Having played a decisive role in Zimbabwe’s liberation movement, war veterans find themselves in a precarious socio-economic and political position in the post-independent era with the continued downward trajectory in development. War veterans, the majority of whom come from rural, peasant, and urban working class backgrounds have played a fluid role in Zimbabwe’s development discourse. The relationship between war veterans and Zimbabwe’s development has been typified as a stage for class contradiction and class struggles. In Marxian theory, class struggles ideally, ultimately result in the rupture of the capitalist system. There are moments in Zimbabwe’s post-independent history where a rupture in the system has been noted; the land reform process is one instance which represented this rupture. Instead of ushering in an ideologically and practically egalitarian society, the post-rupture moment has led to further class contradictions as represented by the complexities of the relationship between opposition politics and the war veterans. You do not use on one hand if you are not going to follow it on the other hand!!

Keywords: War veterans, political class, development, land reform, Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP).