SW Radio Africa (London)

Zimbabwe: Zanu-PF Supporters Come to Blows in Nyanga

A ZANU PF meeting to discuss the District Coordinating Committee (DCC) elections disintegrated into an all out brawl on Thursday, as tensions between rival factions came to a head in Nyanga.

Scores of people sustained minor injuries. Police in riot gear intervened and managed to separate the warring factions. No one was arrested.

While skirmishes are common in ZANU PF's messy politics, Thursday morning's incident at the Nyanga Country Club appeared to be particularly violent and marks an escalation in the showdown between the political camps of Joice Mujuru and Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Mujuru is the Vice-President while Mnangagwa is the Defence Minister. The fight came a day after the former ruling party postponed a crucial politburo meeting to look into the crisis that has flared in seven of the party's ten provinces following the controversial DCC elections.

A journalist in Mutare told SW Radio Africa that the scuffles erupted after rival supporters converged on the country club for a scheduled meeting with political commissar Webster Shamu.

One group supports Moses Gutu, who won the DCC elections and is linked to Mnangagwa, while the other is behind Teddy Chipfumba, the loser in the district chairmanship poll. Chipfumba is believed to be from the Mujuru camp.

'There has been a lot of tension in Manicaland following accusations that the Mnangagwa camp has been imposing candidates, as well as intimidating and rigging the elections. So the gathering in Nyanga brought together the feuding parties and before Shamu arrived for the fact finding mission an argument developed into a fist fight.

'The reason was differences of opinion regarding the conduct of the DCC elections. In the midst of the rowdy arguments, punches were suddenly raining on people and it was at this juncture when things broke loose. The party members went for each other free-for-all which lasted for close to 10 minutes,' the journalist who asked not to be identified said.

Other terrified members took to their heels and scampered to safety as senior party officials could only watch in disbelief. Order was eventually restored when the police riot squad moved in to quell the violence, allowing the meeting to go ahead when Shamu eventually arrived.

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Comments Post a comment

  • kjrs120
    Apr 28 2012, 04:02

    What would you expect from these useless Zanu-PF jackasses. Absolute ignorant morons.

  • takunya_ndebvu
    Apr 30 2012, 11:01

    Tichaona_Sibanda;

    I notice with great pleasure and satisfaction that the internet, particularly the blog I follow most - AllAfrica - is awash with stories or articles about ZANU-PF this ZANU-PF that. This is as it should be as this also, in a way helps ZANU-PF in its campaigns.

    This week alone we are confronted with topics like; "ZANU-PF members defect to MDC-T; Mugabe succession game plan exposed; Military tightens grip on ZANU-PF; Mugabe in a fix; Tsvangirai on alliance with Mujuru faction; ZANU-PF still to decide on DCC elections etc, etc".

    The authors of these stories, like you Sibanda, aim to destroy the revolutionary party; you aim to present the party of the people in bad light and you also aim to lower the ZANU-PF flag while at the same time raising the MDC-T one. However, while it is true that these stories are in bad light, they are also helping in publicising the revolutionary party to those who do not know much about it.

    Racist, illegitimate and rebel Ian Smith tried it during the liberation struggle but at the end of it all it turned out to be an advantage to ZANU-PF. The more he demonised ZANU-PF, the more people flocked to join the VANGUARD Party. The more he lied that so many so-called 'terrorists' have been killed or have defected to the regime the more others risked their lives to join those that remained.

    Not so long ago Blair tried the same old discredited strategy (of demonising ZANU-PF and its leadership) but the more he did that the more people (around the world) questioned his motive and the more they loved ZANU-PF. This is why he had to impose sanctions on the people of Zimbabwe and putting our leaders on a so-called "sanctions list".

    The idea was to make sure that our leaders do not have the chance to explain the ZANU-PF position on everything they (racist and evil westerners) were saying at their summits, conferences and in their parliaments. They reckoned that leaving President Mugabe to engage DIRECTLY with the world would expose them as lairs, which they really are.

    Blair and Bush and their predecessors, did not want the world to know that the war (bilateral dispute) that was and is still there between Zimbabwe and Britain is about THE LAND OF ZIMBABWE that was in the hands of illegal, racist and barbaric invaders of British extraction.

    Blair did not want President Mugabe to explain that the LAND of Zimbabwe, which we have since REPOSSESSED, was forcibly grabbed from our fore fathers in 1890 and that we were left with NOTHING and I mean NOTHING, and we were made slaves or forth class citizens in our own country of birth.

    What we are witnessing now is just an extension of that 'war'. Now this time it is interesting in the sense that people like you Tichaona, have joined it (war) on the side of the enslaver, genocidiar, oppressor and invader of our lands - your fore father's land. What boggles the mind is why you do not see that you are on the wrong side of the 'war'. Are you not aware of people like Nyathi who caused the death of thousands of black Zimbabweans at Nhadzonia? Are you doing it for filthy lucre and if so what is it worth vis-à-vis the people of Zimbabwe. Is the money you are being paid greater than your country - the land mass of Zimbabwe?

    Are you not aware of the likes of Chikerema, Sithole, Muzorewa, and Chirau just to name these few who retarded our march towards freedom and independence? Their being on the side of the enemy resulted in the death of millions of Zimbabweans whose lives could have been served had we been on the same side against the enemy - the invader of the African land.

    However, some of us are not surprised by this (your actions) because you are not the first person to have sold out as indicated above and you are certainly not going to be the last. Zimbabwe's path to freedom, independence and EMPOWERMENT is and SHALL remain littered with names of both those who fought on the side of the people and those who fought on the side of the enemy but the TRUTH SHALL ALWAYS TRIUMPH.

    For your own information, factions are a normal function of any democratic organisation. Any organisation with no factions is UNDEMOCRATIC. Politics is about power and that power has to be contested; it has to be wrestled from somewhere. That is why politics is said to be an “intriguing game and an art of the possible”. Anything is possible and everything goes in politics, thus one has to fight in order to gain political power.

    What is happening in ZANU-PF is a sign that democracy in alive, kicking and is well. Even in the imperialist organisation you work for – Short Wave Radio Africa – if this is not happening then you should know that you are working in and under a dictatorship.

    The undeniable fact is that you are employed to rise through the ranks to become the senior most individual in your organisation. Now, if you have no ambitions to rise up the ladder then it means you are a zombie.

    Similarly, as I said above, politics is about acquiring or getting power; you do not want power, then get out of politics. People in ZANU-PF are exercising their right, AT EVERY LEVEL, of being part and parcel of the ZANU-PF democratic political process.

    I remember during the struggle we aspired (from what was ordinarily and loosely called ‘Killer man’ Level) to be at the Section Level and when one gets there, they want to be in the Platoon Level, Company or Detachment Level, Battalion Level etc until one joins the Camp Level (the beginning of the main stream polititical level); General Staff, High Command, Central Committee and ultimately into the Politburo and eventually THE PRESIDENCY.

    Any Zimbabwean who does not aspire to be the President of Zimbabwe is just but a FOOL!! I personally would, one day, want to be the President of Zimbabwe but I have no intentions of pushing the current President out before his time and by his time I mean as long as he is still there and willing to serve the people of Zimbabwe.

    While it may be true that factionalism breeds divisions which can cost votes, it is only the uneducated fools that will jump ship or “come to blows” when they lose in an election at whatever level. Learned people, and by learned I mean those who know what politics is, do not worst time fighting for or over a post because they know that there is ALWAYS TOMORROW.

    I may lose today but I know that tomorrow GOD will certainly smile at me as I will win and this is how it should always be. Hence, the losing (learned) candidates MUST OF NECESSITY support those that have won INSTEAD OF 'Kurovera bhora musango' (kicking the ball into the terraces rather than between the goal posts), so to speak.

    Did we not see how ugly factionalism was between Obama and Clinton to the extent of the latter’s supporter stabbing the former’s supporter in the stomach. However, are the two camps not working together today in the present regime? Were they not in the same party of so-called ‘Democrats’?

    What is different here when Mnangagwa and Mujuru aspire to be the next President of this country? For one to be President one needs to have supporters that will vote for them. Now here, when you (Tichaona) present your ‘facts’, it is as if ZANU-PF alone, the world over, should have ‘smooth’ transition from one leader to the other without any contestations at all.

    How many factions exist in MDC-T? Don't we have the Makone faction, the Biti faction and the Tsvangirai faction? Why was there the 2005 split of the sellout, stooge and puppet party – MDC? Why did MDC-T supporters fight running battles during that commemoration in Harare in front of diplomats and the cameras; and also in Kwekwe; in Gweru and in Bulawayo which they blamed on infiltration from ZANU-PF or was it the CIO?

    That, to you, is not factionalism but when the same thing happens in ZANU-PF then it becomes FACTIONALISM in big letters!! Are you not showing gross idiocy there, Sibanda?