The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) has accused President Robert Mugabe of activating the training of youth militias under the guise of National Youth Service (NYS) ahead of 2018 elections.
ZPP’s statement comes after Mugabe’s announcement that government should consider re-introducing the training of the infamous NYS accused of electoral violence including rape and murder. Part of the statement by ZPP reads:
Mountview Vocational Training Centre in Mashonaland East has closed its doors to make way for the youth militia training. This shows that plans to reintroduce the training were already in motion before the President’s announcement. The programme had been discontinued in 2009 after the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU). This is a call to the escalation of violence by the Head of State. The programme, which is pitched as a patriotic programme, has often been used to further partisan political agendas. Youths trained in various camps all over the country under this programme have been involved in acts of political violence. With the war veterans currently refusing to campaign for President Mugabe, we fear that the youths will be used to campaign for the ruling party leader with violent consequences.
However, Highfield West MP , Psychology Maziwisa, accused the opposition MDC-T of scaremongering tactics in fear of electoral defeat and argued that, if anything, it was the MDC-T that has been proven to be violent, citing the incarceration of three activists for the 2011 murder of police Inspector Petros Mutedza, as an indication of the violent nature of former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s party.
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