An MDC activist Sedweak Munyaradzi Mupazviripo Munya confessed to United States embassy officials that he had made and thrown nine petrol bombs at three different ZANU-PF meetings in progress.
He said the highest person in the MDC who knew about his activities was Solomon Chikowero whom he described as head of security but MDC officers described as head of intelligence.
Chikowero had fled to South Africa after repeated threats on his life by the Central Intelligence Organisation officers and was at a training facility where MDC members had allegedly been receiving military training in the past.
Munya said he had attended planning meetings of up to fifteen people led by MDC MP’s including Fidelis Mhashu. In the planning meetings, they decided to target green bombers.
Full cable:
Viewing cable 03HARARE954, MDC BOMBER CONFESSES
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 HARARE 000954
SIPDIS
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR J. FRAZER
LONDON FOR C. GURNEY
PARIS FOR C. NEARY
NAIROBI FOR T. PFLAUMER
DS/OP/AF
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/31/2013
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR ASEC ZI MDC
SUBJECT: MDC BOMBER CONFESSES
REF: A. HARARE 628
¶B. HARARE 516
Classified By: Political Officer Audu Besmer for reasons 1.5 b/d
Summary:
——–
¶1. (S) MDC activist Sedweak Munyaradzi Mupazviripo Munya
(protect) has informed embassy officer that he had made and
thrown nine petrol bombs at three different ZANU-PF
meetings-in-progress on about April 25. It is likely that
MDC security head Solomon Chikowero is the highest MDC
official aware of Munya’s activities. However, in the
current economic downturn, there are likely many other
unemployed young men with tenuous connections to the MDC who
could be inclined to commit similar acts. We continue to
press the MDC leadership to make their best effort to nip
these activities in the bud. End Summary.
Confessed Bomber
—————-
¶2. (S) In a May 8 conversation with Poloff, MDC activist
Sedweak Munyaradzi Mupazviripo Munya revealed that he had
made and thrown nine petrol bombs at three different ZANU-PF
meetings-in-progress on about April 25. Munya said that to
his knowledge the highest MDC official involved in initiating
these activities was Solomon (Sox) Chikowero, who MDC
intelligence officers identify as the head of MDC
intelligence (Ref B). Munya called him the head of MDC
security. (Note: Chikowero recently fled to South Africa
after repeated threats on his life by alleged CIO officers,
and is reportedly staying at a training facility where MDC
members have allegedly received military-style training in
the past. End Note.) Activities such as those undertaken by
Munya were executed using the MDC’s “action committees” –
communication and meetings structures set up by the MDC
security department to convey orders and pass information
between the MDC leadership and activists around the country.
With Chikowero out of the country, Munya said there are no
current plans afoot for more bombings.
¶3. (S) Munya said he had attended planning meetings of up to
fifteen people led by MDC MP’s including Fidelis Mhashu. In
the planning meetings, they discussed National Youth Service
members (green bombers) beating hundreds of MDC activists and
residents in Harare’s high-density suburbs following the
March 18-19 MDC stayaway. They decided to lob petrol bombs
into green bombers’ meetings in order to disrupt their
planning, and to intimidate them, although these attacks were
not intended to kill anyone. Munya’s awareness was limited
to the planning meetings he had personally attended, and the
activities in which he participated.
Targeted Green Bombers
———————-
¶4. (S) Munya claims to be a longtime MDC activist whose
network of contacts includes hundreds of Chitungwiza
residents, including police officers and army soldiers.
(Note: Munya’s credibility is uncorroborated, and the
bombings he described were not reported in the press. End
Note.) Munya told Poloff that his contacts revealed that the
heads of the “One Commando Barracks” (an army barracks along
the airport road near Harare) had supplied green bombers with
army T-shirts and camouflage trousers (under the table).
Munya also said that green bombers had been assigned as
constabularies to Harare Central Police Station and St.
Mary’s Police Station (near Harare). War veterans who had
been hired into the ZRP in 2001 directed these
constabularies. According to Munya these two police stations
occasionally issued the constabularies loaded AK-47 rifles,
which they carried during green bomber raids on the homes of
MDC activists in the days following the March 18-19 stayaway.
During the raids, the green bombers wore fatigues from One
Commando Barracks and carried baton sticks reportedly from
the Tomlinson Depot. The constabularies were in plain
clothes.
¶5. (S) Activists, including Munya, first surveiled green
bombers for at least three days, noting their meeting times
and locations, before attacking. Munya borrowed a car with
one or two other associates, and made bombs with 750 ml wine
bottles half-filled with petrol and a cloth wick/fuse. Late
at night on about April 25 at the Chibuku Stadium, they
lobbed three of these bombs onto at least one parked vehicle
that they had determined was carrying camouflage trousers and
T-shirts from the One Commando Barracks. Green bombers and
war vets were holding a meeting nearby.
¶6. (S) On the same night, they lobbed another four bombs over
the wall of the residence of a ZANU-PF Councilor for Seke
named Manombo (first name unknown). Green bombers and war
vets were holding a large meeting in the yard behind; Munya
said they lobbed the bombs over the wall in the direction of
the meeting. The bombs lighted, they heard shouting and
commotion and some attendees fled the yard over the wall.
They following day they heard that no-one had been injured.
¶7. (S) Again on the same night, they lobbed two bombs into a
meeting of green bombers and war vets being held in an open
area under a large tree in the light industrial area of
Chitungwiza.
Tortured by CIO
—————
¶8. (S) Although none of these petrol bombings was reported in
the press, on April 30 suspected CIO agents raided Munya’s
house at about 2 o’clock in the morning. They fired a tear
gas canister into his house, pried his security gate off with
a power drill, and took him to Harare Central Police Station.
They interrogated him, beat him with broom handles on the
kidneys, put a large clamp on the back of his neck, poured
water on him, forced him to crawl on his belly like an inch
worm, and administered electric shocks. They told him there
were only two options, that he would need to go to jail for
other charges he faces (see paragraph 10 below), or he must
die.
¶9. (S) They accused him of being the MDC’s general
coordinator for explosives, and for participating in various
high-profile petrol bombings around the time of the March
18-19 stayaway including a school bus carrying primary school
aged children in Chitungwiza, a Zimbabwe United Passenger
Company (ZUPCO) bus in Epworth, and the ZANU-PF offices in
Kwekwe. (Note: Other sources familiar with the Kwekwe event
have suggested that when ZANU-PF youths petrol bombed the
General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe
(GAPWUZ) Kwekwe offices in March, the fire spread to the
ZANU-PF offices next door. End Note.) (Further Note: It is
unclear why they accused him of these bombings and not the
petrol bombings he had actually participated in only days
earlier. End further note.)
Charged with Assaulting Ben Menashe
———————————–
¶10. (S) Poloff first met Munya in February at the treason
trial of MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai and other MDC
leaders. In about the second week of the trial, Munya
actually confronted the State’s star witness Ari Ben Menashe
and asked him whether he was aware that ordinary Zimbabweans
could hardly feed themselves while he, Ben Menashe, was
living extravagantly at the Sheraton Hotel, eating rice and
chips at taxpayers’ expense and publicly lying to everyone.
Ben Menashe responded that he was not aware of the suffering.
Their conversation was interrupted by a suspected CIO agent
who accosted Munya. Police then arrested Munya and charged
him with assaulting Ben Menashe.
¶11. (S) On about May 4, Munya happened to meet Maxwell
Matanire, the Magistrate handling Munya’s case on charges of
assaulting Ben Menashe, at a local shop near Munya’s home in
Chitungwiza. The Magistrate, who has been suspended until
June 23 pending an investigation into trumped up allegations
of fraud, took him aside and cautioned him that he was being
forced to convict Munya and sentence him to at least four
years in prison. Matanire said the only way for the
authorities to fire a sitting Magistrate was to convict him
on corruption or fraud charges and that the charges against
him were fabricated to influence his decisions, and
specifically to gain a conviction against Munya. Matanire
said that suspected CIO agents had taken him to a meeting
with Vice President Joseph Msika who told him, among other
things, that he must convict Munya for four years or more, or
he would lose his magistrate job in the pending fraud
investigation.
Comment:
——–
¶12. (S) Although some of the events Munya described dovetail
with other pieces of information we have obtained separately,
it is not possible to corroborate the claims he has made. We
are also unable to judge how compartmentalized the alleged
MDC structures he described may be. There is no credible
evidence of awareness or direction of the actions of Munya
and his accomplices at levels of MDC leadership above
Chikowero. Morgan Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube and other MDC
leaders have repeatedly assured us that violence is
antithetical to MDC policy. This does not mean that all
elements within MDC share this view. With Chikowero out of
the country, it is possible that violence of this nature will
cease, if he is indeed the organizing force. However, we
note that in Sox’ absence a bomb squad official was killed
while handling a suspicious package sent to the tobacco
auction floor about ten days ago in a still unexplained
attack reported to us (but not in the press) by the head of
the Tobacco Growers’ Association and corroborated by other
sources. In addition to whatever organized forces might
exist, there is also the legion of disaffected and unemployed
urban youth with tenuous connections to the opposition who
may be inclined to act on their own, whatever stated MDC
policy might be. We will continue to press the MDC
leadership to counsel their supporters to eschew violence,
and given the sensitive nature of this issue, we have
suspended further contacts with Munya and will follow suit
with Chikowero, should the latter return to Zimbabwe. End
Comment.
WHITEHEAD
(50 VIEWS)
