Chamisa's MDC irked by Charamba's statements

The MDC has been irked by statements made by presidential spokesperson George Charamba, calling on party leader Nelson Chamisa to appear before the commission of inquiry investigating the politically-motivated violence of August 1.

Jacob Mafume, the party's national spokesperson described Charamba's statements as "reckless" and "a revelation pre-empting Zanu-PF's agenda in setting up the enquiry of shame".

"Charamba also exposes his misunderstanding of the justice delivery system, when an individual is arrested for a murder case, there ought to be proof and locations of his acts on the chain of causation. It is clear therefore that the people who pulled the trigger and those who gave orders are solely responsible for the deaths.

"Whether people were demonstrating or not is a different subject matter, if the force used by the military on the day was proportionate to the situation on the ground there would be no need to set up a commission in the first place," he said in a statement.

Mafume said if the procedures of military deployment were followed to the letter, by now a brief of the deployment should have been brought to Parliament by President Emmerson Mnangagwa in terms of the Constitution.

"It is therefore shocking for Charamba to claim that president Chamisa is personally liable. We have problems with senior government officials who utter statements meant to influence investigations. With the history of abuse of the justice delivery system in Zimbabwe such statements are unacceptable; in fact Charamba must reverse his statement. It is unacceptable," he said.