MTHWAKAZI Republic Party (MRP) says President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s verbal attacks on those calling for secession are a ‘war cry’ and should be taken seriously.
Moyo’s fears come after President Mnangagwa’s utterances during the recent Zanu PF congress held at Esigodini where he said ‘down with those elements calling for secession’.
President Mngangagwa attacked organisations calling for secession in Zimbabwe saying the country would always remain a unitary state.
“I want you to listen to me carefully, Zimbabwe is a unitary state with a people of divergent identities and cultures but we remain as a united people,” he said.
Instead, Mnangagwa said his government was implementing devolution of power.
“When you hear a Shona person saying down with so and so (pasi navo), that is a problem in its own and action usually follows that statement,” said MRP leader, Mqondisi Moyo.
Speaking at the Gukurahundi commemorations held last Saturday at Stanley Hall in Makokoba, Moyo said his party considered Mngangagwa’s anti-secession utterances a warning to Mthwakazi, which should not be ignored.
“I fear what he is going to do us following his utterances in Esigodini,” he claimed.
Such statements by President Mnangagwa, were often accompanied by action, Moyo alleged.
He recalled in 1983 at Lupane, where ‘ED’ referred to “dissidents as cockroaches’ saying the government would use DDT to exterminate them and next day 55 people in (Ciwale under Northen Lupane) Matabeleland died.”
Mnangagwa used this ‘cockroaches’ label during the height of genocide atrocities where the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade army was the “DDT” brought in to eradicate them.
His sentiments were even published in state owned newspaper – The Chronicle of March 5, 1983.
Mnangagwa was quoted, during a rally “near Lupane” in March 1983, as having said that the government “had the option of burning down… all villages infested with dissidents.”
But the MRP leader claimed the militant party belonged to a generation that would not allow the state to kill them whilst they were watching.
“We are a generation that will not allow ourselves to be killed while looking, we will not give tormenters such as Mnangagwa respect because they owe us a lot,” said the MRP president.
He added that as people commemorate Gukurahundi, they should know thank their gods for surviving since the atrocities were meant to cause major damage in Matabeleland.
“Those who survived Gukurahundi were not clever or better that those who died. They survived because God and their ancestors were with them. With such in mind we should know that we owe the victims who lie in mass graves in Bhalagwe, Tsholotsho, Nkayi and wherever they maybe because they died for us,” Moyo claimed.
MRP has been advocating for secession arguing Matabeleland and Mashonaland where two nations before colonisation and as such should go back to that old order.
Extremists within MRP do not recognise Zimbabwe as a country, instead continue calling for the restoration of the Mthwakazi nation but their efforts are continuously thwarted by the state.
