War vets call for Goche ouster

WAR veterans and political analysts yesterday called for the removal of Public Service, Labour and Social Services Minister Nicholas Goche after he was implicated in hiring hit men to assassinate President Mugabe.

The analysts and war veterans accused Minister Goche of being ungrateful after President Mugabe appointed him to serve in his government despite the fact that he did not have liberation war credentials, but still had the guts to plot to unseat him.

It is alleged that Minister Goche made contingencies for the assassination of President Mugabe during his recent meetings with potential hit men in South Africa and Israel.

Minister Goche is one of those senior government and Zanu-PF officials working with Vice-President Joice Mujuru to unseat President Mugabe in their bid to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.

He allegedly used the cover of official government business in Western Europe to make stops in Israel and South Africa to allegedly look for a hitman in pursuance of the plots which led to the suspension of Zanu-PF secretary for information and publicity Rugare Gumbo.

Minister Goche denied the allegations when contacted last night.

"I've never been in Israel," he said. "You can check my passport to see if I have been in Israel."

But political analyst Alexander Kanengoni described the allegations against Minister Goche as treasonous.

"It's the most serious revelation that we have heard," he said. "If it is true, it constitutes treason. It's a serious crime to plot to assassinate the sitting President. This is the extent to which things have degenerated."

Kanengoni said the revelations dovetailed with what President Mugabe had been saying that there were people who were "burning the mid-night candle" plotting to remove him.

Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association chairperson Christopher Mutsvangwa said Minister Goche was ungrateful to the President who appointed him to serve in his government.

Mutsvangwa said President Mugabe appointed Minister Goche to serve in the new government at independence despite stiff resistance from the Rhodesian government that accused him of embezzling some money.

He said President Mugabe had to pass a law exempting people facing criminal allegations from being appointed to government posts, a move which benefited Minister Goche.

"He now repays the President with treachery," said Mutsvangwa.

"The time of impostors is over. He must resign or the President will give him the boot."

Mutsvangwa said Minister Goche turned against the President despite being entrusted with sensitive Ministries including that of State Security and Transport, Communication and Infrastructural Development.

He accused Minister Goche of running down infrastructure under Ministries he superintended giving examples of the sorry state in which Air Zimbabwe and the National Railways of Zimbabwe are in.

Another analyst said it was time that Minister Goche together with his allies resign from government rather than wait for their inevitable fall.

VP Mujuru, Zanu-PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa, Dzikamai Mavhaire, Ray Kaukonde and Gumbo were identified as some of those at the centre of a plot to assassinate President Mugabe.

Analysts said such allegations, which were also made against their various associates in all the country's provinces, made their continued stay in office untenable.