Tsvangirai threatens to sue Mphoko over his Gukurahundi allegations

Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai has threatened to sue Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko over his allegations on national television that the opposition leader was once involved in an assassination attempt on the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo and was also behind the Gukurahundi massacres.

Mphoko was also quoted by The Sunday Mail as telling the people of Matebeleland not to be fooled by promises by Tsvangirai that he would bring some recourse over the Gukurahundi atrocities if he is elected next year.

“Tsvangirai was around a few weeks ago and said as MDC-T, they want to fix the Gukurahundi issue and said ZANU-PF has failed and he can do it. Let us not forget that when Cde Nkomo’s car was shot he was at the forefront, when an officer in charge was killed in Tsholotsho he was there too. The same person wants to address the Gukuraundi issue now,” Mphoko was quoted as saying.

Tsvangirai’s spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka said in a statement today that Mphoko will soon be hearing from Tsvangirai’s lawyers about his false and defamatory allegations.

“Next time, Mphoko's minders must assist him to resist the temptation to parade himself in front of television cameras, particularly if he knows he has just smoked something illegal, toxic and dangerous as he appeared to have done yesterday,” Tamborinyoka said.

“He may indulge in anything he fancies, but he must never make himself a national spectacle, humiliating both party and government by smearing an innocent citizen with blood in a desperate bid to make a murderer out of them. It was a cheap script that only an illicit drug addict could have the courage to muster and parrot on national television.”

Tamborinyoka said Mphoko did not know much about Gukurahundi because he “was flirting with and abusing under-age girls in Maputo both before and soon after independence and may have lost out on what actually happened in the country during that sombre political moment”.

As a parting short, Tamborinyoka said: “Indeed, judging by his latest performance, what appeared all along to be a bastardized rendition of his name may be the apt version of what he truly is, after all!”

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