War veterans wield regime-changing power in Zimbabwe
– Once Robert Mugabe’s fiercest supporters, independence war veterans played a key role in ousting him, proving they still wield influence in Zimbabwe, which only threw off colonial rule in 1980.
Mugabe’s reign was built on support from three pillars – Zanu-PF, the military and the war veterans – and their hardening stance against him in recent years was a bellwether of his downfall last Tuesday.
“Our relationship with Mugabe had irretrievably broken down,” Victor Matemadanda, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association, told AFP.
“We entered into a marriage, then problems started and we opted out.”
War veterans’ leader Christopher Mutsvangwa led the hardening rhetoric against Mugabe, threatening to march on his private residence.
Just before the president stepped down, Mutsvangwa called further street protests, telling him to “smell the coffee. Your time is up”.
The war veterans now have their favoured candidate, Emmerson Mnangagwa, as president and he was careful to mention them in his inauguration speech on Friday.
Veterans of the 1972-1979 independence war accuse Mugabe and his wife Grace of betraying their liberation struggle and enjoying extravagant, corrupt lives while former soldiers were left destitute.
“The first couple’s conduct was the last straw and we rallied the people to come together and unequivocally denounce that,” said Matemadanda.
For the war veterans, the idea of styling themselves as defenders of freedom sits uneasily with much of their history as enforcers in Mugabe’s regime.
They were the shock troops of Mugabe’s violent election campaigns, especially in 2008, and were often implicated in the beating, intimidation and even killing of opposition supporters.
They also led the violent campaign to seize white-owned land in what Mugabe encouraged as a correction of the colonial legacy of black people having only small areas of poor-quality land.
Often drunk or on drugs, mobs of “war veterans” – who have always included many too young to have actually fought in the war – attacked farmers and labourers with machetes and axes, with the president’s support. But the relations between Mugabe and the veterans soured as Grace became more active in politics and emerged as a possible next president. – AFP