Police pounce on “preparation for coup”
January 4, 2009
By Our Correspondent
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s security establishment now sees determined preparation for staging a coup against President Robert Mugabe in every nook and cranny.
A heavily armed group of security agents, some arriving by helicopter, stormed an outdoor training camp on the outskirts of Harare on Friday night under the pretext that training of insurgents was underway in military strategies in preparation for a coup against the government.
The camp site, Kudu Creek, which trains boy scouts, tourists and others in outdoor living, is located along Gardner Road in Ruwa. It is owned by Angus Thompson and Gary Nestead. The invaders of the camp site allege that Thompson and Nestead are former members of the Rhodesian Security Forces infamous Selous Scouts.
The controversial Selous Scouts were a special-forces regiment of the Rhodesian Army which operated from 1973 until dissolution at independence in 1980. They were named after British explorer Frederick Courteney Selous. The Selous Scouts committed brutal acts against both civilians and ZANLA and ZIPRA forces during Zimbabwe’s war of liberation. The regiment also recruited captured guerillas and often conducted operations in the rural areas while disguised as guerillas.
Thompson and Nestead have run the Ruwa training camp for five years. They offer training in adventurous activities and personal development opportunities for young people.
Sources say the area around Kudu Creek was cordoned off around 11 pm on Friday by four teams made up of about 40 people.
The four teams comprised heavily armed officers from the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), military police, Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and the Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ).
A source, who witnessed the swoop on the place, told The Zimbabwe Times that he was also caught up in the raid.
“I was driving along Gardner Road on Friday night at around 11 pm when I was suddenly confronted by a group of military police officers who instructed me to remain in the car,” said another source who lives along the same road as the camp site.
“I couldn’t even ask why because I was too terrified. Suddenly an AFZ helicopter hovered above the place before landing at some distance.
“I saw everything that happened. The group entered Kudu Creek and ransacked the place before taking away the two owners and a handful of people who were there at the time.
The source said he was held up in his car until the early hours of Saturday morning when his house and others along the same street were searched by the military police.
A highly placed police source told the Zimbabwe Times that the operation was led by Air Vice Marshals Henry Muchena of the Air Force of Zimbabwe and Army Chief of Staff, Martin Chedondo, who arrived at the place aboard the AFZ helicopter.
“There was nothing at the place except equipment used to train tourists in outdoor adventures such as bungee jumping and mountain climbing,” said a police source.
“There were also receipts from schools which have sent their pupils to be trained as scouts at the place. It was just a waste of state resources because some of the people who were taken together with the owners of the place turned up to be mere gardeners.
“These people surely did not commit any crime.”
He said the state was hoping to gather its evidence at the camp as it tries to build a case against the mainstream Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) which it has accused of training bandits in Botswana to forcibly remove President Mugabe from power.
The government is said to be preparing to present the evidence before a Southern African Development Community (SADC) security organ, which has also sent investigators to Botswana to investigate the claims.
“They are saying the people were being trained in military-style assault attacks,” said the source.
Close to 40 mainstream MDC members, civic society activists and a journalist are in prison on charges of plotting to topple President Mugabe from power by force.
The detained include a two year-old child taken along with her parents.
Lawyers representing the detained activists wanted the police to arrest the people who abducted them. But the Minister of State Security, Didymus Mutasa, vetoed the move saying it was a national security issue.
The activists have been detained for close to a month now, and have been denied private medical treatment.
The High Court ruled that the activists be sent to the Avenues Clinic in Harare or that doctors of their choice be allowed to examine them at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison where they are currently detained.
The state has challenged these orders.
Print This Article
Email This Article
Comments
5 Responses to “Police pounce on “preparation for coup””Advertisement
-
Zimbabwe News Sites
OPINION POLL
-
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.
OPINION POLL
-
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.
Desperation at its worst!! Cry my beloved Zimbabwe!!
Do they have weapons of mass distraction?
Soon they will be arresting all men found training in gymnasia ! How ridiculous will it all get ? But of course, this is a regime scared to the bone by the sight of women and two year olds ! What do you expect ?
Major General Martin Chedondo aka Chikaidos is the Army Chief of Staff. These are desperate times for the regime in Harare and they are seeing shodows where there are none. Prepare yet for another round of arrests on fabricated charges which can not withstand scrutiny in any court other than the ones in Harare that are packed with mediocre former lawyers who are grateful to Mugabe for having had pity on them and extricated them from their poverty ridden lives into new ones where they now live like kings.
Between 1984 and 1989 I was a member of the Boy Scouts troop at Highfield No 1 High School in Harare. It was considered an honour to be able to go for a training camp to Ruwa. I went and camped at Ruwa with fellow scouts myself several times during those years. During such camps we would be talk things like pitching up tents, take part in exercises such as building rope bridges. We were 16 years olds at the time. The Ruwa camp has been in existence for a long time.
I is an extremely damning revelation upon the competence of the Zimbabwean intelligence operatives and security apparatus that they have suddenly discovered a camp that his been in existence for more than two decades now. It is even more worrying when they proceed to make complete fools of themselves by launching such a dramatic raid upon the camp. I simple phone call to the scouts headquarters in Innez Terrace would have saved them a lot of trouble.
The whole episode merely reveals how ignorant our security operatives are. If there is no single CIO operative who know about boy scouts then where do they learn things like honour and by prepared.
Here is a promise that I suggest all security operatives learn by heart.
On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.
And while they are learning to recite it can they hold up their hand with the three middle fingers upright and the thumb and little finger folded over each other.
Be prepared
EDITOR: For you information Jupiter. I was a member of the Boy Scouts troop at St Mary’s Secondary School, which is now surrounded by Chitungwiza, which town did not exist then. This was from 1969 to 1968. Our troop always looked forward to our visits to Ruwa Park Boy Scout Camp. The camp had been in existence for many decades at the time and contributed to developing many youngsters of the era and preparing them for the challenges of life.
we wil see