By Reason Wafawarova

February 28, 2007

RHODESIAN atrocities in Chimoio and Nyadzonia and the indiscriminate killing of villagers, including women and children, like the 1978 Kamungoma Village massacre of 167 civilians in rural Gutu were so infuriating that, at independence, many would have opted for the vindictive route against Ian Douglas Smith and his cronies.

These atrocities, and the brutality of the Rhodesian Front soldiers and Abel Muzorewa’s Dzakutsaku militia on villagers accused of either supporting or being "terrorists" made the 1979 ceasefire agreement very difficult to implement.

Many guerillas could not comprehend going into assembly points with the brutes that had terrorised their parents for 14 terrible years.

Ceasefire teams from the Zanu Commissariat Department in Mozambique often clashed with fighters from the battlefront as they used Rhodesian government transport to implement the ceasefire programme pending the outcome of the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference.

Through it all, the voice of moderation belonged to Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who urged the freedom fighters to avoid baptising the new Zimbabwe with bloodshed.

"People of Zimbabwe, unite. Victory has come. It’s time to stop the fighting and to receive majority rule," he would counsel on Radio Maputo.

His handling of the ceasefire programme marked the beginning of an enduring legacy of reconciliation revolving around unity, peace and development.

Reconciliation was not as easy as it sought to address the emotive issues of justice, political restructuring, social restructuring, economic restructuring and integration.

It might be worthwhile to start by looking at the aspect of justice. The compelling questions attendant to this included: What to do with the war criminals who masterminded the Chimoio and Nyadzonia massacres personified by Smith and his Selous Scouts. The options included exiling the culprits or hauling them before the courts to answer for their crimes.

This route would not have spared the likes of Muzorewa whose Auxiliary Forces, known as Dzakutsaku, terrorised villagers. Smith and Muzorewa are still unrepentant beneficiaries of reconciliation.

Unlike the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, our reconciliation did not compel the culprits to confess their sins as part of the healing process.

As President Mugabe said, Smith owes his head to reconciliation, yet he uses the little mouth stuck to that head to deride war veterans as terrorists.

Truly speaking, an exiled Smith would have been seen as a lucky survivor of brutal war crimes; but a Smith living in Avondale and bashing his forgivers is a testament to the uniqueness of our policy of reconciliation.

If Smith and his cronies had faced the fate that confronted the Germans after World War I, victors’ justice, they would have died in 1980.

Their ill-gotten possessions would have been seized and shared among the victors as their kith and kin did to the Germans, but this was Cde Mugabe, the statesman, not the brutal ruling elite of the British and French empires.

Some of Cde Mugabe’s contemporaries could not understand why he did not harbour grudges against people who had jailed him for 11 years and who were behind heinous war crimes.

Among these was Edgar Tekere, who took the law into his own hands by gunning down a white farm manager in 1980.

That is how high emotions were, but Cde Mugabe managed to rally the nation behind reconciliation.

Secondly, Cde Mugabe had to handle the sensitive issue of political restructuring which meant accommodating opposition parties in the new Government as well as upholding the Lancaster House Constitutional arrangement of affirmative action that reserved 20 seats for the white minority in the House of Assembly, and 10 in the Senate.

Despite the well-documented stubbornness of some of those accommodated, Cde Mugabe continued with a racially inclusive Cabinet.

He pressed on and together with the late Dr Joshua Nkomo took reconciliation a step further by signing the Unity Accord on December 22 1987, bringing together the liberation parties Zanu-PF and PF Zapu.

This restructuring demanded a lot of acumen and skill as Cde Mugabe had to summon all his charisma, acumen and credibility to win the hearts of an otherwise combative group.

Being the statesman he has always been, Cde Mugabe persuaded Zimbabweans to reconcile and unite for the good of the nation and that way the country moved on peacefully.

The third challenge attendant to reconciliation was the social restructuring of the new society.

The segregatory education system manifested in limited high schools, few technical colleges and one university had to be addressed promptly as the black majority was keen for empowerment. But some in the white community refused to embrace their colleagues, many white children were sent to schools abroad while some white families relocated to South Africa, Australia, Britain, the United States, New Zealand and Canada.

The social restructuring also meant that the civil service, parastatals and the private sector had to accommodate black people while benefiting from the institutional memory and experience of the white occupants, mainly in managerial positions.

The other area that needed adjustment was the "whites only"trades training in technical colleges in the manpower development department.

Many black people joined their white counterparts in training as boilermakers, fitter and turners, mechanics and engineers; courses previously reserved for whites.

Some radicals were calling for an all black enrolment for artisans, but Cde Mugabe was against reverse segregation.

Social restructuring also meant there were no longer suburbs, schools, clubs or other social amenities reserved solely for white people

Fourth, reconciliation involved economic restructuring in farming, industry and commerce, and these are the areas in which the white community was found wanting in terms of co-operation.

Landless black peasants could not be resettled as the "willing buyer willing-seller" concept was grossly abused by white farmers who wanted to remain in control of vast tracts of land. Despite this lack of co-operation by white farmers, Cde Mugabe allowed the willing buyer-willing seller arrangement to run its course for a decade.

This largesse is now being abused by the beneficiaries who have the temerity to ask why the President did not redistribute the land soon after independence. The white community did not respect reconciliation in industry as they monopolised mining, manufacturing and even tourism.

They jealously maintained a monopoly over the export of goods and this way they pushed for a social order where black people would co-exist with them by providing cheap labour in a white-controlled economy. After a decade of waiting and diplomatic manoeuvring, President Mugabe resolved to address economic inequities, first, with the affirmative business indigenisation programme and, then, the land reform programme.

It is this policy that has shown the world what Anglo-Saxon anger looks like. The British, Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians and Americans who used to hail President Mugabe as an outstanding statesman and man of peace have gone berserk as they want him out at all costs.

Reconciliation has been betrayed by the capitalist Anglo-Saxon community that refused to reciprocate by religiously resorting to all manner of political chicanery to maintain a stranglehold on the economy.

Lastly, reconciliation also included the integration of the white community into an open society.

Australians, who shout themselves hoarse over Zimbabwe’s alleged failures, have not accommodated Aborigines in 200 years but they announce a surplus budget of AU$8 billion while acknowledging, in the same breath, that the Aborigine community needs AU$850 million to upgrade their health delivery system from "Third World status".

It is some in the Zimbabwean white community who have refused to play in the same teams, drive in the same cars, attend the same classes, drink in the same pubs and even worship in the same churches with black people.

The Americans, Canadians and New Zealanders are all found wanting when it comes to the integration of their indigenous populations, the people they dispossessed of the very lands they now call their countries; this includes the all-conquering USA.

These settler governments are the least qualified to talk of marginalisation or victimisation of minorities.

President Mugabe remains a legendary man of peace and reconciliation despite all the demonisation he has been subjected to by his opponents.

His legacy of reconciliation remains intact and no amount of negative portrayal is going to erase his glorious achievements in this regard as well as his resolve to promote social justice for oppressed people in the developing world.

The West should understand that the time of taking advantage of Cde Mugabe’s principles for racist ends is long gone and that does not make him a dictator. Rather, it confirms him as a principled and firm person whose exemplary leadership has earned him admirers the world over.