Zimbabwe war vets call Mugabe to order

WAR veterans have come out guns blazing challenging President Robert Mugabe to stop continuously demonising and labelling them as a Zanu-PF affiliate.

The former freedom fighters also warned Mugabe that any attempts to retire or remove them from Zanu-PF as well as the security establishment on the basis of age was tantamount to perpetuating the regime change agenda of security sector reform.

In an interview with NewsDay Weekender on Thursday, Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWVA) spokesperson Douglas Mahiya also called Mugabe to order on his claims that the ex-fighters were operating outside the party.

"We do not agree with the statements that war veterans are speaking from outside the party. Our liberation movements, Zapu and Zanu, were banned by Ian Smith (the last Rhodesian Prime Minister) and resuscitated by war veterans' blood, sweat and tears," Mahiya said.

He was responding to Mugabe's speech at the "million-man march" on Wednesday, where the veteran politician said: "Our war veterans must work within the party. They must not be preaching their own voices outside the party, no!"

But Mahiya said war veterans were unhappy with their continued demonisation from some quarters.

"We are equally worried that these quarters within the party refuse to accept that war veterans have an interest in Zanu-PF approximated to ownership," he said.

"We should have been told during the war that we did not belong to the party and needed not join. Had that been made clear to us, then we would have dealt with those issues in the appropriate manner at the appropriate time."

Mahiya added: "We need to make it clear that war veterans cannot be retired or removed from Zanu-PF as well as the security establishment. Any attempts to retire us on the basis of age is to us a cover to perpetuate the regime change agenda of security sector reform. Regime change to us means to rid Zanu-PF and the security establishment of the liberation component, which will not be tolerated under any circumstances."

The war veterans' spokesperson, however, also said Mugabe's leadership came from God.

"We agree the President's leadership came from God and no man should interfere with that. But we feel war veterans should be allowed to assimilate into the party at a higher level, and not be forced to join at cell level when we are over 50 years. By the time we reach the central committee, most of us could be in the 100s, that is if we would be alive after all," he said.

With most of Mugabe's lieutenants using the million-man march to seemingly affirm Zanu-PF's so-called "one centre of power" principle and First Lady Grace Mugabe going one better by declaring Mugabe would rule even from his grave, the former freedom fighters broke ranks.

Mahiya said there was a deliberate ploy by some elements within Zanu-PF to alienate certain sections of the freedom fighters.

"Everyone who crossed the border into Zambia or Mozambique to us is a full freedom fighter and their failure to have finished certain phases of training cannot be used to withdraw from them their status as a war veteran," Mahiya said, adding the vetting of war collaborators should be completed before the Heroes holiday in August.

Another war veteran, who declined to be named, challenged the assertion that there was one centre of power in Zanu-PF.

"We plead with the party's leadership to explain to us the principle of one centre of power. We hope it does not mean that power is vested in one person because if that is so, then it is against the Zanu-PF constitution and traditions of the party," the former freedom fighter said.

"The principle of having one centre of power needs to be explained. Power resides in the people as represented in the central committee in between congresses. Anything beyond that is unheard of to us and is dictatorship."