Deputy Defense and War Veterans Minister Victor Matemadanda has given a chilling warning to ‘sell-outs’ that they will disappear mysteriously, Newsday reports. Matemadanda’s sentiments come as Zimbabwe is facing an increase in politically motivated and suspected state sanctioned abductions and disappearances.
Addressing a Zanu PF Manicaland provincial co-ordinating committee meeting in Mutare on Sunday, Matemadanda said, “I told other people that if you are a sell-out, and if you wake up and pursue your sell-out activities while people are sleeping, this country has something that it will do to you.”
The Zanu PF political commissar continued, “You will disappear without anyone touching you. This country will deal with you mysteriously. This country is a mystery, you just can’t do as you please.” His remarks came as human rights activists have recorded a spike in abductions and torture of opposition activists by suspected State security agents.
Political activists and government critics such as Itai Dzamara, Patrick Nyabanyana and dozens others disappeared without trace . in the last few years.
The Zanu PF government has always maintained abductions are stage manage but this latest revelation by a high ranking official is not consistent with the government’s position.
Matemadanda took at former Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZIDA) Peter Magombeyi and comedian Samatha Kureya better known as Gonyeti for claiming that they were abducted by state agents.
Jameson Timba, secretary for presidential affairs in MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa’s office, said it was unfortunate to have Matemadanda incite violence.
“These remarks are not dissimilar from the remarks made by Patrick Chinamasa (Zanu PF politburo member and acting spokesperson), which were basically inciting violence in the country,” he said.
“His suggestion in the context of the abductions that have been taking place in this country, that if you sell out then you will disappear, is totally unacceptable and irresponsible and also shows who has been behind the abductions in the country.”
According to Newsday, Gokwe-Nembudziya MP Justice Mayor Wadyajena told party supporters that Mnangagwa had “planted” his intelligence operatives across Zimbabwe to sniff out “sell-outs”.
“President Mnangagwa is the one who created the CIO [Central Intelligence Organisation] in 1980 and there is nowhere he can fail to get information on what is happening. You will be caught. Imagine people getting money in secret, but it came out,” Wadyajena said.
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