According to official documents seen by The Zimbabwean, the deceased are Blessings Doba, Desire Mapedza, Tafadzwa Blazio Manhodo and Thamsanqa Hakati. A reliable military source said the cause of death for the four was “failure to cope with the rigorous course of the training of trainers or military commanders.”
Those who passed and were posted to military brigades around the country are now destined to be platoon commanders in conventional warfare. Their 18 month military training was divided into three phases.
The first phase focused on basic soldiering skills, while the second centred on conventional warfare skills. The third phase was of low intensity operations such as providing professional services to civilians. These include providing medical care, academic teaching and humanitarian aid in periods of national crisis like a state-of-emergency.
The MDC-T is against the continued recruitment of soldiers on the basis that the country is not preparing for war. During a recent policy conference dubbed Towards Real Transformation, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s party announced that it intends to downsize the number of soldiers in the country if it wins the next elections.
Tendai Biti, the party’s Secretary General and Finance Minister, told delegates at the conference that MDC-T would pursue policies of peace and economic prosperity contrary to Zanu (PF)’s style of governance that is more akin to that found in military states.
Post published in: News