‘Call us junta’: civilian ‘dogs’ can bark but ‘the army will always rule Zim’

The presidency in Zimbabwe says the military will always rule the country and a civilian will never take the top office.

Vice-president Kembo Mohadi, a retired colonel, proudly quipped: “People call us junta”, while addressing senior government workers and cabinet ministers at a function in the border town of Beitbridge on Friday. 

“The president is a war veteran, [first] vice-president Constantino Chiwenga is a soldier, and I’m a soldier. We will rule not minding what the media says,” said Mohadi.

The military has always been the power behind the throne in Zimbabwe, but the November 2017 coup against the late former president Robert Mugabe saw an army general take political office for the first time. Chiwenga led the putsch and retired as army general to take up political office.

Mohadi said that with him and Chiwenga in the top office, and numerous other army officials appointed as cabinet ministers and legislators, they would make sure no civilian became president.

“We will continue to rule. Civilians will not,” he said.

He also called the opposition and critics of the government “dogs barking at the rising moon”.

Human rights violations by the state using the military have worsened to the extent that citizens feel more frightened and deterred from participating in public protests in the post-Mugabe era than before.

—  Zimbabwe Democratic Institute report

Since winning a disputed election on July 31 2018, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has relied on the army, police and the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) to crack down on his critics. A case in point is the televised shooting of opposition supporters after presidential election results were announced, resulting in the death of six civilians.

A recently released report by the Zimbabwe Democratic Institute (ZDI) says about 7,000 people have been beaten or tortured by the army since November 2017. Eighty-two percent of people surveyed at ZDI are of the view that Mnangagwa is more draconian than Mugabe.

“Human rights violations by the state using the military have worsened to the extent that citizens feel more frightened and deterred from participating in public protests in the post-Mugabe era than before,” reads the report.

“President Mnangagwa did not change the attitude of the army towards democratic transition forces or the role played by the military during the Mugabe era. He just deployed the traditional infrastructure inherited from Mugabe,” reads the report.

However, speaking at the launch of the memoirs of Zanu-PF’s secretary for administration,, Chiwenga claimed that unlike during the Mugabe era there was now “the existence of free political thought” in Zimbabwe.