Zimpapers Logo

Herald Reporter

A FORMER MDC official, Nqobizitha Khumalo, who is now with the People Democratic Party (PDP) has revealed how the opposition party has been faking abductions and causing terror in the country through trained militias since the turn of the millennium.

This comes as State Security Minister Owen Ncube recently told a press conference that the opposition, working with G40 renegades has been conniving with hostile Western nations to smuggle guns and set up so-called Democratic Resistance Committees to destabilise the democratic foundations of Zimbabwe.

In leaked chats on social media, Khumalo says he has experience in faking abductions and other unsavoury acts committed by the MDC-A, from as early as 2000 meant to attract international spotlight and condemnation on the country.

He said as one-time commander of the MDC-A vigilant group known as DRC, he has first-hand experience of the modus operandi of the vigilante groups that still exist today.

“Well, I was once an area commander of the DRC. It was one of the organs put up for the final push on the Mugabe regime. While I will deny the accusation that it was a terrorist organisation, I will point out that it wasn’t a Sunday school picnic either.

“DRC was trained on how to conduct mass uprisings and we were shown videos of the Orange Spring; how to confront an armed person and how to diffuse the power of tear smoke. The possibility of providing some cannon fodder for the regime was also discussed in order to make the international community angry and garner international sympathy and the idea of provoking fire in order to create dead bodies was also discussed,” he said.

And as a means of providing fodder to their regime change shenanigans, the MDC-A used foul means including faking abduction, a familiar practice that the opposition party has lately been employing.

Mr Khumalo said the August 1, 2018 demonstrations were pre-planned by the MDC-A to tarnish the elections with snipers having been planted on strategic locations to spark rebellion.

“The plan was that an armed person or persons should fire at police from the crowd so the police would retaliate and massacre civilians to draw international sympathy. Which is why a cartridge was found on the fifth floor of ZCTU offices. A sniper was put there to knock off a few heads so as to provide the necessary dead bodies.”

He added that some of the hitmen in the opposition received training in insurgency at the farm of the late former MDC treasurer general Roy Bennet who himself was arrested by police for plotting insurgency in 2009.

The trained insurgents have since the 2000s been agents of terror who the MDC-A leadership unleash on their internal opponents and as cover up to blame the Government, said Mr Khumalo.

Fake abductions were code-named Operation Mbuya Varwara by the MDC in 2009 and they have been employed to taint the country’s image ever since.

“We believed that the end justifies the means and that the means would be achieved quickly. Unfortunately, the new nature of the operations spawned a character in the party that ultimately became as bad as the one it tried to dislodge. It is that character that saw the attempted murders of Trudy Stephenson and company and the assaults of former MDC treasurer Elton Mangoma, and Tendai Biti,” he said.

Explaining the reason for following Mr Biti when he broke away from the late Morgan Tsvangirai in 2014, Khumalo said: “When Biti broke away promising to start a new narrative in the annals of our political lives, we heaved a sigh of relief before his ignominious volte face. The same barbaric character was inherited by the Chamisa faction of the MDC and will carry us nowhere as a nation and even that party won’t go far until it changes its modus operandi.”

In 2008 after March 29, Khumalo said his group had to seek refuge at the British embassy and later transferred to the American embassy.

He said they again moved to the South African embassy where we were sheltered by IOM (International

Organisation for Migration) for three days before being taken to Ruwa Rehabilitation Centre where they stayed from June to September.

“We went there with high hopes. We thought our presence would incite the change we wanted but it seemed we were soon forgotten as the leadership discussed their GNU (government of national unity).”

He said he was one of the planners of operation Mbuya Varwara that involved hatching a self-abduction plot where they sneaked out of the camp in the dark and made phone calls to a sympathetic pastor who came to collect them.

“This is on record. There were nine of us. We were sheltered at a church and we all took up pseudonyms. Mine was Joao Joao. I am still missing (up to this day). Mbuya Varwara was the code name to identify the plot on the phone.

“One of the planners is now in the information department of the Transform Zimbabwe party. The whole thing was planned. The whole camp was in uproar. Please check your archives. The din attracted the attention of the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees. In the meantime, we were carried to a plot in the Mount Hampden area where we were hidden just near the Air Force radar guarded by Air Force guards. I could give the name of the woman farmer but I don’t think it is proper to do so. What I am saying is verifiable,” he said.

Presently, three MDC-A activists, namely Joana Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova are facing charges of faking abductions after their convoluted tale of having been abducted came crumbling like the proverbial deck of cards.

And despite feigning bravado, there is pervading fear in the opposition as the party leadership are blaming each other over the manner in which the alleged abduction was conducted.