April 14, 2009
From left: Paradzai Zimondi, Perrence Shiri, Constantine Chiwenga and Augustine Chihuri
HARARE (New York Times) - President Robert Mugabe's top lieutenants are
trying to force the opposition Movement of Democratic Change to grant them
amnesty for their past crimes, according to senior members of Mugabe's
party.
Their fixation on getting amnesty was described by four senior ruling party
officials, all Mugabe confidants, who spoke to a Zimbabwean journalist
working for The New York Times.
To protect themselves, some of Mugabe's lieutenants are trying to implicate
opposition officials in a supposed plot to overthrow the president, hoping
to use it as leverage in any amnesty talks, the officials said.
Mugabe's generals and politicians in Zanu-PF have organised campaigns of
terror for decades to keep him and his party in power.
Crimes committed during last year's election campaign, while the world
watched, included abducting, detaining and torturing opposition officials
and activists.
Mugabe's lieutenants, part of an inner circle called the Joint Operations
Command, know that their 85-year-old leader may not be around much longer to
shield them, and fear losing not just their power and ill-gotten wealth, but
their freedom, party officials said. The security chiefs include General
Constantine Chiwenga, commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Air Marshall
Perrence Shiri, commander of the Air Force, Commissioner General Augustine
Chihuri of the police and Paradzai Zimondi commissioner of the Zimbabwe
Prison Services.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, one of Mugabe's principal negotiators in
the power-sharing talks that led to the current government, informally told
opposition officials around the time that the transitional government took
office in February that his party wanted an amnesty, according to a senior
Zanu-PF official close to the talks.
"The MDC did not sound very forthcoming," said the official.
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