MATABELELAND HISTORY POLITICS

The political figures from Matabeleland have been the well known heroes but long regarded as just not good enough to appeal to Zimbabweans as a whole

Eldred Masunungure in a paper once noted that "Presently, there is a deep sense of being excluded from power experienced by people in Matabeleland, Masvingo and Manicaland. A four-dimensional distribution of power would be consistent with the multi-polar power configuration as argued above. This arrangement, coupled with the proportional electoral system, would go a long way to quelling the embers of conflict that are already feeding into secessionist sentiments, especially in Matabeleland."

For instance, in late 2005 the MDC vice-president Gibson Sibanda, a Ndebele, was quoted as saying that there was a need for the formation of a separate Ndebele state along the lines of single-tribe nations like Lesotho and Swaziland. “Ndebeles can only exercise sovereignty through creating their state like Lesotho, which is an independent state in South Africa, and it is not politically wrong to have the State of Matabeleland inside Zimbabwe,” he allegedly told the Daily Mirror newspaper. Sibanda later denied the allegation.

Even more ominous is a group calling itself “Mthwakazi” or “MTZ” that seeks to create a separate state called Umthwakazi Republic carved out of the three Matabeleland provinces and the Midlands, with five provinces. The movement offers no apologies for its use of a tribal framework to analyse Zimbabwe’s present problems and its resolution. They allege personal humiliation of their late leader Joshua Nkomo

and symbolically through him, of the Ndebele.

This segregation based on ethnicity that is associated with Matebeleland is also noted in earlier examples of politicians such as Dumiso Dabengwa in ZAPU and Welshman Ncube in MDC, the twio leaders despite leading parties that are national have been degenerated to provincial leaders by the MDC - T and ZANU - PF as well as by the media itself