Police in Bulawayo busted a planned meeting called by the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) on Saturday, claiming the gathering could lead to violence between “warring factions”.
ZNLWVA president Andreas Ethan Mathebela claims ZANU-PF is behind the police actions, saying “the police work with the ruling party.”
Police approved Saturday’s meeting, prompting Mathebela to claim that a group of people allied with the Zanu National Party were distorting the meeting’s agenda and mandate.
Last week, some veterans believed to be from ZANLA and loyal to former president and former Minister of Veterans Affairs for Liberation Struggle, Christopher Mutsvangwa, attempted to discourage other comrades from attending the meeting organized by the Mathebela CEO.
As a result, some speculated that boycotting the meeting might lead to a split in the ZNLWVA. Read: https://cite.org.zw/war-vets-association-faces-potential-split/
In an interview with CITE, the ZNLWVA president claimed that the meeting was stopped by Zanu PF and its agents who did not want the veterans to discuss their welfare.
“ZANU boycotted (the meeting) at the end of the day. It was cancelled, aren’t the police working with the ruling party, so they just stopped it. The reason (the police claimed they) was that they were called. They (the police) said they were threatening us, saying if we let you “If this meeting is held, there will be violence.”
“Then I gave them the example of Dynamo and Highlanders, who had violence when playing football, but they continued to play. Why don’t they stop these teams and yet they come with such reasons to stop our meetings when we are so few?”
Mathebela said he explained to police that the War Veterinarians Association “was not organizing a rally” but was “talking about welfare”.
However, the police banning their meeting made it clear to the ZNLWVA executive that “there is someone asking them not to give Mathebela unnecessary distance.”
“(They might have said) Mathebela would be more popular. Aren’t these people demanding autonomy? Don’t they want to contain us, but we are not for this kind of oppression,” Mathebela said.
Despite this interference, the Veterans Association will continue its planned work and care about the welfare of all veterans, Mathebela said.
He said: “The fate of the association rests solely with the constituency itself, whoever will provide something substantive, and this is what some of us were doing, but others want to activate party politics when we talk about welfare.” National President.
The national president claimed that he had “a lot of respect and following”, which is why his rivals felt threatened by his influence.
“That’s why we see this fear in those minorities because the limelight is not with them. The way forward is that we are not bothered about that. There is always competition when you want to do the right thing, and obviously the Gaixares will always want to destroy that,” Mathebela said.
“We are moving forward, we have our program and road map as we move forward.”
Mathebela claimed he knew the “critics” were allied with Mutsvangwa, but said it was only a matter of time before the former vets minister’s influence dissipated.
He asked: “Aren’t we talking about (the late former President Robert) Mugabe (who led Zimbabwe for three decades) as history? Everything will end sooner or later, it’s only a matter of time.” Sait
