By Lance Guma
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WIKILEAKS – The late Zimbabwe Vice President Joseph Msika allegedly boasted about the murder of white commercial farmer Gloria Olds, telling a colleague in the local Ndebele language, “we fixed her” and “they thought we were joking.”
According to the latest batch of US diplomatic cables leaked by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, Paul Themba Nyathi, the then Gwanda North MP and MDC Director of Elections, claims he overhead Msika make the remarks in Bulawayo.
Nyathi revealed this during an hour long breakfast meeting between US Embassy Acting Principal Assistant Secretary Mark Bellamy and MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai and his then Secretary General Welshman Ncube.
Olds, a 72 year old widow, was murdered on her farm in March 2001 by Zanu PF militants who had invaded her property. She died in a hail of bullets as militants with automatic rifles opened fire as she came to her gate.
According to one report “she attempted to crawl to safety but the gunmen forced the gate and fired more shots at her where she lay.” Her three dogs were also shot dead. Her son, Martin, was also shot dead on his farm, a year before.
Both were resisting their forced eviction and its thought Msika’s “we fixed her” and “they thought we were joking” statement was referring to that.
The two war veterans accused of killing Olds, Albert Ncube and Robert Nyathi, were acquitted by the High Court in April this year. Justice Maphios Cheda in a 10 page judgment said the case prepared by the State was weak.
“After listening to all witnesses in this case and going through all the papers, I find that no reasonable court would, given the circumstances and facts at hand, arrive at a conviction.
“The State case is weak and it relies mostly on circumstantial evidence and there is absolutely nothing linking the accused persons to the commission of the alleged offences. I thus find them not guilty of kidnapping and murder,” he said.
But now the alleged remarks by Msika will trigger new questions about who sanctioned the murders at the height of the chaotic farm invasions.
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