Remembering June 27

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa was the chief election agent for Zanu PF in the 2008 election, which saw the ruling party running a violent campaign under themes “Mugabe muoffice”, “Operation wakavhotera papi”.

In all this, Zanu PF wanted to retain the late former President Robert Mugabe in office.

The current President and his close military associates marshalled the beating of people.

That was a traumatic period for the whole nation. So many people were tortured, badly beaten and many lost their lives.

It was a terrible experience in Zimbabwean history which should never be tolerated again.

The June 27, 2008 presidential election run-off was the most treacherous political episode under Mugabe after Gukurahundi.

The role played by the military in Zanu PF is not new and just recently, the ruling party’s acting commissar Patrick Chinamasa confirmed that the army was the pivot holding the party together.

In 2008, this unrepentant government set the military and Zanu PF militia on MDC and other opposition supporters, murdering hundreds of people and displaced thousands.

I vividly recall the notorious Border Gezi graduates, popularly known as Green Bombers, who caused mayhem in the opposition’s main strongholds. They asked whether one should get a short and long sleeve.

I was stationed at ZRP Borrowdale and one day, I was doing some shopping at Sam Levy’s Village Shopping Centre and I wanted to buy the Daily News, which was selling like hot cakes those days.

When I asked for the paper from the newspaper vendor, I was told to wait for about two minutes because he wanted to go and pick it from where he was hiding the papers because the Green Bombers did not want to see “any imperialist papers” on the streets.

June 27, 2008 will never be forgotten. It was a black day for democracy. The whole country was submerged in fear.

That was the day Mugabe contested alone in the rerun after the late MDC founder Morgan Richard Tsvangirai refused to participate in the sham election.

I was deployed at Mt Pleasant High Command centre and everything was done within 24 hours from voting, counting, verification and swearing in of the President.

A plane was on standby waiting to take Mugabe to Egypt for an African Union meeting.

Will the Zanu PF government apologise for these crimes?