Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front has responded to the swelling chorus of criticism by blaming western embassies for sponsoring the unrest and telling a Baptist preacher who led the protests to leave the country if he didn’t like it.
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Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has attacked the pastor behind the #ThisFlag mass protest movement that has heavily criticised his government.
Mawarire was arrested on charges of treason but the case was thrown out last week in a Zimbabwean court.
Mawarire has used #ThisFlag on social media to call for peaceful protests against the government, and has drawn the wrath of Mugabe, who accused Mawarire of being funded by foreign countries and of not being a “true preacher of the Bible”. “They spell in reverse (DOG)”, he railed during the burial of former permanent secretary Charles Utete at the Heroes Acre on Tuesday.
Close to a thousand protesters stormed the headquarters of the ruling ZANU-PF party on Wednesday to demonstrate their support for the government following anti-Mugabe protests which have rocked the country this month.
“You make everyone proud to be Zimbabwean”, he said, the national flag draped over his shoulders. Grace Mugabe, the first lady, and her gang of loyalists commonly refereed to as Generation 40, are top of the familiar list of demands, with the veterans once again demanding that they be censored, and stripped of all power within Zanu PF.
Yesterday’s threat of violence by Zanu PF youths also comes a day after Mugabe himself roundly denounced Mawarire and other activist church leaders.
“We note, with concern, shock and dismay, the systematic entrenchment of dictatorial tendencies, personified by the president and his cohorts, which have slowly devoured the values of the liberation struggle”, the group said in a statement.
Spokesperson of the MDC-T spokesman, Luke Tamborinyoka, said while the party applauded ruling party supporters for exercising their constitutional right to march.
Mr Mawarire said he wanted change in Zimbabwe.
“I don’t know if he is a man of religion”. Speakers at the rally decried the anti-government movement led by pastor Evan Mawarire, which shut down most businesses, schools, hospitals, and government offices in a massive act of civil disobedience less than two weeks ago. “They tell me that the black is for the majority, people like me, and yet for some reason I don’t feel like I am a part of it”.
“Regrettably, the general citizenry has previously been subjected to this inhuman and degrading treatment without a word of disapproval from us”, the veterans’ statement said of the incident.
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“The government intimidates us, they arrest us and they scare us into keeping quiet, and we are saying we are done with that”, he said.
