Tribute to Chenjerai Hove, the fighter, writer and academic

Tribute to Chenjerai Hove the fighter, writer and academic:  I never met Chenjerai Hove personally but what I know is he was touched by my bravery in Bindura, and at one time in his column News Focus, he expressed shock with brutality of the Mugabe regime against my team in Bindura, calling it unprecedented suppression of people’s will through means brutal and inhumane, Hove (2001), in a column he personally dedicated to me. Hove wrote this article and many after that in support of opposition at a time, it was very much brave of him, as many disappeared for standing up against Mugabe.  Hove was in the league of Masipula Sithole, who under his column in Financial Gazette once wrote, “Bwana how far is Bindura from Harare?”, in a further analysis he retorted, “...in a town which the Anglo-America gave for free, how come Bindura has become pricey, it seems that there is no Bindura without Pfebve or no Pfebve without Bindura”, Sithole, (2001). Masipula Sithole and Chenjerai Hove were therefore the academic giants that epitomised people’s struggle. What I was doing was never genius nor was brave, barely in my 20s, I standing for what I thought was right for both myself and my people. It didn’t occur to me that I should give up my freedom to obey the POSA or AIPPA, instruments that were prepared to oppress the will of the people. For acceptance the brutal laws would be tantamount to accepting oppression worse than Smith Regime, a form of freedom cattling. I was not prepared to surrender a political space, no matter what may.

In a Bindura struggle which then became code named “the battle of the 2 Elliots”, epitomised a real war fare and not a computer game. It has never happened since Independence that Mugabe has to send a helicopter to intervene in a brutal fight between ZANU and MDC supporters, but indeed that happened in Mt Darwin, ask Kasukuwere I fought with Kasukuwere from Friday evening until Saturday 3 PM the following day. The police ran out of bullets, the Support Unit which was then sent to intervene ran out of bullets, until finally an army helicopter was dispatched.  What I believed then and still strongly now is that Mugabe will not be defeated by diplomacy, he has to be confronted with a language he understands, and that includes but not limited to systematic defiance. If you accept that POSA which he is still using even though it is illegal after the new constitution was passed, is evil then we must not obey the same law, we must defy these draconian laws and test them in a court of law, and go further to challenge partisan courts.

Chenjerai Hove R.I.P. , we will not rest until the regime that sends you to exile is defeated, no doubt the love of your country has a bearing to you stress  for a better Zimbabwe, in which we harmoniously live together. I am impatient with Mugabe, today than I was then. We are the people!