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Dear Comrade Josiah Magama Tongogara
Rejoice Ngwenya
May 02, 2012

Comrade Tongogara, talking to the dead is senseless. Expecting a response is stupidity bordering on insanity. This letter is therefore meant for the literate living. I never met you, but know enough to observe a few things that would have upset you about the way Zimbabwe is governed.

Like you, I was born in Shurugwi, the chrome-mining province in middle Zimbabwe. We both shared a neighbour called Ian Douglas Smith - the arrogant, racist dictator you guerillas defeated in 1979! But unlike you, I did not join ZANU, carry a gun or sit in the High Command. The mere fact that I was in Kenya mimicking liberation songs and following your exploits on Shortwave radio - I should have thanked you for putting our Chirashavana village on the revolutionary map.

The Zimbabwe you fought and died for - governed by your dear ZANU-PF since 1980 - is not what you would expect were you to resurrect today. In fact, it is slightly worse off than Rhodesia. Political violence has already claimed more than 25 000 deaths since the Union Jack was lowered! That fantastic tarred road of Boterekwa Pass, the sprawling tobacco farms of Chegutu, spilling granaries of Chinhoyi and bright street lights of Sakubva - are all derelict. More schools have been added in Nhema, but classrooms are virtually devoid of desks, books and teachers. Your colleagues in the High Command send their children to colleges outside Zimbabwe. Doctors and nurses have fled abroad to seek 'greener- pastures. Its chaotic out here, comrade Tongogara!

If my memory serves me right, you were one of the few cadres in ZANU who yearned for unity under the 'patriotic front-. You were very clear on the values central to the liberation struggle - black majority rule for equity in opportunity and prosperity for all. You once said: "I would like to see the young people enjoying together - ack, white - enjoying together, in a new Zimbabwe . . . " I have bad news for you. Rhodesian acrimony has reincarnated in tribal, factional and ideological hatred. Differ with ZANU-PF and one is vilified as a sell-out, a puppet of the West. Democracy and tolerance have virtually been cremated.

Your party is crippled by blind hierarchical compliance. The dream of a 'one man one vote- has succumbed to coercion and intimidation. Comrade Tongogara, the truth is that ZANU-PF-s insatiable desire for populist attention portrays itself in a gangster psyche, having degenerated into deviant behaviour. The architecture of Rhodesian exclusivist politics has been re-packaged to suit their bank accounts. Independence is in abundance, yet freedom is scarce. Post-liberation ZANU-PF cadres are big on cult worship and small on delivery. They have appropriated the struggle as a private commodity dispensed at the whim of patronage. Black-on-black land conflict is more of realty than conjecture. Good judgment has given way to crude rhetoric, political grandstanding and praise singing.

Comrade Tongogara, I wonder what you would say were you to see for yourself how Zimbabwe, under the 'multiple command- of one Robert Mugabe, is fairing! Remember Nelson Mandela who was incarcerated on Robben Island for leading the African National Congress [ANC] of South Africa? Released in 1993, he ruled for one term only and voluntarily retired! His country is still one of the most developed in Africa, with relatively stable democracy. Most Africans there are nonetheless still poor, uneducated and landless. Yet all the time Mandela was incarcerated, freed, ruled and retired, fellow comrade Mugabe is still president of Zimbabwe! ANC is now headed by comrade Jacob Zuma. Says one Thabang Motsohi on that party: "Patronage has become a systemic political tool that promotes corruption . . . It is this centralised control that has spawned the patronage that is now tearing the ANC apart and inhibiting progress in national development." This reminds me of your beloved ZANU-PF!

Ever since you died, our country has moved from one catastrophe to another! I am not for once saying nothing good has happened since 1980. There just has been more havoc than harvest. Instead of appreciating what the 'old man- Joshua Nkomo did for the struggle, ZANU-PF sent the Fifth Brigade to Matabeleland. Result? Twenty thousand body bags. Comrade Mugabe proudly called this 'Gukurahundi-! That whole infrastructure you saw before you went to Mozambique - railways, roads, water systems, education, electricity, agriculture - is in tatters. Your dear party having once preached prosperity, reconciliation and progress has turned out to be an elitist organisation run by arrogant, self-enriching zealots who think nothing except lining their pockets.

Ironically in 1984, your former comrades behaved like real socialists and developed a Leadership Code. Seeing it now, it looks more like a cross between the Ten Commandments and Sharia Law! One part reads: "ZANU believes that a leader who concentrates on acquiring property, or who personally engages in the exploitation of man by man, rapidly becomes an ally of the capitalist and an enemy of socialism and of the masses of the population." What hogwash! Since 2000, Comrade Mugabe has instigated cronies to plunder the white commercial farms. Those farmers who resist are beaten up, jailed or killed. But instead of sharing land with the povo, almost six million hectares are now with influential top military, party leaders and close relatives. Most of these farms are barren, despite being saturated with free fertilizer, free seeds, free fuel, free electricity and oppressed labour. Zimbabwe now imports maize and wheat from South Africa, Zambia and from all places, Malawi!

Most members of your Politburo are now stinking rich - some with banks, hotels, blocks of flats, double-storey houses, petrol companies, diamond mines and ten farms each the size that Ian Smith owned below the mountains of Chironde. The rest of us - the povo - though marginally free, are living in abject poverty. Comrade Mugabe himself was once a teacher but teachers cannot even afford to buy food for their families!

In 2013, comrade, our country will have the seventh general election. Although we 'lost- ZAPU in the 1980s after the late Joshua Nkomo 'surrendered- to ZANU-PF, ex-ZIPRA comrade Dumiso Dabengwa has revived that party to contest the elections. He will have a torrid time running against the currently popular Movements for Democratic Change [MDCs] led by former Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions leader Morgan Tsvangirayi and law professor Welshman Ncube. Simba Makoni, Wurayayi Zembe and Paul Siwela are proverbial make-up on the electoral frog!

The problem, comrade Tongogara, is that comrade Mugabe will not only be eighty nine years old then, but we are told cadres Emerson Mnangagwa, Constantine Chiwenga, Didymus Mutasa and Joyce Mujuru are 'fighting- to succeed him. The 'factional wars- are so bitter that most progressive Zimbabweans are anticipating your dear party to disintegrate before 2013!

Will comrade Mugabe lose the next elections, again? Yes! Zimbabwe has a foreign debt of more than nine billion; all parastatals are nearly bankrupt; eighty percent of adults are unemployed with two million in exile. Pacifying the povo by expropriating shares in big mines and claiming to give them to villagers will not help his cause. Only your high-ranking former comrades who already own farms, hotels, banks, houses and petrol companies will benefit. Comrade, let me not bore you with further bad news. I had to take this off my chest.

Sincerely yours,

Rejoice Ngwenya

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