At least 20 youths from the controversial National Youth Service programme, commonly referred to as Green Bombers, will be going for a 3-week training programme in Taekwondo in South Korea. The youths are expected to leave next month. This has raised fears that Zanu-PF is preparing for a violent campaign leading to the 2018 elections.
Local human rights organisation, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), has warned of possible violence in 2018 saying:
From January to August 2017, ZPP monitors have reported with concern an increase in the rise of ethnicity, hate speech, intra-party conflict, violence and desperation of masses with the economic situation in the country.
The National Youth Service Programme was started by the late Border Gezi in 2000 when he was the youth affairs minister. President Robert Mugabe’s nephew Patrick Zhuwao is the current minister of youths.
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