Zanu PF leaders’ credentials

via Zanu PF leaders’ credentials – DailyNews Live 5 November 2014

HARARE – Christopher Mutsvangwa, a prominent anti-minority white rule figure has publicly disparaged the Zanu PF leadership, calling its credentials into question.

Mutsvangwa told State TV that the current ruling party leadership that has been with President Robert Mugabe since independence in 1980 has “appropriated the soul of that period”.

He said for “some of them, it has got into their heads that they can somehow snatch this period and make it their own and use it as their right to power”.

“It’s unfortunate but this has been going on,” said Mutsvangwa, in a broadcast that mysteriously lost sound on State TV on Monday evening.

Mutsvangwa a former detachment commander with Zanla forces said the party was now being run by people who had no history in the liberation struggle that ended white-minority rule and ushered in majority black rule at Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.

“You have to remember that Zanu PF has a very tried and tested leader in president Mugabe,” Mutsvangwa said.

“In fact, virtually all the people who have been close to him now, you know, over the past 34 years, they owe their political life to him. We say this because, like I told you, I am a critical mass generation (that prosecuted the liberation struggle).”

Mutsvangwa was recalled from China in 2009.

His recall from his diplomatic posting was widely interpreted as a demotion but back home he has worked his way up again, first gaining appointment into the State-run Zimbabwe Media Commission board and subsequently appointed to chair the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ), which is responsible for marketing and selling diamonds from Marange, where Chinese and military interests are deeply entrenched.

He is currently the deputy minister of Foreign Affairs.

“Most of the people who actually took part in that struggle between 1973 to 79 have not been at the helm of power, neither in the party nor in government,” Mutsvangwa said.

“You know a lot of the people that are in government, the ministers, in the politburo, have been people who have no particular knowledge of that particular period of time, except of course for vice president Mujuru, minister Mnangagwa and well Gumbo. The publicity spokesman Rugare Gumbo is a little bit of a touch and go because he was in jail during that period, when the war started, he came out of jail in 1977 and for a very brief period and went back again, this time for being among the Vapanduki, who were against the president.”

The so-called Vapanduki group, which included Gumbo, Augustine Chihuri, the police commissioner general, the late Wilfred Mhanda aka Dzinashe Machingura, the late Henry Hamadziripi, Crispen Mandizvidza, Mukudzei Mudzi were accused of treason within Zanu PF as far back as 1978 for attempting to topple Mugabe.

Had it not been for the late Mozambican President Samora Machel’s intervention, Mugabe intended to keep them in detention in military camps where they had been confined from 1978 until 1980 when they were freed. Hamadziripi and Mhanda were hardened by the detention and died unrepentant and trenchant critics of Mugabe.

Mutsvangwa said because of the prolonged detention Gumbo suffered, he was out of touch with the liberation struggle objectives.

“So he (Gumbo) has really been on the periphery of that struggle in most instances, except for the period before 73, but then that period was a formative stage of the struggle, there was no critical mass, the numbers of the people involved were very few. It was a low level guerrilla warfare just starting off so it had no particular ramification on the scale that happened after 73, 74 and 75,” Mutsvangwa said.

“So he (Gumbo) misses a lot of the action that matters in the history of the party.

“Yes, I feel pity for him. I worked with him during the war. Briefly, I was part of his information and publicity portfolio for a very short period.”

Mutsvangwa’s frustration is erupting as the party that ended minority white rule has begun to lose its appeal among black Zimbabweans, many of whom have grown frustrated waiting for the “better life for all” promised when Zanu won historic multi-racial elections 34 years ago.

The disenchantment with Zanu PF, to be sure, has been gradually building over the years.

But it has intensified in recent weeks amid a deadly succession war, ongoing, and often violent unrest that has spread across the nation over the 90-year-old president’s successor.

In newspaper columns, on radio talk shows, blogs and social media, Zanu PF is facing a public outcry, accused of being corrupt, ineffective, wasteful and out of touch with the hardships faced by Zimbabwe’s impoverished masses. Mutsvangwa questions