Premier Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC-M Vice President Gibson Sibanda
MDC-M vice President Gibson Sibanda passed away at Bulawayo’s Mater Dei hospital on Monday night, 23 August 2010. He was 66.
Immediately thereafter the MDC-M faction wrote to President Robert Mugabe recommending that the late Sibanda be considered for conferment of National Hero status
.
In doing so the MDC-M political formation relied on the rationale that its deceased vice president had managed several feats that immensely benefited the country that many ordinary Zimbabweans would never dream of in a lifetime.
The heroics of the late MDC-M vice President were traced back to his exemplary morality, calm and composed demeanor in a lifetime fearless fight against oppression.
Morally the late Sibanda was envied for having stuck to his marriage vows for 7 years following the death of his wife Ntombizodwa in 2003 by not e-marrying.
His selflessness was demonstrated by his liberation war credentials as a former welfare secretary of the liberation movement Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and his detention without trial for three years by the former rogue white minority government of Ian Smith.
After that the late Sibanda continued to demonstrate his courage and selflessness in standing up for his the rights of other workers as a Trade Unionist leader of note in the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions which he presided over first as a vice President and later as its President in 1988.
Realising that the objects of the liberation struggle against colonialism that he and many others had sacrificed so much were moving of radar under Zanu PF stewardship of the country he was instrumental in mobilising trade unions and civil society into forming the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999.
For six months leading to the first congress of the MDC in February 2000 the late Gibson Sibanda led the party as its interim President.
At the first congress of the MDC he was elected unopposed to deputy president to Morgan Tsvangirai.
In association with the National Constitutional Assembly the newly formed MDC opposition party went on to lead a NO vote campaign against the Constitutional referendum that had drafted a Constitution to entrench Zanu PF rule in perpetuity as a one party state.
That success was to be followed by a drubbing of Zanu PF in the 2000 elections which Zanu PF had to rig to remain in power.
The unprecedented success of the MDC in the 2000 Parliamentary elections put the party leadership in focus for political persecution by Zanu PF resulting in the late Sibanda being arrested on trumped up charges of inciting violence in 2001. The case was withdrawn in January 2003 before plea.
Further attempts to assassinate him were to follow in November 2001 when a gunman opened fire on him together with Welshman Ncube, elections director Paul Themba Nyathi and treasurer Fletcher Dulini Ncube as they stood outside the MDC’s regional office in Bulawayo.
In 2002 the late Sibanda’s convoy to address a rally during the presidential election campaign was also attacked by Zanu PF militia in Kuwadzana, Harare.
After leading the MDC to support a ZCTU national job strike on 18 and 19 March 2003 that had to be violently put down by the Zimbabwe Military forces and Police the late Sibanda was arrested on charges of seeking to overthrow President Robert Mugabe’s government.
He was detained for 7 days before being granted bail only for the State to withdraw the trumped up charges against him before plea on 16 February 2004 having failed to adduce any evidence linking Sibanda to the charges he was facing.
The violent riddled 2005 Parliamentary elections saw the MDC loose a significant number of seats it held in the previous Parliament from 2000 and with it there arose fundamental differences in the strategy to regroup and rally the opposition party into the future at a time when the rejuvenated Zanu PF was consolidating its hegemony on power by reintroducing the Senate to accommodate those of its stalwarts that had fallen victim to Parliamentary elections defeat.
The National Executive of the MDC split into two halves in the unfortunate quarrels that ensued the 2005 Parliamentary losses by the Party when party vice president the late Gibson Sibanda secretary General Welshman Ncube, Treasurer General Fletcher Dulini Ncube and National Spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi together with mainly Matabeleland and Midlands National Executives broke ranks with President Tsvangirai and National Chairman Isaac Matongo as well as Deputy Secretary General Tendai Biti and the rest of the country executives in favour of participating in the Senatorial elections that the grassroots support of the Party were against.
Having failed to dislodge Tsvangirai from the Presidency of the Party, the breakaway faction which had invited Professor Mutambara to lead it, went ahead to participate in the elections that were discredited by massive voter apathy arguing that it was the best way the party could consolidate and defend its power gains.
Unfortunately the faction performed dismally against Zanu PF winning a paltry 7 of the 50 contested seats yet in losing it suffered credibility and unfortunately legitimized the Senate further bloating the size of the government at a time there were calls for government to be downsized due to the economic downturn gripping the country.
The credibility lost by the faction culminated with the late Sibanda suffering his first and only yet most humiliating Parliamentary election defeat to Thamsanqa Mahlangu from the Tsvangirai-led MDC formation in the 2008 general elections.
He accepted defeat with humility and when the Senate convened the late Sibanda was jointly fielded by the MDC-T and MDC-M formations against Zanu PF’s Edna Madzongwe for the position of Senate President which he unfortunately failed to win.
He was later to be appointed co-Minister of State for National Healing in the
coalition government formed by Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara and imposed on Zimbabwe by SADC and the AU.
The government has been limping along in acrimony over implementation of agreed inclusivity clauses that Zanu PF has been refusing to abide by among them the conferment of National Hero status that has hitherto been and still is the preserve of Zanu PF.
All conferment made after the signing of the GPA which has now become Constitution Amendment No 19 have been contested and disputed between the political parties in the coalition government whose only notable contribution to date has been economic stabilisation and reduction in political violence.
The unfortunate death of an iconic MDC functionary and nationalist like the late MMDC-M vice President Gibson Sibanda provided the government an opportunity to show that heroism in Zimbabwe was determined by the State and based on heroic achievements of an individual during his lifetime rather than by a political formation based on sectarian achievements of the individual for its benefit as has been commonly contended.
Unfortunately the outcome confirms the former.
Heroism in Zimbabwe and in particular the right to National honours for Heroism through interment at the National Heroes Shrine has been proved to be a Zanu PF preserve by Sibanda’s death.
In hindsight while it was logical for MDC-M to recommend Sibanda for the honours it appears Sibanda personally would not if he was personally given a choice, opted to be interred at the current Heroes Acre in Harare.
Be that as it may Zanu PF has demonstrated that henceforth and in future the current National Heroes Shrine is not a National Heroes Shrine per se but rather a Zanu PF functionaries National honours and burial place.
All beneficiaries receiving State support and pensions on the basis that they are dependants of Heroes currently interred at the Heroes Acre opposite the National Sports Stadium in Warren Park are actually looting State coffers and there will be justification for future governments to charge Zanu PF with the looting and demand restitution.
Current Zanu PF leadership may not be alert to this possibility but in most cases it will be resorted to by future governments to deliver justice to those the party has vindictively refused to honour for no other reason than that they did not belong to its structures.
The problem would not arise if Zanu P was not resorting to honouring its functionaries and using taxpayers’ funds to support the honours it confers on its distinguished functionaries.
A hero is somebody who commits an act of remarkable bravery or who has shown an admirable quality such as great courage or strength of character or somebody who is admired for outstanding qualities or achievements.
Gibson Sibanda is one such person in Zimbabwe and will like Jairos Jiri and Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole among those denied National honours forever remain a National hero with or without Zanu PF recognition.
Even within Zanu PF there are many sane minds that realise that his exclusion from honours is a great political and national mistake notwithstanding heir silence.
But all is not lost. Maybe the Sibanda generations have been spared the trauma that the Nkomo generation is experiencing over Zanu PF attempts to gain political mileage from the late Joshua Nkomo’s name forgetting how they ill treated and vandalized him during his lifetime.
Wherever he will be interred Gibson Sibanda will and must rest in peace knowing that he did all he could and excelled for the benefit of his country, region, tribe, family and in particular workers internationally and no amount of Zanu PF spite will tak
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