OWN CORRESPONDENT with AFP, Harare | Monday
ZIMBABWE’S war veterans association has voted to oust its firebrand leader Chenjerai “Hitler” Hunzvi for being too dictatorial, and plans to make the often-violent farm invasions that he started “more orderly” – but a defiant Hunzvi has dismissed the challenge as a waste of time.
Provincial leaders of the veterans association and the group’s secretariat also complained that he did not protest strongly enough against a short-lived government crackdown last week on squatters led by the veterans.
Andy Mhlanga, secretary general of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association, said the group’s secretariat was taking over the association’s operations, and that Hunzvi and his national executive board were no longer in office. The group will elect new leadership on September 2.
But Hunzvi has declared that he will not recognise the vote of no-confidence against him and his board: “They are just wasting their time. I am still chairman of the war veterans,” he said.
Under Hunzvi’s lead, thousands of war veterans and their supporters have invaded about 1 600 white-owned farms since February, in an often-violent campaign marked by killings, beatings, kidnappings and other forms of intimidation.
Hunzvi has denied any responsibility for the violence, but has steadfastly defended the campaign, which aimed to speed up a government land reform programme taking land from whites to give to blacks.
The change in leadership would not end the farm occupations, Mhlanga said, but would make the campaign “more orderly.”
Mhlanga is regarded as a moderate voice in the veterans’ group, compared to Hunzvi’s more militant style.
Hunzvi is currently facing several legal challenges, including charges that he swiped money from a liberation war victims’ compensation fund and that he exaggerated his own war injuries to win more money from the government in medical claims.
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