MNANGAGWA COOPERATED WITH APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA .....SELLOUT HENCE THE ANC HATES ZANU PF. IN what dent President Robert Mugabe’s image as an unwavering anti-Apartheid hero, it has emerged that Zimbabwe cooperated with the South African Defence Forces in 1983 in their efforts to keep PF Zapu from supporting ANC operations in Zimbabwe. PF Zapu and the ANC are historical allies who also shared office space in exile Zambia. After the 1980 elections, which were won by Mugabe’s Zanu PF, the ANC - convinced that the newly independent Zimbabwe was stable owing to the government’s reconciliation policy - set up base in the country. But recent revelations suggest that, unbeknown to the ANC, Mugabe’s government routinely cooperated with Pretoria to render undermine their activities. Details of the cooperation are contained in an academic piece by Timothy Scarnecchia, titled “Rationalising Gukurahundi: Cold War and South African Foreign Relations with Zimbabwe, 1981-1983” which was released a couple of years ago by Pretoria. According to the Scarnecchia, SADF representatives held bi-annual meetings with the CIO in 1982 and 1983. One of the meetings, which took place a month after the Fifth Brigade-Mugabe’s Gukurahundi crack unit-had moved into Matabeleland, was organised by Emmerson Mnangagwa and was held in Harare between 7 and 8 February in 1983. According to a Memo of 14 March in 1983 to Direkteur General Van Wentzel, Mnangagwa, who was then security minister, took personal credit for obtaining “permission from the Prime Minister [Mugabe] for the SADF visit to Harare and for future intelligence meetings of a similar nature. He claimed that he [Mnangagwa] initiated the RSA/Angola and RSA/Mozambique dialogue.” But there are indications that Harare was indeed concerned about the effect it would have on their credibility if details of the initiatives were to emerge; and that they may have opened the negotiations with Pretoria against their consciences. Mnangagwa, for example, shot down a proposal by the South Africans for the formation of a ‘Joint Crisis Committee’ to handle ‘any matter which caused tension to the relations between the two countries and needed prompt rectification to diffuse the situation’. Moreover, in a classic case of hypocrisy on the part of Mugabe’s government, American Diplomat Robert Cabelly told the South Africans in September 1983 that “Zimbabwe felt that Mozambique and Angola had in fact let them down by having Ministerial meetings with South Africa”.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 12:16:40 +0000
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