Zimbabwe’s government denounced leading independence war veterans as traitors on Saturday for an unprecedented attack on ageing President Robert Mugabe and vowed to identify its unnamed authors and put them on trial.
Veterans who fought against white minority rule in the former British colony turned on their long-time ally and commander on Thursday, calling him a dictator in a jolting rebuke highlighting political maneuvering over his succession and mounting anger over economic woes.
Mugabe abruptly canceled a hastily arranged news conference on Friday evening meant to respond to the veterans.
State-owned newspapers reflected the power struggle on Saturday with a highly unusual 12-page supplement praising his wife Grace on her 51st birthday. War veterans have accused her of having too much influence over her 92-year-old husband.
“Government … dismisses the said traitorous so-called communique, which is treasonable in the constitutional democracy that Zimbabwe is,” Retired Brigadier-General Asher Tapfumaneyi, the most senior civil servant in the veterans ministry, said in a statement on Saturday.
“Multi-agency investigations are underway to establish its origins, authorship, ownership and purpose,” he said, adding the government would “bring all associated with it to justice”.
The Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) issued its allegations of corruption and economic mismanagement by Mugabe in its own name, without individual signatures, after a seven-hour leadership meeting.
Tapfumaneyi expressed dismay at the statement and said the government was working to address most of their grievances by April 2017, a year before the next presidential election. Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980.
“Any agitation or activism outside this very constructive process in the manner of this purported communique would therefore be misguided, treacherous and outright counterproductive,” he said, adding that some former fighters were distancing themselves from the ZNLWVA statement.