But, there have been two schools of thought regarding who calls the shots in Zimbabwe. One is that Zimbabwe — in the past decade at least — has been run by the Joint Operations Command (JOC); while the second says President Robert Mugabe has single-handedly run the state with everyone else a mere vassal subject to his beck and call.
JOC is the supreme organ for the coordination of state security in Zimbabwe. Its roots lie deep in Ian Smith’s Rhodesia where it co-ordinated the war against Zanla and Zipra insurgency.
It also was responsible for military incursions in neighbouring countries such as Zambia and Mozambique during the 1970s war of liberation. Post-independence; its role has remained shadowy hence the fear it continues to exude.
What is now, after WikiLeaks, unclear is whether it has retained and continued its Rhodesian-era role of co-ordinating state security or whether this role has been vested in the hands of Mugabe alone.
The first school is premised on the sentiment that Mugabe being the educated gentleman he is cannot be capable of the excesses that the country has witnessed in the past three decade.
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Mugabe is said to be about the most educated head of state in the world so much so that such a highly sophisticated individual cannot visit upon his own people the suffering that Zimbabwe has gone through.
Only military men are capable of the cruel episodes that Zimbabweans have seen. These include the gukurahundi, the land invasions, murambatsvina and the violence of the period before the presidential run-off of June 2008. This school of thought says Mugabe was only forced to endorse these episodes by JOC.
The JOC has always been viewed as a homogeneous group often referred to as the “securocrats”. They supposedly speak with one voice and hold Mugabe in their grip telling him what to do and say.
Mugabe, according to this school of thought, is merely the public face of this immensely powerful body. Because of this all the atrocities committed in Zimbabwe since independence can be traced to this group.
The school of thought also says Mugabe has expressed his willingness to retire on several occasions only for JOC to thwart his wish. Only one person has publicly disputed this thinking.
Wilfred Mhanda aka Dzinashe Machingura, who says he has remained close to some members of JOC with whom he fought alongside during the war of liberation. Mhanda says the reverse is true; Mugabe holds each and every member of JOC by the scruff of the neck.
He quickly points out that it is Mugabe who appoints them to the positions they hold and he can withdraw the appointments as soon as he feels he should by not renewing their terms. Because of the largesse that comes with the positions the securocrats are only too willing to pander to his whim.
But whistleblower website, WikiLeaks, has given us a glimpse into this group. Far from being homogenous, it is as divided and fractious as they come and is not always serving Mugabe’s wishes. JOC is a pretence!
According to WikiLeaks, while Mugabe was coming to terms with how to deal with Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC, JOC head Emmerson Mnangagwa was busy trying to form another party to fight him.
CIO director-general Happyton Bonyongwe was busy doctoring information that was passed to the head of state and was supporting breakaway formation Simba Makoni’s Mavambo.
This information was fed to the Americans by former Information minister, Jonathan Moyo, who has confessed that the leaked cables are a true reflection of what he said. Another important member of JOC, Perrence Shiri was quoted by a former member of the Zanu PF politburo, Dumiso Dabengwa, saying that Mugabe had overstayed his welcome.
Constantine Chiwenga, according to fellow generals close to him, is said to have been nursing political ambitions of his own and would be disappointed if he didn’t attain political office.
The only “civilian” on the body, Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono, was exuberant in his negativity of Mugabe to the Americans. He talked about Mugabe’s ill health, even giving Mugabe’s life a timeframe; he also revealingly talked about the president’s sex life (or lack of it). Gono had political ambitions of his own, too.
Here we see a body whose members are pulling in different directions, each trying to achieve his own political end. Obviously Mugabe was aware of all this; he would naturally have at least one confidant in the group, and he would play one against the other.
WikiLeaks has vindicated Wilfred Mhanda in his argument that Mugabe is his own man and has always been so. All top members of Mugabe’s party have in the past decade, in one way or another, indicated that they were not happy with his continued rule. These include every vice-president since the unity accord in 1987, except for Simon Muzenda.
The extent to which Mugabe’s inner circle went out of their way to hold parley with American diplomats indicates the degree of their indignation and frustration.
Many analysts have said that senior Zanu PF officials who have known that Mugabe became a liability to the party a long time ago did not stand up to him because his dying in office would give them a scapegoat for all the ugly things that happened to Zimbabwe, all of which they were part of.
WikiLeaks has given them some ammunition to propagate this thinking.
When Mugabe eventually passes on, all these gossiping politicians will tell the world they had opposed Mugabe all along and accuse him of singly masterminding every atrocity that took place in the country. They will exonerate themselves from gukurahundi, murambatsvina, electoral violence and the debauchery that accompanied land reform.
But this should not fool the world into believing that they were not complicity in the horrors that devastated the country in the past three decades. WikiLeaks revelations might work in their favour in the short term but they are equally guilty by omission and commission of the destruction of our beautiful country and all the blood that accompanied it.
BY NEVANJI MADANHIRE
