Source: Mugabe peddling false war memory: Mutsvangwa – DailyNews Live
Mugove Tafirenyika 29 July 2017
HARARE – Former War Veterans minister Christopher Mutsvangwa has rubbished
President Robert Mugabe’s “revisionist account” that he went to war
earlier than him, claiming the 93-year-old was now forgetting what
happened.
Addressing members of the Zanu PF women’s league in Harare on Thursday,
Mugabe slammed party bigwigs and affiliate organisations that are calling
for him to step aside and make way for a successor including Mutsvangwa,
whom the nonagenarian claimed he had received in Mozambique when he joined
the liberation struggle.
“Where are these clandestine manoeuvres that are being done by some
little-known organisations and some people who were with us during the war
coming from when these people are not the ones who chose me?
“People like Mutsvangwa, whom we received at Chimoio as they were coming
from university along with other guys, today they now say `I must go’,
it’s painful but they are not alone, it’s not Mutsvangwa per se, they are
being sent,” Mugabe said.
The leader of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association
(ZNLWVA) came out guns blazing yesterday accusing Mugabe of distorting
history.
The ZNLWVA has previously threatened bloodshed if their preferred choice
of Mugabe’s successor -Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa -is blocked.
Mutsvangwa, who was fired from both his government and party positions,
told the Daily News Mugabe’s “recollection on Chimoio Zhunda Camp is just
plainly false.”
“His legendary memory can only now be failing him as advanced age is wont
to do. The truth is that I am the one who received …Mugabe at Chimoio
Zhunda Camp; and not the other way round as now claimed by the comrade who
became the first President of the Republic of Zimbabwe,” Mutsvangwa said.
“His version is patently a revisionist account. Only G40 Jonathan Moyo
could have penned it for him to regurgitate.
“Comrade President, true revolutionaries have that attribute of historical
integrity as a cardinal virtue. Let us be true and honest to the
Chimurenga II Revolution as it happened. Such integrity is greatest
tribute to so many of the fallen heroes of that epochal generation,” he
added.
The garrulous former Norton legislator said the correct position is that
he arrived at the camp in early July 1975, “soon after Mozambique’s
independence day on June 25, 1975 together with Willard Zororo Duri, John
Mayowe, Sobusa Gula-Ndebele, Masimba Mwazha from the then University of
Rhodesia.”
“…Mugabe only got to Chimoio Zhunda Camp in September 1975… well after
my earlier arrival. He came together with Edgar Tekere, Nisbert Makotsi
and a Dengwani.”
He added that Mugabe and Tekere came to the front along with about 150-200
other comrades who would form Company D when Nyadzonia was opened as the
refugee holding camp.
Mutsvangwa said Mugabe had crossed the border in April soon after the
assassination of Zanu chairman Herbert Chitepo.
Upon his arrival in Mozambique, Mutsvangwa claimed, Mugabe was resisted by
the occupants of Zhunda Chimoio Camp who argued that he was not their
political leader as they had been recruited under the auspices of Bishop
Muzorewa’s United African National Congress.
In resisting Mugabe, Mutsvangwa said the camp occupants agitated for his
denial of food.
“As university students, the five of us took the lead in diffusing the
smouldering confrontation as… Mugabe was only backed by the handful 200
comrades he had recruited from Highfield.
“I remember… Duri roping me to clandestinely arrange for Oppah
Muchinguri(-Kashiri) to cook for Mugabe as the two (Duri and
Muchinguri-Kashiri) knew each other from their shared home in Manica
Bridge, Watsomba.
“Concurrently, we set to work for his acceptance. We used our gravitas as
university students to persuade the more numerous refugee occupants of
Zhunda Camp to be accommodating of the estranged Mugabe and his group of
150-200 recruits.”
According to Mutsvangwa, Mugabe was only taken from the refugee camp “to
go to teaching exile in far north Quelimane.”
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