute.
The heart of the matter is that war veterans must, themselves, come back to the people where they belong.

It is time we demanded that Mugabe and his ZANU PF gave us back our war veterans and to stop blackmailing them after forcing them into destitution.

Fair enough, the war veterans, who, by the way, were not conscripted soldiers but volunteers of conscience, accepted payment. Who can refuse money when they are destitute?
But after demanding and accepting money, our war veterans compromised their patriotism.
Be that as it may, our war veterans must be put back on their proper pedestal of respect, honour and patriotism. They fought for Zimbabwe and for Zimbabweans, not for a political party. We want our veterans back.

It breaks my heart to see that today our war veterans belong to more than three different groupings.
They cannot gain respect if they continue to allow themselves to be used in the manner some of them are being used by ZANU PF.

Why should any war veterans’ organization be partisan?
ZANU PF cadres did not do it alone nor did the PF-ZAPU cadres.
There, also, were the masses, the priests, detainees, war collaborators, workers, peasants and students who contributed to freedom.

Our war veterans fought the same enemy, in the same country, in the same war, at the same time, but now because of Mugabe, they are divided.

They are asked to kill our own people. They don’t respect the people they liberated. They have become bogeymen in our independence and our war veterans accept the likes of Chinotimba in their midst?
What do you think? Send me your comments on tano@swradioafrica.com

War veterans have to come back to the people; otherwise they are of no use to us yet we need to honour and remember them for their sacrifices.
We want our war veterans back.

And that, my fellow Zimbabweans, is the way it is today, Thursday, August 27, 2009.