HARARE – President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday launched an extraordinary attack on political rivals, accusing them of plots to “render the country ungovernable” through what he described as “confrontational actions” and economic sabotage.
Mnangagwa, speaking to members of his Zanu PF party’s Politburo, accused three female MDC Alliance activists including an MP of staging an abduction on May 13 in order to tarnish his government internationally.
The three women, who have been receiving hospital treatment since May 15, were arrested after Mnangagwa’s address and charged with filing a false police report, the MDC Alliance said.
“These confrontational actions which played out in the political, economic and media arena were not isolated incidents but were orchestrated, coordinated and planned events,” Mnangagwa said.
“I am aware that the intention was to cause despondency, unrest, violence and to render the country ungovernable. These acts should never be tolerated.
“I urge the party and the nation as a whole to remain alert. Let us refuse to be divided by vigilantes who are hired by hostile foreign governments to distract us from our quest to grow our economy and improve the quality of life for all in peace, unity and in love. Comrades, rest assured that our security apparatus will get to the bottom of these machinations and those involved will be brought to account.”
Mnangagwa railed at private enterprises which he said were part of a conspiracy to collapse the country’s currency, which was re-introduced last year following a decade of dollarisation.
“On the economic front, we are witnessing a relentless attack on our currency and the economy in general through exorbitant pricing models by the private sector. We are fully cognisant that this is a battle being fueled by our political detractors, elite opportunists and malcontents who are bent on pushing a nefarious agenda they will never win,” Mnangagwa fumed.
“We did not liberate this country for selfish profiteers and greedy individuals but for all the people in our land who have a right to enjoy a better quality of life. As a party, we must always thrive to achieve this.”
The Zimbabwe dollar, re-introduced in June last year, has sharply declined along with the foreign exchange reserves while inflation is now 765 percent, raising fears of an imminent economic implosion.
Mnangagwa, 77, replaced long-time leader Robert Mugabe after an army coup in November 2017, promising to repair an economy ruined by hyperinflation and a long succession of failed economic interventions.
But a hoped-for economic turnaround is yet to materialise, and anger is growing against the regime which has banned protests, citing the coronavirus outbreak.
Netsai Marova, Joana Mamombe and Cecelia Chimbiri were arrested on Wednesday at the offices of their lawyers, the MDC Alliance said, after they were abducted while returning from a protest in the suburb of Warren Park on May 13.
They were found two days later badly beaten. They said they were thrown in a pit and repeatedly tortured, including having guns shoved in their privates and being made to consume each other’s excrement.
A government investigation which the MDC Alliance has dismissed as a “cover-up” has concluded that the women faked their abduction, leading to the latest charges of filing a false police report. The women had already been charged for breaching lockdown regulations by staging a protest during the ongoing coronavirus lockdown.
On Wednesday, United Nations human rights experts urged Zimbabwean authorities to “urgently prosecute and punish the perpetrators of this outrageous crime”.
One United States dollar could buy 81 Zimbabwe dollars on Wednesday, a precipitous decline for the currency which Mnangagwa once hailed as the “strongest in Africa”.
On Monday, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said it would be stopping its policy of fixing the exchange rate at one United States dollar to 25 Zimbabwe dollars and instead use a “market-based system” managed by banks.
