#MACHETEGANGS
“If Zanu PF ever loses, expect us to chop your arms off. We will not
get arrested since the police belong to us the Zanu PF people”
As another sun rises and
shines onto the streets of
Kwekwe its golden rays mask
the dark bloody encounters
that have become part of life
in this mining town.
This is a town that is
supposed to show wealth and
status owing to its strategic
positioning above goldfields,
but it has instead become a
place of bloodletting, conflict
and pain.
Hometown to President
Mnangagwa, former State
Security minister Owen Ncube
among other politicians,
Kwekwe is place where gold
tunnels can be found just but
anywhere.
It is also a place of explosive
political contestation between
the main political parties,
Zanu PF and the Citizens
Coalition for Change and for
years the Movement for
Democratic Change. In the
last election, the Kwekwe
Central parliamentary seat
was won by the now late
National People’s First (NPF)
Party candidate Masango
Matambanadzo.
Matambanadzo was formerly
Zanu PF and belonged to the
G40 faction loyal to former
president, the late Robert
Mugabe and he was part of
the former Zanu PF officials
who formed the NPF in 2018.
Another factor that has made
Kwekwe a place of
contestation is what is
believed to be President
Mnangagwa’s tight control of
the mining activities in the
area. He would prefer for
Zanu PF to win the
parliamentary seat in the
town as this would assert his
control even more.
This is where things get a
little violent and we provide
the context.
Beyond Kwekwe, artisanal
miners are an important
component of Zimbabwe’s
politics of patronage which
Zanu PF has perfected over
the years.
The idea is to create a
vulnerable community that
can be exploited and artisanal
miners are just the perfect
constituency for that and this
is one of the reasons why
upon assuming power,
President Mnangagwa
liberalized artisanal miners
and relaxed the licence
requirements.
What this meant was that the
majority of unemployed
young people could now
easily find their way into the
tunnels to extract the
precious gold. But of course,
it came at a price.
The fact that most young
people are unemployed
creates a willing demographic
that will do whatever to get a
meal on the table. All the
suspects arrested following
the Kwekwe incident were
listed as unemployed and
some were also listed as
having no identity
documents.
As artisanal mining continued
to spread, so did the ruling
party officials tighten their
control of the miners in order
to get the most out of the
proceeds.
Several Zanu PF politicians
have been fingered as the
hands behind artisanal
miners, and in some cases
machete gangs that terrorise
people in and outside the
mines. The President
Mnangagwa’s sons have been
accused of taking over control
of a number of mining sites
across the country.
Though violence in gold
mining areas apparently
diminished in 2020 due to
COVID-19 restrictions, the
trend has flared up again now
that operating space has
opened up and more
importantly, Zimbabwe is
heading to yet another
election.