‘Mnangagwa pleads with Tsvangirai for government post’

The Zimbabwe Mail

By Patience Nyangove

12 September 2011

DEFENCE minister Emmerson Mnangagwa allegedly pleaded with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai five years ago to include him in a future MDC government, a leaked United States embassy cable has revealed.

According to the secret cable dated June 2006, made public by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks last week, MDC-T secretary general Tendai Biti allegedly told a US embassy official Eric Schultz that Tsvangirai had been secretly discussing a power-sharing deal with Zanu PF officials.

Biti allegedly identified the Zanu PF officials as Mnangagwa and the late former army commander Solomon Mujuru. Mnangagwa could not be reached for comment yesterday.He said while Mngangwa was willing to be Tsvangirai’s subordinate in the proposed government, Mujuru wanted the then popular opposition leader to be a junior partner.

“According to Biti, Mnangagwa was willing to subordinate himself to Tsvangirai in exchange for cabinet slots and protection guarantees for affiliated businesses,” reads part of the cable.

“Biti said Mujuru was only offering to take Tsvangirai in as a junior partner, which he said reflected the Mujuru faction’s continued primacy.” The cable also alleges that MDC leader Welshman Ncube had offered Biti the post of president in his faction before they brought in Arthur Mutambara.

“He said Ncube had offered him the presidency of the pro-senate faction, but that he had no regrets about remaining with Tsvangirai in spite of his faults,” Schultz wrote in the cable.

Biti is also quoted accusing Education, Sport and Culture minister David Coltart of being obsessed with race. Coltart had allegedly written an email to an official at the US embassy accusing the MDC-T faction of being behind the intra-party violence that led to the split of the MDC in 2005.

Biti, who could not be reached for comment, compared Coltart, who could also not be reached for comment, to MDC-T treasurer Roy Bennett, who speaks Shona fluently. “Bennett was culturally Zimbabwean; Coltart, who spoke not a word of the local language, would always be an outsider,” Schultz wrote in the cable.

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Webmaster’s Note:

The original text from the US Cable sent in June 2006 is as follows:

“(C) Biti emphasized the centrality of Morgan Tsvangirai 

to the opposition’s political fortunes.  Though not without 

faults, Tsvangirai commanded more respect and enthusiasm from 

the masses than any other figure in either faction of either 

party.  The tens of thousands he drew in rallies across the 

country — and the overtures from ZANU-PFQ,s factions — were 

testament to that.  TsvangiraiQ,s commitment to non-violent 

but open challenges to the regime reflected the desires of 

the country. 

¶6.  (C) Biti was excoriating in his assessment of pro-senate 

faction-aligned MP David Coltart’s recent missive (e-mailed 

to AF/S) attacking the Tsvangirai faction for violence.  He 

asserted that the intra-party violence Coltart raised was 

exaggerated and not encouraged or condoned by the party 

leadership.  He noted that those most reviled within the 

anti-senate faction — Welshman Ncube and Gift Chimanakire, 

for example — lived, worked and traveled openly in 

vulnerable locations but suffered no harm.  “If there wasn’t 

a constant and convincing priority from the top on 

non-violence, these people would have been attacked,” he 

concluded. 

¶7.  (C) Biti he believed Coltart’s stated convictions were 

genuine but naQve and played to his personal aggrandizement 

at the expense of the party.  Coltart was more concerned with 

international audiences more than local ones.  Biti said 

Coltart “saw everything in black and white — in a literal 

not a figurative sense.”  Race and place colored all his 

views.  Biti compared Coltart unfavorably with Roy Bennett, 

the nationally popular party treasurer who “speaks Shona 

better than me.”  Bennett was culturally Zimbabwean; Coltart, 

who spoke not a word of local language, would always be an 

outsider. “