The MDC is violent too says new book

The Movement for Democratic Change which has played victim to the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front throughout its 12-year history is a violent party itself and this was one of the reasons why the party split in 2005, a new book says.

The book which is highly critical of ZANU-PF and the way it has used violence to gain support especially after the 2000 referendum which rejected the government’s proposed new constitution says although party leader Morgan Tsvangirai had publicly stated that he was against violence since most members of the party were victims of violence, the use of violence within the MDC as an instrument for political organisation went back to the party’s birth.

The MDC was founded in September 1999 with Tsvangirai as President and Gibson Sibanda his deputy, Welshman Ncube as secretary general and Gift Chimanikire his deputy, Isaac Matongo as chairman and Fletcher Dulini Ncube as treasurer.

The Southern African Development Community recently called for an end to violence and the harassment of political activists and legislators from the Movement for Democratic Change before any elections can be held.

Most of the violence has been described as one-sided and has been heaped on ZANU-PF.

The book by Blessing-Miles Tendi entitled: Making History in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe , quotes Welshman Ncube, who is now leader of the smaller faction of the MDC, as saying: “From the beginning there were those who believed that it is at times justified to use violence against ZANU-PF because ZANU-PF is violent. That is how the violence started. These people are now the same people that are in the mafia kitchen cabinet.

“They used militia groups to open up ZANU-PF militia controlled areas in 2000 and 2002. Those of us opposed to violence tried to manage these issues internally. Sometimes we did not even know about the extent of the violence. Gandhi Mudzingwa and Denis Murire went for training in Serbia on how to do mass action. I was the secretary general and did not even know about this but Tsvangirai did.”

The book says the “mafia kitchen cabinet” was made up of Tsvangirai and his close associates who tried to centralise power around themselves and subscribed to the use of violence both internally and externally.

Gandhi was Tsvangirai’s personal advisor. The Insider could not establish who Denis Murire was. Perhaps this could have been a spelling error for Dennis Murira. A report in May 2006 quoting Welshman Ncube addressing a rally in London says Mudzingwa and Murira had been sent to Serbia.

The report says: “What then happened from around the time of the treason trial (Tsvangirai’s) , but more so December 2004, the president’s office sent Ghandi Mudzingwa, Dennis Murira and two others to Serbia to do training on mass action,” he (Welshman) said, “they then tell us later that one of the things they were taught in Serbia was that in order to engage in successful mass action, you needed a core group of young people who had no stake in society, who had nothing to lose. They went ahead and recruited these people when they came back – from Mbare, Highfields – pickpockets, thieves and all and trained them and they were supposed to be our core group and all this behind our back. We didn’t know about it until we were doing an investigation after the (intra-party violence) in May 2005, they then confessed to doing all this.”

Ncube continued: “And when these youths were not effectively used in mass action, they then became a readily available army – anyone who wanted youths to hire against an opponent they were then available. Those who had recruited them started telling them mass action failed because Priscilla was opposed to it, you must deal with her, oh there is a group of people who want to remove Morgan Tsvangirai from the presidency of the MDC, the chairman of Mashonaland East, go and abduct him and bring him to Harvest House, strip him naked, use broom sticks, sjamboks to beat him. Order him to address a crowd like this of men and women completely stark naked and when he doesn’t do what you want, you assault him again – broken arms, broken legs, broken fingures (sic).”

Tsvangirai flatly rejected Ncube’s accusations saying: “There was no violence in the MDC. Ncube has used this accusation to demonise me because he failed to dislodge me as president of the party.”

The book says although there was astonishment and ire at the revelations of the use of violence when the party split in 2005, Brian Kagoro had pointed this in 2000 but no one had paid attention.

Kagoro wrote in the Financial Gazette in July 2000: “Has the alternative movement (MDC) began to behave like the incumbents? The duty of the alternative is to give the disenfranchised Zimbabwean mass a real voice to confront their past and its ills and also a voice to chart the future and to conquer its numerous odds.”

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