THE military must now step in to stop machete gangs who are
terrorising and killing people in many parts of the country, Norton MP Temba
Mliswa has said.
Speaking at a policy dialogue meeting organised by the
Southern African Political Economy Series (Sapes) Trust in conjunction with the
Information for Development Trust (IDT) in Harare on Thursday, Mliswa also said
he had challenged State Security minister Owen Ncube to come out in public and
set the record straight concerning reports that he was behind the machete
gangsters.
Mliswa said the Constitution empowers the military to help
the police in dire situations.
“Machete wars have now gone out of hand and the police are
struggling to contain the menace.
However, we have a mighty military force in the country.
The generals of the army are also very intelligent. They don’t go to war and use
that time to study. So they can actually strategise and deal with this machete
gangster problem,” he said.
“Section 251 (of the Constitution) gives the army the
mandate to carry out such an operation of flushing out machete gangsters. The
army conducted Operation Restore Legacy which removed the late President Robert
Mugabe from power. So it means the army is powerful and can manage to deal with
the problem of machete gangsters,” said Mliswa.
Mbizo MP, Settlement Chikwinya (MDC Alliance) said there
was need for the authorities to interview criminals convicted of machete
violence so that they explain how the menace was organised.
“In the prisons we have the small fish who were jailed due
to machete violence. These are the ones who should tell us how they operated
and name the big fish behind them. There have been names of top officials that
have been implicated but we can only get the true stories from the small fish
in the prisons,” he said. Newsday
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