Kalanga slur divides Zanu-PF

President Robert Mugabe's remarks on uneducated Kalangas reportedly divided Zanu-PF party, with a section of the war veterans claiming some senior members were fuelling attacks on the aging leader.

In a hard hitting statement Secretary General for War Veterans Victor Matemadanda said the widespread condemnation of Mugabe's statements that uneducated Kalanga people were responsible for petty crimes in South Africa was being sponsored by Cabinet Ministers.

"The so-called Kalanga issue has also been sponsored and fuelled by some Cabinet ministers who have chosen to forget that the president has Kalangas in his family," he said.

"His stepmother was Kalanga and when his father died, the president looked after his stepmother and all her children.

"Would he have done that if he hated Kalangas as portrayed within the media?"

Government officials and the State media have been at pains to try and sanitise Mugabe's statements, claiming they were taken out of context, but the war veterans' statement may have inadvertently showed the tensions rocking Zanu PF in the aftermath of the president's utterances.

In an effort to address xenophobic violence that rocked South Africa recently, Mugabe told a press conference that migrants could be responsible for violence in the neighbouring country, singling out the Kalanga, whom he said were responsible for petty crimes in that nation.

Mugabe's statements have attracted pervasive criticism, with demands that he apologised, but his aides insist there was nothing to apologise for.

The war veterans also claimed the unnamed Cabinet ministers had misinformed Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko when he asked the party to forgive former Energy deputy minister Munacho Mutezo, saying only Mugabe could pardon members of "gamatox".

"We have seen the same group misinforming Vice-President Mphoko about gamatox people in Manicaland," Matemadanda said.

"We would like to reiterate our earlier position that no one should take it upon themselves to forgive people when they are not the aggrieved party.

"The gamatox transgressed against the president and it is the president's singular decision to forgive or not to forgive them.

"The right to forgive does not rest with presumptive politburo appointees."

The gamatox group refers to members of the party who were reportedly aligned to axed Vice-President Joice Mujuru.