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Interview Part 1: Margaret Dongo
SW Radio Africa's Violet Gonda talks with former Zimbabwe Union of Democrats leader Margaret Dongo for the Hot Seat programme. This is the part one of two of the interview:
Broadcast on Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Violet Gonda: Our guest on the programme Hot Seat today is Margaret Dongo a former freedom fighter, politician, and social commentator. She went to fight in the war of liberation when she was 15 years old.
After independence she worked in government for a number of years before leaving the ruling party and running as an independent candidate in 1995. Margaret Dongo is the first person to successfully challenge an election result in court, becoming the first independent MP in Zimbabwe. Mrs Dongo served in parliament until 2000 as President of the Zimbabwe Union of Democrats.
I started by asking her what she was doing now and whether she is still an active politician?
Margaret Dongo: Yes I am but it depends on how people determine one’s participation in politics, because what happens here normally in Zimbabwe is that one has to make noise in order to be heard so that that’s how they can gauge a person who is in active politics. But, let me say, you know, politics, it’s a question of how you define politics.
Politics as far as I’m concerned is that ability to bring about a change into the well being of the entire society. You can do it in a different way. Politics is not all about holding an office, but there are a lot of contributions that one can do outside office, which is still politics. So, I’m doing a lot of things, which are in line with the politics as well, and I’m still in politics, as I said, today.
Violet: What was it like being in Zanu PF and why did you break away from the party?
Margaret Dongo: Have a look, when we talk about my experience in Zanu PF I think it’s important to share with other people. I’ve no regrets for being in Zanu PF anyway, I started in Zanu PF when I was fifteen years of age. But have a look, we should agree to disagree when things are going wrong, and I think that’s the starting point. And, what I think went wrong, as one of the former freedom fighters, I felt betrayed because I felt that the ideals of the liberation struggle were beginning to be betrayed as early as 1990 when I was actually making a lot of controversy and people could not agree with me and at times people ended up abusing me and thinking that how can a woman challenge these issues.
So, I felt betrayed in the sense that you know, we were not fighting to be as poor as what we are today, we were not fighting to live in abject poverty. We were not fighting for us to live like destitutes. We were not fighting to actually get in the shoes of the former as well. So what we were fighting for we thought we were going to bring an independent Zimbabwe. But, if you look round you find a situation where today you can even ask yourself when you go to certain parts of the country, especially in the rural areas, you ask yourself whether these people have had independence, whether they are in an independent Zimbabwe.
So, for me, I felt betrayed because we were not able to deliver the goods and because a lot of things were beginning to crop up like corruption, nepotism and everything, which helped to destroy the economy and the politics of this country. And this is why I left Zanu PF and those things have not yet been corrected and I’ve no dream of going back because it doesn’t make any sense, I’m a principled person. For as long as the system is still as evil as before then why, because we were not fighting Smith as in colour, but we were fighting the discriminatory tendencies, all the law, the problems that we experienced during the colonial regime. And, those problems are even surfacing in a greater volume in a different situation, which is even worse. So, that’s why I’m saying the reason is that’s not what we were fighting for and that’s why I left.
Violet: And you served in Parliament until 2000, now why was it difficult to break through as an Independent?
Margaret Dongo: Let me tell you, you know you can’t fight a lone battle. There’s no way you can fight a lone battle and win a strong system like Zanu PF. Zanu PF is deep rooted. It’s a party that started as early as 1960’s and it came through the liberation struggle and the majority of the people, especially the rural, they still have that experience of the liberation struggle and they still have that in their mind. And, it’s not easy to change people over night, so it’s a process. So, it wouldn’t be easy.
In fact, for me, I made a greater achievement as I have said, I am one of the proud persons that we can talk about because out of my strength, out of my position to be independent, it actually bore very good fruits which are sweet today because it has developed a lot of opposition from there. Because, if people could say ‘if Margaret can challenge as an Independent, why not men like us do the same way?’ And, this is how, if you look at the history of our opposition political parties, they started from the 1990’s, even though we had other political parties operating before, but, I’m telling you, the most effective one actually mushroomed from the 1998 to date, before there wasn’t. But, it’s because of a mere challenge. If someone can challenge and other people can say ‘OK, if Margaret can challenge and nothing happened to her, why don’t we come in?’
But, the problems that we have which I want to mention, as Zimbabweans, is that we have no unity. Our approach at times bears this tendency of undermining each other. You know we have bred brilliant leaders in this country but my worry is that they can’t come together. They can’t come together and share their ideas so as to win the system. As it is right now, for instance, if you look at the opposition movement, people are dismantled because they don’t know exactly kuti what agenda does our opposition have, including even myself who is in opposition. That’s why people are asking where is Margaret? Why? Because our people have been dismantled economically, politically and socially. They are busy running around trying to find bread and butter and they are busy running around trying to see how they can earn a living, and, right now, people don’t know exactly, they have lost confidence, they don’t know which way to take and this is why you find kuti …
Violet: I’ll come back to get your thoughts on the opposition movement in the country. But, I just wanted to go back to another issue, that the MDC became the biggest challenge to Zanu PF in 2000, now that was round the time that you left active politics. Was there no wisdom in you joining the MDC while you were an Independent?
Margaret Dongo: Have a look, there was but have a look, they never approached me, I want to be honest with you and I’m a bit disappointed because a lot of politics was played by using my name in any case. I only discover at times when I’m outside abroad or outside in the countries when I’m making a presentation or I’m at Conferences and so forth and get people to ask me. You know, I’ve never had a situation where we sat at a table and have people say ‘OK, Margaret, can we have your experience, can we share your ideas?
You know, this is a problem that we have in this country. People … and worse off, I’m a woman. I remember the one article I only read which I bought in South Africa, I was on my way back home, in which Morgan Tsvangirai was interviewed by one white lady from South Africa, and she said, and I quote, ‘oh, by the way, Margaret has been fighting a lone battle for a long time, why don’t you tap her experience?’ And, I think he said he has enough experience and enough people and he doesn’t need anyone, and he never lifts up his phone and phone me. You know, when I looked at it, I looked at it from a gender perspective and I said ‘that’s typical of African men’. But anyway, it’s not an issue as far as I’m concerned.
The issue is I also believe in multi party democracy and I also believe in unity of purpose. It’s not just a question of just saying ‘let’s come together’, because if you mix rotten peas they will mess up others. You know, when you are in politics you have to work like a family; it has to be a family, it has to be a team, it has to be a marriage because it’s a sacrifice. You want to take a sacrifice, this is a different challenge that you are taking, it’s not like running a private company or whatever. You are talking about the welfare of the people, the well being of the people, you are going to carry a lot of lives on board. So you need to work as a team and you need to understand each other.
Fine, we come from different environments, we cannot click 100%, but politically, one way or the other you have to agree in terms of ideology and so forth. And, the other thing that one has to do is there has to be tolerance. People have to agree to agree, agree to disagree and agree to compromise. What we don’t have in this country is that a leader always feels that his ideas are the best and for as long as we have that attitude, we are not going to get anywhere.
So, the issue is not about Margaret wanting to go it alone. I’ve seen it, I’ve had the experience. The Nationalists were so united in the ‘60’s and this is what is also attracted us to join them. And, even today, some of them, they are not happy with the current affairs, the current situation, but look at it, they are there lying idle and they’ve got a lot of ideas and a lot of experience that can be tapped and build a very strong opposition movement. But, it’s the mentality of those that are in the forefront. The mentality that if X comes in will steal the show, if X comes in he or she is a former Zanu PF and may be a sell out. We haven’t come together and say we want to solve the problem once and for all. There’s no one individual that can conquer Zanu PF. We would need even people that are within Zanu PF. We would need even people that are in Zanu PF today.
I will give you a very good example Violet, which probably you might think that I’m diverting from your question. Look at the harmonisation debate, which is going on. I’m telling you, the best persons to stop that harmonisation are the Zanu PF people. Because, we have already made a mistake as an opposition. One, we don’t have the majority in the Senate, we don’t have the majority in the House of Assembly which I want to say and I want you to get to the public. We don’t have the majority in those two Houses, and, any Government, which has the majority, would take an advantage of such opportunity and they can play around with the Constitution.
Even in South Africa when they had the two-thirds majority they were able to change their Constitution. If Blair would have the same situation, he would use the same you know. So, what we need to do is now to say ‘OK, fine, this is the problem that we have, what is the way forward and how can we go about it?’ And, I would advise; the opposition should stop behaving like individuals and I think what they need to do is they should have respect.
You know, I hate people who undermine people who have played a role in the liberation struggle. Fine, you can call them names, but it was a stepping-stone, you are coming from somewhere, the history is coming. You know whatever history comes up, it will still remain and what we forget is that history repeats itself. I’m telling you today we have a problem of the factions that have arisen from MDC factions Part One Tsvangirai and the Mutambara. It’s not new as far as we are concerned as former combatants. This has happened on several times in the Liberation Struggle but the question is ‘how did Zanu PF manage to contain it?’…
Violet: Amai Dongo, I tell you what, I will ask you that question later on, before I forget let me just go back to what you said earlier on. You said you were not invited to join the MDC. Now, what about reports that said the MDC approached you just before the 2000 Parliamentary Election to stand on an MDC ticket for the Sunningdale Parliamentary seat but you allegedly refused because you wanted to stand as the President of the Opposition Party? Can you comment on that?
Margaret Dongo: I’m actually happy to comment on that because I want to give an end to that distortion. You know, people try to make mileage out of other people. I’ve never had a chance to talk to them even when I was…, in fact they said to me that they’ve had enough support in terms of resources and ideas. Have a look, the people that I groomed in my party are some of the people who ended up in MDC; the (Fidelis) Mhashu’s the Priscilla’s (Misihairabwi), the majority, even the youth, you know it very well, are the ones that were groomed from the time I became an Independent. How then can I refuse? I’m a democrat; I’m a true democrat and I’ve told you, I’m prepared, even right now, I’m actually disappointed with the current situation and I don’t know how I can make a contribution.
Right now, I feel bad because honestly I say to myself ‘I should be making a contribution towards this’, but how to, because the point of intervention, if you look at the politics, which is being played in this country, it’s still very immature as far as I’m concerned.
Violet: And you mentioned earlier that as a war veteran you noticed how the Nationalists managed to contain rebellion or how people have said that Zanu PF may be hit by serious in fighting but that the Zanu PF house will remain in tact. What keeps them together? As a war veteran and as a person who was in Zanu PF can you shed some light into this?
Margaret Dongo: Have a look, there’s a lot of sacrifice that has been made by those Nationalists. When it comes to hardships they stick together and they’ve got a bond and whenever they had an agenda they will make sure kuti they will get, they will sail through. You know, it’s different from the current opposition, when we want to have a demonstration or when we want to show our presence we will go to the youth and we will ask the youth to do it and to be the frontiers, we will go to the women and ask the women to be the frontiers. You look at the national leaders and ask yourself - where are they? Some of them have flown out to South Africa because they don’t want to be affected by the labour unrest or the strikes, some of them are in Nyanga,
As for the Nationalists that I am talking about, they could stay in the camps, they could stay with the people in the rural areas, they could live in abject poverty for as long as they know what they are fighting for. Our people today, our opposition today, you cannot tell them to go and stay in the rural and to start conscientising the people, being part of the rural folk, there is nothing Violet. I am now living a rural life, I’m running projects in Manicaland, in Chimanimani and in Mhondoro, I spend most of my time in the rurals.
And I’m telling you unless and until the opposition changes its strategy they will never win the rural areas. They will never win the rural areas because they are behaving like Zanu PF after independence. They go for election campaigns, when they win the seat they go to bed only to come to the surface during the national days when they come in as political tourists and display themselves; 21st February Movement, this and that, that’s what brings them back to the people. Then, six months before the elections the Ruling Party is up. The Opposition is up, new parties are being formed and so forth, and what has been happening for the past five years? You dump the youth, you dump the women, you dump the rural people, you never took an advantage of that to say ‘OK, now we have lost, we learn our mistakes through this, let’s go back, you do a post-mortem. By now the opposition should be able to identify their weaknesses in the rural areas.
And the other problem, which I need to mention is this, in politics I have learnt, I have made my own mistakes and I accept you should also learn to listen. That is the greatest challenge in politics. If you don’t listen and you think I’m a leader, what I say goes, then you will never even taste the power. Because, at the end of the day, rural people; people undermine them a lot but I have discovered that they are very intelligent. You know I was in Mhondoro and I said ‘but why you people are like what you are?’ You know, I got a question, they said ‘OK fine, if we remove Mugabe who are we going to put in his place, we’ve never seen anyone here?’
Some of the people who’ve been tortured during the elections who supported the opposition, they’ve actually gone in without support. Some of them have died and no one has visited them, no one has come back to find out to say what has happened to you. At the same time at the same token, I am in a constituency where I come from in Chipinge, this constituency was owned, was run by Ndabaningi Sithole for twenty five years and Zanu PF couldn’t get hold of it until Ndabaningi was dead and then the MDC got the constituency. And guess what, and now that same constituency has gone back to Zanu PF and if you look back you will find out all the majority of the rural constituents which had been taken over, which the MDC had managed to break through are now going back to Zanu PF and you ask yourself to say have a look where have we gone wrong as the opposition, where have we gone wrong?
OK, accept to go back on the drawing board and say OK where have we gone wrong, what experience do we want to take from others, how can we go about it. How, Violet, can you take an urban person, turn an urban person to go and mobilise people in the rural? Why do you undermine their intelligence, why don’t you go there and train the rural people and let the rural people, who speak the same language, develop each other.
Why do you want to have the mentality that you come from Harare you go and campaign them and tell them that bread is very expensive in Harare. It’s the urban people who are worried about bread. The rural people are not worried about bread, they want to know if they will have sadza, they will have their maize, if there is drought they want to know how they are going to get their handouts.
Violet: But is it not also the case that there is no work by the opposition in the rural areas because there are limitations. The rural areas have been sealed off by the ruling party and any work done there has to be done by Zanu PF who have Chiefs and Headmen who are Pro-Zanu PF?
Margaret Dongo: No not at all, not in the areas that I have been to including Mataga, Zvishavane. No, these people, let’s not mix things; politics and development. Some people know exactly what development is all about. Let’s not mix politics and development. I think that’s where we have our problem because I don’t think, if you look at the poverty which is in the rurals today, and anyone would actually chose to say I will get these handouts because they are from Zanu or I will get these handouts because they are from MDC or I will get these handouts because they are from party X. There is nothing like that. People want to develop themselves, people want to be empowered. Because they are not well empowered they are manipulated by the ruling party, this is what people should know. They are manipulated heavily by the ruling party.
But if there are people who are attached to them who will orientate them, who will explain to them, who teach them, who talk to them everyday, who mix with them and study their behaviour, honestly the opposition would be able to sail through because people in the rural areas have also had enough. They have had enough of it but, have a look, there is no one else who comes in. It’s either Zanu PF, they come in, like now of course, we are going to have drought in a number of areas, the rains are not consistent. They know very well that those are the people who are coming back. We can still educate them that they’ve got a right to that food.
You know what’s important with rural people is if you show your presence they’ve respect for you. It doesn’t have to be Morgan (Tsvangirai) to go to a rural, but if he has structures, the structures like for Zanu PF, those structures can operate with or without him. Mugabe doesn’t have to be everywhere. You know, the way Zanu PF has built its structures this is why it has become difficult for people to uproot those structures and I think this is what the opposition is required to do. You know, after every election, if you lose you need to go back, consolidate your structure, start again and find out where you went wrong and that’s what we need to do.
Violet: No, that’s what I wanted to ask you that you know the Tsvangirai MDC says it will soon launch a campaign for the 2008 elections, now I was going to ask that do you see the MDC being able to break through the rural population in time for next year’s election - if the elections are held in 2008?
Margaret Dongo: They will soon launch an election for the rural campaign, where were they since 2000? I want you to answer me, where were they since 2000? Where were they since 2002 when the last Presidential election ended? You should learn from even the region. Look at Zambia, when we had the elections when the contestant was beaten by was it Mwanawasa, you have to find the correct record.
You know, the President who was trailing behind the current President, you know what he did? A week after the elections there was already an issue that he had launched his Presidential campaign for the next election. Isn’t it too bad, how do you feel about that? That person knows that it takes time to win the people’s minds isn’t it? Already after the vote count, a week after the vote count he had already launched his Presidential elections, he didn’t even know when the elections are! Because he wanted to keep together, to keep the momentum with the people, that’s what he wanted to do.
And he (Tsvangirai MDC) was saying, OK, we are going to launch our campaign for the rural areas 2007 because we want elections 2008. What’s the difference between you and Zanu PF? By today, by right now, we should be working flat out, all opposition, even if we have differences, we should be working flat out in the rural areas saying OK identify, by now we should have had a team doing research seeing what are the needs, what are the requirements, where have we gone wrong. So that now Parties have to come up with policies and we give them direction, we direct them to say this is how, these are the requirements of the rural folk.
Violet Gonda: Join us next Tuesday for the final segment with Margaret Dongo where we ask what sort of strategy the pro democracy elements can come up with to attract and motivate people in the rural areas? Many groups in Zimbabwe have gone on strike demanding better working conditions while attempts by the opposition to organise peaceful demonstrations against the Mugabe regime have failed. Is it now up to angry workers to trigger street protests?
Audio interview can be heard on SW Radio Africa’s Hot Seat programme. Comments and feedback can be emailed to violet@swradioafrica.com
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