News / National
Mujuru piles on Mugabe agony
05 Apr 2016 at 14:37hrs | Views
Former Vice President Joice Mujuru's Zimbabwe People First (ZPF) yesterday piled the pressure on President Robert Mugabe in his escalating quarrel with disaffected war veterans loyal to embattled Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Speaking in an interview with the Daily News yesterday, in the wake of the former freedom fighters defiantly contradicting Mugabe about their position and role in Zanu-PF, ahead of their meeting with the nonagenarian in Harare on
Thursday, ZPF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said the war veterans had the capacity to liberate themselves and the nation.
This follows Mugabe's calculated assault on restless ex-combatants on his return from Japan at the weekend, where he made it abundantly clear that he would not be dictated to by them, adding that the once powerful Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) was subordinate to Zanu-PF, and not the other way round as some former freedom fighters think.
Gumbo also urged the war veterans to be brutally frank with Mugabe in their highly-anticipated engagement with him on Thursday - and to ensure that they pressed him on Zimbabwe's deepening political and economic rot, in a noble endeavour to reshape the country's future for the better.
"As a democratic, inclusive and people-centred party, whose main thrust is to BUILD our beloved country through the promotion of the values of the liberation struggle, of self-determination, self-dignity and self-pride, we urge the war veterans to seize the opportunity of their meeting with Mugabe.
"They must remind him and his government of the need for a peaceful and democratic Zimbabwe where every citizen enjoys the fundamental freedoms of association, choice, speech and the right to demonstrate and choose a government of their choice.
"We also believe that war veterans, as nationalists, should take this opportunity with their patron to register their and the nation's displeasure at the poor economic policies that are being pursued by Mugabe's administration, that are hostile to industrial growth, foreign direct investment, job creation and the reduction of poverty," Gumbo said.
His sentiments came as the government's ill-advised deadline for all foreign-owned firms to transfer most of their shares to Zimbabweans passed last Thursday amid widespread condemnation that this will only serve to deepen the country's economic problems and those of long-suffering citizens.
"It is our firm belief that the veterans of our liberation struggle will also speak against the threat to close the few industries and banks that are soldiering on in an economic environment that is patently unfriendly to investors to the detriment of the majority of Zimbabweans.
"We also believe that the welfare of our war veterans is of utmost importance, and that it is against the liberation war values of self-determination and self-dignity to reduce these gallant sons and daughters of the soil to charity cases who survive on the benevolence of the State president.
"It is therefore, incumbent upon the war veterans to speak and act against a system that has pauperised them while enriching a few unscrupulous individuals who obscenely flaunt their corruptly-gotten wealth in the form of 50-bedroomed mansions while the generality of Zimbabweans are reeling in poverty and struggling to feed themselves.
"We urge war veterans to remind Mugabe that true leaders do not boast about the houses they build. They boast about the investment they make in people, how they BUILD people.
"We acknowledge that many lost their lives and that many were maimed for life in the liberation of this country and it is with this understanding that we urge the war veterans to remind Mugabe that he owes it to those who paid the ultimate price to make Zimbabwe a democratic, and not a pariah state," Gumbo added.
Referring to when police fired teargas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of veterans who had gathered in Harare last month, the ZPF spokesperson said the unprovoked attack had "cast a dark shadow on Zanu-PF".
"Who would have dreamt that 36 years after independence, our liberators would be targets of attack by the party and the government that they helped to create?
"Under normal circumstances, we expect the patron of the war veterans to be fully behind the expectations of our liberators and their fight for the unhindered exercise of their fundamental democratic rights, including that of congregating for the purposes of demonstrating. Anything other than that poses a big question of ‘whose side is he on and why?'" he asked rhetorically.
Gumbo said it was little wonder that more and more war veterans - who were already an integral part of the structures and organs of ZPF - were allegedly making a beehive to join the new kid on the political block.
Amid all this, Zanu-PF insiders say the stage is now delicately set for a potentially explosive encounter that could radically reshape Zimbabwe's turbulent political landscape when Mugabe meets the restless war veterans in Harare on Thursday to try and iron out their deepening differences.
In a daring act of defiance on Sunday, war veterans aligned to Mnangagwa openly contradicted Mugabe, saying they were "equal partners" in Zanu-PF and that the ZNLWVA was not just an affiliate organisation of the governing party as the nonagenarian said on Saturday, on his return from Japan.
Speaking in an interview with the Daily News then, the spokesperson of the Mnangagwa-aligned ZNLWVA formation that is led by former War Veterans minister Christopher Mutsvangwa, Douglas Mahiya, also said it was folly for anyone to think that former freedom fighters did not have a key role to play in Zanu-PF.
"Just as you cannot separate Jesus from God, and cannot separate Jesus from the Holy Spirit, you cannot separate war veterans from Zanu-PF. After all, we (war veterans) are the ones who introduced Zanu-PF to the masses during the war of liberation.
"If someone wants to separate us from Zanu-PF, I think it will be a betrayal of the liberation struggle," Mahiya said as he unapologetically contradicted what Mugabe had said - setting the stage for a potentially bruising battle when Mugabe meets war veterans, who for some time now have felt excluded from both national politics and the dividends of democracy.
Mahiya said further that ex-combatants "are not supporters of Zanu-PF but are members of the party", and as such were not supposed to operate under the leadership of people they had taught politics.
"During our training as liberation fighters, we were taught how to use the gun and also taught how to handle the masses in terms of politics. So you cannot say we must go under them while we are the ones who were educating them. War veterans have a big role to play in Zanu-PF politics," he said.
Prodded to comment further on the view that war veterans should play second fiddle to Zanu-PF, Mahiya said this was a misunderstanding as each party needed the other, adding that one side could not dictate to the other on issues that had to do with how the party must be run. The issue is not about direction. As war veterans, we already have direction. However, the direction must not constantly be renewed because if you do so you will lose that direction.
"You cannot renew the direction that we had, the direction of fighting the colonial regime. We think that as war veterans we are taking the right direction. Now, it's about how government functionality and programmes benefit the people that we fought for," he said.
Mahiya added: "What we are experiencing is tantamount to total chaos in the country and total destruction of the party,... we will be left with nothing at the end of the day.
"Zanu-PF is being manipulated to produce a different product altogether, which is a misdirection of the liberation war . . . our former enemies have infiltrated us," he said.
Speaking in an interview with the Daily News yesterday, in the wake of the former freedom fighters defiantly contradicting Mugabe about their position and role in Zanu-PF, ahead of their meeting with the nonagenarian in Harare on
Thursday, ZPF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said the war veterans had the capacity to liberate themselves and the nation.
This follows Mugabe's calculated assault on restless ex-combatants on his return from Japan at the weekend, where he made it abundantly clear that he would not be dictated to by them, adding that the once powerful Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) was subordinate to Zanu-PF, and not the other way round as some former freedom fighters think.
Gumbo also urged the war veterans to be brutally frank with Mugabe in their highly-anticipated engagement with him on Thursday - and to ensure that they pressed him on Zimbabwe's deepening political and economic rot, in a noble endeavour to reshape the country's future for the better.
"As a democratic, inclusive and people-centred party, whose main thrust is to BUILD our beloved country through the promotion of the values of the liberation struggle, of self-determination, self-dignity and self-pride, we urge the war veterans to seize the opportunity of their meeting with Mugabe.
"They must remind him and his government of the need for a peaceful and democratic Zimbabwe where every citizen enjoys the fundamental freedoms of association, choice, speech and the right to demonstrate and choose a government of their choice.
"We also believe that war veterans, as nationalists, should take this opportunity with their patron to register their and the nation's displeasure at the poor economic policies that are being pursued by Mugabe's administration, that are hostile to industrial growth, foreign direct investment, job creation and the reduction of poverty," Gumbo said.
His sentiments came as the government's ill-advised deadline for all foreign-owned firms to transfer most of their shares to Zimbabweans passed last Thursday amid widespread condemnation that this will only serve to deepen the country's economic problems and those of long-suffering citizens.
"It is our firm belief that the veterans of our liberation struggle will also speak against the threat to close the few industries and banks that are soldiering on in an economic environment that is patently unfriendly to investors to the detriment of the majority of Zimbabweans.
"We also believe that the welfare of our war veterans is of utmost importance, and that it is against the liberation war values of self-determination and self-dignity to reduce these gallant sons and daughters of the soil to charity cases who survive on the benevolence of the State president.
"It is therefore, incumbent upon the war veterans to speak and act against a system that has pauperised them while enriching a few unscrupulous individuals who obscenely flaunt their corruptly-gotten wealth in the form of 50-bedroomed mansions while the generality of Zimbabweans are reeling in poverty and struggling to feed themselves.
"We urge war veterans to remind Mugabe that true leaders do not boast about the houses they build. They boast about the investment they make in people, how they BUILD people.
"We acknowledge that many lost their lives and that many were maimed for life in the liberation of this country and it is with this understanding that we urge the war veterans to remind Mugabe that he owes it to those who paid the ultimate price to make Zimbabwe a democratic, and not a pariah state," Gumbo added.
Referring to when police fired teargas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of veterans who had gathered in Harare last month, the ZPF spokesperson said the unprovoked attack had "cast a dark shadow on Zanu-PF".
"Who would have dreamt that 36 years after independence, our liberators would be targets of attack by the party and the government that they helped to create?
"Under normal circumstances, we expect the patron of the war veterans to be fully behind the expectations of our liberators and their fight for the unhindered exercise of their fundamental democratic rights, including that of congregating for the purposes of demonstrating. Anything other than that poses a big question of ‘whose side is he on and why?'" he asked rhetorically.
Gumbo said it was little wonder that more and more war veterans - who were already an integral part of the structures and organs of ZPF - were allegedly making a beehive to join the new kid on the political block.
Amid all this, Zanu-PF insiders say the stage is now delicately set for a potentially explosive encounter that could radically reshape Zimbabwe's turbulent political landscape when Mugabe meets the restless war veterans in Harare on Thursday to try and iron out their deepening differences.
In a daring act of defiance on Sunday, war veterans aligned to Mnangagwa openly contradicted Mugabe, saying they were "equal partners" in Zanu-PF and that the ZNLWVA was not just an affiliate organisation of the governing party as the nonagenarian said on Saturday, on his return from Japan.
Speaking in an interview with the Daily News then, the spokesperson of the Mnangagwa-aligned ZNLWVA formation that is led by former War Veterans minister Christopher Mutsvangwa, Douglas Mahiya, also said it was folly for anyone to think that former freedom fighters did not have a key role to play in Zanu-PF.
"Just as you cannot separate Jesus from God, and cannot separate Jesus from the Holy Spirit, you cannot separate war veterans from Zanu-PF. After all, we (war veterans) are the ones who introduced Zanu-PF to the masses during the war of liberation.
"If someone wants to separate us from Zanu-PF, I think it will be a betrayal of the liberation struggle," Mahiya said as he unapologetically contradicted what Mugabe had said - setting the stage for a potentially bruising battle when Mugabe meets war veterans, who for some time now have felt excluded from both national politics and the dividends of democracy.
Mahiya said further that ex-combatants "are not supporters of Zanu-PF but are members of the party", and as such were not supposed to operate under the leadership of people they had taught politics.
"During our training as liberation fighters, we were taught how to use the gun and also taught how to handle the masses in terms of politics. So you cannot say we must go under them while we are the ones who were educating them. War veterans have a big role to play in Zanu-PF politics," he said.
Prodded to comment further on the view that war veterans should play second fiddle to Zanu-PF, Mahiya said this was a misunderstanding as each party needed the other, adding that one side could not dictate to the other on issues that had to do with how the party must be run. The issue is not about direction. As war veterans, we already have direction. However, the direction must not constantly be renewed because if you do so you will lose that direction.
"You cannot renew the direction that we had, the direction of fighting the colonial regime. We think that as war veterans we are taking the right direction. Now, it's about how government functionality and programmes benefit the people that we fought for," he said.
Mahiya added: "What we are experiencing is tantamount to total chaos in the country and total destruction of the party,... we will be left with nothing at the end of the day.
"Zanu-PF is being manipulated to produce a different product altogether, which is a misdirection of the liberation war . . . our former enemies have infiltrated us," he said.
Source - dailynews
