Posts by Charles Rukuni

John Nkomo is one of the political survivors from the former Zimbabwe African People’s Union. His rise within the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front has always been viewed with suspicion. He was reportedly too close to President Robert Mugabe. Rumours even said he was related to Mugabe through his brother Albert. Despite all the odds he rose first to national chairman and then vice-president of the party, the highest post any former ZAPU official has ever held. There are about 130 Wikileaks cables on him. Here is the first batch.

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President Robert Mugabe is reported to have used Shona to call for unity with the Movement for Democratic Change to separate Movement for Democratic Change members from their white constituents and international supporters, according to the United States embassy.

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Urban voters voted with their stomachs when they overwhelmingly voted for the Movement for Democratic Change in the urban council elections of 2003 in which the MDC beat the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.

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Former Midlands governor Cephas Msipa said President Robert Mugabe and then Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa together with Security Minister Sydney Sekeramayi were behind the violence by war veterans as it was an election strategy to intimidate people into voting for the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.

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President Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front were using the land issue to drum up nationalist sentiment and garner votes for the pending parliamentary elections, the United States embassy said in a cable two months before the 2000 elections.

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In a typical example of how much power President Robert Mugabe wields, a court ordered war veterans to move off the farms that they had occupied but Mugabe, who was in Havana at the time, told CNN that nothing of the sort was going to happen.

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Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front chairman John Nkomo assured United States ambassador to Zimbabwe Tom McDonald in the run up to the 2000 parliamentary elections that no harm was going to come to Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai but at the same time he warned the opposition leader to be careful.

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The United States embassy felt that John Nkomo who had just been appointed Minister of Labour under the unity government was a useful and thoughtful interlocutor and a shrewd politician who appeared to be playing both sides of the street at once.

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President Robert Mugabe was a stumbling block to any change but increased calls for his resignation could have the unintended effect of strengthening his resolve to stay in power, a United States research institute said way back in 2003.

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The Southern African Development Community had betrayed Zimbabweans by failing to put pressure on President Robert Mugabe to abandon his ruinous policies that had brought the country to its knees, the Daily News said in 2003.

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