By Nomazulu Thata

Dear Mrs. Mugabe,

The agony you are now going through is just unimaginable, you are pained right in your heart, your soil, your bones and your very self. You wish dozen times that what you did should not have happen: how you wish those stage-managed interfaces did not take place in the first instance. I do not want to imagine your loss and pain on my own skin by any stretch of imagination because it is most unbearably painful. If I sit down and conjure your state of mind today at this moment, it compels me to write you this letter to give you some comfort; emotional comfort. It does not matter how big you have sinned to men/women and God, at the end of the day you are a Zimbabwean, a Zimbabwean mother, a daughter of this land called Zimbabwe.

The people out there are aggrieved about your behaviour towards other people in general: the very poor people who needed your assistance and guidance as the First Lady. You failed as a mother to understand and comprehend how a poor Zimbabwean mother feels despite the fact that you are a mother yourself. This is not the time to split you, judge you, insult you; we all know what you did, what you said all those are not new to Zimbabwe; home and abroad. What you did to Zimbabwean people, remember that anyone else in your position could have done it. It is very easy to do what you did to the Zimbabwean population if one had the leverage of power that you had by virtue of your marriage to President Robert Mugabe.

Mrs. Mugabe: When your mind sinks into regrets, burst into crying uncontrollably, regrets of what you have done and said, please remember that you are a victim yourself. You are equally a victim just like those families you ruthlessly removed from Manzoe farm because you wanted animals to dwell in that farm to attract tourists. Please remember this Mrs. Grace Mugabe that you are a classical example of an abused woman. We visibly see your abuse because you are in the limelight and we are not. Your abuse is all visible to all who can see and are able to determine what abuse on women means what it is all about. Abuse on women is sometimes not noticeable at all, but what they know and notice is how you kicked and screamed at people whom you thought were an obstacle to your assuming power from your husband: Robert Mugabe. One among many is how you treated Mrs. Joyce Mujuru: your fellow woman.

In your national rallies that were stage-managed by men in your social circle, most of the time these rallies were very insulting, sometimes very boastful, most of the times children were force-matched to those gatherings and interfaces were you uttered words that are unprintable: you exposed the school-children and robed their innocence. Children, school children should never be exposed to a language such as “bonde.” As a mother yourself, you should have known this that children must be

respected all the time. No political scoring, purging and insults should be done in their presence.

You were sometimes insensitive to tribal make-up of our great nation. Going to Mathebeleland and assume that all understood Shona was not only disrespectful but rude too. Somehow you failed to appreciate the reasons why the people of Mathebeleland relocated to South Africa looking for those jobs that were not available in Zimbabwe. Now to call men in Mathebeleland “lazy” and they just come to make babies and return to South Africa: they just buy bicycles and blankets: those were scatter-shots that were wholly insulting to the “other” tribe, knowing that there are serious ethnic tensions in Zimbabwe. Such accusations should have been avoided as they exacerbate un-necessary ethnic conflicts.

What is most disturbing is that we have always heard of UBUNTU and thought that our African-ness: Ubuntu has support structures that will look after their own in such situations like yours. Where was your sister, your brother, your aunties; all those people that support families so that you do not go astray as you did? Those support structures that did not come to your assistance and advice as such, failed you in every respect. Somebody in the family should have taken you by the side and told you that: your position as First Lady does not allow you to use those unprintable words to denigrate other people: be it Dr. Joyce Mujuru or Emmerson Mnangagwa or George Charamba, just to mention those few who are also in the limelight, was not the best way forward to assume power.

Firstly we see victimhood in you when you got married to then President of Zimbabwe: Robert Gabriel Mugabe when you were still nursing your divorce with your first husband. The President took advantage of your youthfulness and beauty. He wanted to have children because his mother yearned for grandchildren from Robert before she died. You are the woman who was supposed to fulfil that wish. Innocently you did fulfil the old woman’s wish. Senior Mrs Bona Mugabe happily died because you had given her three grandchildren with your second husband: Robert Mugabe.

We see victimhood in you when you were used by men, MEN in the party- G40 who were power-hungry themselves but were not able to get the presidency; they used you to do that job for them. Firstly you purged Mrs. Mujuru out of her Vice Presidency t pave way for Mnangagwa. That you successfully did with absolute cruelty. That capacity and crude language-use did not come from you at all, you were fed to say what you said by the men around you and your husband. It was painful to see such open abuse on a woman by another woman: we “from the aside” were able to see through where that courage you had came from.

Your dangling of diamond ring and rings in your hands gave pain to all those abject poor people who are suffering because of your husband’s mismanagement of government spending and excessive looting of the state treasury. Your unending

shopping sprees show an excessive desire to be unique from the rest of us. That one million dollar diamond ring was not necessary to spend on in a country where young pregnant women a denied to give birth in hospitals because they did not pay hospital fees. You had become removed from the very people you purported to be the mother of. You do not have any idea how dilapidated our country clinics and schools are out there. Our roads cause accidents daily; we are losing lives daily because of the run-down road infrastructure. We had perfect roads before your husband took over power in 1980. Because of the looting culture dating back in the early independence, there was ground-breaking infrastructure development that took place since 1980.

The looting of farms is another flake on your body and soul. There are millions of people who are landless in their own country, but you and your husband have 12 farms looted from the White Zimbabweans, citizens of Zimbabwe. You cannot possibly own Mazoe Dam. You tried to loot it too, claimed it was yours and nobody is supposed to use it. Mazoe Dam belongs to the nation and is supposed to benefit all catchment settlements within that radius and not you alone. When the settlers in Manzoe Farm were removed, they were just dropped like animals by the way side. There was no resettlement program to replace their livelihoods. It is without doubt that lives were lost in this exercise. Those victims: women, men and children prayed and cried to God for their loss of livelihoods, dear Mrs. Mugabe and it was a question of time, their prayers got answered. This pain and humiliation you are going through comes from those humble cries: “For he is a just God” But still I consider you a complete victim of circumstances.

What we see today is injustices against a woman by Lacoste and G40 equally: you the victim Mrs. Mugabe. The blame is put paid on you most, than your husband, the former President. I say this because all the blame is rubbed on you and not your husband, not Jonathan Moyo who used to feed you with all those larger than life utterances; not Kasukuwere, and not your Mzukuru: Patrick Zhuwao. The nation’s anger is put-paid on your body and soul to suffer it. Ever since your husband lost power, it appears as if he has been exonerated from all the crimes and genocidal intentions since early independence till he was pushed away from power by a coup. d’état. Of late MDC-T even suggested your husband should be honoured for good service as President for 37 years. All those crimes against humanity your husband committed have been forgotten, but nobody has forgotten your sins, serious mistakes, sometimes of criminal intentions. This to me is travesty of justice if the woman is made to suffer the crimes she committed more than men.

The very people who used to hero-worship, kneel before you, called you Dr. Amai, or Munhu wese kuna Amai not even four weeks ago, have gone live on social media denouncing you calling you a Whore, “Hure”. When you hear those insults and altercations about you and your previous behaviour: when people who paid reverence and absolute to you not even four weeks ago, they now call you all sorts of names: among those insults are that you are a prostitute, a whore and so forth it

goes on. It is certainly not that you are a prostitute, a whore; it is only that the word “whore” is the strongest term they can use to illustrate their detest for you as a person.

For goodness sake: who calls Jonathan Moyo a “Hure”, who calls Saviour Kasukuwere a “Hure.” Who calls Patrick Zhuwao a “Hure”. That insult curiously applies to you because you are a woman. This is how women are insulted: “Whores” if women crossed their demarcation lines of men’s bar measurement of morality. These are the very men who put you in serious trouble. Emotionally these men who were near you carry fewer burdens than you: you are the one who insulted Mnangagwa, it is not said or asked who fed Mrs. Mugabe those purging utterances to destroy Lacoste and Mnangagwa in those stage-managed rallies and youth interfaces. Evidently some of your utterances were fed in you to say what you said. The paint brush remains in you more than the G40 group, you were just fronted to do the dirty work for them and they remained at the background. You are now facing the music alone in Zimbabwe.

I am desperately trying to reach out to you out there and humbly advise what could assist you to come to terms with your very painful loss of Presidency and humiliating situation you find yourself in. Give back what does not belong to you? “Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Give back those farms and remain with one. Give back looted diamond revenues to the owners of the land, surrender that looted money to the country’s treasury. Write a letter to the nation and apologize to the nation that you did and said was out of realms of good practice. Give that “PHD” doctorate degree back, you know it was not your sweat, somebody wrote the theses for you. When you have done that you will have done your part so don’t wait for the nation to forgive you: Few women/men are capable of forgiveness is such like your situation at the present moment.

Knowing that man/woman is not capable of forgiveness: in a clear blue night: when the moon and stars are beautifully shining on you face: ask for forgiveness to the entire universe: to the moon, to the stars, to the empty space in the universe. The magic behind this is that you will get your peace you now need most. This will assist you to come to terms with your pain, loss and humiliation. The universe will forgive you irrevocably. You will find peace in your mind and body. Your husband is old and can go to his creator anytime now. You will remain alone and your children and grandchildren to face the inevitable. Do not ask for forgiveness to the universe: moon and the stars a thousand times, in so doing you will be saying even the universe cannot forgive me hence your continuous asking for forgiveness.

You are young; you are a mother of still very juvenile boys who are used to life of drugs, alcohol and sex: boys who still need guidance from you as their mother. You need that peace of mind to be able to face life without the husband: and life can be very long. There is some woman in USA who was about to face capital punishment: she said the something that still lingers in my mind to this day: she said human

beings do not forgive but she knew that by talking to God; only God forgave her the sin she had committed to get capital punishment and she was sure she was forgiven by God before she was executed.

Mrs Mugabe it will be asking too much to get in touch with Ntombi-Langa Charity organisation that hopes to assist women in emotional distress, I am lesser mortal and have no privilege to speak to you personally. This letter I hope will get you and hope it may help: