'War vets must sign new covenant with people'

War veterans must re-engage with the people if they want to be respected again, MDC deputy secretary-general Tapiwa Mashakada has said.

The veterans have been President Robert Mugabe's core loyalists since the country's 1970s liberation war against white rule, often using violence to crush the opposition.

"The war vets must sign a new covenant with the people and become a national institution not a partisan institution.

"Therefore their livelihoods and needs would be better addressed if they stand out as a non-partisan institution only loyal to Zimbabwe

"It is in their best interest that they never again be used as purveyors of violence by Zanu-PF or any political party for that matter," he said.

The former Economic Planning and Investment Promotion minister accused the war veterans of causing the current economic problems.

"It took the late Chenjerai Hunzvi and war vets many months of demonstrations that forced ... Mugabe to bow to their demands in 1997. After that pay-out, war vets got into bed with Zanu-PF and spearheaded a violent land invasion campaign in 2000," the MDC secretary for finance and economic affairs said.

In 1997, former freedom fighters staged demonstrations forcing government to capitulate and give them Z$50 000 each as gratuity for taking part in the 15-year bush war that ushered in independence in 1980.

"Then in the 2000, 2002, 2005, 2008 elections war vets were unleashed on defenceless citizens," he said.

"It is a fact that war vets as an institution killed and maimed many defenceless people in order to keep Zanu-PF in power."

Mashakada said their "Damascene moment" came after the expulsion of Chris Mutsvangwa.

"Is this a case of sour grapes or a genuine repentance and realisation that they were being used against the people while their welfare was put on the back burner?

"I think war vets should learn their lessons and never again be used to fight the people."

War veterans have openly protested Mugabe's dictatorship and abandonment of the values of the liberation struggle and the very people who gave their life fighting for freedom and independence.

They served the nonagenarian with divorce papers, after they released a damning communiqué against him mid last year.