The Cost of Fighting for Africa
“Each time I want to fight for African rights,
I use only one hand because the other hand
is busy trying keep away Africans who are
fighting me” – Benjamin Burombo
I just read a strange article in Bulawayo 24 saying that I am wanted for unspecified “legal issues” – not criminal issues – and apparently the CID are looking for me for these “legal issues”. The only problem is the CID investigate crimes and when one commits crimes, they know how to get that person. Right now I am in Zimbabwe and many members of the security service know where to find me. What is interesting is that I, the man who fought hard to remove sanctions on our nation and to rejuvenate brand Zimbabwe on international media platforms, have become vilified ever since I exposed Innscor for selling GMOs laced with toxic chemicals, illegally in Zimbabwe. In just the last six months, a predominantly Ndebele-controlled media has written over nine negative articles about me. In these articles, they have characterized me as a ZANU PF activist, national security threat, convict and now a wanted legal delinquent, all because I dared to expose Innscor for smuggling illegal GMOs with cancer-causing chemicals. Yet, when I was fighting sanctions and appearing in international media fighting for Zimbabwe’s image, they pretended like I didn’t exist. So why this frenzy about me all of a sudden? The first mistake I made was publicly leading the fight against sanctions; going to court against the Americans; getting Congress to contact me; getting them to do an impact assessment of their sanctions which led to the report that asked Biden to remove sanctions – when everyone expected us to fail – and then having the balls to write about how we specifically got the sanctions removed. Second and more problematic, our success closed a lot of doors for people who were making easy money from sanctions. These include those who were importing GMO maize into a country without cabinet permission since maize production was stifled by sanctions. This group especially feels hard done because when sanctions were removed, they continued to make money by selling these illegal GMOs until I blew the whistle. They are a powerful group, the same which attacked Kuda Tagwirei for proposing command agriculture because it threatened to end GMO imports. I am told by a reliable source that a few weeks ago, the President held a meeting with stakeholders, proposing an audit of all food being consumed in the country. Apparently, after the proposal, some senior bureaucrats and private sector executives could not contain their anger, with many standing up and protesting about the President listening to “this Rutendo’s” GMO story, yet Rutendo keeps taking credit for removing sanctions. Soon after this meeting, it is said that a group of these executives and some from the security system met and agreed that Rutendo must be destroyed because his wings had become too big. The thing is, sanctions made many people rich through smuggling resources, GMO, and facilitating payments for the government. By removing sanctions -an agenda supported by the same President- and then exposing GMOgate, I closed many elite people’s money-making schemes to try and change the lives of a very impoverished majority and now I am enemy number one. As for the insistent false and negative publicity by Trevor Ncube and his underlings, it comes back to me exposing the Mthwakazi agenda to destabilize the country and me rebunking the 20,000 Gukurahundi genocide by exposing that the Catholic Commission says less than 1,500 people died in the seven-year war on all sides. It is obvious that tribalist, anti-government types like Trevor also hate me for removing sanctions because without sanctions the opposition can no longer advance the Arab-Spring type uprisings they need, to symbolically win the war they lost, by other means. As for those in the security cluster, my work has exposed them because what I am doing is what they are supposed to be doing to protect the nation. But instead of neutralizing national security threats; they are taking bribes from perpetrators. I am not a criminal; I have never broken any law. Senator Mwonzora went on my behalf to try and establish if there was any case against me and found none. And if there is a case against me, then I must be charged and taken to court. My sin is: – removing sanctions – ending people’s opportunities to make money from sanctions – fighting to end the suffering of the masses – exposing Innscor, their affiliates, and government officials for smuggling toxic GMOs without cabinet permission – destabilizing the Mthwakazi counter-offensive Even self-professed corruption fighters like Fadzai Mahere, Hopewell Chin’ono, and Trevor Ncube have taken sides with Innscor and those who were benefiting from sanctions because the truth is their interests are aligned with these elites and not the poor. Now, will I stop now that I am being attacked? Mine is a calling by the ancestors of our nation, and as such, I have no option but to continue my destiny. Ultimately, it will be a test between a calling by the spirits of the nation to save the poor and voiceless versus an elitist calling of exploitation, greed and consumption.
Editor’s Note
Brother Rutendo’s concern about what happens when you pick up the fight for Africa is a very critical thing we must look into and find a solution to. There are millions of Africans online who will waste no time in telling you to create solutions for the African problem instead of talking about them. But when you do create the solutions, they are the very same ones who either fight your solution or outrightly undermine it. Take for instance the war and opposition facing Aliko Dangote and his new refinery in Lagos Nigeria. You can read about the sabotage on Google. The same thing happened with the owner and CEO of Air Peace, when his private airline secured the Lagos-London route. This is a sickness among Africans that needs to be
uprooted. Why do we fight the very people who are sticking their necks for our safety and development?
Why do we sabotage African solutions for African problems while seated like victims
begging for some white saviors to come and give us aid and loans to further compound our poverty? This has never made sense. But we need to change our mindsets about ourselves as Africans. And we need to do that like yesterday.
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