Izigebengu
Uniting war veterans not easy, but possible Tshinga Dube
THE following are excerpts from an interview our News Editor Gabriel Masvora had with Minister Tshinga Dube.
I took up this appointment (as Minister of War Veterans, War Collaborators, Ex-Political Detainees and Restrictees) when things were really not in good shape in the ministry. It was a new ministry as you know, I think it was just about a year old and the staff there was also new. It was the first time they took up that appointment, so there were a lot of challenges, they were still building up the ministry but at the same time just about then there were some problems already emanating within the ministry. We had some problems coming up which led most of the war veterans to have factions and a lot of complaints, disgruntlements and so forth.
But the minister (then Cde Chris Mutsvangwa) was caught up in the crossfire because he was most vocal so he got into serious problems and there were a lot of activities by war veterans. The whole thing came up into a climax with some document whose authorship was critical of both the Government and the leadership. One of those documents was called the Blue Ocean.
It was the beginning of the whole crisis. It was read in the (Zanu-PF) Central Committee and a lot of people were very agitated by the contents of this document. That was the beginning of the problem.
Thereafter, war veterans tried to have their meeting in Harare but they did not have clearance from police and this again created havoc when the police tear-gassed them. This created tension between the war veterans and the police and Government in general. From then on things got even worse, and when I came in I was supposed to assist in the unification of war veterans, but there was still a minister then and he was my boss and what I could do was limited to what he thought himself. When I got there I was excited and thought could do a lot of things but I found out that it was difficult. The excitement died down because I found out it was not as easy as I thought. It was a Herculean task. I have been dealing with soldiers all my life so I thought it was going to be easy.
However, there was a bit of a difference now, even the war veterans were no longer behaving like the soldiers that I knew.
They were more of politicians. You couldn’t give them orders as we used to do. So that issue of attack by the police really raised the temperature so high and war veterans demonstrated by sleeping in the open for almost a week. So thereafter there came another meeting which they held. A document was released called “a communiqué” that was a nail in the coffin, because it raised more tempers in the Government and I believe that led to the expulsion of Cde Mutsvangwa as a minister and from the party together with some members of his executive. They were suspected to have authored this document and they were taken to court but in my opinion everything was hurried. If a thorough investigation had been done, this case would have been finalised. I always say to myself we have a very efficient security service in this country. So the fact that all the security apparatus failed to pin down who wrote it also created problems.
This created a suspicion that they could have been a third force behind this. In my own intelligence I tried to find out who could have done this. We persuaded Mutsvangwa to tell us if he knew who was behind the document. He completely denied authorship of this document including all members of his executive. I asked Mutsvangwa to be honest and I think he was honest, it wasn’t him. There was a suggestion that this document was authored by some underground intelligence within ourselves just to create a rift because there were some people who were very much against some sections of the war veterans.
They knew that would create pandemonium. Then the other document — the Blue Ocean — the boy who wrote the document confessed that he did it but to our surprise, I don’t even know whether they have asked this boy although he confessed that yes, he authored it.
I will not mention names. We told various officials who were concerned. The conclusion from various quarters was that it has never happened that people are charged for high treason and it just filters in the air. For a year now we don’t know what has happened. Has the court failed? But the courts cannot pass judgment when there is insufficient evidence. So these are some of the problems we had and because of the rift within the party (Zanu-PF). There were some people in the party who were so much against the war veterans. How Chimene, Mlala tried to hijack
war veterans association The other issue came up while we were still trying to sober the war veterans. It really came out of the blue when we heard that one morning, Mandi Chimene and George Mlala had declared themselves new leaders of war veterans from a rally which took place somewhere in Chiweshe. We thought it was a joke but that’s what happened. Mandi appointed herself chairlady while Mlala appointed himself deputy, I don’t know whether they had any other people in the executive. So we said this has never happened.
If people are not happy with their executive, the normal thing to do is to convince others and call for an elective congress so that you change leadership. It has happened before and they did not like it. This is what happened with Jabulani Sibanda, they called a congress and they elected Mutsvangwa. Why not do the same, how can two people just come up and say we are now the leaders out of the blue? Even the President does not do that, which is why he is campaigning; he has to be voted for by the people. So this is what happened. They tried very hard to authenticate their leadership and they were taken to court. The court ruled them out of order and declared that the bonafide leader was Mutsvangwa because he was elected from the constitution. That is where the whole problem started, so instead of solving the problems of the war veterans, this meant we had to go into more serious problems. More divisions.
Well, it just shows the level of their training, if they were well trained soldiers, they would have enough discipline not to do this. Everybody doubts their initial training but I will leave that to their colleagues, they know them better and they know what kind of people they are, their character. Our biggest quarrel has been why I refused to recognise them and stop recognising Mutsvangwa. But I say even the High Court itself has said it won’t recognise them but Mutsvangwa. Mutsvangwa is not my friend. He is just a colleague and it’s not that I recognise him because he is my friend. All I am saying is that if you want to remove him go to the people.
Call them together and say we no longer want this man (Mutsvangwa) and we choose them. Mlala has been angered by this and he feels I am taking sides, obviously I am not because of my liking but because it is the right thing to do. There are no personal gains, I don’t even know some of the members of the Mutsvangwa executive. We meet once maybe in a year. I don’t know Mutsvangwa outside the war veteran domain. I don’t even know his house. Exposing Mlala alleged corruption I did that deliberately so that I could expose his (Mlala) corrupt tendencies in public. He was so embarrassed, so he said he will take me to court. But I said that I want you to take me to court so that I can tell people who you are. Mlala has been so corrupt. They have destroyed the province, akusela province lapha, this Bulawayo Province. There is nothing because of these Mlalas and some politicians here. There are some doggy deals with some Pakistan fellow.
He corrupted a lot of people. He was taking money from businesspeople as protection fee. Some of these businessmen were externalising money through Botswana. It was only until someone was fired that we got to know about this. They were into all sorts of nefarious activities, drugs, repackaging stale things and so forth. They used bad chemicals.
This fellow is a former military man, so I think some of the chemicals he used, are military chemicals for killing weevils, and I am suspecting customers buy this food. That is why Mlala is now panicking calling demonstrations, all sort of things against me. The fact of the matter is that they have failed to gather any following. If they had any followers maybe we could have seen war veterans being torn apart but they have not. So it is not easy to unite the war veterans but not impossible.
You see, these are problems which are not affecting the war veterans alone, you hear that every ministry is not getting enough resources from Treasury, so our ministry is the same, we are making do with the little we have but it’s very difficult.
We still manage though, some fees are still being paid, some war veterans are accessing medical care but not as mush as we wanted because of the economic situation. Vetting of war veterans and collaborators When the new constitution came in, it included war collaborators as veterans of the liberation struggle. The collaborators, the non-combat cadres, those who were not trained and refugees. I mean those who were not actually holding the gun but who went out and those who assisted were all clustered under the liberation war cadres. We are required to vet them so that they are looked at. Now we are starting to do the vetting of collaborators. First stage is to collect all the names of those who are claiming to be war collaborators, from there we delete those whom we think are not genuine.
For instance if someone was born in 1975 and then claim to have been a collaborator, we start doubting that. But we leave those whom we think might qualify and then we go further to say where were you, were you in the camps in Mozambique or Zambia. Who was your commander? Who else was there, what were you doing, once we are satisfied then they qualify to get into the register. We are also following what is called the alignment of the law to the Constitution, while it has passed through Cabinet it has to go to Parliament and only
then we can take action.