BULAWAYO The revived opposition ZAPU party last week said it was mobilising resources to mount a legal challenge that will force the government to return properties President Robert Mugabes previous administration seized from the party during the early 80s. The government seized numerous properties that included farms and several buildings in Bulawayo and Harare among other cities, belonging to then opposition PF ZAPU led by nationalist and former Vice President Joshua Nkomo over alleged discoveries of arms caches at some farms belonging to the party.
ZAPU interim president Dumiso Dabengwa last Tuesday said that the had not abandoned the bid to recover the properties but was in the process of mobilising resources to engage a formidable team of lawyers to take the challenge forward.
We are in the process of mobilising resources to hire a formidable team of lawyers that will lead the process for the return of the properties, we realised that the process to get the properties back should be legal because we will need court orders to evict the people who are currently occupying the properties, Dabengwa said. He however could not name the properties as he said currently there is a team which is looking at the status of the properties.
We have an inventory of the properties but there is a team working on the status of the properties and once resources are availed then the legal process will begin, said Dabengwa who launched the drive to revive ZAPU after he was expelled from Zanu (PF) for backing independent presidential candidate Simba Makoni against Mugabe in the 2008 elections.
Former PF ZAPU members have indicated that they want all the properties that were confiscated by Mugabes government in the 80s, at the height of the dissident era, to be returned to ZAPU.The properties include Magnet House, which houses the Central Intelligence Organisation headquarters in Bulawayo, Davies Hall, the provincial headquarters of Zanu (PF) in Bulawayo, Nest Farm and Castle Arms, among others.
Mugabe unleashed in the 1980s the armys notorious 5th Brigade in a crackdown known as Gukurahundi that was carried out ostensibly to rid the southern Matabeleland and Midlands regions of armed dissidents opposed to his rule. An estimated 20 000 innocent civilians, almost all of them belonging to the minority Ndebele tribe, died in the crackdown that is one of the darkest periods in Zimbabwes post-colonial history.
Post published in: News