Zanu-PF chef in hot soup over army brutality remarks

MIDLANDS senator Maybe Mbohwa, who is also a senior Zanu PF official and women's league commissar, is in soup after she exposed cases of army brutality for which she will likely be dragged before the ruling party's national disciplinary committee.

Sources in the ruling party yesterday said the party's national chairperson Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, who is also Defence minister, was tasked with looking into the matter, following recommendations made by the Zanu PF Gokwe North district co-ordinating committee (DCC) that she should be demoted from party positions and be recalled from Parliament.

In February, the Midlands senator unwittingly exposed human rights violations by the military in social media posts.

She also suggested that she would engage President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Muchinguri-Kashiri and senior party officials to stop the harassment in the Midlands district. Mbohwa alleged that soldiers were beating up people indiscriminately, including the elderly in the district.

Midlands provincial chairperson Daniel Mackenzie Ncube yesterday confirmed to NewsDay that the province had received the recommendations from Gokwe North district.

Ncube said the matter had been forwarded to the national leadership since the province had no say over a women's league senior member and senator.

"We got a report from Gokwe stating that the senator said something to that effect and the district was denying that the things happened. They want senator Mbohwa to be censured. We referred the matter to the national body because Mbohwa is above the province and so we referred the matter to Cde Muchinguri and that is where it is," Ncube said.

Mbohwa confirmed a plot for her ouster by some party members.

"If the matter is yet to be tabled and the province hasn't said anything we will assume all is okay. We are so busy mobilising the five million votes for the President ahead of 2023," Mbohwa said.

Gokwe North district agreed during its inaugural meeting recently to have Mbohwa censured and stripped of her powers so that she becomes an ordinary member and be recalled from Parliament.

The DCC chaired by Gokwe-Nembudziya MP Justice Mayor Wadyajena adjudged that Mbohwa had a sinister agenda after circulating an audio recording alleging army brutality.

Wadyajena described them as "baseless" allegations designed to ensure that the West imposes sanctions on security chiefs.

Four security chiefs including State Security minister Owen Ncube, intelligence boss Isaac Moyo, Zimbabwean ambassador to Tanzania Anselem Sanyatwe and police commissioner general Godwin Matanga were placed on the United Kingdom sanctions list in February for alleged human rights abuses.

Mbohwa, the DCC said, exposed the country to its enemies by propagating "lies" regarding the military attacks on civilians.

The army has in many cases been accused of attacking citizens, particularly during the COVID-19 lockdown period, but the government has denied the claims.

"I take great exception to this sinister plot by Mbohwa to ruin the image of the government and His Excellency Cde ED Mnangagwa as commander-in-chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces," Wadyajena told NewsDay yesterday.

"Her actions are intended to harm the image of the country and our President in line with the impending sanctions review by the United States, the European Union and also as a justification for the recent United Kingdom embargo on some security service chiefs on the basis of human rights violations."