Veterans' group challenges Mugabe

Veterans say violence is carried out by a minority

A group of veterans of Zimbabwe's war of independence is mounting a challenge to the policies of Robert Mugabe's government and the activities of his supporters.

The Zimbabwe Liberators' Platform (ZLP) was formed last year in protest at the anarchy that accompanied the farm invasions which were supposedly led by former freedom fighters.

We're surprised that the war vets are being trafficked to suppress political opposition by force

ZLP official Bernard Manyadza

The ZLP questions the credentials of the war veterans, many of whom are far too young to have been in the struggle.

They believe the veteran leader, Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi, and his supporters, a group of not more than 1,500 ex-combatants, do not speak for the majority of former fighters.

Independence war

The ZLP also dismisses those veterans as cowards for attacking unarmed civilians during peacetime.

"There was a song that we used to sing in the war, that a people's soldier should by no means go out and beat civilians," recalls Bernard Manyadza, who was one of the top commanders of Mr Mugabe's Zanla army during the independence war.

Chenjerai Hunzvi's leadership questioned

"We're surprised that the war vets are being trafficked to suppress political opposition by force,'' he said. ''They've turned from liberators to oppressors of the people they're supposed to have liberated."

The ZLP's opposition to Mr Mugabe and his right to speak for the veterans has its roots in the war of independence.

At the time fighters from the Zanu and Zapu liberation movements initiated the formation of a joint Zipa army.

Armed struggle

They believed the politicians were tired of the war, so they wanted to re-start the armed struggle themselves; and they wanted national unity at all costs, so as to avoid the kind of civil war that followed Angola's independence.

He did it to us but he has no right to do it to the country

Bernard Manyadza on Mr Mugabe's policies

They won the backing of the neighbouring frontline states' leaders, especially President Samora Machel of Mozambique who allowed them to fight from his country. But clashes soon occurred in the Zipa camps between cadres of the two liberation movements.

Mr Mhanda and his comrades from Zanu were convinced that their lack of political leadership was contributing to the tensions in the united army.

President Machel asked them to draw up a list of 10 names of potential leaders. At the top of their list was Robert Mugabe, who was then under house arrest in Mozambique because Mr Machel was hostile to his anti-unity sentiments. Reluctantly Mr Machel agreed to release Mr Mugabe, and that is how he came to lead Zanu and later Zimbabwe.

Fighters detained

The fighters soon grew disillusioned with Mr Mugabe, but by then it was too late because he'd secured the backing of Mr Machel.

ZLP spokesman Wilfrid Mhanda: The past is not forgotten

In order to gain control of the army and prepare the way for negotiations with the Rhodesians, Mr Mugabe persuaded Mr Machel to allow him to detain his own men, claiming they were plotting against his leadership.

Mr Manyadza and Wilfrid Mhanda, a senior officer under Mr Mugabe and now the ZLP spokesman, were among the 50 top commanders arrested. Later hundreds more junior soldiers were arrested.

The two were kept in cells in terrible conditions for the first six months - packed in the dark, with no toilet. For the last two-and-a-half years of the war they were held in a detention camp.

'Wrong side of struggle?'

Mr Mhanda recalls the words of a Holocaust survivor to describe their ordeal: "He who has not experienced it cannot believe it; he who has experienced it cannot understand it."

'War veterans' invaded farms

The so-called dissidents, who were never charged with any offence, have waited 20 years for the whole truth to come out.

"Probably we could have forgiven without forgetting, but the events of the last year forced us to regroup," says Mr Mhanda. "He did it to us but he has no right to do it to the country."

"Twenty years after independence, the history of the war hasn't really been told," adds Mr Manyadza. "Are certain people afraid that their names will be found on the wrong side of the struggle?"