I have had to revise my view about this. Now I believe Zanu PF is inherently against reform and thus cannot be reformed from within or from outside. My view now is that Zanu PF needs to be removed and replaced in the national interests. And for the avoidance of doubt, I’m done with Zanu PF. In any event, Zanu PF is now a party of the past. The writing is on the wall.
BSR: Many people find your attitude to Mugabe and Mnangagwa confusing. You have been very critical of Mnangagwa for things that people think Mugabe was also culpable, for example Gukurahundi and corruption. Yet you have largely maintained respect and even admiration for Mugabe, while relentlessly condemning and bashing Mnangagwa. Some think this is a case of double-standards and selective outrage. What explains your approach to these two men? What is it about Mugabe that you find agreeable and about Mnangagwa that you find particularly disagreeable despite their commonalities?
ANSWER: You are indeed correct that there are these perceptions out there about my attitude toward Mugabe and Mnangagwa. I accept that this is something that I need to address. The two books I am working on address this issue, so you will have to wait a little longer, suffice to say here that, besides the primary interest to contribute to my country’s national development, a major personal reason why I joined practical politics was to understand these two men: Mugabe and Mnangagwa.
I do not agree that there are important or significant commonalities between Mugabe and Mnangagwa. The fact is that President Mugabe is a founding leader of country together with the late VP Joshua Nkomo. Founding leaders get a special dispensation. I don’t consider Mnangagwa a founding leader. I don’t put him where I put Nkomo and Mugabe. No. So the proposition that there are commonalities between Mugabe and Mnangagwa has no historical basis. I have been shocked to see the likes of Ray Ndlovu being used to write hagiographic propaganda to present Mnangagwa as a so-called decorated fighter above Mugabe, let alone Joshua Nkomo.That is utter nonsense and there’s no amount money of money that will make such nonsense true.
When it comes to Gukurahundi, the buck obviously stops with Mugabe as President or Prime Minister as the case was. That should go without saying. What I will show in my two books is that three people had terrible influence on Mugabe’s Gukurahundi disposition, one a respected foreign leader, the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere who had issues with former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda’s support for PF Zapu and two locals in the names of Mnangagwa and David Stannard. The worst were Mnangagwa and Stannard. They manufactured false evidence and used it to justify mass murder against Zapu and Ndebeles not only around alleged findings of arms caches but also around the creation of pseudo dissidents in collusion with apartheid South Africa.
Gukurahundi would not have occurred had Mnangagwa not conspired with Rhodesians like Stannard and apartheid operatives who were concerned about the cooperation between Zipra and Umkhonto we Sizwe to manufacture false intelligence against Zipra and PF Zapu leaders, including Joshua Nkomo. Mnangagwa created false evidence to make false history which riled Mugabe and fuelled genocide in Matabeleland and sections of the Midlands. I am not just asserting this, but these are documented facts that have failed to find expression in a truth and reconciliation process that Mnangagwa influenced to block in the old order and is still blocking in the so-called new dispensation. If Mnangagwa is as innocent as he is portrayed in Ray Ndlovu’s shocking hagiography, let him publish the Chihambakwe report on gukurahundi. That would be a significant development and a confirmation that there’s indeed a new dispensation.
So, as the person who presided over the creation of the false evidence that was used to justify the military and CIO operations, including the establishment of the Fifth Brigade, against PF Zapu and Ndebeles, Mnangagwa should own up, take ownership pf that false evidence, and apologise.
Next and final: There is no room for technocrats in Zimbabwe- Jonathan Moyo says
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