Mugabe's rivals fear return of 'Green Bombers'

Opposition parties MDC renewal team and Zapu on Tuesday said the proposed return of the national youth service, whose graduates are popularly known as 'Green Bombers', has the capacity to unsettle the nation.

The programme, a brain child of  the late youth minister Border Gezi in 2001, was meant to transform and empower youths for nation-building through life skills training and leadership development.

It was, however, later abandoned due to a lack of funding.

MDC formations also voiced their concerns, arguing that the national youth service had been transformed into a training camp for Zanu PF militia whose graduates would be manipulated and used in assaulting political opponents during elections.

At its just ended elective conference over the weekend, the Zanu PF youth league demanded that government revives the national youth service programme.

Zanu PF's party youth conference resolved that youths in Zimbabwe should be conscripted into the national youth service
training to enable them to appreciate the country's history and its values.

"The party should strategically deploy cadres in local authorities, ministries and departments, as well as other public entities to safeguard national interests," read part of the resolutions.

However, in an interview with The Zimbabwe Mail on Tuesday, MDC renewal team spokesperson Jacob Mafume said the programme was controversial, alleging that its purpose was to aid vote rigging as well as terrorise other political parties during election time.

"National service should not be driven by the dictates of a particular party's interests. An audit should be done about the programme's last national disservice and national embarrassment," he said.

According to Mafume, the programme became an orgy of violence and rampant sexual abuse.

"The youths were filled with so much hate, they ended up persecuting the nation instead of serving it," he said.

Zapu spokesperson Mjobisa Nuku said government was misplacing its priorities.

"There are better national issues to be looked at," he said.

"We don't need ‘Green Bombers'. What for? It's waste of resources? This process will not help the nation come out of the current (socio-economic) quagmire. Zanu PF has run out of ideas and this will only help in fuelling the already tense situation and Zapu says no to ‘Green Bombers'" he said.

Nuku said planting the graduates in public institutions and local authorities would further compromise service delivery.