Mutasa: Mugabe Ignoring My Overtures
'I have written a number of letters to him, he hasn’t responded to those letters, and so because I am junior, I just sit back and do nothing until I am invited to attend the special disciplinary committee'
WASHINGTON — Well if they invite me, yes I will, I will attend. Not only that, the committee itself is not constitutional, it’s just a special committee which I believe is set up for me, I do not think it has the legal status, which comes from the constitution, you see, in the constitution, the national chairman, is the chairman of the disciplinary committee. And then he has a number of other people including, the secretary for legal affairs, the secretary for security, and so on and so on. But this one was just appointed by the Politburo, and in the sense that we do not recognize what transpired at the so-called sixth congress, it means what it has done from that time, up to now, is also not recognizable, . Well, I will attend only out of the respect that I have for President Mugabe, he is I believe, the one who has set up this committee, through the Politburo so-called, and out of respect for him, I shall attend, but I will have to mention to them that they are an unlawful organization, they do not have the legal status, as derived from the Zanu-PF constitution that I belong to. . No I haven’t, I have written a number of letters to him, he hasn’t responded to those letters, and so because I am junior, I just sit back and do nothing until I am invited to attend the special disciplinary committee set specially for me, I will then go and say what I am saying to you and find out how they will react. No, haven’t been given any date. I do not even know what the thinking of that committee is, you are correct that the first lady returned to Zimbabwe a day or two ago and they were saying they have not yet met as a committee because of her absence and so I hope now that she is back they will meet and after that they will probably drop a line to me to attend the disciplinary committee. . Well, I am saying almost the same things that I am saying to you, that the process was marred by the non-elective congress and that what we had decided would happen at that congress did not take place, and therefore as far as I am concerned the proceedings were null and void, and what comes after that is also still, null and void. That’s very true, not only that, I also raised all the funds that were used at the congress, but that is neither here nor there, but what we are talking about, is the illegality of that congress, and its proceedings which were not in line with our constitution, and therefore the proceedings were null and void, and the outcome was unlawful. I didn’t know that it was going to happen like that, I mean you only cross bridges when you come to them I didn’t know that the conflict was going to be held like that and so there was nothing to complain about, but after the event and we have seen what had transpired, then we can complain, quite rightly. They just came up suddenly; I mean we were all caught by surprise, when the president started to shout about his own deputy, the vice president of the party, being told off publicly by her superior. That has never happened in the history of our country or anywhere else in the world, and so we got very surprised. I personally was shocked. Well, I also fell ill and left to go to South Africa and later to India, so I didn’t have an opportunity to talk to him during congress, I was out. I don’t really know, because I was never working with them, but I would assume, that yes it was partly the gang of 4 and partly Mnangagwa himself, because he knew what was going on and at that time he was the secretary for legal affairs, he quite honestly should have advised his fellow colleagues that the course that they were taking, was unlawful Well, it’s the suspension of nine provincial chairmen; it is the booting out of a number of members of the politburo, particularly those that had worked within the party for a considerable length of time. It is the total disregard of the law, most important, law of the party that is the constitution, and so we find that as absolutely absurd and something that should never have been done. Well, sometimes you need yes to talk, but when you know that the allegations are totally false, then you do not go and approach the person and say you know I want to talk to you about false accusations the best way forward is just to keep quiet and let them proceed the way they think and then to take the necessary corrective action as we are doing. . Well, he has not told me that, he has told other people, he has told the public, he has insulted me publicly, and so it’s not very good really for me not to take any action when things are still going on as badly as they started Absolutely yes, we will let bygones be bygonesthat is why we are saying this, but yah we are disappointed, and we know also that this is the way of politics, but we would like to sit down and talk frankly to one another, first to tell each other what mistakes we have made, we would want to know exactly what was wrong with Amai Mujuru, what was wrong with me and all those people who were booted out of the politburo and why were the provisions of our constitution, not taken into account when these people were asked to leave. There should have been a disciplinary committee like the one that is being set up for me, it should have been set up for everyone, and that is what we would like to happen and when it has happened and these people are told what was wrong, and then I think we will then sit down and see what to do next, you see, we are being called to a disciplinary committee, to answer allegations, it’s them who have broken the constitution, who have gone outside the dictates of our constitution, who should be sitting before a disciplinary committee and not the other way round. ? . Well, I am not taking it at all seriously, because I know what I was doing during the liberation struggle and I was working side by side with the president, so if the president does not know that I was working with him since 1977, then really there is nothing I can do. . Most welcome.