news in depth:BY TAPIWA ZIVIRA
It is 8am and a couple of hours after sunrise.
For the folk here in Binga, it is the beginning of yet another sweltering October day.
Just like in every part of Zimbabwe, October has the hottest days, and in Binga, a district that lies on the edges of the Zambezi Valley, the temperatures are significantly much higher, making life more difficult for the locals, who mostly survive on carving, fishing, pottery and very little subsistence farming.
The rivers, most of which spill into the nearby Lake Kariba, run dry, and with the area being largely rural, the only available water sources — boreholes — begin to give less and less water.
For example, at Siansundu, the boreholes only release water after sunset, leaving many to spend the better part of the nights at the few available water points.
In May, human rights watchdog, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), in a survey report, noted that Binga, despite its proximity to the Zambezi River, had chronic water shortages, due to inadequate infrastructure.
Prince Dubeko Sibanda, then the legislator for the area, said the setting-up of infrastructure for the provision of water was the government’s responsibility.
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“The (Ian) Smith regime promised Binga people when it relocated them from the Zambezi River that water would follow them, but failed to fulfil that promise, the same with the Zanu PF government,” Sibanda said.
“Government must provide water infrastructure, boreholes are not the answer to the water problems in communities.
“We cannot have people and their livestock drinking from boreholes.
“We do not have a government. People need clean water for domestic use, drinking and for agriculture.”
Jestina Mukoko, the ZPP national director, said the issue of water problems in Binga needed an urgent solution.
“The government should also ensure the prioritisation of the welfare of the people of Binga,” Mukoko said.
“Only eight months ago, one person died and others were injured in floods, and as we approach another rainy season, the people of Binga are still at risk of floods as nothing has been done to relocate the victims.”
In addition to water shortages, the area, whose majority population are the Tonga people, is always stalked by hunger despite being located close to Zimbabwe’s major water body, Lake Kariba.
The stark contrast between the lives of the native Tonga people and of those who live at and come to the fancy hotels and resorts and fisheries lining up the edges of Lake Kariba, and the safaris surrounding the areas, lays bare the marginalisation of the locals, who live from hand to mouth.
Reaching Binga is a nightmare, not just because of the mountainous terrain that makes navigation difficult, but also due to the road infrastructure’s advanced state of neglect.
From the main highway off the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highway, one travels for over 170km in a potholed road that runs across the mountainous territory.
In interviews carried out in Manjolo, Siansundu and Binga centre, locals said they felt neglected by central government.
For the Tonga people, the bad road is one of the reasons they feel the national establishment has abandoned them.
“The state of the roads that lead here is a big issue. It feeds into our belief that we have been left on our own,” said a Binga resident at Manjolo, one of the small shopping centres in the area.
The state of the road infrastructure, in many ways, becomes the symbol of neglect in the district, where in some parts, people live in a semi-wild state, and enduring conflicts with the animals from the game parks that surround them.
Their story of marginalisation has been made worse by the recent recall of Sibanda, the Binga North MP.
Sibanda joined the growing list of legislators and councillors being recalled by the judicially-constructed MDC-T led by Thokozani Khupe.
Khupe won a Constitutional Court dispute that gave her control of the main MDC-T and she has been on a sustained drive to kick out legislators and councillors not loyal to her, in what many have touted as aiding the ruling Zanu PF’s gravitation towards a one-party state.
For the people of Binga, they see this as a war against them, and an attempt to further rob them of the only voice they ever had in the form of Sibanda.
“Now that the government together with Khupe have recalled Sibanda, it is clear that they have started a war with the people of Binga.
“We are prepared to protect our votes, and we will do all it takes,” said one villager.
According to some, the politics of Binga, where the opposition has always won since 2000, explains the neglect.
“We have always supported the opposition, and perhaps that is why we remain forgotten,” said a Manjolo villager, who requested to remain anonymous.
“We have community members, who no longer go for social welfare services.
“This is because whether they attend or not, none will recognise them because they are opposition.
“When will our time come where everyone shall be recognised as a citizen beyond politics? Being MDC Alliance remains my right.”
Perennial hunger and water shortages stalk Binga and the ZPP, which holds community peace-building dialogues in the area, expressed concern over the continued vulnerability of the people in the area.
The Covid-19 pandemic has made life worse for the people in Binga as they have faced harassment, intimidation and assault by the security forces deployed in the area and they have had to contend with what they call partisan police officers who abuse them in the name of the ruling Zanu PF.
“How do I report any human right abuse to a police officer or a public officer who I always see wearing Zanu PF regalia?
“It’s obvious when I report to them about being violated about their colleagues from Zanu PF, they will surely undermine my right and tell me to go away, or they will further abuse me,” said a community member, who was part of a ZPP Community Dialogue held this month.
“It is within their right that the people of Binga preserve their language, culture, values and norms, and government should respect that and instead enhance it by ensuring educational materials in Tonga language are made available.
“Tonga is one of the nine national languages and government should prioritise mainstreaming it and ensuring that Tonga people also get access to higher education to enable them to contribute to their communities,” added Mukoko.
ZPP called on government to be cognisant of the fact that sustainable peace is built through the provision of necessary social services, in addition to respecting the human rights of the people of Zimbabwe.
