The Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) has embarked on a massive recruitment drive of junior soldiers to be used to spearhead a terror campaign against Zanu PFarch-rivals, MDC-T supporters in next year’s planned elections.
In a recent statement to the media, the ZNA public relations department said the institution will be moving around districts to recruit soldiers but inside source said that the exercise was meant to groom
fresh officers to be used during the elections.
Impeccable sources in the army said that the recruitment, which began on Wednesday in Mwenezi,
will be held in the province’s seven districts until 10 December and will recruit soldiers who will begin training in January and complete in June, when President Robert Mugabe wants elections to be held.
The sources said the officers will undergo special training to unleash terror to villagers in the rural areas in a bid to wrestle Parliamentary seats that were grabbed by the MDC-T and make sure that Robert Mugabe sweeps to victory.
The exercise comes barely two weeks after another crop of soldiers had a pass out parade after completing their six months training, a development that shows desperate efforts by Zanu PF to beef up its human resources ahead of the elections.
The operation is supposed to churn out fresh recruits who will be brainwashed and get training to terrorise villagers and whip them into supporting the former ruling party that is desperate from stopping a MDCT victory, said a source who declined to be named.
Although efforts to get comments from ZANA, provincial spokesperson, Warrant Officer, Kingstone Chivave were fruitless, a statement to the media recently announced the centres were soldiers would recruited.
The recruitment exercise began on Wednesday 17 November at Madyangove Secondary school in
Chivi and will move to Mwenezi on 19 and 20 November before proceeding to Buffalo Range army base in Chiredzi on 23 and 24 November.
The exercise will go to Zaka Secondary on 25 and 26 November Ushe primary school in Bikita on 30 November and 1 December, to 4-2 infantry battalion in Gutu on 4 and 5 December and to Nemanwa growth point o 7 and 8 December.
The recruitment exercise will wind up at 4 Brigade, the provincial army headquarters in Masvingo on 9 and 10 December.
MDC-T spokesperson Nelson Chamisa who recently was forced to cancel a rally after soldiers blocked villagers in Mwenezi from attending bemoaned the continued abuse of state institution by individual political parties.
“As MDCT we do not expect soldiers to participate in elections and or politics and we are also against the abuse of state institutions for personal political gain by political parties. We have been trying to tell the political leadership of the country to desist from using soldiers to beat innocent citizens for
selfish political gains,” said Chamisa.
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