HARARE – Days before a summit of regional leaders, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s shock troops armed with AK47s stormed a bar where a retired top general and Zanu PF politburo member was drinking on Wednesday, ZimLive can reveal.
The operatives demanded to know the whereabouts of a top rights activist who is a regular patron at the facility.
Retired Lieutenant General Engelbert Rugeje watched in apparent shock as up to 15 aggressive agents, believed to be from the Central Intelligence Organisation, and driving in unmarked Toyota Fortuner vehicles, harassed bar staff at Sherwood Golf Club while shouting: “Where is Briggs Bomba?!”
They looted the bar clean of expensive whisky as they left the leisure centre in Harare’s Mabelreign suburb, a witness said.
Bomba is the programmes director for Trust Africa, a good governance advocacy organisation headquartered in Dakar, Senegal.
It was Gen Rugeje, a source said, who called the police after the men had left. Police recorded a statement from the general and staff at the golf course.
Mnangagwa has deployed police, soldiers, spooks and even prison officers into high density suburbs in Harare and in Bulawayo in a show of force to suppress feared protests during a SADC heads of state summit in Harare on August 17.
In Bulawayo, soldiers jogged on Masiyephambili Drive which almost forms a ring around the city as it goes through several neighbourhoods.
In the capital Harare, police and soldiers put their military gear on show as they patrolled city streets together, including making forays into crowded high density neighbourhoods.
Roadblocks have been mounted across the country where regular police officers are shadowed by military police.
Police spokesman Commissioner Paul Nyathi maintained that the deployments were “normal.”
Over 120 government critics are being held without bail in prisons, as Mnangagwa’s government moves to thwart threatened protests over last year’s controversial elections which his rivals say he rigged.
South Africa’s ruling coalition party, the Democratic Alliance, has called on SADC to move the summit from Zimbabwe in response to Mnangagwa’s brutal clampdown on rivals. This remains unlikely.
Zimbabwe will assume the rotating chairmanship of SADC at the summit.
