Zimbabwe: More veterans charged with insulting pres.

By John Cassim

HARARE, Zimbabwe

As the rift widens between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his longtime allies, the former liberation war fighters, courts in capital Harare Wednesday charged four more leaders of the main veterans association with insulting the president.

The four -- National Liberation War Veterans’ Association Political Commissar Francis Nhando, Secretary General Victor Matemadanda, Harare chapter deputy chairman Hoyini Samuel Bhila, and National Vice Headman Moyo -- were arrested separately Monday and Tuesday.

In their court appearance Wednesday, the four leaders were granted $300 bail each.

Indications of bad blood between 92-year-old Mugabe and his supporters became clear last week when the group's spokesman Douglas Mahiya was dragged to court on the aged leader’s orders.

Mugabe began arrests of the war veterans’ leaders when the group allegedly drafted and circulated a communiqué calling on him to resign for misrule.

The arrests came as a surprise to many people who regarded the veterans group as the vanguard of the ruling party in the past 36 years of self-rule.

“We understand that President Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF have always thrived on the vigilance of the war veterans for years, these are the people who were in the lead violently campaigning for Mugabe in any election.

“War veterans were also instrumental in the violent land grab that left thousands of former white commercial farmers landless and the alleged abduction and murder of more than 400 opposition activists in 2008 during the presidential runoff,” lawyer and opposition activist Jacob Mafume told Anadolu Agency.

The same veterans who fought the white supremacy over the country’s land have complained farms given to them during the land imbalance redress are now being repossessed.

“Our colleagues have complained that their farms are being taken away on factional grounds because of the communiqué. It is disheartening and this could signal an end to the relationship between us as war veterans and Mugabe,” one angry war veteran said during Mahiya’s court appearance.

As the party prepares for its annual conference in December, Mugabe cannot afford to remain alienated.

However some say the conference might be turned into an extraordinary congress to change the party leadership.

“Mr. President, we call for an extraordinary congress where new party leaders are elected into office,” Mandi Chimene, a ZANU PF provincial leader, said recently.