Dear Honourable Prime Minister Theresa May,
I write to you with a heavy heart today, exactly 10 years after the Zimbabwe Presidential Election Run-off that was held on 27th June 2008 and was reported by Zimbabwean local NGOs as having resulted in the tragic loss of hundreds of lives. My heart is made even heavier by the tragic loss of two security aides and the injury of over forty people, some of them critically, in the ZANU PF bomb blast on Saturday 23rd June 2018 at White City Stadium in Bulawayo. I pray that the dear souls of the departed rest in eternal peace and the injured recover speedily. I extend my deepest sympathies to their families and colleagues.
Honourable Prime Minister, I write to you because Emmerson Mnangagwa has chosen to use not only British institutions, such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), but also the British government in a nefarious agenda that is aimed at further loss of life. The British government, and I dare say various British institutions, are colluding with Mnangagwa in his despicable subterfuge that has the hallmark of the 1980s Gukurahundi Massacres that saw the loss of thousands and thousands of lives. My letter to you places these matters on the record so that history will judge your actions and those of your government in the full knowledge that you were complicit in the blood bath that Mnangagwa is plotting to unleash.
Mnangagwa’s interview that was aired on BBC today, 27th June 2018, places the blame for the ZANU PF bomb explosion on what the BBC referred to as “Dr Grace Mugabe’s faction” on the basis of what Mnangagwa said was a “hunch without evidence”. Although that laughably ridiculous reference has spawned a social media parody under the hashtag “MyHunchWithoutEvidence”, my knowledge of the way Mnangagwa operates is that he is planning to launch a crack-down in the same way that he has done over the last 38 years, notably in 2008 and during the Gukurahundi massacres.
Whilst the violence of 2008 is well documented, let me highlight the nature of political violence in Zimbabwe over the past two decades. Contrary to Mnangagwa’s claim in the BBC interview that Zimbabwe is the most peaceful country in the region, the fact is that the country is the most politically violent state in Southern Africa. Zimbabwe has the dishonourable record of accounting for 40% of all political violence in the region. Its history of having achieved independence in 1980 after a protracted armed liberation struggle, which generalised and entrenched violence, has resulted in a conflation of the military and politics. It is this conflation of the military, led by commanders of the liberation armies, into politics that has fed into and propelled political violence since 1980. The conflation of the military and politics reached an unprecedented height on 15 November 2017 when former guerrilla leaders now commanding the military conspired with Mnangagwa to stage a military coup which your government supported. Since then, your government, with the support of institutions such as the BBC, has sought to sanitize that coup by presenting it as a transition and by pressuring governments in the region and on the continent to similarly condone the coup.
This sanitization of the coup by your government has been done against the background of the institutionalised political violence witnessed since the early 1980s. You should be aware that 71.9% of violence in the past two decades has been against defenceless civilians. You should also know that 73.9% of that violence has been perpetrated under the control and direction of the Mnangagwa and Chiwenga cabal that you are now promoting. From a spatial perspective, 39.4% of that violence was perpetrated in Harare province, 28.8% in the three Mashonaland provinces and 10.2% in Manicaland province. The northern half of the country has witnessed 78.4% of the political violence in Zimbabwe over the past two decades.
That spatial approach to repression is reminiscent of the engineered Gukurahundi Massacres of the early 1980s. Honourable Prime Minister, I am sure that you are aware that one of the incidents that allegedly sparked the Gukurahundi Massacres was the abduction and subsequent brutal murder of western tourists, who included British citizens, in Matabeleland in July 1982. Tellingly, Chiwenga was the Commander of 1 Brigade which was set up under British training, which was operating in the region where the tourists were abducted and murdered. Mnangagwa was the Minister responsible for the intelligence gathered by the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). That intelligence was used by 1 Brigade in its operations. You should also be aware of reports which implicate Chiwenga in staging that abduction, coupled with Mnangagwa’s role in using that abduction to manufacture fake intelligence to instigate the Gukurahundi Massacres. It should not surprise anyone that the long standing terrible twins are once again employing the Gukurahundi modus operandi to manufacture fake intelligence using their “hunch without evidence” with respect to the tragic ZANU PF bomb in Bulawayo.
In the context of these two examples of the 2008 election violence and the Gukurahundi Massacres, your government’s role in propagating, through the BBC, Mnangagwa’s diabolical #MyHunchWithoutEvidence justification to violence will soil your hands with blood as happened to Margaret Thatcher. Mnangagwa is aware that he does not have the support of the majority of Zimbabweans and more particularly those that have traditionally been ZANU PF supporters who have been alienated by the coup. He is aware that these former ZANU PF supporters will vote for Nelson Chamisa on 30th July 2018. With no other way of convincing them to vote for him, Mnangagwa and Chiwenga are resorting to the strategy of violence that they have used with impunity over the last 38 years to intimidate voters and instil fear in them in order for them to steal the 30 July election.
It is not lost on Mnangagwa that his interview was aired on 27th June 2018, exactly ten years after the 2008 runoff election. The fact that Mnangagwa attributes blame to a broad group of people on the basis of his hunch without any evidence is an ominous signal to those people that he intends to target them and their communities with violence akin to that of 2008. The use of the BBC to disseminate that ominous message is meant to communicate that, like during the Gukurahundi massacres, Mnangagwa has the unconditional support of the British government. The implication is that your government will turn a blind eye on the abuse of the tragic ZANU PF bomb in Bulawayo to violate human rights in the same way that the British government turned a blind eye on the Gukurahundi massacres.
Against this background, it’s the wish of the majority of Zimbabweans that your government should take a leaf from the America government which has availed the FBI to assist with the investigation of the grenade attack that killed two people and injured over a hundred others at a political rally addressed by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali in Addis Ababa on the same day of the ZANU PF bombing. You and your government would occupy higher moral ground if you offered the professional and internationally respected services of Scotland Yard to assist with the investigation of the ZANU PF bomb to ensure credible findings. As things stand, there are reasonable grounds to suspect and not conclude, but to rationally suspect based on evidence of growing tension between Mnangagwa and Chiwenga over the leadership of the country that the horrific incident was an inside job. It is irrational that objective suspects should be expected to investigate themselves. I sincerely hope and pray that you will give this thought your urgent and serious consideration.
Honourable Prime Minister, allow me to conclude by reiterating that your real or perceived dalliance with the diabolical Mnangagwa will soil your hands with the blood of innocent Zimbabweans. You are at risk of having history judge you harshly for supping with the devil. Unfortunately for you, your despicable liaison with the reptilian Mnangagwa will not stem the tide of Zimbabwe’s Second Republic set to be ushered in by the assured election of Nelson Chamisa on 30 July 2018. As Zimbabweans dismantle the military junta that you support, we are resolute as we say, iwe neni tine basa, umsebenzi lo umkhulu (You and I are all critically useful in our responsibilities, the great responsibilities) of demilitarising civilian institutions and restoring legitimacy and constitutionalism.
Please accept my highest considerations.
Honourable Patrick Zhuwao
