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Ellina Magodo is a heartbroken woman
The Chegutu farm worker says she has lived all her 72 years hoping for a chance to take part in securing a free and fair Zimbabwe for her six grandchildren and generations to follow.
She tells the Zimbabwean how she has suffered disappointments; first voting in 1980 for President Robert Mugabe who would turn out to be a cruel dictator, then, in 2000 she watched helplessly while the very veterans of the liberation struggle murdered people during the land reform.
This time, Ellina is disappointed by the lack of progress in the constitution making process and the escalating violence.
Kicked out of her workplace five years ago when the farm she worked at was taken over, Ellina and her dependant grandchildren- all below fifteen- have found a new home at the abandoned Chigwell Farm tobacco barns, about ten kilometres from the small town of Chegutu.
Asked why she has lost faith in the new constitution, Ellina spoke plainly, “There is a lot of violence, just like what happened during the days of jambanja (land seizures) and I do not see how we are going to have a people driven constitution unless the violence stops,”
The youth militia and war veterans, all aligned to ZANU PF, have been fingered in the ongoing violence targeting the marginalised rural and farming communities.
“The war veterans come here often to ‘educate’ us on what we should say we need in the constitution and they threaten to repeat the June 27 (2008 presidential elections run off violence) if we do not comply,” she said as she feebly struggled to light a fire to prepare the day’s meal for her grandchildren.
ZANU PF has denied instigating violence, but statements by officials from a trade union that represents farm workers show there is escalating violence in farming communities.
“There has been the re-establishment of torture bases in commonly known farming communities where there is a high number of war veterans and they are holding meetings on a daily and weekly basis, forcing people to attend,” said an official from the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ).
Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Eric Matinenga said the long awaited public consultations are starting ‘sometime in June’
The Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (COPAC), tasked to spearhead the making of a consituions under the Global Political Agreement has delayed the process, citing funding constraints. It is understood that donors have at some instances pulled the plug in response to the disagreement that arose between the three political parties over the implementation of the GPA.
This week, one of the co-chairs of COPAC, Paul Mangwana of ZANU PF said the consultations will start on June 15.
On the issue of violence, Matinenga said government is aware of it. “It is an issue which government must address and I am hoping it will be resolved as the organ on national healing is aware of it,” said Matinenga.
The Organ on National Healing and Reconciliation, headed by Sekai Holland, Vice President John Nkomo and Gibson Sibanda, has been widely castigated for not moving fast to heal the country after a decade of violence.
John Asani, a former farm worker living at the Shenckleton Compound near Alaska Mine in Chinhoyi blamed the nongovernmental organisations for not stretching their awareness campaigns to remote areas.
“All that we see about the constitution are the ZANU PF youths who come to harass us. We are not aware of the progress and there is so much confusion around here are scared of what might happen to them if they try to exercise their will,” he said.
Asani said during the past elections, civic society organisations helped in educating rural people on the progress.
“The education helped us in many ways because even though ZANU PF was unleashing its violence, we were well informed and, the events were well documented for future reference, but now it is all silence,” he said.
The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, an umbrella body of over 300 civic society organisations says it has been doing outreach programmes throughout the country educating people on the need for a new constitution.
Speaking to The Zimbabwean, the programmes co-ordinator Pedzisai Ruhanya said, “We have done most of our meetings without any disruptions although we have witnessed some violence meted out on people by war veterans and youth militia.”