Let’s celebrate our gallant fighters

It took men and women of gallantry, selflessness and unflinching love for their country to abandon their families, school and for some their wealth to walk hundreds of kilometres to cross into neighbouring countries to join the liberation struggle. It was not a stroll in the park with antipersonnel mines planted along the borders, and armed to the teeth Rhodesian soldiers and their cahoots patrolling the length and breath of the border.

They had to defy the marauding  hippopotamuses and crocodiles  along the Zambezi River  deliberately bred and unleashed by a ruthless regime to fight an illegal war on its behalf. To this day the seeds of those Rhodesian crocodiles  are still a menace in that river, where they are still killing both Zimbabwean and Zambian fishermen.

Indeed someone’s child, someone’s mother, someone’s  father, brother, sister had to die to give us the freedom and  independence we enjoy today. These are our heroes living and departed, the nation remembers them this week with nostalgia.

They did a good job and they make us proud. For those that paid the ultimate price with their lives, for the restoration of our pride as a  people may their spirit rest in  peace, assured that Zimbabwe will not be a colony again. We will never  be second-class citizens in our motherland.

Our heroes have taught us that we have to fight for what we want especially that which is ours. Prosperity, freedom, democracy and self-determination are not given for free like snuff, you fight  for them. The British that want to pretend to be paragons of good  governance, protectors of human rights did not give us Zimbabwe  without butchering us first. We had to be killed and to kill to get this country.

We, therefore, join the nation in commemorating Heroes Day and Defence forces Day proud that we  still have living heroes that are still defending our independence and  territorial integrity. We salute them in the political domain and also in our defence forces. They are still the  vanguard of the land and  indigenous revolution that seeks to  empower our people. This is preciously what our heroes died for.

We need as a nation to continue to be guided by the values of the  liberation struggle. there should be  no compromise on fundamental matters of principle that the gallant sons of this nation sacrificed their  lives for. They (heroes) loved Zimbabwe and the question that  begs for an answer is are we  defending the national interest in whatever we do?

Zimbabweans across the political  divide should continue to check on the national campus bequeathed upon us by our forbears. They should be no deviation from that, sanctions or no sanctions. While our heroes wanted 100 percent ownership of the country and all its resources, we have already compromised by coming up with a law that says 51 percent should be indigenous and 49 can be given to foreigners. Unfortunately there are some among us — sons and  daughters of this land — that think the 51 percent is too much and will scare away investors.

We say as we commemorate Heroes and Defence Forces days that these individuals should ask us what the reaction of our departed, the likes of the late former ZANLA chief of defence, Josiah Tongogara, the late Vice-Presidents Joshua Nkomo and Dr Simon Muzenda, would be if they were to return. Would they describe us as heroes or sellouts and candidates for execution. We need to introspect as a people — and ask ourselves real questions about the future of this country.

It is tragic that there are some among us who have decided to sleep  with the enemy, the people that  bombed Nyadzonya, Mkhusi, Freedom camp, Chimoi and many  other camps  in Mozambique and Zambia and massacred thousands  of defenceless refugees. This is a crop of mindless bad apples that glorify Rhodesia and do not want to hear or watch pictures of the massacres    conducted by General Peter Walls’ mafia in Zimbabwe and its neighbouring countries. We demand that they repent and defend Zimbabwe. They should  understand that they are the big Cabinet ministers that they are  because of the sacrifice of other  people’s children. Some of the vitriols directed at our living heroes  are unnecessary and should stop.

We would also like to congratulate the Zimbabwe Defence Forces for defending the land and airspace of Zimbabwe with distinction despite  limited resources. Every Zimbabwean including those that are fond of attacking our military and the police go home to sleep peacefully knowing that their security  is guaranteed.