Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP) says contrary to popular belief that they are pushing a secessionist agenda; their movement is fighting to liberate people from social and economic injustices.
The reaction was prompted by Vice President Kembo Mohadi`s recent remarks that the government will defend the country against those calling for secession, as Zimbabwe was a unitary state, with one national anthem.
The VP also added that a secessionist agenda would not survive given that parties such as Zanu PF had fought for the country’s independence.
But MRP president, Mqondisi Moyo, said government officials such as Mohadi should not hold the country to ransom and do as they please because they fought in the struggle.
“We in Mthwakazi rather want to know where Zanu was when ZPRA and uMkhonto weSizwe were fighting for independence. Whilst talking of defending Zimbabwe, take note that no country or organisation can monopolise violence, as no one can go on oppressing others,” he said.
Moyo went for the jugular when he said individuals from Matabeleland who were now in Zanu PF were a disappointment as they did not push for the growth of the region.
“People such as Mohadi, Obert Mpofu the late Dr Calistus Ndlovu and Enos Nkala are a big liability to the people of Matabeleland and Midlands alias Mthwakazi. I want to remind Mohadi that we don’t eat one national anthem, we do not eat nationalism that benefits only a section of one tribe,” he claimed.
The MRP leader said pushing for the creation of a Mthwakazi state, did not mean they disrespected the role of the liberation struggle or those who partook in it.
“To set the record straight I am a son of an ex- ZPRA freedom fighter, my father could not test the so-called Zimbabwean independence as he passed away two years before it was achieved. One way or the other, I also fought directly or indirectly through my father’s participation and other fallen heroes and heroines of good standing,” Moyo said.
He noted that MRP was not a secessionist party but a restorationist movement, pushing to free people from misrule perpetrated by Zanu PF.
“We are a generation that cannot be threatened and those who undermine us do so at their own peril. The restoration agenda is irreversible and we are also prepared to lay our lives for it. We will defend ourselves against a gangster government because Zanu PF does not qualify to be called a government.
“Instead the perfect name for it is a terrorist organisation that is in power not by people’s choices but because it is a sanguineous party,” Moyo said.
He pointed out that Zanu PF spoke of nationalism yet did the opposite.
“The same Zanu PF that people like Mohadi defend, once persecuted him and other ZPRA cadres, the ZAPU leadership, its supporters calling them dissidents yet that is forgotten,” said the MRP leader referring to Mohadi who vowed to defend the country, same way it had fought against the whites.
Moyo also claimed that people such as Mohadi failed to understand the contents of the 1987 Unity Accord, which Zanu PF boasted about.
“The so-called unity accord like the Lancaster house agreement of 1979 were just smokescreen arrangements that we can call marriage of convenience documents. There is nothing in the Unity Accord that gives ZAPU powers or that portrays ZAPU as equal to Zanu PF. Instead the highest position that someone from ZAPU can be is a vice president and cannot be the president of Zimbabwe in what they claim to be a unitary state,” he said.
He added that people continued to suffer economic genocide under Zanu PF and its own party members were afraid to raise these imbalances to their leader, President Emerson Mnangagwa.
“Our resources are looted daily, civil servants, doctors, nurses and teachers are struggling but to you all this is nationalism and it’s a normal situation,” quipped the MRP leader.
