The sacrifice made by liberation fighters to free the country from colonial rule was not worth it due to the deteriorating service delivery and continued violation of human rights.
Delivering a public lecture titled,Contemporary reflections on 43 years of Independence in Zimbabwe: Was the liberation struggle worth it? Renowned human rights activist and lawyer Siphosami Malunga said the everyday life of ordinary Zimbabweans was now worse than during the colonial era.
“You know that the life of a black person is no more valuable now than it was under Rhodesia by the State. We know that a black person now struggles for a meal, struggles for water to drink, struggles for electricity, struggles to send their children to school, struggles to access healthcare,” he said.
He said service delivery is deteriorating even in hospitals.
“We know this as a fact regardless of what we may be told in propaganda. We know that for certain if you fall ill now with a serious illness, the likelihood of dying is 99.9 percent because you will not find even paracetamol in a hospital, We know this to be true.”
Malunga said the situation was the same in the education sector.
“We know the dilapidation in our schools, in the provision of education material. We know that it’s rare for you to open a tape and water comes out, if it comes out it is filthy, dirty and poison and dangerous to consume, we know this,” he said.
“We know that you can no longer have sustained periods of power on the contrary you have days sometimes weeks of no electricity, that’s what we know is prevailing now, was it worth it, was it worth it looking at contemporary Zimbabwe and what our forbearers sought to change, was it worth it.”
Malunga said the same repressive laws are being used with different amendments and reconfigurations to stop people from expressing themselves and demanding their God given right to speak.
“The very clarion call of the liberation movement was democracy, we want to determine our future, we want black people to vote, one man, one vote, we want to have a say in our government yet we have now the same machinations of suppression of votes, suppression of black people,” he said.
Malunga said the country now has black elites who are using the same systems like those used in Rhodesia.
“I am speaking from demanding, from participating in the political life of his own country, the liberated country, that is a challenge we face and it’s a reality, we have elites again much like Rhodesian elite but a black elite that is simple doing the same things,” he said.
