Zimbabwe
Evidence against government officials in MDC bombing incident

afrol.com, 23 September - Morgan Tsvangirai, the president of the MDC, Zimbabwe's major opposition party, personally denounces high ranking government officials for the bombing bombing incident at the MDC headquarters. "We now have full evidence surrounding the blast," he claims. 

MDC president M. Tsvangirai

- This is a further briefing on the bombing incident at the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) headquarters and the subsequent searches, harassment and the planned arrests of the MDC leadership, Morgan Tsvangirai opens his press statement. "We now have full evidence surrounding the blast. The evidence in our possession clearly points to the involvement of people in the highest offices of government in a conspiracy to destabilise the MDC."

- The destabilisation plan was sanctioned at the highest offices of government involving some of the most outspoken Ministers and was initiated by executed the direct supervision of the Police Headquarters.

- A police operative by the name of Zacharia Nkomo, force No. 033355 and serving under the police protection unit, (PPU), was assigned the task of infiltrating the MDC youth wing in preparation for the planned destabilisation of the MDC. Zacharia Nkomo, a musket training instructor, whose official residence is at the police hostels in Fife Ave, was accordingly given leave of absence from his duties several months ago. 

Morgan Tsvangirai points out that many earlier destabilisation plans were hatched but did not succeed. Under pressure to register success, a new plan to bomb the MDC offices so as to create a pretext for searching the MDC premises, harass and arrest the MDC officials was put in place. In order to fulfil this new plan, Zacharia Nkomo was issued with hand and smoke grenades, canisters of tear smoke and other weapons to plant at the homes of selected MDC leaders and officials. The targeted MDC leaders and officials include the MDC members of parliament, Tafadzwa Musekiwa and Job Sikhala, MDC National Executive member, Cephas Makuyana and MDC provincial executive members, Tendai Jambani, Brighton Matimba and John Nkatazo. 

- For the bomb attack on the MDC offices, Nkomo was issued with two hand grenades and two smoke grenades. We can confirm that immediately after the bomb blast at our Headquarters a police Defender was used as the get away car. 

After the blast, the searches started on the premises of the party and those of the MDC leadership and officials. After failing to find a single shred of evidence the Minister of Home Affairs John Nkomo went on to mislead the nation giving a false representation of facts in parliament. More misleading information has been issued by the Minister of information, Prof. Jonathan Moyo collaborating false evidence. "We wish to repeat here that the searches carried out by the police on our premises did not find any arms of war. The media, the lawyers, our own staff and the police that were present know that the searches yielded nothing of the sort."

- In our view the bombing of our offices using the government apparatus and the subsequent searches on our premises confirm the government's intention to use unorthodox means to subvert a legally constituted party, Tsvangirai says. "We wish to repeat for the record that the MDC is a legally constituted political party with the right to participate in the national politics of this country. We wish to further state that the government action is testimony of its desperation to hold on to power in spite of shifting national sentiment." 

Morgan Tsvangirai argues that the conspiracy justifies the immediate suspension of the Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, the Minister of Home Affairs, John Nkomo and the Minister of information, Prof. Jonathan Moyo for misleading Parliament and the nation.

Sources: Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)

© afrol.com. Texts and graphics may be reproduced freely, under the condition that their origin is clearly referred to, see Conditions.    You can contact us at mail@afrol.com