Former cabinet minister and nephew to retired President Robert Mugabe, Patrick Zhuwawo, said that Zimbabweans are now experiencing unprecedented suffering after being used in 2017 to sanitise the November coup.
In an open letter addressed to his late mother, Sabina Gabriel Mugabe, Zhuwawo warns that Zimbabwe’s crises could spiral out of the country and destabilise the SADC region. He writes:
Since the November 2017 coup, I have not been able to visit you and bring you flowers. So today as we commemorate nine years since your passing on, I am writing this letter to you instead.
I am sorry to tell you that Zimbabweans who were the victims of “kuiitiswa” (being played) during the coup are experiencing unprecedented levels of suffering and poverty.
With violent crime spiralling out of control, there is a real danger that the contagion of Zimbabwe’s economic and political meltdown will cause massive destabilisation within SADC.
As one of the political players who sought to manage ZANU PF’s leadership transition prior to the coup, I know that some actions that occurred should not have been allowed to occur and that some of the things that should have been done were not done.
It is so unfortunate that we find ourselves in this situation where several of our fellow comrades from ZANU PF are in exile and compatriots that are in the diaspora are fast losing hope of returning to Zimbabwe.
Unfortunately, dishonesty in tackling and articulating issues has become the norm with knavery prevailing in policy prescriptions to such an extent that hunger, disease and poverty are now endemic.
The knaves in control of the country have collapsed infrastructure with electricity available only at the dead of night, everything in short supply, and unemployment rampant.
These knaves have brazenly stolen from the nation and all Zimbabweans under the guise of the infamous Command Agriculture Programme.
It is shocking that of the US$3 billion that cannot be accounted for under the Command Agriculture, US$1.7 billion was taken within twenty days of the coup…