Generals Salute Tsvangirai
Zimbabwean generals known as hard-line supporters of President Robert Mugabe saluted former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai Tuesday, a gesture welcomed as a public boost for the country’s struggling coalition government.
During presidential campaigning last year, generals vowed never to salute Tsvangirai, saying their loyalty was to Mugabe.
But they showed Tsvangirai that mark of respect as he attended his first Armed Forces Day ceremony as prime minister.
Mugabe, who spoke at the ceremony, formed a unity government with Tsvangirai in February. Tsvangirai has complained that the coalition has been slow to enact promised political reforms and that his supporters are still subject to harassment, arrest and beatings.
But Tsvangirai also has said he is committed to the awkward arrangement.
On Tuesday, the service chiefs led by army commander Lt. Gen. Philip Sibanda and Air Force Commander Perence Shiri each greeted Tsvangirai, seated in the front row of the VIP tent next to retired army Gen. Solomon Mujuru.
The military chiefs shook hands with Tsvangirai and then saluted him.
Late last month, Tsvangirai met with generals at the first of what are to be monthly national security consultations.
That meeting “broke the ice and now they are working together as they now recognise him,” Tsvangirai’s spokesman James Maridadi said later on Tuesday.
“This is why you saw some of the service chiefs saluting today. I hope this marks the beginning of a good working relationship.”
Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader, beat Mugabe in the first round of presidential voting last year. Tsvangirai then pulled out of a run-off against Mugabe because of violence against opposition supporters blamed on both police and soldiers.
Under heavy international pressure, Tsvangirai and Mugabe entered a coalition in February, agreeing to work together to address their country’s economic and political crises.
Most of the country’s generals are veterans of Zimbabwe’s independence war, which the 57-year-old Tsvangirai is too young to have fought. Mugabe, who is 85, has been in power since independence in 1980.
At Tuesday’s ceremony honouring the defence forces, Mugabe rejected accusations that soldiers had committed abuses.
AP
Posted by Dave Fish Eagle
on August 11, 2009. Filed under Politics.
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