Open Letter to His Excellency President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa.
By Obert Masaraure
Your Excellency, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, when you took the oath of office, you proclaimed yourself a “listening president.”
Today, us the people of Zimbabwe are crying out to be heard.
We appeal to your leadership and your conscience to urgently act against the unchecked environmental destruction and human suffering caused by morally bankrupt Chinese mining companies across our beloved nation.
Our beloved land, the very soil that bore the liberation struggle, is being ravaged in ways that our liberation war heroes never envisaged when they sacrificed their lives for independence.
They took up arms to free us from colonialism, not to see our people entrapped in neocolonial exploitation, where foreign interests, under the guise of “investment,” plunder our resources, poison our rivers, and leave our communities in despair.
Your Excellency, we cannot ignore the painful glaring evidence.
In Buhera’s Mukwasi Village, the Chinese-owned Sabi Star Mine has turned daily life into torment.
Dust from ore-hauling trucks smothers homes, water sources, crops, and grazing fields.
Villagers are suffering respiratory illnesses, livestock is dying, and children risk their lives crossing roads clouded with dust.
The promise of relocation and tarred roads was broken, leaving communities trapped in misery.
At Bikita Minerals, chemical spills and reckless water extraction have contaminated rivers and dams, depriving entire communities of safe drinking water.
Workers have died under unsafe conditions, while forced relocations have left families stranded without dignity or support.
In Goromonzi, Shengxiang Investments openly defied government shutdown orders, exposing the weakness of our enforcement mechanisms.
If companies can openly defy the state, what does that say of sovereignty?
Are we not a sovereign nation that has autonomy over its constitution, laws and resources?
Your Excellency, these are not isolated cases. From Manicaland to Midlands, reports echo the same story — displacement, poisoned rivers, deforestation, and livelihoods destroyed.
Even Members of Parliament, local councillors and traditional leaders have raised concerns, but their pleas are met with arrogance and silence from these companies, shielded by the lure of foreign direct investment.
The obsession with GDP growth, largely fueled by Chinese “investment,” is a destructive illusion.
What good is US$674 million in lithium exports if the people who live on this land are breathing dust instead of air, drinking poison instead of water, and burying their loved ones before their time?
This blurred obsession of economic growth, without factoring the negative environmental, socio-economic and social implications is destroying humans and is not development.
We urge you, Your Excellency, to abandon this blind chase for GDP figures and adopt a development path that values the Human Development Index (HDI) — where access to health, education, clean water, safe work, and a livable environment define progress.
That is the true measure of prosperity.
To achieve this prosperity Zimbabwe has to allow these communities to make their own decisions.
Plan for their own development priorities from Village development committees, up to the provincial leadership.
This can only be achieved through embracing section 64 of the constitution, enacting a Devolution Act that promotes bottom up governance.
Mr President, history is calling.
Just as your predecessor Robert Mugabe was reluctant to listen and act decisively on Chinese mining investments plunged our nation into crisis, your reluctance to regulate destructive mining adds salt to the injury and now risks another painful chapter.
Do not allow your legacy to be remembered as the era when our land, heritage, and culture were bartered away to foreign exploiters.
You can choose to be the listening leader you promised to be.
This means enforcing strict environmental laws without fear or favour, halting operations of companies that have violated community rights, demanding accountability and compensation for displaced and suffering villagers, and prioritizing people over profits, sustainability over short-term deals.
Your Excellency, the people did not endure the liberation war only to be enslaved by another form of coloniality.
Chinese coloniality as an extension of colonialism has brought about harmful mining
explorations that vectors of epistemicide,and culturcide.
Such that it continues to erase and override our indigenous knowledge systems, and culture as a society which negatively affects our authentic indigenous identities.
Your Excellency, if these unchecked mining operations persist with impunity, they will inevitably lead to the systematic erosion of indigenous intergenerational knowledge, culture, and traditions.
Our future generations must inherit fertile land, clean rivers, and proud cultural heritage and not wastelands and poisoned memories.
Be warned, Your Excellency, if the government continues to side with elites and foreign interests that are harmful to the masses, the disenfranchised majority will not remain silent forever.
Ordinary Zimbabweans are rising in awareness and will resist a system that manufactures poverty while enriching outsiders.
We appeal to you, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, to act not for the Chinese, not for GDP statistics, but for us Zimbabweans, the people who gave you the mandate to govern.
A listening President must listen to cries and pleas of his people.
By Obert Masaraure
On behalf of the disenfranchised masses of our people.