Source: Mugabe uses treason to cow foes: Mavhaire – DailyNews Live
Blessings Mashaya 22 April 2017
HARARE – President Robert Mugabe has perfected the art of laying treason
charges against anyone he feels is a threat to his throne, former
politburo member Dzikamai Mavhaire has said.
This comes as Zanu PF political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere is under the
cosh for allegedly plotting to topple Mugabe.
Mavhaire – famed for challenging Mugabe to resign in 1997 – claimed the
nonagenarian leader was using the same strategy to expel the combative
Kasukuwere.
“What is happening to Kasukuwere is not new. Mugabe alleged us and (Joice)
Mujuru were plotting to assassinate him. This is the only strategy Mugabe
uses against his enemies. Previously, it was Morgan Tsvangirai, so to us
this is not new,” he said.
“Zanu PF is now dying. We are going to see the expulsion of some senior
members; this is the death of Zanu PF. But people in Zanu PF must not
worry; life outside Zanu PF is warmer. Also, the people of Zimbabwe must
not worry about what is happening.
“At the moment, we must find solutions to rescue this country from the
current economic problems,” said Mavhaire, who was ruthlessly purged from
the warring Zanu PF in late 2014 together with Mujuru, Rugare Gumbo and
Didymus Mutasa on untested claims of plotting to oust and assassinate
Mugabe.
Previously, Tsvangirai escaped the gallows by a whisker after the State
had preferred charges of treason against him, after the government claimed
it had evidence that he wanted to assassinate Mugabe.
The case collapsed in 2004 after a year-long trial in which the State was
relying on questionable evidence from a grainy videotape that was secretly
recorded by Ari Ben Menashe, a discredited Canadian-based political
consultant.
So many Mugabe foes were charged with treason, including war heroes like
Lookout Masuku – who later died under house arrest – Dumiso Dabengwa,
Welshman Ncube, Tsvangirai, PDP president Tendai Biti among others, a
charge which the State could not sustain in court.
Before her expulsion, Mujuru, along with Vice President Emmerson
Mnangagwa, were seen as leading candidates to succeed Mugabe.
She had commanding respect of party’s provincial structures.
Mujuru’s political star in Zanu PF first dimmed publicly in 2008 when
Mugabe conspiratorially suspected that her late husband – the revered
former liberation struggle icon, General Solomon Mujuru – engineered his
embarrassing trouncing in that year’s polls to Tsvangirai.
Mugabe and other Zanu PF bigwigs claimed that the late Mujuru was behind
the formation of Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn, an opposition party that is led by
former Finance minister Simba Makoni.
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