War vets Mugabe called "dissidents" are "scarred stiff" but so is he - this is deadly endgame phase. By Nomusa Garikai

Life is sweet and no one would want their life cut short. Still there are some people out there who would are murderous thugs and would cut short other people’s lives for selfish gain and, worse still, they boost about it drumming their chest like some big silver-back gorilla! What is really funny is how quickly they cow-down and have their tails between their legs the minute someone threatens them!  

During the war of independence the freedom fighters, as war veterans were called then, were feared but loved and respected by the nation. The war veterans of 2000 who speared headed the njambanja invasion of white owned farms and terrorized the people into voting for President Mugabe and Zanu PF were feared but despised and loathed and for good reasons too. Whereas the freedom fighter of yesteryear was risking his/her life for freedom and human rights and dignity of all Zimbabweans; these rogue war veterans were denying the people their freedom and rights to gratify a corrupt and murderous tyrant’s insatiable hunger for power and wealth.

The fact that former freedom fighters like Chris Mutsvangwa and Jabulani Sibanda would allow themselves be used as Zanu PF’s storm troopers to commit heinous crimes against defenceless people goes to show they were never really freedom fighters but rather mercenaries.

A mercenary’s debt is never repaid; it was one thing holding the nation to ransom but when the war veterans tried to hold the gun to President Mugabe’s head; the tyrant did not like it one bit. When the war veterans tried to hold a meeting to press their demands on President Mugabe in February the latter had the lot tear gassed!

"HE (Mugabe) revisited and revised that sensationalisation on the following day, as he addressed the national consultative assembly. I am still touched by the humility of HE in the apology he proffered when war veterans were manhandled and water cannoned earlier this year," Chris Mutsvangwa commented.

If President Mugabe thought the tear-gassing incident was enough to scar the rogue war veterans and force them to accept his wife as the next party and national president. The war veterans want VP Mnangagwa, someone with liberation war credentials to be the successor for obvious reasons; one of their own would give their mercenary demands a sympathetic hearing that someone like Grace Mugabe who has already denounced their greed. With so much at stake it is not surprising the rogue war veterans crossed swords with the tyrant again.

The war veterans told President Mugabe they were “the stockholders of Zimbabwe and he was merely a stakeholder who will come and go.”

President Mugabe is not one to suffer fools and he was bound to hit back and he did. He called the rogue war veterans “dissidents”.

Of course the rogue war veterans have good reason to be afraid, who needs reminding of the murderous barbarism of President Mugabe and his Gukurahundi in his hunt for “dissidents”.

"There is genuine fear that ED (Mnangagwa) and (War veterans' chairman, Christopher) Mutsvangwa's lives are in danger. Given the fact that it was the President, the most powerful man in the country, who described people as dissidents and you tie this to history, then you can understand where we are coming from," an executive member of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWVA), who declined to be named, said.

"The other people whose lives could be in danger are (ZNLWVA) spokesperson, Douglas Mahiya and secretary-general Victor Matemadanda, but those would be second thought from what we understand. They are scared stiff, but will not say it publicly."

What is interesting is that these rogue war veterans are now running scarred but were the one drumming their chest yesterday whilst hunting down innocent civilians. What a bunch of cowards.

Still there is a lot at stake for both President Mugabe, his wife is absolutely desperate to be the next president because giving up her Gucci lifestyle is unthinkable, and the rogue war veterans they are staring abject poverty in the face with the little allowance the regime is giving them take that away and they are sunk! It is clear that neither side is going to back down, the spectra of bloodshed is real.

What both President Mugabe and the war veterans must understand is that Zanu PF dictatorship as a system of government has failed this nation, the economic meltdown the country is facing right now is real and it is only going to get worse as long as Zanu PF, it does not matter which faction, remains in power. Whilst the nation will shed no tears if Zanu PF implodes as long as it does not drag innocent people into its factional wars. At the end of the day Zanu PF must understand that the country wants an end to corrupt and tyrannical rule and that is not negotiable!