PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party asked for United States to contribute to a fund to buy-off the loyalty of Zimbabwe’s top army and police commanders, according to sensational new revelations by WikiLeaks.
A cable classified as “secret” by top United States diplomat Katherine Dhanani says Power and Energy Minister Elton Mangoma – a senior MDC strategist – told officials at his government office in Harare that the “trust fund” would be used to negotiate the retirement of the service chiefs.
The MDC, which formed a coalition government with President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party in 2009, sees top army and police commanders – who are fiercely loyal to Mugabe -- as impediments to its decade-long battle to end Zanu PF rule.
The cable signed by Dhanani, and dated October 30, 2009, says Mangoma identified the security chiefs as a “primary obstacle to political progress and reform”.
Mangoma, who was instrumental in negotiating the power sharing deal, is quoted further telling an unnamed US ‘political and economic chief’ from that country’s embassy in Harare: “Unlike many Zanu PF insiders who had stolen and invested wisely, these individuals had not become wealthy.
“They feared economic pressures, as well as prosecution for their misdeeds, should political change result in their being forced from office. Therefore, they were resisting …progress that could ultimately result in fair elections.”
Mangoma told the US embassy officials that the “trust fund” could be used to negotiate the service chiefs' retirement.
“He said he planned to approach the UK and Germany with the same request,” the cable adds.
The latest revelations will add to already strained relations between Zanu PF and Tsvangirai’s MDC party after an earlier WikiLeaks cable showed Tsvangirai privately urging the United States government to maintain sanctions on Zimbabwe.
Mugabe has accused Tsvangirai of “treason”, and Zanu PF – at its annual conference over the weekend – passed a resolution directing the party to "call upon the government to enforce the law of treason against any individual, corporate body or entity which calls for the imposition and or maintenance of sanctions or any other measures harmful, injurious and or deleterious to the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe.”
Mugabe accuses the MDC of duplicitous behaviour and has demaded elections next year to end the power sharing arrangement.
The President blasted: "What is galling is the discovery or perhaps, confirmation, that the people we thought were our partners in running the country, were most of the time, serving other masters who are not the people of this country.
"For those who take time to learn, it is our hope that the WikiLeaks exposures will by now have shown them the evil and dangerous nature of the policies being followed by our former colonisers and their partners.”