By Margaret Kamba
As we count down to this year's independence celebrations which are being held under the theme "Unity, Peace and Development towards Vision 2030", we share ZANU PF Secretary of Information and Publicity Department Cde Ambassador Chris Mutsvangwa's thoughts on the importance of the day.
"In two weeks time the razzmatazz will be in Buhera, Murambinda, Manicaland Province. We will be as all Zimbabweans celebrating our 44 years of independence. The age for any young African country. This is a major event on the calendar of the Party each year to remember the road we traveled to be where we are today, which is a painful and bitter armed struggle to free Zimbabwe, deliver democracy and create prospects for national economic development in order to deliver prosperity to the Zimbabwean people," Cde Mutsvangwa said.
"We had two decades of sacrifice where in the final lap, we lost probably 100 000 Zimbabweans during the struggle to unshackle our country from the yoke-hold of the British settler rulers who had taken over our country in a military victory on their part in the last century when Africa was a victim of colonialism, of slavery, of partition which was hallmarked by the Berlin Conference of 1884.
"So this history of military defeat was an albatross around Africa particularly in Southern Africa where European settlers entrenched themselves to become minority racist rulers.
"Zimbabwe followed the footsteps of Mozambique and Angola to challenge this European military hegemony and the beauty about Zimbabwe is that we fought our own war completely on our own human resources without any outside intervention and along the way we were able to deliver sterling victories of which the high point was the Mavhonde-Monte Casino battle of 1979 which brought Zimbabwe to independence but at the same time was a clear signal to the British military establishment that their Rhodesian cat's war could no longer sustain the war against the people of Zimbabwe.
"So 44 years is actually a mark of our victory. It is also a mark of nation building. Since we got our independence, we have always valued democracy. We are the first revolutionary Party to choose the path of ballot to office as opposed to going to bullet to office.
"Before the practice the tradition was that you win your military victory, you escort yourself to power because the matter has been settled. But we decided to say let's give the people of Zimbabwe a chance to endorse our military victory by a vote and in 1980 we were put to the test and we came out with a resounding victory. 97 percent of the people of Zimbabwe voted for a revolutionary movement which is ZANU PF."
In our next issue, Ambassador Mutsvangwa continues to share his thoughts on the importance of this year's independence celebrations.