War Veterans Say Mugabe Refused To Read Agreed On Speech And Swapped It With Another

The Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWA) has alleged that President Robert Mugabe shifted from the agreed on position last night and instead swapped the speech he was supposed to read for another one. The war veterans said that they were disappointed that Mugabe appeared to renege on the deal he made when he addressed the nation yesterday. The former freedom fighters were referring to the press conference that aired on Sunday night, where Mugabe was flanked by the security services chiefs. He was widely expected to announce his resignation but instead, he said that he would preside over the Zanu-PF Congress which is to be held in about three weeks time.

At a press conference held on Monday morning, ZNLWVA chairman, Christopher Mutsvangwa called on Zanu-PF to go ahead with the plans to impeach Mugabe. Mugabe has been given a deadline of until noon today, to resign on his own or to face the ignominy of being impeached. The war veterans also urged the opposition MDC-T to back Zanu-PF’s plan to impeach Mugabe. saying:

We are appealing to all MPs to come to Parliament tomorrow and discharge their constitutional obligation to impeach

The war veterans went on to demand that Mugabe should step down immediately and warned that if he fails to do so, the war veterans will bring “the people of Zimbabwe back to the streets of Harare” on Tuesday. Mutsvangwa said that Mugabe has already had 37 years in power and should not last another 37 seconds in power.

The war veterans leader went on to praise the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) for the sterling work they had done while criticising the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) and the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) for being “captured.” He claimed that the ZRP and CIO had been infiltrated while the ZDF had done an impeccable job of protecting President Robert Mugabe. He went on to claim that soldiers had even protected Mugabe from protestors who wanted to storm State House on Saturday during the solidarity marches. Said Mutsvangwa

The police had lost its reputation and the army has a lot of work on its hands to normalise the situation

Mutsvangwa also claimed that he had no idea of the location of former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa.