Zimbabwe's defence minister has said the army will crush any Egyptian-style uprising led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. The latter said last week that there is nothing wrong with people demanding their rights, including in Zimbabwe. 

By Nkosana Dlamini, Harare

“We in Zanu PF (Mugabe’s party, ed.) are determined to make sure that there is peace,” defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa said to military commanders in the weekend.

“Those who may want to emulate what happened in Tunisia or what is happening in Egypt will regret it because we will not allow any chaos in this country,” Mnangagwa said.

Dislodging dictators
Tsvangirai, leader of Zimbabwe’s largest opposition party (MDC) currently in a transitional government with Zanu-PF, riled his opponents last week when he said street protests were genuine methods of dislodging dictators.

“To me, when people take their rights, and start demanding more rights, there is nothing wrong with that, including in Zimbabwe. That was the whole purpose of our struggle for the last 10 years,” he told FoxNews in Davos last week.

In the past decade, Tsvangirai organised several mass protests against Mugabe’s rule.

But the protests, which were mainly concentrated in the country’s cities, were ruthlessly crushed by the country’s security forces which have voiced open support for Zimbabwe’s strongman.

Resurfaced violence
Widespread political violence mostly blamed on Mugabe’s militant supporters has resurfaced countrywide. This follows Mugabe’s announcement that Zimbabwe is heading for fresh polls later this year.

Agitated by police’s inaction, youths from Tsvangirai’s party have vowed revenge. “They must be prepared to receive as much as they dish out if this lawlessness continues,” youth leader Thamsanqa Mahlangu said last week.

Although organised protests are seen as a remote possibility in Zimbabwe at the moment due to perceived fear and poor technological infrastructure to fire the protests, authorities fear the threats can provide a spark among crisis-weary Zimbabweans.

Mugabe, who does not hesitate to unleash the military to defend his rule, has put his trust in his long time military advisor Mnangagwa to handle this matter.

Mastermind
A veteran of Zimbabwe’s war of liberation, Mnangagwa has been in Mugabe's cabinet for almost three decades. As security minister, he was among security chiefs who crushed the 1982 uprisings in the country's western provinces of Matabeleland where 20 000 civilians from the ethnic Ndebele were killed.

Matabeleland was then a stronghold for the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo's Zapu party which merged with Mugabe’s party in 1987.

Mnangagwa is also accused of having masterminded in 2008 the killing of over 200 Tsvangirai supporters during a violent military operation that sought to restore Mugabe's rule.

Mugabe was outpolled by Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe's inconclusive first round poll. Last year, Mnangagwa vowed that Tsvangirai will never rule the country even if he wins elections.

“If you don’t vote for us in the next election, this country is huge, we will rule even if you don’t want it,” he said.

Although Mugabe has deliberately not been grooming any successor for fear of dividing his party, Mnangagwa is seen as one of the top contenders for his job.