{"id":27284,"date":"2016-07-28T00:27:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T00:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/zimbabwe-president-mugabe-warns-dissenting-war\/"},"modified":"2016-07-28T00:27:36","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T00:27:36","slug":"zimbabwe-president-mugabe-warns-dissenting-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/zimbabwe-president-mugabe-warns-dissenting-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe President Mugabe warns dissenting war veterans"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has threatened to punish those war veterans who last week said they were withdrawing their backing for him.}<\/p>\n

At a rally of his Zanu-PF party supporters and veterans who remain loyal to him, Mr Mugabe also urged the veterans to choose new leaders.<\/p>\n

He blamed the West for splits in the veterans’ association.<\/p>\n

The association, one of Mr Mugabe’s key backers, last week accused him of dictatorial tendencies.<\/p>\n

In a statement, it also blamed the 92-year-old president for the rapidly deteriorating economic situation in the country.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear if all of the veterans of the 1970s war against white minority rule agreed with the text.<\/p>\n

Pressure on Mr Mugabe is growing, with factions in the governing Zanu-PF openly fighting to succeed him and protests about the failing economy.<\/p>\n

But he has said he plans to run for president again in 2018 and rule until he dies.<\/p>\n

Addressing Wednesday’s rally in the capital, Harare, Mr Mugabe said: “Once we find out who wrote that statement, the party will punish them.<\/p>\n

“During the war we had rebels who we punished… some by detaining them underground, feeding them there”.<\/p>\n

He also warned that “the enemy is trying to divide us”, blaming the West – in particular the British and US embassies – for the divisions.
\nThe president also threatened protesters with jail, saying the country did not want violence.
\nThe war veterans spearheaded the invasion of white-owned farms starting in 2000 and have been accused of using election violence to keep Mr Mugabe in power.<\/p>\n

President Robert Mugabe looked subdued when he emerged from his Zanu-PF headquarters to see the thousands of ruling party supporters.<\/p>\n

He must be experiencing one of his most trying times.<\/p>\n

For six days he has been silent on the subject of the war veterans, who last week urged him to step down, saying they were withdrawing their support for him.<\/p>\n

It was a statement that must have rattled him as the usually buoyant 92-year-old did not look himself.<\/p>\n

However, as provincial party chairperson after provincial party chairperson began relaying messages of solidarity, asking him to continue his rule, he began to look more rejuvenated.<\/p>\n

At that point, he smiled back, and briefly had a chat with his wife before confidently walking to the podium to address the crowd.<\/p>\n

His message was aimed at war veterans, who have divided into factions over the battle for succession within Zanu-PF, but most of those in the audience were from the party’s youth and women’s leagues.<\/p>\n

He threatened to deal firmly with his detractors, punish wayward war veterans and warned foreign embassies not to undermine his government before preaching unity within his party’s ranks.<\/p>\n

By the end he looked more like a man in control of his destiny.<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has threatened to punish those war veterans who last week said they were withdrawing their backing for him.} At a rally of his Zanu-PF party supporters and veterans who remain loyal to him, Mr Mugabe also urged the veterans to choose new leaders. He blamed the West for splits in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-27284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27284"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=27284"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=27284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}