Financial Gazette (Harare)
Ray Matikinye
15 November 2008
analysis
Harare — IF you walked around putting on a furry animal skin hat, not many people would bother to ask who your hatter is. In the sixties, a furry hat was considered party regalia and symbolised resistance to colonial rule. Furry hats are now out of political season.
But wear a T-shirt with a charging black bull, with the words: "Lafa elihle" (It died with all its good attributes) printed on the back and heads will turn as people wonder with the unmistakable look of curiosity who your clothier is.
The charging bull is about to cause a stir once again like a Phoenix rising from the ashes.
And with it, political temperatures are bound to rise if they have not done so already.
The Unity Accord signed between PF-ZAPU and ZANU-PF two decades ago appears to be in danger because of discontent from adherents of the party led by the late Father Zimbabwe and Vice President Joshua Nkomo.
ZAPU revivalists pro-tests the 1987 merger brought about political disequilibrium in favour of ZANU-PF led by President Robert Mugabe and little benefits to Matabeleland where the party drew the bulk of its erstwhile support.
Attempts by Agrippa Ndlela and Paul Siwela to revive ZAPU over the years floundered owing to incessant disagreements over policies to retail federalist policies to a cynic electorate.
ZAPU revivalists say the Unity Accord has favoured former independence war fighters and politicians in the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) than their Zim-babwe People's Revolu-tionary Army (ZIPRA) counterparts, although both contributed to the liberation of Zimbabwe from colonial rule.
President Mugabe, commentators say, is facing new challenges in holding together a political monolith that has dominated politics in post-independent Zimbabwe since 1980.
"That unity arrangement is dead and irrelevant," says Femias Chaka-buda, chairman of Zim-babwe Liberation Plat-form -- a political formation of bush war fighters championing democratic practices and modernist ideology of tolerance in pursuit of nation building.
The looming schism, underpinned by a further splintering in the Zimbabwe National Libe-ration War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) led by Jabulani Sibanda into two groups ahead of ZANU-PF's annual conference in Bindura next month bodes badly for the accord and the party itself, which is still battling to deal with intra-party divisions over succession.
"We tried to forewarn our colleagues from ZIPRA when they celebrated the Unity Accord that they would be in for a rude awakening with the passage of time but they did not listen. They have belatedly seen the light," Chakabuda said.
Ray Ncube, a retired army colonel now interim chairman of the Organi-sation of ZIPRA Veterans spearheading the revival, symbolises bitterness among members of the splinter group.
"If you want to see a poor veteran, just look around for a former ZIPRA soldier. He has no land, no formal job, and no money to fend for their families. To see a former battalion commander, who sacrificed his life to liberate his country, sustained lifetime injuries during that war, living in abject poverty is painful. You ask yourself why we went to war in the first place.
"The main reason we have broken away from ZNLWVA is that our membership of that organisation has not helped," Ncube said.
John Gazi, the interim secretary of the veterans' group, said another grievance, was the failure by ZANU-PF to return properties seized from ZIPRA in the 1980s just before Gukurahundi, a military campaign that claimed more than 20,000 lives in the Matabeleland and Midla-nds provinces.
Analysts argue that at the core of the Unity Accord was the desire by President Mugabe to form a one-party state. The plan collapsed after encountering resistance from Edgar Tekere, the former ZANU-PF secretary-general, who went on to form his own party, the Zimbabwe Unity Movement.
The emergence of an even stronger Move-ment for Democratic Change (MDC) has completely killed off the plan.
But former ZAPU leaders in ZANU-PF have dismissed the revival as a move by "few disgruntled individuals ignorant of the dynamics in politics".
"There cannot be a revival of ZAPU. It is not feasible because Joshua Nkomo was ZAPU and no one can take his place. Anyone who tries to assume the mantle will just expose himself to public ridicule," Absolom Sikhosana, the ZANU-PF secretary for youth said.
"Not even (Dumiso) Dabengwa can lead the revival after Nkomo left us such a unifying legacy. Why would one want to revive a dead horse?" he asked.
Dabengwa is former ZANU-PF politburo member. He abandoned the party in the lead up to the March 29 synchronized elections to join Simba Makoni, former finance minister in President Mugabe's government.
Dabengwa is now linked to efforts to revive ZAPU.
Sikhosana, who has risen in the ZANU-PF hierarchy, sees his former boss in the war trenches in Zambia as a spent political force unable to rally people towards ZAPU revival.
Revivalists think otherwise.
"The mere fact that ZANU-PF formed a commission to look into the issue after an aborted meeting in Bulawayo, shows the level of alarm the issue has raised in ruling party circles," says one of the members of the organising committee who declined to be named but added: "Just give us time".
Presidents Mugabe thinks a revival portends grave dangers for ZANU-PF and the Unity Accord.
When President Mugabe and other veteran nationalists such as Enos Nkala, the late Ndabaningi Sithole and Maurice Nyagumbo broke away ZAPU to form ZANU, Nkomo sent emissaries thrice to President Mugabe, then secretary for publicity to try to persuade him back into the fold and re-join the party.
President Mugabe rebuffed the offer.
Recent reports say the clock has turned as the President tries to persuade Dabengwa to rejoin ZANU-PF and save his party the prospects of a formidable opposition to his rule and possible disintegration.
President Mugabe, fearful of the threat to his power should former PF-ZAPU officials leave to join Dabengwa, has since assigned Matabeleland South governor Angeline Masuku to entice Dabengwa to return to ZANU-PF, according to media reports.
"President Mugabe has told me that his heart is bleeding because Dabengwa is no longer in ZANU-PF. He has asked me to get people who can convince Dabengwa to come back to ZANU PF. I am now asking you the leadership of the Bulawayo province to approach him and win him back," Masuku is said to have told Matabeleland-based central committee members, at a meeting held on October 19 at her farm along Plumtree Road on the outskirts of Bulawayo, media reports say.
President Mugabe fears ZANU-PF will carve in if disgruntled members from Matabeleland leave him to revive ZAPU when his party is at its lowest point.
And when ZAPU is revived, President Mugabe will not be alone in agonising over the development.
ZAPU would have to compete for membership with the MDC, which filled in the representative void left for the people of Matabeleland by the Unity Accord.
The MDC has dominated elections in Matabeleland since the 2000 polls, save for some constituencies that have remained loyal to the party that unleashed the North-Korean trained Fifth Brigade in a four-year military campaign against civilians in the area and parts of the Midlands.
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