Zanu PF Youths Want Military to Take Charge When Mugabe is Gone
The activists declared at a youth conference Wednesday that Mugabe should rule forever, adding the army should come in when he is gone
Youths of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party declared Wednesday that Zimbabwe will never be governed by anyone else besides the 88-year old leader, adding in the event he stepped aside, the military should take charge. Singing revolutionary songs at a World Federation of Democratic Youth conference in Harare, the youths vowed they will never allow the MDC to take over power, even if the party won an election. Addressing more than two hundred youths from countries with liberation backgrounds that were in attendance, Zanu PF national chairman, Simon Khaya-Moyo told the activists to "resist imperialism." Khaya-Moyo condemned Western sanctions imposed on President Robert Mugabe and his close allies in Zanu PF saying they were undermining the land reform program, under which white-owned farms were compulsorily seized and parceled to blacks. Moyo's speech came at a time Zimbabwe is hosting the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay. The conference was attended by youths from Mozambique, Venezuela, Cuba, Zambia, Angola, Democratic Republic of Korea, Vietnam, South Africa, Namibia, Palestine, Tanzania, Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Lebanon, Russia, Cyprus, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo and Portugal. The Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe represented the communist nation while the Pakistani deputy ambassador stood in for his country. The Movement for Democratic Change formation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said it was not invited. Many other local youth organizations were also not attending as they were not invited to the conference whose participants were drawn from countries that fought for independence from former colonial powers. Tsvangirai MDC youth secretary Promise Mkwananzi dismissed assertions by Zanu PF youths that only Mugabe should rule Zimbabwe as “day dreaming.”