Mujuru: Rex was shot dead, Bob is backward – NewZimbabwe 21/02/2016
FORMER Vice President Joice Mujuru says she believes her late husband Solomon Mujuru, who died in an inferno in August 2011, was shot first before his house was set alight.
“There was a blue, blue flame, almost 1 and a half to 2 meters high, not normal at all. It seemed to me there was some kind of accelerant,” she described the inferno in an interview with the Sunday Times (UK) newspaper. A local white farmer who rushed to the scene said he believed a white phosphorus grenade was used to burn the body.
“I can’t say who did it, but they know the people in power. It will come out,” said Mujuru.
Asked if she thought President Robert Mugabe was involved, she simply “pursed” her lips, according to the report.
Despite the suspicious death of her husband, Mujuru remained in government only to be fired three years down the line on accusations of plotting an insurrection against Mugabe, whom she looked upon as a “father”.
“It was the shock of my life,” she said of her sacking in December 2014.
Ahead of her sacking, Mujuru says, she approached Mugabe one day after a cabinet meeting to find out if he really believed the reports that she wanted to kill him. “I am hearing it from the ministry of intelligence,” Mugabe reportedly answered her.
“Father, If you are my shed and protecting me from the sun, how can I take an axe and destroy that shed? I would be a mad person. I am only banking on you to look after me,” she recalls telling Mugabe before she left the meeting in “fear”
“My mouth was completely dry,” she said.
According to the report, that fear may not have left her up to now as she never referred to Mugabe by his name during the interview, preferring to call him “He” “as if he was a deity”.
But she had no kind words for her former boss still, referring to him as a “backward” “liar”.
She said, “I am a Christian and a member of the salvation army. I have never used magic. A head of state using his platform to lie and believing stories about frogs being kept in a calabash and if one dies dies then he will die. I said to myself what a backward man.”
Mujuru went on to reveal how an aged Mugabe depended on her when he was tired during cabinet meetings.
“He would speak for 15 minutes and then nod off. I would then chair the meeting with everyone ignoring the fact that he was asleep,” she said.
Mujuru is not the first to reveal this trend as former industry minister, Welshman Ncube, also said, a few years ago, that Mugabe routinely slept during cabinet meetings. According to Ncube, when that moment came, Mugabe’s entire body tended to “collapse”.
On Mugabe’s wife, Grace, who led a vicious campaign against her, Mujuru says the First Lady “saw me as a threat”. “Her (Grace) power only lasts as long as he (Mugabe) is there,” said Mujuru.
According to Mujuru, who recently registered her People First party, dramatic events in Zanu PF and in the country could be an indicator that Mugabe’s rule was coming to “an end”.
She said, “I think this is pointing to an end. He no longer has the energy to tell them to stop, and no one listens to him. He has no respect now-from anybody. It’s painful.”
Mugabe was, last Friday, forced to take to the national TV to call for calm and rebuke his ministers who have been divided into warring factions over the succession issue.
Mujuru describes herself as a grandmother and a farmer. She has ten grandchildren and 135, 000 chicken which she keeps at her farm she got during Mugabe’s land grab exercise.
She, however, believes that Mugabe owed a lot to the Mujurus. She said: “My husband used to risk his life to go and talk to [Mugabe]… then come back and talk to other commanders to accept him. Mugabe owed a lot to him and the family.”
COMMENTS
Mujuru was one of the many thousands murdered in Zimbabwe on the instruction of Mugabe. The fact is that Mugabe blamed Mujuru for the fact that he was actually beaten in 2008 and survived through election fraud and violence. He himself said he only got 27% of the votes and the rest was to be added to get to a stage where a further election was necessary – allowing for his murder squads to get going.
Something is happening to Zimbabwe or is it me? Every time I sit down and try to write something I have to restart after a few lines because events are moving so fast. It seems no one in Zanu has a heartbeat let alone brain and it really excites me. Her October revolution in 2013 looks now like a kids party in the park. It is true to say, since the elections of 2013 the ship called Zimbabwe has been floating rudderless on the high seas. The engines stopped a long time ago and the captain and his crew are nowhere to be seen. All over the world parties split. New parties are formed but are the leaders and supporters in Zanu that stupid? I feel like I am in one of those dreams you don’t want to end and when you wake up you actually feel disappointed. I have never enjoyed witnessing the pain in Zanu like I am right now. Please this dream must continue!
There is a danger though. The conditions are almost ripe for a minute spark to start an inferno which might engulf this ‘revolution’ party, if not the whole nation. Zimbabwe is at a crossroads. And I am still in my slumber, dreaming! Events are now catching up with Zanu and here they stand in front of the world and us without shame. Without shame because they stand in front of us in their birthday suits. What a sight! The kid from Zvimba, Mugabe, might be playing his troops against each other but events can take a momentum of their own. Indeed he is playing with fire.
Somebody did ask me, ‘where is the opposition?, This is the time to mobilise’ I said that the opposition should lie low just in case Zanu realises they are naked and regroup. Besides, one should respect those who are grieving. And what about my dream? I added. Grace is a blessing in disguise and one day the nation will thank her——when she is in exile! These are exciting times indeed. A few weeks ago, that dead sheep with lipstick on, Mujuru, actually managed a rare smile when questioned about the current goings in Zanu. She still insists all the opposition parties should unite ———-under her. Business as usual, as far as she is concerned, and Zanu has a lot to answer for! I was seething with anger towards her when her husband died mysteriously.
Angry because, there she was as vice president and war vet whose husband had been ‘murdered’ by the state and she responded by doing sweet FA! He was also a war hero and she could not even organise an independent autopsy. Whose corpse was it? Now this dead sheep thinks she can lead the nation? God help us. After independence those two had hit the jackpot and she always said Zimbabwe was a peaceful country, —–for some. Thus her husband was a roving ambassador in this paradise and did not need security, besides their millions. Besides they, especially him, knew how their party operated. Now she is the victim and she wants people of sound mind to join ‘her’ party without questions. I say dead sheep because I serious believe she did not know what Zanu was up to and I would be surprised if she knows what year we are in. And that is a compliment.
A few days ago a blogger wrote a brilliant piece under the heading, ‘Opposition must not be fooled by Zanu PF ‘squabbles’. His main point was that what is happening in Zanu is a pretence and a game they have always played to distract the people. Well written but I beg to differ. This is for real and I am enjoying every minute of it. In years gone by Zanu has always shown discipline even at street level. The average tow rag at the bottom has always given the same answers churned from the top. Sanctions. Right now they are completely lost and I must admit one actually feels a modicum of sympathy. I still rub it in though!
If all this is just pretence then Zimbabwe is full of them, actors. For the first time in our history tear gas and water cannons have been turned on the war vets. Pasi papinduka/ the world has changed. Zanu is imploding. It is strange because this is not a result of the general population revolting but of greed and ambition. There is no more diplomatic protocol and each time one of the goons opens his/her mouth lambasting another, they openly name names. It’s exciting and definitely no acting! This was an accident waiting to happen and they have, for years, all been rushing to the scene. They have all been complacent and thought they were untouchable. Nearly forty years in charge it has to end. During this period they have been digging a hole and in order to get out they don’t realise they have to stop digging. This is why it is vital the opposition does not rock the boat. The opposition has thrown them a rope too many times and should concentrate on how to cover the hole after the storm has passed.
Simon M Tozvireva.
Yes the party is imploding as you say, but that article that you refered to was right. Its fun to watch them implode yes, its entertaining and it might indeed signal the end of the party and their rule in country. However that article was correct and a case in point I would like to give you is that of Jonathan Moyo, he will be G40 for as long as it suits his agenda however come election time his considerable intelligence will be put to making sure that regardless of who is the head of the country Zanu is still in power after the 2018 elections even if it means putting his lot in with team Lacoste because his own and that of all those people fighting at the moment is always going to be better as long as they are in charge so regardless of factions they will still band together for elections. This is why even while disgrace achivotomoka hake all over, you are still hearing in the news that she is distributing food to all these people, because along with the drama unfolding people that are in villages kusina mbvura gore rino, will also remember the food that is coming to them and the benefictors being Zanu PF. So if as you say the opposition lays low now they will wake up in 2018 to another 2013 because while its all drama at the moment there is also an element of Zanu campaigning going on at the moment. At the very least if Zanu is sleeping as you say then the opposition should be making itself known to the people that are being ignored , it doesn’t have to be in media or even loud. At a village or discrict level, vanhu ngavaone kubatsirwa by the opposition parties, help construct schools, drill boreholes so people have safe drinking water that is close to their homes. Be present, don’t have MPs that show up gore rema elections to campaign. They should be putting their considerate efforts to help vanhu varikufa nenzara because talking in 2017/18 moti Zanu failed whereas imwi you did nothing is not a helpful act for the opposition. Grace with her disgrace has had countless rallies, Tsvangirai has not done even a quarter of that in the same period, Biti has been everywhere but in Zim for a long time now, Mujuru we only have Rugare in the new every other week, not even sure what it happening with their so called PF. The mistake that political parties make is that they think that the people will vote based on emotion or a need for change. Most people will vote for the party that they know will provide for them in tough times like this year. Ndosaka kumisha vachienda because mugore renzara they will remember Zanu with their bags of maize, grace nematractor. Zhuwao with his youth fund that he distribute to the youth and you find that the only youth that leave their houses to go and vote are those that know that Zanu will feed it. Just like sanctions, eventually the lie that is taka rigirwa maelections that the opposition paddles around, will eventually get old if it has not already. So no they should not lie low, they should be acting and getting their people in order. It is the mentality that you have that will be the downfall of the opposition parties, because lets face it MDC cannot hope to keep its supporters if they lose in 2018. The opposition parties at best should be hoping for a bora musango scenario to repeat itself however they would still need to have a coalition to beat Zanu numbers and these are issues that need attending to now without egos involved not laying low.
Is our society in that belief that the people who are destroying our kids future will bring change to our future children,of which l doubt that with the way things are going…now Peter bribes John so that he hides his scadals while john goes around stilling from him too.
When your enemy is tearing itself apart, it is best to stand aside safely and watch. This process only started after the 2013 elections when Nikuv decimated the opposition thereby allowing Zanu PF to ignore the opposition as no more a threat, and thereafter turning upon itself instead. If the opposition is working on a coalition (difficult to envisage given the egos involved) they should do it quietly, behind closed doors and deny it (better still insult each other) in public.
As for all this, no surprise. The problem with these dinosaur-type, one man band parties in Africa is that when the big man goes (Mobutu, Kaunda, Banda…) the party (in more than one sense of the word) goes with him. Zanu PF structures and some supporters may behave like we are in Pyongyang sometimes but the general populace is distinctively non-Korean.
My fellow africans, the worst is to come for Zimbabwe. With the recent advances in medicine, Robert can live another 10 years or more, he can rule from a wheelchair or a respirator, indeed he can rule from the dead (they will surely hide his death so that they have plenty of time to plunder the country further).The succession war in Zanu is yet to turn ugly and nasty.
Robert Mugabe is a portent ZANU-PF fetish as long as he stands. They are all taking cover behind him, prodding him along with self-serving schemes. They know he is a skittish coward who remembers only the last meeting. Look closely and you will find the man never innovated anything in his illustrious career – not land, not indigenization. Nothing but mayhem. His wife is really an extension of his pysche making a belated debut, although we have heard some of the same posturings from his legion of sycophants before. It’s a club of narcissists. In the middle of a 16-year national malaise we don’t see any of them addressing the issues that really matter except to ‘urge’ the people to be more productive. It’s always ME. One hopes that the Mujuru woman that people are berating so cynically rises up to the opportunity. That she is disqualified by a past ZANUPF membership is insignificant. A viable opposition movement in Zimbabwe will only arise from ZANUPF fragmentation. In spite of its mendacity, the ruling party is held together by a mirage of the correct values for Zimbabwe – Land and Indigenization. They know power play. It would be harder to get away with electoral fraud the way they did with Mr Boycott, whose relevance to me evaporated the day he rushed in with a GNU to save Mugabe from collapse, then continue to accord him legitimacy after being robbed of victory in daylight. Must be the house he got. Him and his offspring parties preoccupy themselves with navel-gazing far from the ring. All told, only the departure of Robert Mugabe will bring any meaningful change to our tormented people, and its coming sooner than you think.