BULAWAYO - The outgoing Minister of Information has ordered two newspapers in Bulawayo to stop publishing articles on the conflict that has split the national ex-combatants association or on the intensifying moves to revive the now defunct PF-Zapu.
Sikhanyiso Duke Ndlovu, whose term of office was marred in controversy, issued the order to the government-controlled Chronicle and Sunday News on Monday, after almost a week of dogged coverage of what has been the city’s most dramatic story in recent weeks.
The publicity-hogging Ndlovu has personally been a target of castigation by the former Zipra fighters who are spearheading both the revival of the late Dr Joshua Nkomo’s PF-Zapu and the breakaway from the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA).
“The minister called to tell us that we were giving these people coverage that they do not deserve,” said a journalist at one of the newspapers.
“He was not amused by the fact that the people who are working on the revival of PF-Zapu and the breakaway of Zipra ex-combatants are, according to him, working against Zanu–PF yet we are giving them fair, balanced and significant coverage. So he told us to immediately stop giving them any coverage. He said if anything they must be given negative coverage.”
The former Zipra cadres have dismissed Ndlovu as a coward, who did not fight in the liberation war, but concentrated his effort on teaching pupils in refugee camps in Zambia.
Ndlovu enjoys very close links with President Robert Mugabe and is generally seen as a loyalist.
Last week, during a rally called by former Zipra combatants at White City Stadium in Bulawayo, Ndlovu was booed and heckled by the former fighters after he chanted Zanu-PF slogans.
The former fighters had called the meeting and invited Vice-President, Joseph Msika to hear their grievances first hand.
They accuse the ZNLWVA, their representative organisation, of failing to champion their rights. As a result, they say, most former Zipra cadres are wallowing in abject poverty, while their counterparts who fought under Zanla are much better off.
Former government minister and ex-Zanu-PF politburo member, Dumiso Dabengwa, is reportedly the brains behind the two-pronged campaign to revive PF-Zapu and the break away from the war veterans associations.
The Chronicle last week published two stories which gave the rebels significant space to express themselves. One of the articles quoted Zanu-PF provincial chairman for Bulawayo and Dabengwa loyalist, Macloud Tshawe, as insisting that the White City Stadium, now the subject of a Zanu-PF party probe, was not an illegal gathering.
The other story quoted a member of the newly formed Zipra Veterans’ Association as saying members of his organisation planned to form a political party and that there was a “congruence of grievances” between his body and certain elements in the party’s provincial executive.
This week’s Sunday News carried a caption story about a follow-up meeting of former Zipra cadres, which was held at the Zanu-PF provincial headquarters in Bulawayo on Saturday. The story pointed out that although he was expelled from Zanu-PF in February, Dabengwa attended the meeting at the party offices.
Zanu-PF has responded to the furor by appointing a commission of inquiry to investigate the circumstances surrounding the convening of the White City Stadium meeting.
Ndlovu is a member of the probe team together with other Zanu-PF officials, Eunice Sandi, former Trade and Commerce Minister, Callistus Ndlovu, and Abednico Nyathi.
Callistus Ndlovu fell from grace in 1989 after he was implicated in the Willowgate Scandal. He has maintained a low political profile since then.
But war veterans in the city have challenged the composition of the commission. ZNLWVA chairman for Bulawayo, Themba Ncube is circulating a statement to that effect.
“The composition of the commission of inquiry leaves a lot of questions. The commission is composed of people who have a direct interest in the current political set-ups,” said Ncube in the signed statement.
Previous Topic
Index