MERCENARIES!
May 11th, 2007
May is the month in which Bob Marley died. For his powerful music, he was invited to perform at our independence day. He preached peace and love but also rebellion in the face of oppression. He sang get up stand for your rights! Would Marley accept an invitation from the same people today? In a prophetic moment, he sang: “so soon we find out who is the real revolutionary, coz i don’t want my people to be tricked by mercenaries.”
A few days ago a group of lawyers was stopped from holding a peaceful demonstration in support of two of their own, correction, two of our own Zimbabwean lawyers who are defending others of our own who have dared to stand up to this regime of mercenaries. All three groups of people in this paragraph have been denied their democratic right to fight for us all. All of us. We have seen in recent weeks, scores of women beaten, arrested and tortured in Bulawayo, hundreds of people abducted, lawyers arrested for doing their work and now yesterday, the latest episode from a regime of mercenaries that is running scared.
We have to keep up the pressure. We all have a role to play and all citizens must become activists. This is not the time to be selfish, it is the time to think of the whole country and the kind of place we want to leave behind for our children. Step up the graffiti campaign, organise random demonstrations among yourselves at shopping centres and place lookouts to warn you in advance of police activity so that you can melt away at the first sign of trouble. We can frustrate them senseless until the tyrant comes to his senses and steps down or flees. We are at a defining moment in the history of our country and we must use this opportunity to get rid of the mercenary regime that Marley prophesised.
Everyone knows a policeman. Talk to them and ask them what they are really doing. Ask them to tip off people when they have been ordered to go and bash them. Remind them of their own circumstances: No housing, poor salries, poor working conditions, the use of Angolan police because they are not trusted, their future prospects…
This regime is afraid and that is why they will snatch bodies from funerals.
This regime is afraid of you and that is why they are beating as many people as possible to strike fear in to the hearts of the oppressed.
This regime is running scared and that is why they are threatening priests. Are you catholic? Organise a march as a church in every city and town to protest the threats against your leaders. You are soldiers of the cross, lift high the royal banner of freedom, justice as your leaders did during the Gukhurahundi. It is not enough to pray. We must march singing hymns and bearing witness to the suffering of the land and its people. This regime is afraid sisters and that is why they are arresting women all over the country. March, and march some more. Come fact to face with your sons in the streets and look straight at them. The people reading this message have access to cameras. Position yourself well when you hear of a march and take pictures to reveal the brutality of this regime. Let the world see over and over again how we are being brutalised by a rogue mercernary regime that does not hesitate to beat its womena and children.
They have given up all pretence, the gloves are off and we must exercise our democratic right to stand in the public squares of this country and say “Enough! We will cower no more and we will take the blows for the sake of change and we shall overcome as sure as hens lay eggs”.
