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Value veterans of the struggle for Zimbabwe

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By Dr Tafataona Mahoso

IN the current wave of public utterances against Zimbabwe’s veterans of the liberation struggle, one editor tried to justify the demonisation by arguing that veterans of the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe deserved the attacks because some of them were ‘fake’.
My retort was that the existence and persistence of allegedly false veterans of the struggle was itself proof of the enduring value of the same to the nation of Zimbabwe.
“Makamboona counterfeit yezuda here?”
The persistence of schemes and projects to produce counterfeit liberation war veterans is a key pointer to the value of genuine liberation war veterans to the nation.
The most counterfeited notes of your money are those that command the most value, a value that is worth the expense and trouble of counterfeiting.
Hakuna munhu ane njere anopedza nguva achigadzira counterfeit yezuda.
Counterfeit inoitwa yechinhu chinokosha.
So-called ‘fake’ war veterans are an instrument used to demonise genuine war veterans because of the universal recognition of the value of the real war veterans to Zimbabwe.
The production of fake war veterans and the war to turn genuine war veterans against their own achievements and legacy in Zimbabwe was started as a Rhodesian cottage industry nurtured by Rhodesian intelligence and the Rhodesian special force called Selous Scouts. Today this is an imperial project.
Anyone who doubts this must read the Wikileaks documents on Zimbabwe as well as former US President George W Bush’s regime change blue print against Zimbabwe called ‘Operation Shumba’.
When the liberation struggle reached a critical point in 1978, the Rhodesians set out to manufacture counterfeit liberation fighters because they understood the value of a true African liberation fighter and because they understood how hard it was to convert true liberation fighters into sell outs.
According to H Ellert, The Rhodesian Front War: Counter-insurgency and guerilla war in Rhodesia, 1962-1980, the first large-scale Rhodesian effort to produce fake liberation fighters and to mix them with genuine fighters, recently captured and turned around, was called ‘Operation Favour’.
In Operation Favour Mac Macguinness:
“Outlined his ideas for the creation of frozen areas which would be cleared of regular security forces so that groups of Selous Scouts posing as guerillas could be substituted.
“These fake guerillas would (try to) convince villagers that they were ZANLA forces.
“They would use the standard guerilla policy of holding mass meetings or pungwes.
“In this manner it was hoped, the word would spread and some genuine guerillas would actually be duped into joining the impostors.”
So impostors are groomed and paid for the purpose of forcing genuine veterans to abandon ship.
Thirty-five years after the end of war and the advent of independence, the struggle for the hearts and minds of Madzimbahwe and for defining what is in the national interest and what is not has grown global with the media as a critical vehicle and platform.
Each side of that struggle needs to use liberation war veterans somehow to make its cause legitimate.
What exactly are some of the key aspects of the enduring value of the veteran of the African liberation struggle for Zimbabwe?
First, veterans of the liberation struggle represent the national focus, national scale and national scope, that is, the insistence that Zimbabwe is too small to subdivide any further.
Veterans of the liberation struggle at their best represent national unity.
These veterans are the ones who learned the hard way, the practical way, that we were not fighting for our villages, our tribes or families or our individual benefits alone.
This principle was enforced by making sure that freedom fighters infiltrated into the country would not serve in the area where they were born and raised.Second, veterans of the liberation struggle represent the principle of living and working within our means, with the people, their values and aspirations among the first of those means.
Ideas, resources, weapons, technologies and techniques borrowed or learned elsewhere had to be so adjusted and so explained that they indeed became the people’s means. Whatever would not resonate with the people’s needs or understanding would not be forced because the people bore the brunt of the war.
People’s co-operation was crucial for victory.
Today, the wisdom of veterans of the liberation struggle would indicate that the promotion of mega projects and Foreign Direct Investment is fantastic; but what is missing is a clear role for the majority of the people.
Liberation war fighters always made sure that it was first and foremost clear and obvious what the people’s role was in relation to all outside inputs.
Today, Madzimbahwe are supposed to be involved in a massive economic recovery programme without mass mobilisation in and for local production.
The programme seems to be based on taxation, retrenchments and debt repayment in order to obtain foreign lines of credit.
How can such a programme resonate with the people?
Where do foreign in-flows meet local mobilisation and by what mode of communication?
Community intelligence refers to the ways and means through which voluntary associations, communities and individuals augment and facilitate the work of professional national civil protection and security agencies by generating, collecting and sharing information and knowledge which contribute to national reconstruction, national security, national well-being and national integrity and coherence.
During the war of liberation and for many years after 1980, liberation war collaborators provided this community intelligence and augmented the work of the professional intelligence and security organs.
Julie Fredrikse’s book, None But Ourselves documented the strategic role of this community intelligence system.
In fact, her thesis is that on the ground, the African community-based intelligence system was superior to the Rhodesian and imperial propaganda and intelligence systems combined.
The same applies to the superiority of community mobilisation compared to reliance on websites, internet outlets and papers in English.
I have already said the economic revival strategy emerging out of pronouncements by the Treasury and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe centres around increased taxation, retrenchment of workers, amending labour laws in favour of employers, attracting FDI and clearing foreign and local debt arrears by borrowing new money.
This is what one can gather also from media messages from Treasury: ‘Overcoming, minimising obstacles to our economy’, Sunday Mail, September 13 2015; ‘Monumental victory for Zimbabwe’, Sunday Mail, October 11 2015; and ‘Chinamasa looks to 2016 and beyond’, Sunday Mail, November 15 2015.
There is no strategy for mobilising the people in production, which is to say there is no strategy to recoup debt repayments from increased production because we do not have adequate liquidity for such production because we have no national currency and our fiscal and monetary policies are currently determined by a falling Rand and an appreciating US-dollar.
This is a huge challenge, but it is not the key challenge from the point of view of the wisdom of veterans of the liberation struggle.
The real challenge is how to carry out a massive national economic recovery programme without energising and mobilising the people.
It is not even clear from that perspective what the people are supposed to look forward to in exchange for increased taxation or retrenchment. The sacrifices which people were asked to make during the liberation struggle were always matched by expected big outcomes for the people: Land to the people; Zimbabwe neupfumi hwayo hwose; Education for all and so on.
At present, people say our workforce has already been decimated through emigration caused by illegal sanctions, hyperinflation and regime change propaganda.
Why then are we starting recovery programmes with demands for retrenchments?
It appears that Government has replaced the proven community intelligence of the liberation struggle years with a top-down managerialism.
Which is why at a time when Government departments are producing the least tangible results in the eyes of the people they are supposed to serve, state bureaucrats tell us that all departments have mastered Results Based Management (RBM) as the new ethos and the new practice!
So, RBM is consistent with fewer and fewer results as well as poorer and poorer performance than before?

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