AFTER the 1893 British war of aggression against King Lobengula, Leander Starr Jameson formed a Native Police Force whose main task was to loot cattle from the Ndebele as war reparations.
How do you pay reparations for a war you did not initiate or instigate; for a war you only got involved in, in self-defense; for a war in which you are not the aggressor but the victim?
The land belonged to King Lobengula and his people.
Those who fought him were in the wrong because he and his people had committed no crime, but in the perverted culture of the British armed robbers, he was in the wrong.
His crime was possession of land with great prospects for farming, gold mining, ivory and thousands of cattle.
For this ‘crime’, he was attacked and dispossessed.
And for the ‘crime’ of fighting back to defend his sovereignty, his land and wealth, he was made to pay reparations.
They claimed the Ndebele were the criminals and not the British.
Jameson would claim reparations as if the issue of taking Ndebele cattle was an afterthought, a just course of action to punish infidels who had lost a war they had wrongfully engaged in, when in fact this was pre-meditated robbery of the Ndebele herd which they had long coveted.
Jameson planned his war against King Lobengula, he had promised the mercenaries he recruited for this evil mission a share of Lobengula’s herd, which they knew was in the hundreds of thousands.
Putting together the so-called Native Police to move from kraal to kraal collecting cattle was one of the most cruel experiences families went through.
A whole people lost their wealth at the stroke of a pen, no more milk for the children, no meat, no draught power, and for many other social and economic purposes, they no longer had cattle to cover them and the armed robbers coined a term to exonerate themselves; to sanitise their pre-meditated robbery of Ndebele cattle, they called it reparations.
When they invaded Matabeleland, the purpose was to defeat King Lobengula militarily so they could take everything he had, to destroy his power so they could take Matabeleland and rule it for their economic benefit.
In the so-called Victoria Agreement, they had already enumerated what they would get from King Lobengula; his land, which they believed had more gold than Mashonaland, his gold and his ivory.
There was no other purpose to this war against King Lobengula; it was armed aggression against a people to rob them of everything they had.
The looting of the cattle and the rest of the wealth was not a bi-product of the war, it was the purpose.
It was the intention of this war.
Jameson’s band of armed robbers, whom he unleashed on King Lobengula, were so impatient to get hold of Ndebele cattle they started looting while the war was still in progress.
By March 1894, some had already looted 30 000 of Ndebele cattle.
These could never be reparations; the war was still going on.
It was plain unbridled greed and lust for what belonged to others.
They were carrying out the purpose for which this war was spawned.
The establishment of the Loot Committee summarises unequivocally the purpose of the invasion of Matabeleland; to defeat King Lobengula so they could take over his wealth.
There was no gentleman’s agreement after the war; there was no semblance of justice.
Claiming reparations was just a ruse because the company position was that all the cattle in Matabeleland belonged to King Lobengula and because they had defeated him, all the cattle in Matabeleland were theirs.
This was their fascist position and they proceeded to act according to this.
Literally, the Ndebele were left without a single cow, the robbery was complete.
Of the 200 000 Ndebele cattle, at least 125 000 were sold in markets in South Africa, the remainder they shared among themselves.
The Ndebele were left with nothing.
To add insult to injury, the Ndebele were forced to herd the same cattle they had been robbed of.
This is how far the Ndebele were aggrieved.
When something so evil happens, it must be corrected.
The people of Matabeleland need to be compensated for the total loss of their herd which benefitted the white-man in both South African and Rhodesia for more than a hundred years.
The British robbed them of everything they had, their best land, their minerals and their herd.
When something like this happens, and people are left with nothing, those who took everything from them must pay back.
The banks that have benefitted from this loot economy must pay back through direct injection of capital, loans and donations of tractors, harvesters and other machinery for production.
The Ndebele should have everything they need to work on their new farms. For those who robbed them of their wealth, justice demands they pay back what they looted.
There is nothing glorious about the economy of Rhodesia, it was an economy built on what was looted through bloodshed and maintained through crass exploitation.