Angry war vets last week disrupted a joint briefing for the media and civil society in Harare, convened by the three co-chairpersons of COPAC. A week earlier the war vets had stormed a private retreat session of COPAC deliberations in Vumba. The war vets are reportedly blaming COPAC and its drafters of ignoring peoples’ views in the draft of the new charter.

Douglas Mwonzora, the co-chairperson representing the MDC-T, refuted this allegation. He told SW Radio Africa on Monday that they don’t want to be policed or dictated to by anyone who is not a party principal.

‘To set the record straight, nobody is cheating the war vets and nobody is cheating anyone as far as the drafting of this constitution is concerned.

‘We have actually made a few clauses that are beneficial to them and so they should let us complete our work before they have their say in the second all stakeholders’ conference set for March,’ Mwonzora said.

Mwonzora explained that the reason they entertained the war vets during the media briefing was to try and give them the correct picture about what was happening in COPAC.

‘But we realised they had other ideas, they just wanted to disrupt the briefing. We have also realised that the war vets have been badly misinformed, but on the other hand we are saying to them the stakeholders meeting is only two months away.

‘The war vets are stakeholders in the new charter just like every ordinary Zimbabwean. They are free to contribute during the stakeholders’ conference and if they have issues with the new charter, they should raise them there, not during the drafting phase,’ the MDC-T MP for Nyanga North said.

By SW radio