NAIROBI: President Robert Mugabe’s policy of razing shanty towns in Zimbabwe, making 250,000 people homeless, has been attacked as “barbaric” by his former information minister. Jonathan Moyo said the ruling party was “engaged in sunset politics” after failing to reinvent itself by electing a new leadership.
Moyo spent five years as the loyal interpreter of Mr Mugabe’s thinking, defending farm seizures and overseeing a crackdown against the independent media. In January, he was dismissed from office after campaigning against Mr Mugabe’s choice of vice-president.
He was re-elected to parliament in March as an independent and is now a sharp critic of the government. At a public meeting in the capital, Harare, on Thursday night, Mr Moyo said the crackdown on shanty dwellers and street traders was linked to a power struggle within the ruling party.
“It seems to be a directionless activity of some mischievous group which imagines it can profit by this in some mysterious way and position itself ahead of the pack in the succession game,” he said. A professor of political studies, Mr Moyo was a harsh critic of Mr Mugabe before being named information minister. Analysts suggest he may be positioning himself as a kingmaker in the struggle to succeed Mr Mugabe, who is due to step down in 2008.
The former information minister may also be motivated by bitterness at the manner of his departure, said one analyst in Harare, who declined to be named.
“I think he feels genuinely aggrieved at the way he was treated. They took away his car. The dismissal was faxed to the hotel where he was staying so other people at reception saw it before he came down from his room. He found the bodyguard gone from outside his hotel door.
“All the perks he was accustomed to were immediately withdrawn. For somebody who was so loyal, there was a genuine sense of deprivation.”
The information minister was dropped after opposing Mr Mugabe’s choice for vice-president, Joyce Mujuru, wife of retired army commander Solomon Mujuru.
Mrs Mujuru, who was known during the war against white minority rule as Comrade Spill Blood, was a contentious candidate.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service
