HARARE - Service chiefs on Thursday sat down for the first time with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in the maiden meeting of the newly-constituted National Security Council, the security think-tank expected to spearhead security sector reforms. Service chiefs have in the past shown utter contempt for the office of the Prime Minister, and openly refused to acknowledge his authority or salute him. The NSC should have met monthly starting March but the service chiefs foiled all four previous meetings through excuses.
Mugabe was said to have chaired the meeting last Thursday, also attended by Vice President Joice Mujuru, Deputy Prime Ministers Mutambara and Thoko Khupe, Home Affairs minister Giles Mutsekwa, Minister of State Security in the President’s Office, Sydney Sekeremayi, Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Misheck Sibanda, Finance minister Tendai Bii, Economic Planning minister Elton Mangoma, I an Makone, the Prime Minister’s chiefof-staff.
All army generals attended the meeting and were sitted in one corner while bureaucrats occupied the rest of the room. Sekeremayi described the meting as “warm, cordial and inclusive.” Deputy Pime Minister Mutambara declined to discuss the meeting.
“It was a security meeting and therefore I cant discuss it with you, next question?” Mutambara said. Asked in what environment the meeting was held in, he said: “I said it was a security meeting.”
The maiden meeting renewed optimism brought by a unity government formed by rivals President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai in February, that finally the generals seemed ready to subject themselves to civilian command. Coupled with some economic reforms, the maiden meeting of generals, who have vowed never to submit to leaders without libration war credentials, has brought some modest signs of progress and renewed cooperation.
The International Crisis Group (ICG), a thinktank of eminent retired Statesmen, recently warned that that there was a real risk of a coup or assassination of Prime Minister Tsvangirai by disgruntled military generals.
Political analyst Takura Zhangazha said Thursday’s meeting was significant on the Zimbabwe political landscape. “Its a change, it actually happened, Mugabe, Tsvangirai, the director general of the CIO,Chiwenga, all these other security guys, there in Zimbabwe House, in one room ,” Zhangazha said. “Its a change, the Secuity Council has replaced the JOC. Its a new configuration, a new security configuration that involves for the first time the MDC. Whether it will change how the security forces work, is another thing.” Zhangazha projected that the MDC will propose security sector reforms, and predicted resistance from Zanu (PF).
Defence minister Emerson Mnangagwa told Parliament Wednesday that service chiefs were only legally bound to salute the President in his capacity as Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, and were not obliged to salute the Prime Minister.
Zhangazha said: “Reforms will be incremental in implementation, it will be negotiated, the way Cabinet is functioning. There will be negotiations and re-negotiations and reforms will be few and far between.” The generals, who analysts say is the real power behind Mugabe, see the security sector reforms led by the Prime Minister as stripping them of all powers.
Analysts say the security chiefs disdain Tsvangirai for the simple reason that they see him as the personification of the unfolding political transition that has begun to wear down their power and security in a very serious and rather irreversible way.
The recent ICG report on Zimbabwe said: “Insecurity within the military is the greatest risk to a smooth national transition”.