Know Your Ministers: Holland, Shamu
April 13, 2009
With Conrad Nyamutata
HOLLAND, Sekai Masikana (MDC): Minister of State (Reconciliation and National Healing)
Probably the oldest of the MDC’s crop of youthful government ministers, Sekai Holland was appointed to a ministry where the wisdom that comes with her age will probably help her bring together a nation deeply divided by years of political polarisation and violence.
She is a 66-year old grandmother.
In March 2007 she suffered a brutal attack at the hands of Zanu-PF supporters. She was sent outside the country to seek treatment for her multiple injuries. As a Minister of State two years later she is charged with spearheading a campaign to promote reconciliation, national healing, non-violence and peace among the former warring parties.
Born Sekai Hove, she went to Sydney, Australia, to study in 1961. She met, fell in love and married Jim Holland, an engineer, in 1964. The couple has two children.
Sekai Holland worked in Australia in the long campaign against apartheid in South Africa, Namibia and colonial rule in her own country.
She was the representative of ZANU in Australia. She spent time in the Zanla guerrilla camps in Mozambique in the 1970s.
After the liberation war, the family returned to Zimbabwe at independence in 1980. But upon return, she fought a long battle to stop the deportation of her husband under legislation inherited from the previous colonial government.
The new government of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe sought to deport Jim back to his home country of origin under the Citizenship Act despite constitutional provisions against such deportation.
“For 16 months we fought battles in the courts to have my husband allowed to stay in Zimbabwe and at last we won the battle and my husband was allowed to stay in the country,” says Holland.
The discriminatory nature of the Citizenship Act forced women and human rights campaigners to wage a bitter campaign against it.
Their efforts forced President Robert Mugabe’s government to persuade Parliament to amend the Constitution. The amendment became famously known as Amendment Number 14 of 1996.
Jim Holland has lived in Harare ever since. He operates a low-cost internet service provider known as Mango.
A passionate speaker, Sekai Holland has fought hard for the development and education of women since the early 80s.
She is said to have been influential from as early as 1981 in supporting demands for the creation of the Ministry for Community Development and Women’s Affairs.
Holland has worked for the Association of Women’s Clubs (AWC) of Zimbabwe. The Hollands were, at one time, said to be raising 11 orphans, treating them as their own children after the children lost their parents to AIDS.
Disillusioned by the deteriorating political situation in Zimbabwe, Holland entered opposition politics.
She was instrumental in forming the MDC in 1999 and was elected to the MDC national executive where she was appointed secretary for international affairs.
When the MDC split in 2005, Holland remained with the original MDC led by founding leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Later, she was appointed secretary for policy and research, making way for Professor Eliphas Mukonoweshuro at international affairs.
Holland hit international headlines after she was arrested and assaulted in March 2007. Images of the partly clad grandmother, displaying various bruises and injuries, captured the severity of political repression under President Mugabe’s government.
Holland was set upon by 16 men and women after she had gone to a police station to inquire about the arrest of several MDC leaders, including the president of the party, Morgan Tsvangirai. The MDC leaders as well as several civil society leaders were arrested and also brutally assaulted while in police custody.
Holland and a colleague Grace Kwinjeh were reportedly trampled upon by the Zanu-PF supporters who branded them “prostitutes of Blair”.
The government of former British premier Tony Blair was routinely accused by the Zanu-PF leadership, Mugabe especially, of supporting the MDC
“Tony Blair’s prostitutes?” Holland said quipped after the attack. “How can they say that? I am 64! Tony Blair is more likely to be my son.”
Holland sustained broken ribs, arm, leg, a fractured knee, as well as multiple bruises and lacerations. She was evacuated to a South African hospital and then to Australia.
Upon her return, Holland was asked to stand as an MDC senatorial candidate in Chizhanje Constituency in the Harare Metropolitan Province in the 2008 elections.
Alter her victory the MDC appointed her as its leader in the Senate.
In February, Holland was appointed Minister of State for National Healing and Reconciliation after the MDC and Zanu-PF conspired to increase the number of ministerial portfolios outside the terms of the Global Political Agreement.
Under the portfolio, she is expected to work with fellow ministers of state John Nkomo of Zanu-PF and Gibson Sibanda of the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC to heal a nation scarred by bitter hatred and political violence over the past 10 years.
Shamu, Webster Kotiwa (Zanu-PF): Minister of Media, Information and Publicity
Webster Shamu was a popular disc jockey on the African Service of the then Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation back in the 1970s.
His voice suddenly disappeared from the air waves, only to resurface a few years later at the Voice of Zimbabwe, broadcasting for Zanu-PF from the Mozambican capital. Maputo was the headquarters in exile of the larger of two liberation movements waging a bitter struggle against the regime of rebel leader Ian Smith in Harare.
Born on June 6 in 1945 in Harare, Shamu is generally regarded as a Zanu-PF hardliner and a true Mugabe loyalist whose appointment to preside over the media sector has sent waves of disquiet in independent media circles. He is regarded as holding little potential for espousing either freedom or professionalism in a sector buffeted by years of state repression since the era of former Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo, who caused chaos and destruction going back to 2000.
Shamu is a former editor of The Peoples’ Voice, the official mouthpiece of Zanu-PF, where an ill-defined sense of patriotism and service to President Mugabe personally were regarded under him as the cornerstone of progressive journalism. Shamu concealed his real identity for long after independence, retaining his guerilla name, Charles Ndlovu, longer after most guerillas had reverted to their real names.
Shamu is married to Constance and the couple has 12 children.
As a young boy Shamu attended Mutema Primary School in Mabvuku in Harare before attending Highfields Community and Tegwani Schools for his secondary education.
He is said to have attended Ranch House College where he attained certificates in Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations. He reportedly also holds Certificates in Print and Broadcast Journalism, Cinematography and in Litho Printing.
Before his departure from Rhodesia Shamu in 1974, Shamu had he reached his peak as a disc-jockey, vying for popularity among radio listeners with James Makamba, the politician and businessman who now lives in exile in the United Kingdom. Shamu found his true self as a broadcaster with Zanu-PF’s Voice of Zimbabwe broadcasting from Maputo, before he returned home at independence and worked in various capacities in broadcasting.
He held several positions at the then Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, among them, director of programmes (ZBC TV), director production services and director news and current affairs. He was also managing director Central Film Laboratories. Shamu is credited with destroying Central Film Laboratories, once the most successful film laboratory in Africa. He is also widely regarded as being instrumental in turning the ZBC into a centre of hate speech and blatant propaganda.
He is a board member of Gramma Records and Jongwe Printing and Publishing Company, the Zanu-PF publishing company, whose major publications are The Peoples’ News a weekly and the monthly Zimbabwe News. The company also secured the contract for printing Hansard, the official record of parliamentary debates. Hansard has deteriorated since then and does not appear regularly.
Shamu says he was detained in Zambia in 1975 along with Dare reChimurenga and Zanla High Command members, following the assassination by car bomb of party chairman Herbert Chitepo. In 1976, he underwent political and military training at Mapinduzi in Mozambique.
He was then appointed in 1977 as the director for publicity and information responsible for the Voice of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe News and other party publications in Mozambique.
Later in the same year, Shamu was appointed member of the Zanla General Staff. At the Zanu-PF Congress of 1984 he was elected a member of the party’s central committee. In 1985 he was elected Member of Parliament for Kadoma constituency.
In Zanu-PF circles the most notable political achievement of Shamu was the establishment in 1986 of the 21st February Movement, whose major mandate is to celebrate the birthday of President Mugabe. Mugabe’s birthday celebration has become a major event on the Zanu-PF calendar when huge sums of money are raised for the feasting and entertainment of a select few.
Shamu also played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veteran Association. In 1990, he was elected Zanu-PF provincial chairman for Mashonaland West.
Shamu was elected Member of Parliament for Chegutu West constituency the same year and was re-elected in 1995 when the name of the constituency was changed to Chegutu.
Shamu controversially won the Chegutu constituency in the 2000 parliamentary election. The losing candidate, Philemon Matibe, of the MDC, became one of the few black commercial farmers to lose a farm after the elections. The invaders were allegedly hired by Shamu. The incident cast early aspersions on Zanu-PF claim that the agenda of the farm invasions was to seize land from white commercial for distribution among landless blacks.
Shamu was appointed Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture, and in 2005 became the Minister of State for Policy Implementation. While serving in this capacity Shamu presented Mugabe with a crocodile, to be part of museum which was being built for the President.
Shamu represented Zanu-PF in the Chegutu East constituency in the March 2008 parliamentary election and won the seat
He was appointed Minister of Media, Information and Publicity under the coalition government.
The ministry, once headed by Professor Jonathan Moyo, has been accused of gross abuse of the state media and repression, including banning of the independent press.
Within days of his new appointment Shamu clashed with fellow minister Nelson Chamisa (MDC) over control of the Ministry of Information Communication Technology in what appeared to be a carefully planned strategy by Zanu-PF to reclaim the strategic ministry from MDC hands.
The plan was confirmed last week when Mugabe effectively relieved Chamisa of the much contested Department of Communications and handed it over to another Mugabe loyalist, Nicholas Goche, who is the Minister of Transport.
Shamu’s business interests have linked him to shady dealings involving Charles Davy, the father of Chelsy Davy, the girlfriend of Prince Harry.
Shamu and Davy were associated in HHK Safari Company until it was disclosed that, far from being a partner in a joint venture in the lucrative operation as widely reported, Shamu was merely a front for foreign interests.
Next: Welshman Ncube
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Are we saying this guy has 12 Children with Constance?
Rumour has it he has several wives.
In an attempt to further endear himself to the first family, Shamu once suggested that Zimbabwe should celebrate mother’s day on Sally Mugabe’s birthday. He was reportedly shocked by the public outcry that this suggestion generated.
@ William Dhinhiwe
is it a crime to have several wives? I thought it was part of our tradition or its now abolished? Is there a law against it in Zimbabwe?
He left 6 more in Maputo
I’m not a supporter of the above two party ministers in question. But why is it that when you are saying things about MDC ministers, it is certain and polite But when you are talking about Zanu-PF people you say, ‘He says’, ‘He is said to..’, as if you are not sure and you always seem to be negative about the other person.
If you want us to take you for a genuine website and believe your stories you must exercise the highest degree of transparency. Do not appear to be taking sides and do not seem to be bitter about the other side. Your grammar and syntax should be the same for both parties, hey?
How is that?
EDITOR: This is said of both Zanu-PF and MDC ministers. You can go back and check. As a rule Zanu-PF ministers make more claims that are difficult to confirm. This is possibly because most hail from an earlier generation. It is inevitable that we may sound more critical of Zanu-PF ministers than we are of their MDC counterparts. Zanu-PF ministers have, as a rule, had more time in which to tarnish their reputations – those of them that are of that inclination. They have had a two-decade head-start on the average MDC minister.
It appears the profiles of all ZANU PF Ministers is being reported in the negative. The profiler is biased. Here we hear of sharm mismaging firm etc etc. We should hear of that if those are the facts. Why did we not get more detail of how David Coltart was an Rhodesian Army detail and more detail about the RA attrocities, just as much as we hear about how the ZBC became a hate spreech organisation?
Give us balanced reporting please…..
You did not shed light on why Webster Shamu left for the armed struggle. Few will remember that he was allegedly having an adulterous affair with a young student nurse, …………, and he rolled his car while driving back from a weekend of hanky-panky at Bora in Murewa. She died on the spot.
Her family were not aware their daughter was out on a tryst with a married man and it was shocking news to them.
Shamu went through a bad time in the city as her brothers, ………and ………, were well known socialites in the city. Her uncle was an Anglican Bishop.
Shamu was a very naughty young man.
I also remember visiting a friend in the Glen Norah apartments after independence and finding an unkempt Zanla fighter sitting in the lounge with a fully loaded AK47 in his arms.
I was informed that Shamu had posted armed guards at the apartments of several old girlfriends. One lived at Charles Briggs in Mbare and another in the Avenues.
When Happison Kanukayi, a famous Bulawayo socialite died Shamu sprang wrestler Oliver Tengende out of prison so he could attend the funeral in Bulawayo. He also announced on ZTV that Kanukayi was a prominent member of Zanu-PF and as a result all Kanukayi’s Bulawayo friends did not come the funeral. His brother Tony Kanukayi was very annoyed and disappointed. This was at the height of Gukurahundi.
Shamu is a very reckless man. He was not a very nice man. That is one of the reasons he kept his nom de guerre for so long.