The order is said to have come from party President, Dumiso Dabengwa, who last week made it known that he did not like the formation led by Retired Colonel Lazarus Ray Ncube.
Ncube, controversially removed from his post as Bulawayo Provincial chairman, has been hailed as the possible saviour of the party that has been plagued by division, mistrust among members, lack of clear policy, alleged dictatorship and cronyism by the former Home Affairs minister.
‘Fundraising’
Registered as a trust in Zimbabwe, FO Zapu was launched in Bulawayo two weeks ago, ostensibly to reposition and fundraise for the cash-strapped party, which has run without offices or any logistical resource for about a year, in both Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Dabengwa last week accused the trust of being a political party that showed contempt for Zapu’s name, history and integrity.
War veterans camped at the Yeoville Recreation Centre at the time of the meeting threatened the local caretaker with violence if the meeting went ahead.
“They threatened to smash doors and window panes and I was forced to cancel the booking and return the money already paid for fear of losing my job,” said the caretaker.
No agenda
Busani Bhalagwe, the party’s SA Provincial spokesman, desperately tried to absolve the party from allegations of disrupting the meeting.
“We don’t have an agenda to stop any organisation from holding its meeting because we believe in democracy. It is not true that Zapu stopped the meeting,” said Bhalagwe.
His Diaspora counterpart, Luke Sayi, described the formation as a “hostile organisation” because it had “stolen our emblems, name and doesn’t even discuss anything with us”.
There were conflicting reports of who had ordered the disruption, with Ian Beddows, SA Secretary for the Council of Elders, letting it slip that it was Dabengwa, while others said it was the Yeoville branch.
Ncube’s camp bemoaned the disruption, which they said was synonymous with the Zanu (PF) way of doing things.
Losing hope
“Our main objective is to capacitate Zapu because we belong to the party. We see that the party has been weakened. Even the members’ ability to perform has been reduced because they believe that the leadership is not doing enough to push the party forward and they have now lost hope in the party. We don’t want to see that continue to happen,” said Ncube.
Themba Khanye, the ZIPRA veterans chair for SA, said Zapu should be concentrating on mobilising its supporters for elections.
“There is an estimated four million Zimbabweans in South Africa and instead of chasing friendly organisations, Zapu should be mobilising members to go home and vote,” said Khanye.
Post published in: News
If indeed Friends of Zapu want to mobilize resources for Zapu main, why do you circumvent the established structures? Why co you need membership and form a parallel structure? By the way Zipra will show up invited or uninvited to defend their party. Zapu cadres are known for their discipline, therefore all the talk of smashing windows is just hogwash. Should anyone wish to form their organization, let them be creative and design their own symbols, not use another party\s name.
Your reporter should be redeployed as a fiction writer. Other than that, his writing is false and libellous.
Firstly, if people want to donate money to ZAPU they must do it directly. “Friends of ZAPU” is designed precisely to divert funds AWAY from ZAPU.
Secondly, no one “threatened the local caretaker with violence” or “threatened to smash doors and window-panes”. This is a deliberate lie fabricated by Mxolisi Ncube. neither do ZPRA Veterans refer to themselves as ‘War Veterans’. It IS true that the caretaker was worried that confrontation might lead to damage of his building, particularly as ZAPU members were adamant that the meeting booked under the name of ZAPU (not even ‘Friends of ZAPU’ would not go on. It was made very clear that if this emergent political party wished to use it’s own name, that we would not oppose them. This is, however, not the case, this is a deliberate attempt to disturb ZAPU prior to the election, and according to our best information, funded by a well known senior ZANU politician from Matabeleland.
Further, I personally, never mentioned the name of our President Dumiso Dabengwa I mentioned the fact that the so-called “Friends of Zimbabwe” had been condemned by the three ZAPU organs at National Level — the National Executive Committee, the National People’s Copuncil and the National Council of Elders. The decision to stop this PARTICULAR meeting came from the Yeoville Branch. Any suggestion that there was some kind of conflict between these two is silly and spurious. Unlike ZANU and MDC, our President is NOT a dictator. The people who are now busy trying to destabilize ZAPU are the same group that refused to accept the democratic decisions of both the 10th Congress of 2010 and the South African Provincial Conference of 2011 and have found a new saviour in the renegade Ray Ncube