HARARE – Zimbabwean prosecutors have charged a senior official of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party with stealing weapons from an army barrack, in a case certain to stoke up tensions in the country’s shaky power-sharing government.

MDC transport manager Pascal Gwenzere who appeared in court at the weekend, was also accused of unlawfully receiving military training in northern Uganda together with other MDC activists in 1999 with the aim of destabilising Zimbabwe – a charge that carries a heavy jail sentence if he is found guilty. 

Gwenzere – who was remanded in custody to November 13 – allegedly led a group of MDC activists into Pomona barracks where they stole 20 AK 47 rifles and one shotgun from the armoury, according to court papers

According to the charge sheet: "Pascal Gwenzere alias Martin, Peter Nzuma faces charges of unlawful entry and theft under section 131 of the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act Chapter 9:23.

“And Contravening Section 24 (2) of the Law and Order Maintenance Act Chapter 11:07 prohibition against unlawful training alternatively Contravening Section 22 (1) of the law prohibition of quasi military organisation.”

Gwenzere, abducted by state security agents from his Harare home two weeks ago and never heard from or seen until his court appearance last Saturday, joins a growing list of MDC activists who have been accused over the past 24 months of either possessing weapons or trying to obtain weapons and receiving military training for the purposes of destabilizing Zimbabwe.

Gwenzere – who according to his lawyer was tortured while in police custody – is said to have scaled over the security fence at Pomona on October 20 and that once inside the barrack he got assistance from some army officers to gain entry into the armoury to steal the weapons.

The MDC says the charges against Gwenzere and its other activists are baseless and politically motivated. The party more than two weeks ago stopped attending Cabinet, angered by the detention of its treasurer and nominee for deputy agriculture minister Roy Bennett, who is accused of possessing weapons of war for purposes of committing terrorism. 

Tsvangirai’s party says “politically motivated prosecution” of its members is further sign of Mugabe’s refusal to abide by the global political agreement (GPA), the power-sharing agreement signed by Zimbabwe’s political leaders last year at the behest of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The GPA is the foundation of the Harare coalition government.

The MDC, whose Cabinet boycott, is the greatest crisis to face the nine-month-old unity government says it will only resume attending Cabinet after Mugabe and his ZANU PF party agree to fully implement the GPA and to quicken the pace of democratic reforms.

But SADC leaders have been piling pressure on Tsvangirai and Mugabe not to allow the coalition government to collapse, with the bloc’s chairman Joseph Kabila spending Monday in Harare holding talks with Zimbabwe’s principal leaders to try to get them working together again.

The visit by Kabila, who is also President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, came barely 48 hours after a ministerial delegation from the SADC’s special organ on politics and defence or Troika was in Harare to meet Zimbabwe’s squabbling political leaders.

The Troika, chaired by Mozambique with Swaziland and Zambia as the other two members, was tasked to monitor the Harare coalition government by the SADC. The regional bloc is together with the African Union a guarantor of Zimbabwe’s power-sharing agreement.

The Troika is due next Thursday to hold a summit in Mozambique to discuss Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile a Harare magistrate acquitted another MDC top official and a deputy youth minister in the unity government Thamsanga Mahlangu who was accused of stealing a cellphone handset and a sim card belonging to ZANU PF member and war veterans leader Joseph Chinotimba.

The magistrate found that there was no evidence to show that Mahlangu stole the Nokia phone valued at US$40.

By Zimonline