Dabengwa gets back at Moyo

via Dabengwa gets back at Moyo – DailyNews Live 26 December 2014 by Lloyd Mbiba

HARARE – Zapu leader Dumiso Dabengwa has hit back at Information minister Jonathan Moyo who has criticised him for his recent comments on newly-appointed Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko.

Dabengwa told the Daily News yesterday that he would not lose “any sleep” over Moyo’s criticism, describing the sharp-tongued government information czar as “offside”.

“What he is talking about is not what I said about Mphoko. I only responded to what Mphoko had started and I was talking about his record and history.

“I never spoke about his (Mphoko’s) appointment at all, so Moyo was offside. He missed it altogether,” Dabengwa said.

Dabengwa, together with a number of disgruntled former PF Zapu cadres, broke ranks with Zanu PF in 2008, protesting at what they described as President Robert Mugabe’s dictatorial tendencies, and subsequently revived Zapu.

In an interview with the Sunday Mail at the weekend, Moyo shellacked Dabengwa after the Zapu leader appeared to question Mphoko’s political record.

“It is most unfortunate that a stalwart of our liberation struggle, more-so one of Dabengwa’s historic stature, has chosen to come out sounding very trivial and immature,” Moyo said.

Dabengwa, he added, was allegedly collaborating with sell-outs to work against the same ideals that he and Mphoko fought for during the liberation struggle.

“Dabengwa’s immaturity in his mishandling of this matter risks exposing him as being petty and jealous about a former subordinate in the liberation struggle who today is holding an important position of national responsibility.

“Pettiness and jealousy are the stuff of counter-revolutionaries and quislings ,and there are many comrades who would not like to see Dabengwa continuing in that category,” Moyo told the lapdog weekly.

Dabengwa had described his former liberation war subordinate, Mphoko, as a “deceitful sell-out” who clandestinely became one of the then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s intelligence operatives just after Zimbabwe’s independence.

“On attainment of independence in 1980, Mphoko was one of the few Zapu cadrés to be inducted into the CIO,” Dabengwa said, in a statement written jointly with the Zipra high command.

Dabengwa also claimed that Mphoko ditched Zipra at the height of the struggle.

“In the mid-1970s when the Zimbabwe People’s Army (Zipa) was set up in Mozambique to bring together Zipra and Zanla forces, the Zapu contingent was led by Alfred (Nikita) Mangena, with Mphoko still in charge of logistics,” he said.

“When irreconcilable differences cropped up among commanders in that force, Nikita pulled back the Zipra contingent to Zambia, but Mphoko stayed back and indicated he would follow at a later date.

“That did not happen much to the anger of Nikita and the rest of the Zipra command. As far as Zipra commanders are concerned, Mphoko joined Zanu when he reneged from joining his contingent when they left Zipa to return to Zambia.”