Mujuru plotters come out in the open

via Mujuru plotters come out in the open – DailyNews Live 16 January 2015 by Fungi Kwaramba

HARARE – Authors of the anarchy engulfing President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF, including the conspiracy to scandalise and oust from power former vice president Joice Mujuru, pictured, have been officially revealed by lickspittle State media — in a development that has set tongues wagging within the ruling party.

But senior party officials said yesterday that the surprising outing by The Herald, of the main actors behind the chaos that is still devouring the ruling party, could one day come back to haunt the alleged masterminds behind the deadly ructions that are still to fully play out.

“Although it would appear that all the people who played a leading role in decimating Mujuru have been handsomely rewarded, I’m still very surprised that these comrades would want their names played out in public this way, more so seeing that the party war is far from over.

“I personally think that the excitement is unwarranted and that this (move) will prove unwise in the long run,” a central committee member told the Daily News yesterday.

In its report yesterday, that The Herald called an “investigation” and which damagingly fingered the alleged party heavyweights behind Zanu PF’s current ugly ructions that have culminated in many disaffected members now taking Mugabe head-on, the official newspaper disclosed a comprehensive list of what it called the “Clean Dozen”.

The “Clean Dozen” moniker is a play on the supposed antonym “Dirty Dozen” — which is how a group of party legislators who were embroiled in the alleged spygate saga derisively came to be known as.

“Members of the ‘Clean Dozen’ were Cde Savior Kasukuwere (the convener), Professor Jonathan Moyo (co-convener), Cdes Emmerson Mnangagwa, Edna Madzongwe, Prisca Mupfumira, Oppah Muchinguri, Monica Mutsvangwa, Makhosini Hlongwane, Ignatius Chombo, Josiah Hungwe, Philip Chiyangwa and Patrick Zhuwao.

“The group usually met at Cde Kasukuwere’s Comoil offices in Marlborough, their usual meeting place, although they also had meetings at different places.

“They also regularly had lunch at the popular restaurant along East Road in Avondale, the Fishmonger, a place popularised by Western ambassadors — the Fishmonger Group — that regularly met there to try to crack the Zimbabwe puzzle.

“The 12-member committee was instrumental in the organisation and funding of the First Lady’s Meet the People rallies during which Dr Mujuru’s sinister plot was exposed to the party membership,” the lapdog daily said authoritatively.

Almost all of the “Clean Dozen” have been given prominent positions in the party and the government, with Mnangagwa now Mugabe’s number two both at party and government levels, while Chombo is the new secretary for administration and Kasukuwere the new political commissar.

Even the little known Mupfumira is the new minister of Public Service.

But former party spokesperson, Rugare Gumbo — who has since been “expelled” from Zanu PF — said yesterday that the so-called “Clean Dozen” should rather be referred to as the “Mischievous Dirty Dozen”.

In a telephone interview with the Daily News, Gumbo, also ridiculed the moniker “Clean Dozen” as “a complete misnomer”.

Asked to comment on the latest “revelations”, he said, “I really cannot talk about that foolish moniker. It really just shows the people who plotted to destroy the party and bring chaos to the country.

“Is there any among them who has a record of defending the country?

They have no history except to muzzle the press,” said Gumbo apparently referring to the infamous shutdown of the Daily News in September 2003.

“We can actually call them the ‘Mischievous Dirty Dozen’ who were toddlers during the struggle and are coming to enjoy what other people fought for”.

Another party insider said it was also “a matter of time” before more details emerged around how the “Clean Dozen” had expediently roped in First Lady Grace Mugabe to be their spokesperson, culminating in the “painful strife” that had riven the party.

“Almost all of these people are arrogant big egos who desire to be seen as the centres of the Universe in their own rights. So, it is a matter of time before all the gory details come out. Watch this space,” he said.

Yesterday The Herald ran a curious “investigative” story sensationally claiming that the likes of Hungwe saved the party from people like Mujuru.

Gumbo also said it was “shocking that war sell-outs like Hungwe, who was a mupuruvheya” are now being depicted as saviours”. Hungwe was a Rhodesian propagandist during the liberation struggle who fiercely advocated for the brutalising of liberation fighters. Chiyangwa once served as a police officer in Rhodesia under Ian Smith.

Former Presidential Affairs minister Didymus Mutasa, who defiantly still declares himself to be the party’s substantive secretary for administration, has already rubbished members that he calls Mafikizolos (Johnny-come-latelies, as well as Zanu PF’s damp squib “elective” congress that was held in December last year.

Mutasa was representing genuine liberation heroes, pioneers of the struggle and Zanu PF members who were “unfairly and illegally” booted out of the highly divided party.

“In the build-up to this illegal congress, it became clear that this clique of evil plotters had successfully waylaid Amai Grace Mugabe and Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe and started using them as weapons to unleash venomous and uncouth statements against anyone they perceived to be standing for the original Zanu (PF) values, ideals and ethos. As upright cadres of the revolution, we resolutely and patiently waited for the cardinal direction of our elected First Secretary and President of Zanu (PF), but his customary clear and unequivocal stance did not come until this undemocratic congress.

“In disbelief Zanu (PF) and the whole nation listened to their leader berating his own protégés not only in the party but in government and the august House of Parliament.

“It will go down in the annals of our Zanu (PF) history that for the first time the elected leader alienated himself from the people by this behaviour.  Instead of mapping the road for Zimbabwe’s economic recovery and major policies uplifting our people, the congress became a farce and degenerated into a praise and worship playhouse,” read the statement by liberation cadres signed by Mutasa.

Simon Khaya Moyo, Zanu PF spokesperson said in a statement yesterday that he was currently on leave and would only comment on Mutasa’s bold statement on Monday next week.