Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF) leader Joice Mujuru, says she is perplexed by her former boss President Robert Mugabe’s continued use of inflammatory and hate language against his perceived opponents.
In a statement yesterday, Mujuru’s party said Mugabe’s reference to dungeons and mice as well as his genocidal talk was chilling and worrying.
“We are shocked as ZimPF by President Robert Mugabe’s rants against political opponents, especially his revelation that he used to throw political opponents from within his then Zanu into dungeons packed like mice.
“It is quite alarming that, of late, Mugabe has been using the spectre of macabre and grossly horrifying human rights abuses perpetrated by him, his government and his merchants of violence to ward off political opposition to his rule,” the opposition party said.
Mujuru said Mugabe in response to dissent from war veterans on June 9 had threated to unleash a “Gukurahundi-style orgy of violence”, adding it was careless talk about an episode that left 20 000 dead in Zimbabwe’s western provinces in the 1980s.
The statement added that Mugabe had also threatened activist and cleric Evan Mawarire, while addressing mourners gathered for the burial of former Cabinet secretary Charles Utete and lately on Wednesday when the Zanu PF leader indicated he was prepared to use “inhuman and extra-judicial incarceration in underground dungeons”.
“What is worrying, and equally chilling, is that Mugabe is Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces. He is the man with hands on the levers of coercive State apparatus and his word is command to the security sector.
“Such a man, therefore, should be measured in the way he speaks, the way he uses power, and should never resort to the use of brute force to deal with opposition to his incumbency,” the former Vice-President said.
“We are worried, as indeed we believe every Zimbabwean is, by Mugabe’s utterances, and his threats of unleashing violence on opponents to his regime that are raising their concerns within the provisions of the Constitution, the supreme law of the land.”
War veterans, in a damning communiqué last week, also warned Zimbabweans to be wary of Mugabe’s genocidal tendencies and vowed to withdraw support ahead of the 2018 general elections.
ZimPF said: “We believe that Mugabe’s threats are not hollow, or just the rants of an old, tired and desperate leader. We are fully aware that there are citizens who have disappeared and up to now there is no trace of where they are being held, if they are still alive”.
The party cited examples like Rashiwe Guzha and Itai Dzamara, who both disappeared without a trace after run-ins with Mugabe’s administration.
“After Mugabe’s boastful revelation at his party’s headquarters on July 27, the temptation that we now have is to believe that Mugabe’s revelation that he used to throw political opponents into some underground dungeons during the war explains even the disappearances that we witness today,” Mujuru said. Newsday