By Duncan Banda| Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party is now terrified by its own terror and recent loud echoes from the army have revealed deep fears of increasing internal violence in the race to replace Robert Mugabe.
That chaos began during the time when Joice Mujuru’s husband, Solomon died mysteriously. The whole world heard Gen Constantine Chiwenga pleading for peace as he connected the man’s departure to political violence. We need peace in our country, he said in 2011 while addressing soldiers firmly holding the charred remains of Gen. Solomon Mujuru.
Chiwenga (who was last week attacked by Grace Mugabe’s aide, Mandi Chimene) fingered the blame for Mujuru’s death on political violence. President Robert Mugabe’s official media at the weekend revealed that Mujuru’s husband was assassinated in cold blood as it said it has it on good authority that the late General (before his sudden death) under the secret watchful eye of the CIO, held several meetings with MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai and agreed on a scheme of taking over and a power-sharing formula that would incorporate the General’s interests.
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Exhuming Mujuru’s Remains
More than four years after Mujuru’s death, the government has refused to allow the family to perform their own investigations. As Zimbabwean coroner, Walter Chikwana turned down an appeal by the Mujuru family to have his remains exhumed for re-examination by an independent pathologist, it emerged that the army supremo Chiwenga provided a strong hint and what may be compelling grounds for an exhumation.
The army boss caused a scene when he connected Mujuru’s death to political violence during the late Gen Mujuru’s funeral parade. This was also the first time in Zimbabwe’s history that a serving army general vocally denounced the practice of violence in Zimbabwe, something that only politicians are known to do.
During the procession in August 2011, Chiwenga surprised people by referring to political violence while in the official act of conducting the funeral parade for Mujuru at the One Commando barracks.
Concerned with the horrific level of political violence, the army commander even stated that Mujuru was at the forefront of distilling the political violence, giving a hint that this may have cost the death of Zimbabwe’s most revered retired army General.
“He (Mujuru) was at the fore front of denouncing all forms of violence and I call upon all Zimbabweans to desist from such acts of lawlessness as these violate the core values of the liberation struggle. We must defend what he stood for. We must defend Zimbabwe’s independence and sovereignty at all costs, uphold peace and values that the late general has left us,” Chiwenga said.
Despite Chiwenga’s hint, the commander has been himself accused of instructing junior soldiers during the bloody June 27 2008 Presidential run-off elections to butcher suspected MDC supporters.
In 2012 the Mujuru family lawyer Kewada lodged an application asking magistrate Chikwanha to order that Mujuru’s remains be exhumed so that a professional autopsy can be conducted by the family’s South African pathologist.
This came after Reggie Perumal, the South African forensic scientist hired by the Mujuru family, raised doubts on the hurried autopsy conducted by Cuban pathologist, Gabriel Gonzales Alvero. Perumal said Alvero had not used the appropriate tools and also queried why Alvero did the autopsy when he is not registered in Zimbabwe on the medical practitioners list, a thorny find in the Inquest which stretched into the second week, many days further than originally intended.
During the inquest hearings, Kewada repeatedly told the court there were many unanswered questions on how Mujuru’s remains were identified as well as the establishment of the cause of death at his farm.
Vice President Mujuru and the widow to the deceased, the last witness (number 39) in the inquest, was not asked to take to the witness’s stand but her affidavit was read in court.
Mujuru, in a written statement to the inquest described the response by fire fighters at the general’s farmhouse as “totally ineffective”.
The fire department told the court earlier the tanks of all its fire trucks leaked water.
In his determination, the magistrate blasted Kewada for attempting to arm twist him into doing what the Inquest act does not empower him to do.
The Mujuru family lawyer Thekor Kewada would soon state that he accepted any criticism against him:
“Whatever criticism was made of me I have got broad shoulders, I take it on,” Kewada also told journalists after the court’s verdict.
“I think we have played our part I will accept the magistrate’s criticism as he puts it. I don’t think he intended to say anything other than saying well ‘look this is what the Act says and what the rules say,” he said.
“What is important is that through the inquest we have managed to reveal important information to the public. Those who have been following the inquest will agree with me. On the issue of the exhumation request yes I am aware that we have to apply to the Ministry of Home Affairs, and we will wait for the recommendations which the presiding magistrate is going to make to the Attorney General before and take it from there,” he said.
Mujuru was found dead after a mysterious fire outbreak which gutted his Beatrice farm house in August 2011. He had resigned from the army, entered into politics, and later stepped down as MP in 1995 to concentrate on his private businesses.
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Indeed many had been slaughtered, raped or maimed in different waves of political violence that hit Zimbabwe. One could go back to the mayhem of Gukurahundi where thousands where butchered mercilessly by North Korean trained Fifth Brigade, or think about the rein of terror unleashed upon innocent Zimbabweans who simply wanted a change of government. President Robert Mugabe this time round unleashed terror gangs well trained in the notorious Border Gezi in the art of torture, rape and murder. So brutal was this evil terror campaign that the Amani Trust, perhaps the most active human rights organisation, estimated that as many as 1,000 women were being held in Youth Service camps as sexual servants. The trust, an affiliate of the International Council for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture, assists victims of political violence.