War veterans secretary general labelled rogue liberation hero - now behind bars
Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) secretary –general, Victor Matemadanda, has become the second liberation war fighter to be picked up after police arrested spokesperson, Douglas Mahiya, on Wednesday.
True to President Robert Mugabe’s threat that he would deal with the “rogue” war veterans whom he said were the authors of a ZNLWVA communique which denounced him as a “genocidal dictator” last week, Mahiya was picked up Wednesday night while the police ransacked his house.
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), said Matemadanda was early Thursday picked up by five police officers from his Gokwe home and driven to Harare’s Law and Order.
According to the lawyers, both Mahiya and Matemadanda will likely be charged with subverting a constitutionally-elected government and insulting Mugabe.
Addressing hundreds of supporters at the Zanu PF HQ on Wednesday, Mugabe vowed that those responsible for the “treasonous” communique would be dealt with in the manner in which “traitors” were dealt with during the war.
Mugabe said during the war traitors were thrown into dungeons where they lived like rats” only to be released after independence in 1980. This was in apparent reference to the late Dzinashe Machingura, Augustine Chihuri and Rugare Gumbo and others who opposed his leadership in Mozambique.