PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has been criticised for calling the late former Mines minister Amos Midzi a coward after indications that he committed suicide.
BY MOSES MATENGA/XOLISANI NCUBE
Mugabe told Zanu PF youths at a Youth National Assembly in Harare on Saturday that Midzi had failed to progress in his political career, a charge that has angered associates of the party’s former Harare chairman.
Mugabe told the youths: “But you don’t improve yourself by hanging yourself and you don’t go to heaven by hanging. Don’t spill your own blood.”
Midzi was found dead in his car at Munandi Farm in Marirangwe on June 9.
The death was blamed on his political problems that saw him suspended from the party for three years following allegations he worked with former Vice-President Joice Mujuru in an alleged plot to topple Mugabe.
Police investigations and post-mortem results indicated that Midzi died of poisoning. He was 62.
One of Midzi’s close allies yesterday described Mugabe’s statement as reckless and strange given that circumstances leading to the politician’s death were still sketchy.
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“I find it strange that he could say that about a person who had Zanu PF at heart and at a time the family was still in mourning,” a former close associate of Midzi said.
Another Zanu PF official suspended alongside Midzi said Mugabe’s remarks were insensitive.
“It is not appropriate for him to say that. If what is attributed to him is true, then it’s unfortunate,” he said.
“He was not supposed to show his hatred of him to the grave.”
The Zanu PF leader never condoled Midzi’s family who was only given a State-assisted funeral.
Midzi’s daughter, Vimbai, took to social media to vent her frustration and anger over Zanu PF’s treatment of her father.
“To Zanu PF, I have many words most of which I will not write now. May you never find peace and may those that publicly shamed my father also be shamed publicly,” Vimbai posted on her Facebook wall.
“I will never stop speaking about your wickedness.”
The Midzi family described their late father as a compassionate man and a dedicated Zanu PF cadre who often sacrificed family resources to fund ruling party programmes.
