The Financial Gazette

CONTROVERSIAL Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) chairperson, Jabulani Sibanda, is at it again.

At a time when the country is crying out for national healing and reconciliation to bring its divided people together after years of polarisation along party lines, the loose-tongued war veterans leader is characteristically going against the grain with impunity.
Sibanda has been fingered as one of the people who are frustrating the constitution-making process, adding to the litany of banana skins frustrating this noble initiative, which is one of the inclusive government’s key deliverables.
Reports from the political hotbed, Masvingo, which have so far not been denied, suggest that Sibanda is at the forefront of a terror campaign that we can only assume is aimed at crushing any dissenting voices.
How tragic that a fully-grown man who risked his life and limb to free Zimbabwe from the yoke of colonialism over 30 years ago, can make a 360 degree turn in broad daylight to defeat the same ethos that the armed struggle was all about? Is it in the war veterans’ interests for Zimbabwe to continue to hold on to the oppressive 1979 compromise Lancaster House Constitution three decades after Independence?
Sibanda and other like-minded anti-reformists must surely be made to account for their actions which are hurting millions of Zimbabweans.
They must also accept full responsibility should the current constitution-making process produce an adulterated document that would be rejected at the referendum for not reflecting the interests of Zimbabweans. Should this happen — as is likely to be the case given the political meddling characterising the exercise — history shall judge them harshly for costing Zimbabweans, particularly the future generations, of a lifetime opportunity.
The nation has waited for 30 years to participate in a process that should lead to the production of a homegrown constitution. The current process offers Zimbabweans the only hope to break from a painful past. There is no question about that.
And yet Sibanda and others like him are throwing mud into the constitutional pot.
A true war veteran who fought for equality, freedom and economic emancipation, among other ideals, cannot campaign for a constitution-making process that is fraught with violence, intimidation and coaching of participants.
Sibanda, whose leadership is mired in controversy following internecine fights within ZNLWVA, is becoming a law unto himself and yet no one should be above the law.
Last month, he threatened to crush Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai like a fly. And as is becoming the norm, nothing happened to him.
The MDC-T leader must have spoken with a forked tongue when he responded some weeks later saying Sibanda should not be taken seriously. We know that deep inside, he didn’t mean it.
By the way, Tsvangirai is part of the quartet running the unity government under the Global Political Agreement.
But the tragedy with this sort of approach by the premier of beating about the bush is that you end up creating “untouchables” and “demigods” that are a danger to society. We saw it at the ZANU-PF congress in 2007 when the war veterans leader, in cahoots with his then deputy, Joseph Chinotimba, almost succeeded in undermining the ZANU-PF leadership in front of the cameras — resulting in the disruption of proceedings. It took President Robert Mugabe’s intervention to restore order.
It is good that the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) has resolved to summon Sibanda to discuss his actions. But being a toothless bulldog, Sibanda might only appear before JOMIC for public relations purposes only to revert back to his old ways thereafter.
But now that the country is being run by three principals, namely, Prime Minister Tsvangirai, President Mugabe and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, there must be a chorus of condemnation and unanimity in terms of how such wayward characters like Sibanda can be dealt with. The nation cannot just watch while these misguided elements are running away with the Bible.
Such condemnation should reverberate across the board with the public getting echoes through Co-Home Affairs Ministers, Theresa Makone (MDC-T) and Kembo Mohadi (ZANU-PF), who should move a step further by ensuring that such bad apples are quarantined from society.
Oneness in denouncing the mad-boy syndrome being propagated by Sibanda and others like him is vital if the inclusive government is serious about national healing, reconciliation and integration as was being promoted by the late MDC-M vice-president, Gibson Sibanda, and is still being championed by Vice-President John Nkomo (ZANU-PF) and Sekai Holland (MDC-T) on behalf of the inclusive government.
The country is already paying a heavy price for its bad-boy image. The road towards the full democratisation of the country has been made unnecessarily long and challenging one as well. As a result, the country is finding it difficult to attract meaningful investment, create jobs and pull itself from the abyss.
Chenjerai Hunzvi, the former ZNLWVA chairman (now late), might have gotten away with his unorthodox way of doing things, but there comes a time in the life of a nation when its people must put a stop to this madness before it boils over.
People like Sibanda need to be warned that they are running up against the grain. They should read the signal and do like what real war veterans are expected to do — be the defenders of people’s rights and freedoms.
Sibanda, who wants to wrap himself in the national flag while projecting the image of a defender of Zimbabwe’s hard-won independence, is neither a juvenile nor an infantile whose utterances could be brushed aside like what Prime Minister Tsvangirai would want us to believe.
He is the leader of ZNLWVA and a former acting chairperson of Bulawayo province (ZANU-PF) who, despite his expulsion from the party in 2004 for being part of the so-called Tsholotsho Declaration, continues to have an overbearing influence in ZANU-PF.
Above all, as a Zimbabwean citizen, Sibanda must abide by the law and stop behaving like a loose cannon. If he cannot restrain the animal in him, then the law must be seen to be taking its full course.

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