Youths hounding war vets out of Mazowe

via Youths hounding war vets out of Mazowe – NewZimbabwe 16/12/2015

WAR VETERANS in and around Mashambanzou Farm in Mazowe district have been told to pack their belongings and leave the property, NewZimbabwe.com has been told.

Mashambanzou Farm is next to First Lady Grace Mugabe’s projects including the famous Manzou Farm, an orphanage and a junior school.

Grace controversially took over Manzou farm displacing more than 200 families recently.

War veterans who spoke to this publication said since Monday youths and villagers in the area have been threatening them with death, claiming it was pay- back time for the former liberation war fighters.

“They are saying they are turning the wheels and are treating us the way they were treated before.

“They have been coming to our homes since Monday telling us to pack our things and leave the farm,” said a war veteran who called himself Tichafa.

“We do not know who is sending them, we have been living here peacefully since 2003 and hamheno kuti zvabva nepi, and (I don’t know where this is coming from).”

Another war veteran called Moyo said there was so much tension in the area that one was easily reminded of the days when they forcibly took over land from the white commercial farmers.

“We didn’t expect our black brothers to drive us away, someone is behind this.

“They are just being abused as most of them were drunk when they came to my homestead,” said Moyo.

The harassment of the war veterans comes at a time when their outspoken chairperson Chris Mutsvangwa is in trouble.

Mutsvangwa got a vote of no confidence from the Zanu PF Mashonaland West provincial executive who also recommended that he be recalled from Parliament.

The war veterans’ minister’s situation has also been made worse by President Mugabe’ remarks at the just ended Zanu PF annual conference held in Victoria Falls.

Mugabe told war veterans to stop being ‘boastful’ as they were not ‘untouchable’ and could be removed from their positions like other party members.

Grace Mugabe was the first to openly blast the war veterans, saying their participation in the war was not a passport to misbehave.

Zanu PF national commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere, once described them as drunkards.

Since 2000, war veterans countrywide have been known to be Mugabe’s running dogs with a blank cheque to cause mayhem in the president’s name.

At the height of the land grab, they led farm invasions during which thousands of farm workers were beaten and displaced. Many including white farmers were killed.