Air Marshal Shiri shoots down Moyo appeals

By Never Kadungure

Zimbabwe’s Airforce commander, Air Marshal Perrence Shiri has shot down reports that top army generals have been roped in by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo to help mediate in Moyo’s public fallout with President Mugabe. 

Last Friday Mugabe branded his information minister a “devil incarnate”, accusing him of appointing editors of state-owned newspapers who were sympathetic to the opposition and sowing divisions inside Zanu PF.

Subsequent reports suggested Moyo had turned to the military chiefs to intervene and help calm Mugabe down but Air Marshal Shiri shot this down.

“As the military, we have been schooled into understanding that the gun does not command the party, it’s the party that does commands the gun,” Shiri told journalists at the Defence College in Harare.

“Whatever comes out of political deliberation by the political leadership of the country shall bind us as the military. We do not interfere in the politics of Zanu PF or any political party; we only get involved in politics when, say, we are facing a threat from outside the country.

“So it would be national politics against the aggressor or someone trying to recolonise Zimbabwe; we have to conscientise our people to be alert and to resist that. We become political to that extent but when it comes to internal manoeuvrings, you leave us out. We are professional military people; we are not interested in party politics at all,” Shiri added.