Dabengwa calls Obert Mpofu bare-faced liar

ZAPU leader Dr Dumiso Dabengwa has accused Zanu-PF politburo member Dr Obert Mpofu of lying to the nation about his exploits in the liberation struggle.

Speaking at the Bulawayo Press Club today (Friday), the former Zipra intelligence supremo said Dr Mpofu did not participate in a single battle.

He is going around telling people he was in battles from Victoria Falls to the greater part of Matabeleland when he never participated in a single battle. He never saw war action as he was actually withdrawn from the struggle and went to India to study. I would know because I was Zipra commander, said Dr Dabengwa.

Dabengwa declined to comment on the role played by Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko and Emmerson Mnangagwa during the liberation era saying he would talk about them if they started to say something against him.

This raised speculation that the two VPs could also have exaggerated their role in the war.

Recently Dr Mpofu dismissed statements from the Zipra Trust accusing him of faking his liberation war credentials by over stating his role in the struggle.  Mpofu had brandished his liberation war credentials saying he was the best commando but his former colleagues in Zipra said he was lying.

Officials from Zipra Trust revealed that while Mpofu trained as a fighter, he immediately went to India to further his education and may not have been deployed at the war front as he claimed.  

Mpofu reportedly told a gathering in Victoria Falls on Monday that he was the best trained guerrilla in the country, but the Zipra Trust officials said he only received normal training like anyone else.
Since the Zipra Trust members had chosen to issue a collective statement rather than being identified individually, Dr Mpofu said they were liars.

"These are the people who worked with (the late Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian) Smith," he said.
"You must ask people like (Zapu leader Dumiso) Dabengwa about my role. I was trained in Morogoro and deployed in various parts of the country that include Binga, Deka, Mlibizi and Sipolilo (present-day Guruve)."   

"If all those people saying I was never deployed are genuine guerrillas, they came when I was already furthering my education in India, they don't know me," Mpofu charged.  

But a Zipra Trust official, Jack Mpofu, who said he was one of the commanders and used the pseudonym Daki, insists Mpofu was never deployed.

Dabengwa seems to have put the matter to rest.