There was no plot to arrest Chiwenga at RGM Airport during 2017 coup- former foreign affairs minister

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Walter Mzembi says there was no plot to arrest the then Zimbabwe Defense Forces Commander General Constantino Chiwenga during the 2017 coup.

Prior to the coup that toppled the late former President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Chiwenga who was in China, announced that the army was to step in.

Following the announcement, it was widely believed that Mugabe deployed police mainly from the paramilitary section at the airport to arrest Chiwenga on arrival.

However, Mzembi says there was no plot to that effect.

“One of the lies that had incensed then CDF Chiwenga was that on landing from China he was going to be arrested. Nothing could be further from the truth, there was no such plot.

“I personally phoned Mugabe, Chihuri (ZRP CG), Nhepera ( DDG and Acting DG, CIO) & MID after receiving a cable to that effect on my Foreign Affairs Desk and asked why they wanted to inflame an already volatile situation, they all told me categorically there was nothing of the sort, it was all counter intelligence,” he said.

He added: “I had flown from Lusaka where President Lungu had briefed me on the Coup and how to avert it. We agreed on a number of points which I was now enforcing and influencing and it was to get Mugabe in the first instance to smoke the peace pipe with the Generals principally Chiwenga himself.

“Lungu told me there was lots of false intelligence which was widening the rift between them all part of the conspiracy and he was eager to see a decent stand down by Mugabe at Congress in December 2017.

“We keep quiet not because we are fools but because sometimes there is so much falsehoods overwhelming truth if the time is not yet nigh for the truth to set a people free.”

Mugabe was toppled by the army and was replaced by President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa who had fled to South Africa.

It is believed he fled via Mozambique, and on arrival to his destination, Mnangagwa released a press statement saying he would be back in two weeks time to take the reins.

Zwnews