ZIMBABWE — HARARE - Attempts by Zanu-PF chairman John Nkomo to salvage the fragile 1987 Unity Accord fell through on Friday, with key Zapu cadres refusing to meet the embattled chairman who is attempting to stop a scheduled Zapu convention early next month.

 

ZimDaily can reveal that key Zapu officials have spurned overtures by Nkomo, who was mandated by the Zanu-PF Politburo on Wednesday to deal with internecine issue, to meet him and stop the planned congress.

 

Nkomo was tasked with bringing back into the Zanu-PF fold, ex-Zapu cadres who have resolved to go it alone amid massive defections from Zanu-PF back to Zapu.

An earlier attempt by Mugabe to assign Matabeleland provincial governor Angelina Masuku to woo back the disillusioned Zapu officials have flopped after the resident minister was told in no uncertain terms that she could not stop the momentum building over the issue.

The angry ex-Zapu cadres last week summoned Vice President Joseph Msika and Nkomo to address them at White City Stadium in Bulawayo.

 

The two were too terrified to attend amid raging emotions over the issue, described by one political observer as a "hot political potato."

ZimDaily heard that the revival of Zapu is being spearheaded by Dumiso Dabengwa, a top Zanu-PF heavyweight who walked out of Zanu-PF earlier this year to join Simba Makoni's bid for the presidency over disillusionment over the way the crumbling Zanu-PF party has vandalised the country.

A statement fired to ZimDaily yesterday states: "All political structures of PF Zapu incorporated into Zanu- PF at the signing of a Unity Accord with Mugabe’s party in 1987 will in the meantime cease to operate under the title Zanu-PF and resume the title of Zapu and that all structures operate under the authority of the Constitution of Zapu”.

It continues: “The district councils should meet to prepare for and convene a consultative conference consisting of the 10 provinces by December 2008, for the purpose of electing an interim executive charged with the responsibility to mobilise and restructure the party and convene the party’s congress by March 2009.”

Other key Zapu cadres agitating for the revival of the party include Welshman Mabhena, a former Zapu secretary general, former war veterans’ leader Andrew Ndlovu, former government minister Thenjiwe Lesabe;

 

Effort Nkomo and Tryphine Nhliziyo - both senior Zanu-PF officials in the Zanu-PF Bulawayo administration. They have indicated they are jumping ship and are not happy with the way Zanu-PF is running the country.

The defections have been sparked by accusations that the new power-sharing agreement between Zanu-PF and the MDC, set to usher in a new unity government, had relegated Zapu cadres to the periphery.

Zapu was originally formed on December 17, 1961, 10 days after the Rhodesian government banned the nationalist National Democratic Party (NDP). Founded by the late nationalist Joshua Nkomo, Zapu was banned in 1962 by the Rhodesian colonial government, sparking the guerilla warfare against the settlers that eventually ushered in independence in 1980.

The armed wing of Zapu, known as Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (Zipra), was commanded by General Lookout Masuku and it is ex-combatants who served in this army who are now livid with their apparent sidelining from positions of influence in government.

The Zipra combatants together with Mugabe's Zanla combatants waged a fierce liberation struggle that forced the then Rhodesian administration to negotiate to resolve the issue of equal rights for black people in Zimbabwe.

However, Nkomo and Mugabe clashed in the early years after independence as Mugabe sought to consolidate his one-party state principle.

 

The conflict saw Mugabe unleashing the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade into Matabelend and Midlands to neuter resistance from Zapu, a crackdown that left in its wake over 20,000, mainly women and children killed.

Nkomo, just like MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, was forced into unity government to cease the hostilities, culminating in the signing of the power-sharing agreement in 1987.

 

Now 21 years later, Zapu cadres have been pushed away from the Zanu-PF feeding trough, leaving them scrounging for crumbs falling off the Zanu-PF fat cats' tables.

Livid with these apparent sidelining, Zipra combatants last week announced they were pulling out of the national war veterans associations which pooled all the ex-combatants from the two military wings.

Ex-Zipra cadres allege that "only ex-Zanla combatants are enjoying the fruits of independence while we suffer," complained one.

"The other problem is that there has never been convergence of ideology between the two," said Zebediah Moyo, an ex-Zipra war veteran.

Zapu was aligned with the Soviet Union whose ideology was to mobilise the urban workers, whereas Zanu had a pro-People's Republic of China orientation which was to mobilise the rural peasantry.

Moyo said Zapu would now be in opposition to Mugabe. "I don’t think Mugabe can stop the momentum which is there," said Moyo.

 

JOKE OF THE DAY - A woman and her little girl were visiting the grave of the little girl's grandmother. On their way through the cemetery back to the car, the little girl asked, "Mommy, do they ever bury two people in the same grave?"

"Of course not, dear." replied the mother, "Why would you think that?"

"The tombstone back there said, 'Here lies a lawyer and an honest man.'"

 

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