Chimene snubs Tshinga Dube

Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister Mandiitawepi Chimene snubbed a provincial conference organised by the Zimbabwe Liberation War Collaborators (Ziliwaco) over the weekend.

Chimene could not attend the provincial conference held at Queens Hall despite having been invited to officiate the event.

Instead, she showed up at a glitzy re-branding ceremony for a city hotel held in the central business district.

Speculation has it that Chimene snubbed the Ziliwaco event because of her deep dislike for War Veterans minister Tshinga Dube who had been invited to attend the same event.

Dube has refused to recognise a grouping of war veterans led by Chimene, which at some point attempted to wrest the leadership of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA).

Chimene's group was dealt a body blow after a Harare court ruled that the ZNLWVA executive, led by Christopher Mutsvangwa, was the legitimate leadership of the association.

They were also told to stop masquerading as ZNLWVA leaders.

Mutsvangwa and his executive have been a pain in President Robert Mugabe's backside ever since the war veterans issued a stinging communiqué, disparaging his leadership.

Since then, Chimene has been trying in vain to wrest ZNLWVA's leadership from Mutsvangwa, who remains firmly in position in spite of his dismissal from Zanu-PF.

Mutsvangwa also lost his ministerial position, which was later filled by Dube.

Chimene's faction of war veterans demonstrated at the Zanu-PF headquarters in Harare last week against Dube, who took sides with war veterans calling on Mugabe to name his successor.

At the Ziliwaco conference, Dube assured his audience that government fully recognises the role of war collaborators during the war of liberation.

As such, he said government has begun a vetting process to document them.

He then took a thinly-veiled dig at Chimene, challenging her to state where she operated from during the war of liberation.

"Some people who claim to be loyal need to be closely examined. Some of them are not like you. You can tell me where you were operating from as war collaborators. Ask them where they were operating from. Ask them. Vet them," said Dube.

" . . . Is there any part of the country that has no name? They should be able to state where they were. If you ask and they stutter, know that they are war veterans in inverted commas. But some of them are the loudest. Some even claim to be leaders of war veterans. How can you be a war veteran when you are not a war veteran? We should ask all these people," Dube said.

Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander Constantino Chiwenga dismissed Chimene last year as a mere cleaner during the war following her public attack of Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

"This nonsense of someone who was at a refugee camp or was a cleaner moving around telling people that he or she fought in the struggle is just that - nonsense. Wakarwa hondo kupi? (Where did you operate from?)

"People can smoke marijuana, it is within their rights. Even if it's to do with traditional spirits, go ahead and smoke - (just) don't disturb us because we have lost thousands of innocent sons and daughters," Chiwenga said then.