Amos muporofita pa Bikita

In November 2017, Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa was not in Zimbabwe. He was not organising. He was not mobilising. He was not commanding. He was not in the streets. He was not in the barracks. He was not at the negotiating table. He was outside this country having fled when the pressure became too great sheltering in the Republic of South Africa while the men and women he would later call his colleagues did the dangerous, costly, irreversible work of changing this nation's history.I want every young Zimbabwean to understand what that means. The man who is today the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe the man who signs the legislation, who addresses the nation, who receives foreign heads of state, who speaks at the United Nations that man was not here when the work was done. The work was done by others. And those others are now, one by one, being removed, silenced, marginalised, Assassinated erased from the story of what they built. That is not politics. That is not governance. That is not even ruthlessness in the ordinary sense. That is ingratitude of a magnitude that has no modern parallel in the history of this republic. General Constantino Guveya Dominic Nyikadzino Chiwenga made the announcement. General Chiwenga commanded the institutional loyalty of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. General Chiwenga put his uniform, his rank, his freedom, and his life on the line to make the transition possible. The soldiers who moved that night moved because of Gen Chiwenga. The institutions that held that night held because of General Chiwenga. The international community that watched that night assessed what they saw through the lens of General Chiwenga's credibility. Mnangagwa flew back into a presidency that General Chiwenga built for him. And what has General Chiwenga received in return?I will tell you what General Chiwenga has received. He has received marginalisation. He has received the systematic removal of his allies from every institution of consequence. He has received the managed diminishment of his public profile. He has received the cold, calculated distance of a man who no longer needs what was given to him and has decided that the giver has become an inconvenience. Vice President Constantino Chiwenga's health has been a matter of public concern for some time. What has been less publicly discussed is the political environment surrounding that health crisis the access that has been denied, the support that has been withheld, the institutional isolation that has accompanied his physical vulnerability. I am a soldier. I do not make allegations I cannot support. But I say this clearly and on the record the full story of what has happened to Vice President Chiwenga medically, politically, and institutionally has not been told. And the people of Zimbabwe have a right to demand that it be told. Completely. Transparently. With independent verification. Because when the man who made your presidency possible is fighting for his life and fighting for his political survival simultaneously and the President he installed is nowhere in that fight something is profoundly, historically, unforgivably wrong. General Valerio Sibanda served this nation as Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.