Msika: 'They think I'm mad'

Msika: 'They think I'm mad'

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By Staff Reporter

VICE President Joseph Msika has said some people now think he is mad after he made claims that the history of Zimbabwe was being distorted.

Msika last week told a gathering to remember 11 Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (Zipra) soldiers killed by Rhodesian forces that the struggle for independence started in Bulawayo and not Harare as many history books state.

Msika said time was running out for him to tell the "true story" of the liberation struggle.

He said: “The history of the struggle should be told. I feel l have a duty
to correct this blatant lie before I go but time is running out. The
struggle to liberate Zimbabwe started in Bulawayo at Stanley Hall, when we
formed the African Youth Congress”.

The comments appear not to have gone down well with other top Zanu PF officials.

But a defiant Msika was not too keen to cool the political temperature last Saturday while opening a theme park at the site of the Old Bulawayo, touted as the country's first cultural centre.

Msika revealed that some of his colleagues in Zanu PF thought he was mad over his "history lessons".

He said: "When I speak, people think I am mad. I am not mad."

Msika also made fresh claims that the last Ndebele king Lobengula did not die in 1894 as claimed by history books. He would not give an alternative date.

Msika said: “ It is said that the king died a year later. I don't know that. Where did you get that? Can you show me his grave? Inkosi yanyamalala (the King disappeared)."

Information on the Wikipedia website on Lobengula says he "died
sometime in the Spring of 1894. As early as December 1893, it was reported
that Lobengula had been very sick, but his death was kept a secret for many
months and the cause of his death remains inconclusive. The earliest
accounts state it was smallpox, later it was diagnosed as dysentery.”

The Vice President said the Old Bulawayo theme park is a tourist resort as
well as an "educational resource which graphically illustrates the origins
of the Ndebele nation -- politically, socially and economically”.

Msika said he had great respect for the leadership qualities exhibited by King Lobengula.

He said the Old Bulawayo theme park came about after a study of a similar
site in KwaZulu Natal by a group of local Ndebele chiefs, members of the
Khumalo clan, Lobengula’s relatives and staff from the department of
National museums among others.
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