ZANU PF spokesperson, Ambassador Simon Khaya Moyo has said no one should worry over the revival of the national youth programme whose graduates are derivatively called the Green Bombers saying the ruling party was over the politics of violence.
This comes after Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa Tuesday said Cabinet had approved the resumption of the programme after wide consultations between the ministries of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation, and Defence and War Veterans Affairs.
The Green Bombers were previously used by the Robert Mugabe regime during their reign of terror between 2001 and 2009 when the late veteran leader unleashed them in his bid to cling to power.
Ambassador Moyo claims ZANU PF has since departed from using violence to gain political mileage adding that the “New Dispensation was promoting unity and tolerance of diversity, therefore, no one should worry. Speaking to the Daily News, SK said:
Nobody should be scared of the revival of this project. Why should people be scared of this good programme?
This is a new dispensation. We are not living in the past and we cannot continue to live in the past.
We need our youths to benefit from all types of training in terms of various skills. This will help them in future. They can be employers of tomorrow.
Our youths must have something to do and they can’t sit at home doing nothing. The youth service programme will give them skills to do a lot of things, which will help them in future.
SK Moyo speaks after MDC Alliance has opposed the re-introduction of Green Bombers with the party’s deputy youth assembly spokesperson, Womberai Nhende, saying the return of the programme reminds the masses of yester-year’s horrors when the military-trained brigade meted out terror to citizens.
He is convinced the move is meant to “counter the MDC Alliance’s citizens’ convergence for change” agenda as it is revived ahead of the 2023 elections, therefore, it should be resisted.
The previous youth training programme was formed at the turn of the millennium and was the brainchild of the late Border Gezi, who was then Zanu-PF national political commissar and also Youth minister.
Green Bombers earned notoriety for both violence and the looting of shops under the guise of enforcing the government’s price controls – while imposing unofficial curfews in areas perceived to be opposition strongholds.
They were also accused of working with the police, army and the secret service to perpetrate human rights abuses in the country and were also accused of being the vehicle which some bigwigs used to place tens of thousands of ghost workers on the government’s wage bill.
More: Pindula News; Daily News