Police hold on to MRP truck

BULAWAYO police are still holding on to a truck they seized from the secessionist Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP) during a surprise demonstration that the militant party staged outside Bulawayo Central Police station in March.

Police arrested nine activists after firing warning shots to disperse the party demonstrators who wanted to storm the police station. Those who were arrested spent more than a month in remand prison before the Bulawayo High Court granted them bail.

The MRP activists were protesting against the alleged harassment of their leader, Mqondisi Moyo after armed security details visited his home in the wee hours of the night with the intention to arrest him.

Moyo yesterday told Southern Eye that the police were refusing to return the party’s branded truck months after they impounded it.

“Our vehicle has been in the hands of the police since March. We bought this truck for our party activities. Now our activities have been stalled because we have no transport,” Moyo said.

Bulawayo police spokesperson Inspector Abednico Ncube professed ignorance on the matter.

“I am not aware of that at the moment. It’s a long case; I am not aware,” Ncube said.

The MRP president, however, equated the seizure of the party’s vehicle to that of government‘s confiscation of Zapu properties in the early 1980s.

“It is the same modus operandi that they employed to cripple Zapu during the 1980s,” Moyo added.

Government seized Zapu properties following the alleged “discovery” of an arms cache at some of the party‘s farms in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces, culminating in the Gukurahundi massacres of the 1980s.

Government has refused to return the properties.

In March, MRP activists also clashed with police after the former descended at Tabas Induna Farm in Ntabazinduna where they evicted former Vice-President Kembo Mohadi’s son-in-law, Floyd Ambrose, accusing him of grabbing the property from a white farmer, Brain Davies.