Posted on 07/13/2004 4:40:21 PM PDT by Clive
HARARE - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, other senior government officials and diplomats will in future be guarded by youth militias from ZANU PF's National Youth Training Service.
Police officials said, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has replaced over 300 policemen from the Police Protection Unit (PPU) with youth militias.
Zim Online interviews with several inside sources have confirmed that the police have removed virtually all officers in the unit from their posts to create a loyalist guard out of the militia youth instead. "Most of these police officers in the PPU were seen as being of questionable allegiance to the President and the government," a senior police official, who cannot be named, told Zim Online.
Police officials said the move was a result of a "serious security paranoia" that had gripped Mugabe who also recently ordered that members of his ZANU PF politburo, the party's highest policy implementation body, be searched before going into meetings.
"This (the PPU) is a sensitive unit and the highest authorities want it to be manned by people of unquestionable loyalty," the official said.
Highly placed police sources said a specially recruited and trained group of youth militia underwent training at a police camp situated at a farm in Shamva, about 100km north-east of Harare last year.
The first batch of 250 underwent training for six-months from January to June last year while a similar number undertook their training from July to December last year.
The sources said there were plans to send some of the youths for further training in "friendly countries such as Libya".
Police recruits are normally trained at Tomlinson Depot in Harare. Sources said the clean up was spearheaded by PPU commandant Winston Changara. "Changara personally oversaw the whole recruitment, training and deployment exercise. He said he wanted patriotic people in his unit," said another officer."Normally policemen are deployed to various units, including the PPU upon completion of their training or by transfer, but Changara said he wanted to do his own selection. Basically Changara is suspicious of policemen who came through the normal channels".
Changara refused to comment on the matter and referred questions to police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena. "You want me to talk to the media about the operations of such a sensitive department. You must be crazy. Anyway phone Bvudzijena," said Changara before he slammed down the phone.
Bvudzijena dismissed the story: "That is ridiculous. We are not targeting anyone and there is no special recruitment or transfer process for anyone. Police officers can be transferred to any station in Zimbabwe at any time. That has always been the case, " he said.
"You should also know that it is the prerogative of the police commanders to transfer their manpower at any given time. The command itself can also be transferred. It is a normal police procedure."
According to police sources, the youths were first deployed in other units to familiarize them with "normal police operations" before being deployed to the PPU.
"The kind of training we gave them was different from what we normally teach at Tomlinson Depot. The emphasis here was on firearms handling and physical training while theoretical subjects such as Law and policing procedures were peripheral. So they had to be initiated on other police duties before commencing duty at the PPU," another police source said.
"The idea was also not to deploy the whole 500 youths to the PPU at once as this would have caused logistical problems. There has to be some continuity," said the police source, who was involved in both the selection and training of the militia youths.
He said recruits applied for the training through the various national youth training centres. He added that the selection criteria had been heavily biased on ethnic grounds with the majority of recruits coming from ZANU PF stronghold provinces Mashonaland Central and Mashonaland West. "We recruited only five Ndebeles for the two training programmes and out of these, two dropped out, possibly because of tribally influenced harassment," he said.
Mugabe has in the past been accused of creating a loyalist youth terror squad through the national youth training service. He has denied the allegations saying he is only teaching youths to be patriotic.
Despite mounting criticism on the national youth training programme, reports indicate that the government intends to spend Zimbabwe $1 billion on re-opening three more youth training centres. Zim Online
The ones that don't run away from the training camps and go into exile in South Africa become thugs and killers of the first order.
They consider themselves warriors in the Third Chimurenga, or " hondo yeminda".
They will ride proud in their new role and will have an aura of omnipotence until Mugabe finds it necessary to create a Schutzstaffel to replace them.
Then comes the Night of the Long Knives.
Sounds like a bunch of street gang members to me.
The site is has a South African domain.
I note that there are no by-lines so I cannot say who authored any of the articles.
Probably for their own protection.
bttt
Agreed/
I imagine these young people could be recruited easily with promises of food and shelter.
But when they see the writing on the wall, i.e. the hand is running out of food or looks to be in danger of being replaced then like the self seeking corrupt individuals they are they will turn against there master to safe guard there own skins.
This is a major weakness all dictatorships have.
Tony
Be Afraid.
Be Very Afraid.
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