Zimbabwe's army seizes power, targets
'criminals' around Mugabe
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[November 15, 2017]
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's military
seized power early on Wednesday saying it was targeting "criminals"
around President Robert Mugabe, the only ruler the country has known in
its 37 years of independence.
Soldiers seized the state broadcaster. Armored vehicles blocked roads to
the main government offices, parliament and the courts in central
Harare, while taxis ferried commuters to work nearby. The atmosphere in
the capital remained calm.
The military said Mugabe and his family were safe. Mugabe himself spoke
by telephone to the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and told him
he was confined to his home but fine, the South African presidency said
in a statement.
It was not clear whether the apparent military coup would bring a formal
end to Mugabe's rule; the main goal of the generals appears to be
preventing Mugabe's 52-year-old wife Grace from succeeding him.
But whether or not he remains in office, it is likely to mark the end of
the total dominance of the country by Mugabe, the last of Africa's
generation of state founders still in power.
Mugabe, still seen by many Africans as an anti-colonial hero, is reviled
in the West as a despot whose disastrous handling of the economy and
willingness to resort to violence to maintain power destroyed one of
Africa's most promising states.
He plunged Zimbabwe into a fresh political crisis last week by firing
his vice president and presumed successor. The generals believed that
move was aimed at clearing a path for Grace Mugabe to take over and
announced on Monday they were prepared to "step in" if purges of their
allies did not end.
"We are only targeting criminals around him (Mugabe) who are committing
crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in
order to bring them to justice," Major General SB Moyo, Chief of Staff
Logistics, said on television.
"As soon as we have accomplished our mission, we expect that the
situation will return to normalcy."
CAREENING OFF A CLIFF
Whatever the final outcome, the events could signal a
once-in-a-generation change for the southern African nation, once one of
the continent's most prosperous, reduced to poverty by an economic
crisis Mugabe's opponents have long blamed on him.
Even many of Mugabe's most loyal supporters over the decades had come to
oppose the rise of his wife, who courted the powerful youth wing of the
ruling party but alienated the military, led by Mugabe's former
guerrilla comrades from the 1970s independence struggle.
"This is a correction of a state that was careening off the cliff,"
Chris Mutsvangwa, the leader of the liberation war veterans, told
Reuters. "It's the end of a very painful and sad chapter in the history
of a young nation, in which a dictator, as he became old, surrendered
his court to a gang of thieves around his wife."
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change called for a peaceful
return to constitutional democracy, adding it hoped the military
intervention would lead to the "establishment of a stable, democratic
and progressive nation state".
Zuma - speaking on behalf of the Southern African Development Community
(SADC) - expressed hope there would be no unconstitutional changes of
government in Zimbabwe as that would be contrary to both SADC and
African Union positions.
Zuma urged Zimbabwe's government and the military "to resolve the
political impasse amicably".
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Military vehicles and soldiers patrol the streets in Harare,
Zimbabwe, November 15,2017. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo
ECONOMIC DECLINE
Zimbabwe's economic decline over the past two decades has been a
drag on the southern African region. Millions of economic refugees
have streamed out of the country, mostly to neighboring South
Africa.
Finance Minister Ignatius Chombo, a leading member of the ruling
ZANU-PF party's 'G40' faction, led by Grace Mugabe, had been
detained by the military, a government source said.
Soldiers deployed across Harare on Tuesday and seized the state
broadcaster after ZANU-PF accused the head of the military of
treason, prompting speculation of a coup.
Just 24 hours after military chief General Constantino Chiwenga
threatened to intervene to end a purge of his allies in ZANU-PF, a
Reuters reporter saw armored personnel carriers on main roads around
the capital.
Aggressive soldiers told passing cars to keep moving through the
darkness. "Don't try anything funny. Just go," one barked at Reuters
on Harare Drive.
Two hours later, soldiers overran the headquarters of the ZBC, the
state broadcaster, a Mugabe mouthpiece, and ordered staff to leave.
Several ZBC workers were manhandled, two members of staff and a
human rights activist said.
Shortly afterwards, three explosions rocked the center of the
capital, Reuters witnesses said.
The United States and Britain advised their citizens in Harare to
stay indoors because of "political uncertainty."
The southern African nation had been on edge since Monday when
Chiwenga, Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, said he was
prepared to "step in" to end a purge of supporters of Emmerson
Mnangagwa, the vice president sacked last week.
In the last year, a chronic absence of dollars has led to long
queues outside banks and an economic and financial collapse that
many fear will rival the meltdown of 2007-2008, when inflation
topped out at 500 billion percent.
Imported goods are running out and economists say that, by some
measures, inflation is now at 50 percent a month.
According to a trove of intelligence documents reviewed by Reuters
this year, Mnangagwa has been planning to revitalize the economy by
bringing back thousands of white farmers kicked off their land
nearly two decades ago and patching up relations with the World Bank
and IMF.
(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley, James Macharia, Joe Brock and
Alexander Winning in Johannesburg; Writing by James Macharia and Ed
Cropley; Graphic by Jermey Gaunt Editing by Janet Lawrence and Peter
Graff)
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