JOHANNESBURG - Former Zanu (PF) stalwart Dumiso Dabengwas Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (Zapu) will hold its first congress in May, a party official said last week. Zapu communications director Methuseli Moyo, who said the date and venue of the congress were yet to be named, said the meeting will elect substantive holders of party pots including a national executive committee and a council of elders.
The party congress will debate and endorse the amended Zapu constitution, party policy and manifesto. Also, the congress will elect a substantive national executive committee and council of elders committee, Moyo said in a statement.
Moyo said Zapu was expecting about 5 000 delegates from all over Zimbabwe and the party provinces in South Africa, United Kingdom and other European countries to attend the congress.
The present Zapu party is an attempt by Dabengwa to revive to revive the old PF Zapu party of late national hero Joshua Nkomo that fought for independence alongside President Robert Mugabes Zanu (PF) party. The two liberation struggle allies formed a government of national unity at independence in 1980 but soon fell out when then Prime Minister Mugabe accused Nkomo of plotting an armed insurrection against him.
More than 20 000 innocent civilians from the Ndebele ethnic minority that mostly supported PF Zapu are believed to have been killed in the early 1980s during a bloody counter-insurgency drive by the army ordered by Mugabe in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces where the Ndebeles live.
The killings by the armys North Korean trained 5th Brigade only stopped with the signing of the 1987 Unity Accord when Nkomo agreed to merge his party into Zanu (PF) while he took up the post of vice-president in government. But PF Zapu cadres broke away from Zanu (PF) in 2008 saying they were tired of being abused by that partys leadership.
Post published in: News