Zanu PF wars alarm military

Source: Zanu PF wars alarm military – DailyNews Live

Fungi Kwaramba      3 May 2017

HARARE – Seemingly alarmed by Zanu PF’s worsening tribal, factional and
succession wars, the country’s influential military is flexing its muscles
– delivering an ominous warning this week to the former liberation
movement’s brawling bigwigs to take a chill pill.

This comes as Zanu PF insiders say there is an ongoing realignment of
alliances within the deeply-divided ruling party – which recently resulted
in the jettisoning of powerful women’s league officials, Sarah Mahoka and
Eunice Sandi Moyo, as well as the current onslaught on national political
commissar Saviour Kasukuwere.

At the same time, analysts told the Daily News yesterday that it was no
coincidence that disaffected war veterans had suddenly decided to soften
their stance towards President Robert Mugabe, whom they lavished with
praise on Monday despite the parties’ well-known rocky relations.

In an eyebrow-raising development, the commander of the Defence Forces,
General Constantino Chiwenga, came out guns blazing on Tuesday – warning
brawling Zanu PF factions that it was time to end their mindless
bloodletting.

Speaking in coded language during an interview with State media, Chiwenga
warned disgruntled war veterans to stop attacking Mugabe, while also
imploring ruling party bigwigs to desist from starting fights.

“This must now stop (attacking Mugabe) . . . If they (war vets) want to
remain as part and parcel of those disciplined, loyal, patriotic cadres,
they must now understand that it is the party, it is the government that
sets the direction.

“The party commands the ex-combatants, not vice versa. The majority of war
veterans have nothing to do with this nonsense that we are now getting
daily in our media.

“I am talking on behalf of the defence and security services of the
country, and besides that, on the Zanla side, I am the surviving most
senior commander,” Chiwenga added.

This comes as war veterans have been feuding with Mugabe since they issued
a damning communique against the increasingly frail nonagenarian mid last
year.

Until that happened, the fed-up ex-combatants had served as Mugabe’s and
Zanu PF’s pillars, waging particularly brutal campaigns against opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC, especially in the bloody elections
of 2000 and 2008.

Their stunning fallout with Mugabe and Zanu PF later saw their chairperson
Christopher Mutsvangwa being fired from both the Cabinet and the ruling
party last year, while many of their other top leaders were also banished
from the imploding former liberation movement, in addition to being hauled
before the courts.

Mutsvangwa’s executive has also publicly said it favours Vice President
Emmerson Mnangagwa to succeed Mugabe at both government and party levels.

Zanu PF insiders told the Daily News yesterday that they had also not been
surprised that war veterans had on Monday swiftly moved to tone down their
previous savage attacks on Mugabe.

This was after Mutsvangwa issued a statement in which ex-combatants
showered Mugabe with praise for his recent speech at the burial in Harare
of former Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) assistant director Zenzo
Ntuliki.

“As war veterans, we wholeheartedly welcome . . . Mugabe’s and the
commander in chief speech delivered at the burial of Zenzo Ntuliki.

“We are particularly heartened by the recognition and the accolades
showered upon our defence and security establishment which owes its
existence to the pain and sacrifice of gallant young men and women of the
1960-70s.

“That generation of youthful patriots selflessly bore arms as Zanla and
Zipra to dislodge the evil minority racist settler colonial regime and
gave birth to the new State of Zimbabwe.

“In equal measure we salute both . . . Mugabe and the late Father Zimbabwe
Joshua Nkomo for providing the militant leadership leading us to freedom
and independence in 1980, and their subsequent sterling roles in nation
building,” Mutsvangwa had said.

And yesterday, forthright war veterans’ spokesperson Douglas Mahiya
promptly apologised to Chiwenga and said former freedom fighters would
“stop forthwith” quarrelling with Mugabe.

“If the commander (Chiwenga) has spoken, we have to listen to him because
tiri vana vadiki, tinovatya, (We are his juniors and we respect him). What
he says we will do.  I am sorry that I said too much,” the contrite Mahiya
told the Daily News.

However, he added, people should not read too much into the war vets’
conflicting statements.

Interestingly, Chiwenga’s warning came days after Vice President
Phelekezela Mphoko had expressed disquiet over the military’s silence on
war veterans’ attacks on Mugabe and his powerful wife Grace.

“What is happening now is that the youths are insulting the president.
Insulting the first lady (Grace), but nothing . . . zero is happening . .
. Mugabe is an elder . . . he is the Head of State and in the military he
is commander-in-chief.

“How is the military feeling when their commander-in-chief is being
dangled like a thing,” Mphoko said last week.

Political analysts have said Mugabe’s failure to resolve Zanu PF’s thorny
succession riddle is fuelling the ruling party’s deadly infighting, which
is worsening by the day.

The 93-year-old has studiously refused to name a successor, insisting that
the party’s congress has that mandate: to choose a person of their own
choice.

Zanu PF is split in the middle, with a faction of young party Turks going
by the moniker Generation 40 (G40) locked in a vicious fight with Team
Lacoste, a faction backing Mnangagwa’s mooted presidential ambition.

Chiwenga also took a thinly-disguised swipe at alleged G40 kingpin, Higher
Education minister Jonathan Moyo, in his rant – saying the military would
not allow Mugabe’s standing to be sullied by people who never participated
in the war.

“Nevamwe zvino vaakuti vanoziva, takafunda sitereki, tava maprofessor …
vakatiza hondo iyi (Some think that they are so educated and
knowledgeable, yet they deserted the war). Nhasi iko zvino izvi (today)
they now know (their place),” Chiwenga said.

Moyo’s rivals in the former liberation movement have consistently claimed
that the Tsholotsho North MP deserted the war to study in the United
States of America.