AS more dubious political projects and sly characters seek relevance in the Zimbabwean polity, we should expect various forms of smear campaigns to mislead the people, from these quarters.
Last week some obscure characters claiming to be bona fide war veterans sprang to a local daily, with their tongues hanging out to suddenly ‘inform’ the public that Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa had a ‘peripheral’ role in the liberation struggle.
But those who have followed the contributions of VP Mnangagwa during the liberation struggle can easily see through the pack of lies spewed by these self-proclaimed veterans of the liberation struggle.
For how can they describe a person who escaped death from Ian Smith’s gallows by a whisker as ‘a person with a hazy history’?
The story of VP Mnangagwa, as one of the members of the Crocodile Gang, blowing up a Rhodesian steam locomotive in 1964 at a Masvingo Railway Station is well documented.
That he was saved from the noose by then prisons Assistant Chaplain-General Father Emmanuel Ribeiro who pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was below the age of 16 can be verified direct from the horse’s mouth.
So it looks like the people with ‘a hazy history’, if they have any at all, are the emissaries of lies sent to the local daily to tell lies about VP Mnangagwa.
But the likelihood of their smear campaign succeeding is next to zero, whatever their objectives are.
In the first place, if this is the first stage of their campaign, it has already lost any traces of credibility.
By going to the top of a mountain and managing to get front page coverage is no passport to sanitise a lie meant to distort our history of the armed struggle.
Zimbabweans are naturally eager to hear of some of the heroic incidents that occurred during the liberation struggle.
One of the most popular sections of The Patriot is the one where readers give eye-witness accounts of their experiences during the liberation war.
Most of them are appealing because they sound so authentic.
Indeed many bemoan the scarcity of literature that gives us more accounts of the liberation struggle, including some heroic contributions by individuals or groups.
The experiences of VP Mnangagwa at Masvingo Railway Station as a member of the Crocodile Gang are some such heroics.
It is therefore a great disservice to instead, tell the people outright lies or deliberately twist events for personal or political expediency.
It becomes even more nauseating if these lies are intended to discredit an individual.
In this case, Cde Mnangagwa, whose impeccable war credentials, as elaborated elsewhere in this publication, are the envy of the obscure clique that recently crashed into the newsroom of a local daily panting with a ‘scoop’.
That is not how the political game is played.
While newspapers might be willing to publish stories they are given, it is the height of naivety to miscalculate the gullibility of its readers.
We hope the peddlers of lies about Cde Mnangagwa will go back to their handlers and, perhaps, tell them of the futility of their errand.
Meanwhile, we expect to see more literature about exploits related to the liberation struggle, while a good number of witnesses are still alive.