Interview: Sadomba Zvakanyorwa Wilbert at the launch of War Veterans in Zimbabwe's Revolution

A summary of comments and responses by Zvakanyorwa Wilbert Sadomba

(Dept of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe) made at the launch of his book War Veterans in Zimbabwe’s Revolution: Challenging neo-colonialism & settler & international capital

on 30 March, 2011

In the early evening of 30 March 2011, my second book, War Veterans in Zimbabwe’s Revolution: Challenging neo-colonialism & settler & international capital, co-published by James Currey and Weaver Press, was finally launched. I heartily thank all those who made it a successful occasion. To begin with, Weaver Press, the host, had to postpone the launch because the first discussant turned down the offer. My conversation with this proposed discussant (Cde N) went like this:

N. Huh, Comrade I must be honest with you, I don’t think I would like to be publicly associated with this book. There is too much truth in it ... one begins to imagine how the powers that be will react to it ... and looking at the current situation you think whether you really want to be identified with it and how you will be viewed, politically. I sincerely apologise but I think you expected this.

ZS. You don’t need to apologise whatsoever Cde N. I understand. But as a general comment what do you think of the book; is it good reading?

R. Very! In fact even a person like me who was there [war of liberation] begins to understand that war better; it is enlightening. This is why I think it won’t be received well in some quarters.

I must say this was not news to me. For long I had pondered on the possible consequences of what I was doing and I decided to face it. I still realise the dangerous ground I am treading on but being a liberation war freedom fighter that I think I have on my own part, the responsibility of sharing my own side of the story about that war for the benefit of some of the very people I was fighting for. My only public writing was disguised under the pen-name Mafira Kureva, (see The real truth about us, the war veterans http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=3775). After noticing that my articles were stolen and abused I took the bold step to publish this book.

Alexander Kanengoni, who kindly accepted our official invitation to launch the book, queried my distinction of nationalists and guerrilla fighters in the liberation movement arguing that the two were not antagonistic each other. This argument was reiterated by someone from the floor. In the book I illustrate that the conflict between nationalists and guerrillas were perennial and never ended even after independence. The little-said-about ZIPA is illustrative. Fighters disowned nationalists and the best of them (nationalists) were confined at Quilimane i.e. Robert Mugabe and Edgar Tekere and they were not allowed to come to the guerrilla camps – the effect of Mugagao Declaration.

I juxtaposed a nationalist pursuing studies in London – eating pie when hungry, going round during spare time begging bowl for donations – and myself in Matanho Village (Chimanimani), having crossed Tandara Mountain, exhausted and bruised between the legs from a long march and an anguished peasant woman offering two eggs so that I could be given when I fell hungry. I had gone to war when I was 15 years old. The organic bond that developed between the masses and freedom fighter combatants could not be gained by reading newspapers, listening to radio or by being told what it was like fighting in the battlefield. The commitment of nationalist elites within ZANU PF or without to the masses can never be the same with that of War Veterans because of the different exposure and experience. This is the main theme of my book and it illustrates that the ascendance to power of nationalists negated the very ethos and objectives of the liberation war and this is the source of Zimbabwe’s social and political problems today.

Kanengoni also felt that the book followed the usual academic thread of condemning land occupations. This is a total misreading, I put it to him. If anything, the book was a celebration of the 2000s War Veterans-led Revolution hence its title. However I hastened to say the revolution was attacked by the ZANU PF elites, the state, MDC (including white settlers) and international capital. War Veterans led a successful national democratic revolution reversing minority settler and imperialist economic dominance. Through the Fast Track strategy elites used the state to try and hijack that revolution but only managed to stop its further progression to egalitarian resource distribution through Operations: Murambatsvina, Chikorokoza Chapera, Mavhotera Papi and Hakudzokwi. I elaborate this in the book showing that the Zimbabwean issue is much more complex and demands deep knowledge of historical formation and development of the actors and their antagonistic interests.

Professor Sam Moyo posed a number of questions but before I answer him, which I had no time to do, I appreciate the Professor’s humble admission Zimbabwe witnessed a full blooded revolution led by War Veterans. This and it brings to rest the half decade debate between us. I give more data on this in the book.

Professor Moyo queried why I say the War Veteran-led revolution was hijacked by the ZANU PF elite. ZANU PF elites and President Mugabe were not protagonists of the land movement from the 1980s to 2000 as I argue in the book. Only when rural and urban land occupations, industrial fragmentation and reconfiguration, decentralisation of trade and commerce had taken an irreversible momentum in 2000, did ZANU PF elites associate with the revolution. So how does one explain the fact that after 2000 Mugabe became the de facto spokesman for the same revolution? How can one explain the state formation of land committees to displace War Veterans organisations and masquerading as the champions of that redistributive land process? I know not of another term for my limitations of the English language but I know the resultant effect. War Veterans who spearheaded and the masses who participated in this revolution were sidelined and when they resisted they were violently surprise-attacked by military style operations. ZANU PF elites and the state started to dispossess many War Veterans of farms they had occupied. I present evidence in the book on this and more.

Moyo also argued that by classifying some ZANU PF members as elites, I was using an ambiguous term with contested meaning if not meaningless altogether. I wish to clarify this. In my writing I was not trying to split academic hairs as I had the urgent business of informing Zimbabweans, from my own view, providing missing pieces of the puzzle and illuminating on the dark patches of our history. In doing so I could not avoid the very clear distinctions between ZANU PF members in the ruling ‘class’ (ana mafikezolo) who clearly have no interest of the povo at heart, who in daylight condemn settlers but live like or better than them, who use political power and the state to usurp national wealth, brutalise masses, to advance personal and corrupt interests. These are not ordinary ZANU PF members – the rank and file – but the powerful perched up there. The MDC is also infested with such people particularly settler white farmers, former Rhodesian Security Force members and Rhodesian Front type politicians. The interests of these people are tangential to those of liberation fighters with the objective of emancipating the masses from the yoke of settler capitalist and imperialist exploitation. Whatever term is coined on these people I do not mind as long as the distinction is clear.

Lastly I thank Alexander Kanengoni and Professor for pointing out that my book is valuable reading and a must for those who need to understand deeper the Zimbabwean situation. Kanengoni was mesmerized by the detail and Moyo was interested in the argument.