Robert Mugabe supporters ‘PREPARED TO DIE’, youth leader declares before he’s arrested
THE president of a youth wing supporting Robert Mugabe has been arrested after declaring he was “prepared to die” to defend the leader of Zimbabwe.
Kudzai Chipanga: We have every respect for armed forces
Kudzai Chipanga, who leads the ZANU-PF Youth League, has been detained after the military seized power of Harare overnight, but still deny reports of a coup.
It comes after Mr Chipanga vowed: "We will not fold out hands to allow a creature of the constitution to subvert the very constitution which establishes it.
"Defending the revolution and our leader and president is an ideal we live for and if need be it is a principle we are prepared to die for.”
Albert Ngulube, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Organisation, has also been arrested, according to tweets by Trevor Ncube, Zimbabwean entrepreneur and newspaper publisher.
President Robert Mugabe, 93, was removed from power after the Zimbabwean military said “corrupt and crooked person” had been arrested and “an elderly man who had been taken advantage of by his wife” had been detained.
He is now preparing to step down and will make negotiations for his wife Grace to leave the country, according to leading South African news website News 24.
Former Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa will now take power according to the ruling ZANU PF Party.
Mr Mugabe plunged the country into political crisis by sacking his vice president last week.
Vice President Mr Mnangagwa, 75, a long-serving veteran of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation wars, had been viewed as a likely successor to Mugabe before the president fired him on November 6.
It was believed Mr Mnangagwa's downfall would pave the way for Mr Mugabe's wife Grace to succeed the 93-year-old president, the only leader Zimbabwe has known in 37 years of independence.
Grace Mugabe, 52, has developed a strong following in the powerful youth wing of the ruling ZANU-PF party.
Her rise has brought her into conflict with the independence-era war veterans, who once enjoyed a privileged role in the ruling party under Mugabe, but who have increasingly been banished from senior government and party roles in recent years.
In an unprecedented step, the head of the armed forces, Constantino Chiwenga, openly threatened to intervene in politics on Monday if the purge of war veterans did not stop.
He said in a statement: "We must remind those behind the current treacherous shenanigans that, when it comes to matters of protecting our revolution, the military will not hesitate to step in.
“The current purging ... targeting members of the party with a liberation background must stop forthwith.”