Jabulani Sibanda arrested

Ousted war veterans’ leader Jabulani Sibanda was arrested in Bulawayo yesterday and will be charged under Section 33 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act which criminalises undermining the authority of the President.

Sibanda is alleged to have accused Mugabe of plotting a “bedroom coup” and threatened to march to State House to confront him.

Police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba confirmed both the arrest of Sibanda and the charge he is likely to face.

“I can confirm he was arrested this afternoon (yesterday), although I don’t have much information at the moment,” she said without revealing where the 45-year-old was being held.

Sibanda was expelled from Zanu-PF recently for undermining the President and threatening to mobilise war veterans, youths and women to march to State House to confront President Mugabe.

Sibanda’s wife, Sifiso, said her husband was picked up by police at his farm in Nyamandlovu just before 3pm.

“The men who took him said they were from Harare,” she said.

“He called us later and said senior police officers from Harare had arrested him. He said he didn’t know the reason for his arrest and couldn’t say where they were taking him to.”

She said after the call, Sibanda became unreachable on his mobile phone.

Police sources said investigators were keen to get the former war veterans leader to clarify comments he made in which he appeared to accuse President Mugabe of plotting a “bedroom coup”, while voicing his opposition to First Lady Grace Mugabe’s imminent elevation to lead the Zanu-PF Women’s League.

In October, Sibanda declared he would boycott the First Lady’s “Meet the People” rallies held in all the country’s 10 provinces.

Sibanda said he was ready to defend his position and warned that real war veterans would resist attempts to stage “a bedroom or boardroom coup”.

“If you want to find me guilty of not attending the First Lady’s rallies, I plead guilty on that one and I won’t attend unless the programme changes. I can’t attend a function where they say ‘Pamberi ne Mazoe Crush, pasi ne Gamatox’. That slogan is unknown in Zanu PF.

“That slogan is divisive and counter-revolutionary. I don’t belong to a venomous group and until their objectives change, I won’t be part of that. With its nature now, it’s counter-revolutionary and Zimbabweans should stand up against that.

“All able-bodied people should stand up against that. You can’t belong to a group that insults a Vice-President of the country. You can’t insult a person like that even if you are from different political parties, but you can encounter on policies,” he said.

Sibanda said it was wrong for Grace and other Zanu PF officials to publicly attack the Vice-President for “crimes” which could have been committed by her late husband, Retired General Solomon Mujuru.

“If President [Robert] Mugabe does wrong, l won’t insult Grace Mugabe. So you can’t insult Joice Mujuru because she is not Solomon Mujuru who they accuse of all those things. You can’t attack MaNdlovu my wife because of my wrongs.”

“We will back what we will say at that Press conference with what we are doing on the ground. I won’t tell you where I am, but I am on the ground. I am not going to allow any coup both in the boardroom and in the bedroom,” he added.