War veterans’ leader Jabulani Sibanda yesterday said he was unperturbed by attacks from President Robert Mugabe on Thursday, but was only happy that Mugabe looked very much alive and healthy when he appeared on national broadcaster, ZTV. Everson Mushava/Ndamu Sandu
Sibanda told NewsDay he would not comment on Mugabe’s attacks because the veteran leader was aware that what he was saying was not true.
Sibanda’s defiance came as a section of war veterans ordered him to step aside for allegedly disrespecting Mugabe and First Lady Grace Mugabe by insinuating that the First Family had initiated a “bedroom coup” against Vice-President Joice Mujuru.
“I saw him [Mugabe] on television and I was very happy that he is alive and very strong,” Sibanda said.
“But on what he said about me, he was far from the truth. I know he knows that it was not true.”
Addressing party supporters at the Zanu headquarters on Thursday, Mugabe attacked Sibanda claiming he had received six vehicles from Mujuru’s ally Mbire MP David Butau.
Mugabe said Sibanda was using the kitty to derail Grace’s rise to political office in Zanu PF.
Mugabe ordered the war veterans to hold a congress to remove Sibanda from helm of the association before the Zanu PF elective congress in next month.
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Mugabe described Sibanda as sharp-tongued, like the biblical Beelzebub, or Beel-Zebub, another name for the Devil, and scornful, daring Sibanda to wage a war against his [Mugabe’s] soldiers.
But Sibanda said he was the first to endorse the nomination of Grace, but was against the attacks on senior party members.
About his ouster, Sibanda said the war veterans should go ahead and fire him in breach of the association’s constitution. “It is okay if they are instructed to do so. I don’t have a problem with that. It would interpret a lot of things that I cannot comment on at the moment,” he said.
Meanwhile, Elders of the War Veterans, a group which surfaced last week criticising Sibanda’s reference to a “bedroom coup”, yesterday convened a Press conference and announced they want Sibanda out because he had deviated from the association’s principles.
They appointed a 14-member committee to mobilise and co-ordinate the association in preparation for the congress. They said an extraordinary elective congress would be held on November 15 to elect a new leadership of the association.
“We want Jabulani to tell Zimbabwe the crimes that he knows General Mujuru committed. You can only know a crime if you had an advantage (sic) to the process of committing the crime. He is the number one State witness,” Midlands war veterans’ leader Victor Matemadanda, who is also believed to a Mnangagwa ally, said.
Sibanda last week said VP Mujuru should not be persecuted for alleged crimes committed by her late husband Retired General Solomon Mujuru.
“He is going to tell us that General Mujuru was using the proceeds avoiding his wife,” Matemadanda said.
He said Sibanda was a “missile that fires itself, bombs itself, even the President’s bedroom”.
Another war veterans’ leader, George Mlala, said while the elders’ body was not in the constitution of the former liberation fighters’ association, they were intervening as the association had deviated from the founding principles.
