CHINHOYI — Zanu PF deputy secretary for Youth Saviour Kasukuwere on Friday admitted that the former ruling party deployed militias to spearhead its violent election campaign last year that left hundreds of opposition supporters dead.
Kasukuwere, who is also the Minister of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment, told journalists at the Chinhoyi Press Club that all the political parties “abused” the youths to further their own ambitions.
“We have done it . . . all political party youths were involved in it,” he said.
“MDC have done it as well. It’s easy to take advantage of a young man or woman who is doing nothing.
What do you do? You buy them beer . . . four crates after that you say let’s go and do such and such a thing. They are young, naive and under the influence of alcohol. Wrong direction. . .wrong leadership.
“The youth do it because normally they are easy to mobilise to do activities of violence that are not in the long run helpful to themselves. I think we have learnt our lessons.”
In the past Zanu PF has denied accusations that it was using youth militia recruited for the controversial national service to launch terror campaigns against its opponents during the elections.
The youths popularly known as the Green Bombers because of their green uniforms are trained at the so-called Border Gezi centres and deployed in rural areas to campaign for Zanu PF.
There are fresh reports that youths have been deployed in rural wards to campaign for Zanu PF’s position on the new constitution.
“These are young people employed by government to co-ordinate youth activities at ward level and their duties are to attend to problems affecting youths at that level,” Kasukuwere said.
“They are looking at leadership problems in the area and looking out at NGOs activities with the intention to be involved and also to hear the concerns of young people and bring them forward to central government.”
But he admitted that there “was a general dislike” of the youth officers in the areas where they were operating.
“I will not run away from the fact that we might have one or two bad apples in the system,” Kasukuwere said.
Villagers in Zvimba and Hurungwe districts say Zanu PF youth co-ordinators are going around telling people not to be “too excited” about the unity government.
The youths are reportedly threatening to unleash another reign of terror if the country holds another election.
kana muchibvuma KUTI makarova nekuponda vanhu then munoita zvakanaka.asi vakuru venyu vanababa vaBona vanoramba vachti inhema dzemaBritish.asi chokwadi tinochiziva uye Mwari vachatonga.enda undoverenga Muparidzi 12 v 13-14
You should be punished for that u Zanuz! MDC never deployed militias
For readers information:
The following is an extract from the Rome Satutes held at the ICC.
“Crimes Against Humanity have most recently been defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
1. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(a) Murder;
(b) Extermination;
(c) Enslavement;
(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
(f) Torture;
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
(j) The crime of apartheid;
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.
2. For the purpose of paragraph 1:
(a) “Attack directed against any civilian population” means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack;
(b) “Extermination” includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population;
(c) “Enslavement” means the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership over a person and includes the exercise of such power in the course of trafficking in persons, in particular women and children;
(d) “Deportation or forcible transfer of population” means forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law;
(e) “Torture” means the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions;
(f) “Forced pregnancy” means the unlawful confinement of a woman forcibly made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any population or carrying out other grave violations of international law. This definition shall not in any way be interpreted as affecting national laws relating to pregnancy;
(g) “Persecution” means the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity;
(h) “The crime of apartheid” means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;
(i) “Enforced disappearance of persons” means the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time.”
Can anybody spot the similarities to Mugabe’s violence during the last election?
kasukuwere, how do u sleep at night