War veterans leader Jabulani Sibanda yesterday described Zanu PF stalwarts fingered in leaked US diplomatic cables intercepted by whistleblower website, WikiLeaks, as “known party sell-outs” and likened them to lice.
“There is nothing new said by the Zanu PF members in WikiLeaks,” he said. “It is new to those who published the cables because we have known that some of them were sell-outs even during the liberation struggle.”
Zanu PF secretary for administration Dydimus Mutasa has hinted the WikiLeaks scandal was not on the party’s agenda for the party’s national conference slated for Bulawayo next month. Sibanda said Zanu PF would wait for the appropriate time to deal with the “Wikileaks lice”, but certainly not at the conference.
“The situation (of officials implicated in the cables) we are facing can be best equated to a person wearing a shirt laden with lice.
When you are farming, you will not drop the hoe and start searching for the lice on your shirt, but continue with the greater good though mindful that your shirt has lice that are sucking your blood,” he said.
“We continue knowing that there is lice on our shirts, but that cannot be an agenda of the upcoming conference.
“However, there is a time when Zanu PF will decide to take off its shirt and deal with those lice.” Those in Zanu PF said to have met with the US diplomats include the two Vice-Presidents Joice Mujuru and John Nkomo.
Other party faithfuls said to have had private discussions with the US diplomats — directly or through their proxies — include Defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa; Youth and Empowerment minister Saviour Kasukuwere; Transport and Communications minister Nicholas Goche and politburo members Cephas Msipa and Jonathan Moyo.
