DEFENCE deputy minister Victor Matemadanda has
unwittingly exposed government’s hand in the alleged abduction and forced
disappearances of opposition and human rights activists after he bragged that
“sell-outs will be dealt with and will disappear mysteriously”.
Addressing a Zanu PF Manicaland provincial co-ordinating
committee meeting in Mutare on Sunday, Matemadanda, who is the party’s national
political commissar, said: “I told other people that if you are a sell-out, and
if you wake up and pursue your sell-out activities while people are sleeping,
this country has something that it will do to you.
“You will disappear without anyone touching you. This
country will deal with you mysteriously. This country is a mystery, you just
can’t do as you please.” His remarks came as human rights activists have
recorded a spike in abductions and torture of opposition activists by suspected
State security agents.
Over a dozen human rights activists, among them Itai
Dzamara and Patrick Nyabanyana, have disappeared without trace over the last
few years, with rights lobby groups claiming they had recorded 69 abductions
this year alone.
Government has, however, denied being involved in the
disappearances, saying these were stage-managed to taint the country’s image
and justify the extension of the trade embargo against President Emmerson
Mnangagwa’s administration.
Matemadanda singled out hospital doctors’ former leader
Peter Magombeyi and comedienne Samatha Kureya, also known as Gonyeti, for
exaggerating the country’s human rights crisis by claiming to be victims of
State abduction and torture.
But Jameson Timba, secretary for presidential affairs in
MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa’s office, said the remarks made by
Matemadanda were “most unfortunate”.
“These remarks are not dissimilar from the remarks made by
Patrick Chinamasa (Zanu PF politburo member and acting spokesperson), which were
basically inciting violence in the country,” Timba said.
“His suggestion in the context of the abductions that have
been taking place in this country, that if you sell out then you will
disappear, is totally unacceptable and irresponsible and also shows who has
been behind the abductions in the country.”
National Patriotic Front spokesperson Jealousy Mawarire
said: “Having a Deputy Minister of Defence and a top Zanu PF official boasting
of using violence, abductions and extra-judicial killings lends credence to the
call by Zimbabweans for Sadc, AU [African Union] and UN [United Nations]’s
intervention in order to deal with this rogue regime.
“It is people like Matemadanda who are responsible for
creating a social and political crises that Zanu PF and the regime are
spectacularly failing to dissociate themselves from.”
He added: “We have a Constitution, section 67, which gives
political rights and provides for the right for peaceful activities, including
demonstrations, satire, drama and music, to influence or challenge government
policies or any political activity.”
In a separate address at the weekend, Gokwe-Nembudziya MP
Justice Mayor Wadyajena told party supporters that Mnangagwa had “planted” his
intelligence operatives in all parts of the country to sniff out “sell-outs”.
“President Mnangagwa is the one who created the CIO
[Central Intelligence Organisation] in 1980 and there is nowhere he can fail to
get information on what is happening.
“You will be caught. Imagine people getting money in
secret, but it came out,” he said, in apparent reference to former senior Zanu
PF members who were recently expelled for allegedly conniving with the
opposition to incite an uprising against Mnangagwa.
“There are people who were fired from the party for fanning
factionalism. People like (Claveria) Chizema, Tendai Savanhu and one youth
league member. Factionalism must end, let us end gossip and let us unite as
Zanu PF,” Wadyajena said.
“Those who were expelled from the party had started lying
and abusing the name of Vice-President (Constantino) Chiwenga to say he wants
to take over from President Mnangagwa.
“Those people created their fliers with the VP’s image on
them saying he must help the people to remove Mnangagwa.
“They were working with the opposition and some even
received money to organise people ahead of the July 31 demonstrations.
Unfortunately for them, the President’s eyes are everywhere. They are here and
what we are doing is actually being seen and you will be caught.”
He also accused “Zanu PF rebels” of working in cahoots with
the opposition to peddle false reports of a rift between Mnangagwa and his
deputy, Chiwenga.
“People want to create a wedge between President Mnangagwa
and Vice-President Chiwenga and that will not happen.
“If VP Chiwenga had wanted to be President, he could have
taken over in 2017 when the President was in South Africa and (the late former
President Robert) Mugabe had been removed, but he is a principled man and
follows the party ideology.
“If he wants to be President, he can wait for his turn. It
is not criminal to aspire to be President,” Wadyajena said. Newsday
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