Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) national political commissar Francis Nhando said Mugabe is “guilty” of allowing his lieutenants and powerful First Lady Grace Mugabe to challenge his two deputies — Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko — to the detriment of Zanu PF and the country.
“When you see the president protecting corrupt officials in the G40 (Zanu PF’s Generation
40 faction), it makes him the enemy of the people. They abuse their offices pursuing activities that border on sabotage, which has led Zimbabweans to frown upon the party.
“In reality, Mugabe is in jail and needs deliverance through being advised to leave power now and rest. State House has been infiltrated, especially when you consider that it is at State House that a Zanu PF women’s league secretary who claims to be a senior to the vice presidents resides,” he said.
Mugabe and the seriously unhappy former freedom fighters have been exchanging brickbats since their stunning fallout in July last year, when the ex-combatants issued a damning communiqué to end their decades-long relationship with the increasingly frail nonagenarian, dating back to the days of the country’s liberation struggle in the 1970s.
This week, the war veterans also threw their weight behind the quest by opposition parties to establish a grand coalition ahead of next year’s eagerly-awaited national polls.
ZNLWVA spokesperson Douglas Mahiya said they supported the formation of the mooted coalition alliance because they were of the view that this would work in the interest of long-suffering Zimbabweans.
“Our message for 2018 is that people must be free to choose anyone they want, who they think is a good leader. That’s, after all, what we fought for.
“As long as the coalition is going to represent the suffering masses of Zimbabwe, we are
going to support it. But what we don’t need are people who create a special class so that they will enjoy life while people are suffering.
“Zanu PF has created a bourgeois class which is enjoying life while people are struggling to get food and that is not good for our country. As you know, all our people suffered to liberate this country,” Mahiya said earlier in the week.
Addressing the media in Harare late last year, forthright former Cabinet minister and ZNLWVA chairperson, Christopher Mutsvangwa, also said Mugabe owed ex-combatants big time as they were the ones who had made him president, not Zanu PF.
“It was us who sat and made sure that Mugabe became the leader when the need to change leadership arose. We are the ones who sold his name to the people. It is not from the founding fathers (that this happened).
“We sold his and (the late vice president) Joshua Nkomo’s name to every village. It is the liberation army that made the leadership of Zimbabwe, not the other way round. He (Mugabe) is a beneficiary of the decisions we made when we deposed (Zanu founder Ndabaningi) Sithole,” he said.
“We will never fear anything in this country because the most fearful thing which existed was called Ian Smith and we defeated him. After Ian Smith, we don’t fear anything,” the former War Veterans minister thundered defiantly.
Speaking before that, Mutsvangwa also chided Mugabe’s administration while addressing youths on lessons from the liberation struggle.
“Anybody who is not for progress is your enemy because he (Mugabe) is failing this economy to deliver its capacity to make it the most prosperous country in Africa,” he said.
In serving their divorce papers on Mugabe last July, the war veterans also said Mugabe’s continued stay in power was now a stumbling block to the country’s development, adding almost churlishly that the nonagenarian would be “a hard-sell” if he ever contemplated contesting the 2018 polls.
Mugabe responded by warning the war veterans that they would be dealt with severely, including through the use of extra-judicial suppression methods that his former liberation movement incorporated during the country’s independence war — such as incarcerating dissenters in inhuman dungeons where they were forced to live like caged rats.
After this, police duly launched a savage crackdown against the war vets leadership and arrested five officials, including ZNLWVA secretary-general Victor Matemadanda, Mahiya and Nhando, who were recently set free by the courts.
Over the years, war veterans have served as Mugabe and Zanu PF’s political power
dynamos, playing particularly significant roles to keep the nonagenarian on the throne in the hotly disputed 2000 and 2008 national elections which were both marred by serious violence and the murder of hundreds of opposition supporters.
Analysts have also predicted that Mugabe will not win the 2018 polls without the support of the war veterans, while on their part the ex-combatants have vowed that they will vote for an opposition candidate if the nonagenarian stands in those elections.
Mugabe — the only leader Zimbabweans have known since the country gained independence from Britain in 1980 — is facing the biggest challenge to his 36-year rule.
His government is struggling to pay civil servants, amid a deepening economic crisis which includes falling revenues and horrendous job losses — with public sector salary dates now as elastic and as unpredictable as the discarded Zimbabwe dollar.
As it is, many civil servants and hard-pressed State pensioners will only be paid their December 2016 salaries this month. – Daily News
Look who is talking? Some real idiots for sure. The so called war vets are some of the most corrupt people in Zim today.
After all the disbursments they recieved from the State in the earlier years of independence, they should not be so dependent on the State in this day and age; had they had a sense of self sufficiency and direction.
But instead, they chose to live reckless lives; pummeling citizens into submitting to all their whims and desires, and making sure that the whole nation is permanently held at ransom for their so called liberation roles in the past. Who asked them to join the struggle?
Now they are beating their chests over pure lies; nobody defeated Ian Smith. That is a fact.
The Lancaster House Conference would not have been had Ian Smith been defeated. Aboce all, you dont give away a guaranteed 10 Parliamentary seats to a White minority for a guaranteed 10 years – a wholly disproportionate number to their population, if you have defeated them. We sick and tired of their 36 years of manipulating and rewriting history, and misleading the younger generations.
Now they have been chucked out from the feeding trough and they are crying foul. Do they really expect an aged old man of 93 to part ways with wife in preference for them, in the dying days of his life?
Their choice of a ruthless murderer in the form of Mnangagwa for a successor to the President is the core of the current upheavals. Very soon something will have to give; either Mnangagwa will be removed from the VP position or Grace will have to either go; or accept to co-exist with the devil Mnangagwa – watch the space.
Predictions were made that Prof Jonathan Moyo would be spending Christmas behind bars – what happened?
The Prof is still tweeting with even more vigour in 2017, despite the calls by Mugabe. Idiots are being played big time.
Moyo is being encouraged by Mugabe himself and his Grace to continue relentlessly on the offensive; whilst they pacify these stupid war vets with meaningless public pleadings. Indeed this so called Ngwena has lately seen the writing on the wall after the BOSS fiasco and is backtracking.
Yaah neh? Zasha Jonathan and Phelekezela Mpoko. You got them by the balls and right at the corner where you want them.
Sobona la okuzowela khona induku noxakuxaku!!