Tafadzwa Musekiwa, MP for Zengeza flees
Tafadzwa Musekiwa, the MP for Zengeza (MDC), has fled into temporary exile in London to forestall an alleged plot by Zanu PF to eliminate him and other young MDC activists. “I had specific information that I was on a government hit list together with Job Sikhala,” Musekiwa said by telephone from London yesterday. Sikhala is the MP for St Mary’s (MDC). Musekiwa said the plot to eliminate him was allegedly being spearheaded by the Minister for Information and Publicity in the President’s Office, Professor Jonathan Moyo.
The junior minister has frequently attacked the MP and his young colleagues in the opposition MDC as immature politicians. “We have been hauled before the courts on spurious charges as part of the harassment and a demonisation campaign by Professor Moyo who is keen to see this strategy work, but it won’t succeed,” Musekiwa said. He said Sikhala and him had been arrested more frequently than any other MDC MPs since they became parliamentarians. “It is an intimidation tactic, an attempt to harass and demoralise us.”
In November last year, Musekiwa was acquitted on charges of making threatening telephone calls to Moyo. Sikhala, who faced similar charges, was acquitted in July. Sikhala took the opportunity in court to reveal that Moyo wanted to “fix” him after he asked the junior minister of rumours about his alleged homosexual relationship with Alum Mpofu, the disgraced former chief executive of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation caught in a compromising position with another man at a Harare nightclub. He said the strategy was to ensure the number of MDC MPs was reduced so that Zanu PF could go ahead and amend the Constitution. He would not remain in exile long enough to allow Zanu PF to call a by-election in his constituency, he said. “I would want people in my constituency to know my position so that they are not misled by State propaganda which is giving the impression that I am vending curios in London. I left on the spur of the moment because I could have been eliminated to silence me,” Musekiwa said.
Sikhala is out on bail for allegedly planning to topple the government and in hospital following his proven torture by the police on his arrest last week. The two MPs were again arrested for fraud charges arising out of a Parliamentary vehicle loan scheme which they were alleged to have abused. They were acquitted too. In March last year Musekiwa and Sikhala were alleged to have been implicated in a plot to assassinate and overthrow President Mugabe, according to the State-controlled Herald newspaper. The paper claimed the two visited London to see Themba Mliswa, before his deportation from Britain, whom they told of a plot by whites to assassinate Mugabe for being a stumbling block to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s bid to assume the Presidency. “You can see what happened to my colleague Sikhala. I did not want that to happen to me. How can the government charge a person for trying to overthrow the government by burning a Zupco bus?” Musekiwa said. He said Sikhala had been tortured as part of the whole scheme.
Speaking from his hospital bed yesterday, Sikhala said he had been made to confess that he and Musekiwa were in the process of forming a splinter party from the MDC with Musekiwa allegedly in London to source funds for the new party. In April last year six men armed with AK47 rifles threw tear-gas into Musekiwa’s bedroom. In another incident Zanu PF youths barred him from his father’s funeral in Chikomba. In February last year, about 200 youths living at a base in Chitungwiza attacked Musekiwa’s home, damaging part of the roof and shattering some windows.
Posted by Wellington Chadehumbe
on January 19, 2003. Filed under Politics.
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