'First martyr died to save family'

Tapiwa Mubwanda's identity document shows the kind of open, intelligent face that South Africans have come to appreciate in Zimbabweans who fled across the Limpopo in recent years.

But a photo is all that remains of a man who died a hero.

He was killed as he tried to protect his family from a 300-strong mob of Zanu-PF militias, war veterans and thugs.

His crime - to ensure his area posted a winning vote for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the country's new majority party.

Mubwanda (55) was one of President Robert Mugabe's new farmers, trying to eke out a living on his small plot near the village of Kazangare outside Karoi.



Several years ago he decided that Mugabe had made a hash of things, but, unlike millions of other Zimbabweans who voted with their feet and fled to South Africa, he chose to stay.

He joined the newly formed MDC and soon was organising secretary of the party in Hurungwe North, a Mashonaland West constituency.

It must have taken courage merely to work for the MDC in Zanu-PF's heartland.

Then, in the March elections, the MDC candidate failed to win - yet Mubwanda's polling station had posted a clear majority of MDC votes.

Posting of results outside the almost 9 000 polling stations to prevent rigging was key to this year's election

But it allowed local party despots to identify "dissident" areas, and Zanu-PF unleashed Operation Makavhoterapapi ("Where did you cast you ballot"). Since then there have been reports of beatings, torture and rape of MDC supporters and their relatives.

When Zanu-PF members arrived at Mubwanda's hut they said they were going to burn it down. His wife and three young children emerged screaming. Mubwanda then ran off to lure his attackers away from his family.

But the mob felled him with sticks, and one attacker plunged a knife twice into his chest, puncturing his lungs.

Mubwanda died a lingering death and became the first to die in Mugabe's post-election crackdown.

• Source Url: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20080501062505943C796302
  
  Posted By: Jan
  AfricanCrisis Webmaster
  Author of: Government by Deception
  
  “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
  (George Orwell)
  
  My all time favourite movie quote is from the Dwarf in Lord of the Rings: "Certainty of death, small chance of success... what are we waiting for?"
  

         

  ---

  There are no Readers' Comments for this article