HARARE – President Emmerson Mnangagwa is set to name new commanders of the Presidential Guard and Military Intelligence, ZimLive can reveal.

The recent promotions of Military Intelligence Commander Thomas Moyo and his Presidential Guard counterpart Anselem Sanyatwe to the rank of Major General means they join the army administration.

“Major General is a secretariat job in our military structure, so Sanyatwe and Moyo have effectively relinquished command of their brigades,” a military source told this website.

Mnangagwa was widely criticised for promoting Sanyatwe on the eve of the release of a Commission of Inquiry report into the August 1 shooting of 23 civilians by the military during post-election opposition protests in Harare. Six other people were killed.

Sanyatwe was in charge of a small army unit called the National Reaction Force, which deployed at short notice to quell the protests.

The Commission, which was chaired by former South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, blamed the military for the killings while calling for prosecutions of those involved.