Friday, 30 March 2012 07:40
Chipangano is the infamous name of the ZANU PF aligned youth militia based in Harare’s poor suburb of Mbare. The group is growing its tentacles in all urban areas in Zimbabwe. Chipangano even threatened to invade Bulawayo during the ZANU PF Conference late 2011, to spread its diabolic message of violence. Chipangano is reportedly led and managed by ZANU PF Harare Province Youth leader Jim Kunaka and is supported financially by ZANU PF shadow MP for Mbare and Politburo member Tendai Savanhu. Savanhu is the financial backbone of Chipangano while Kunaka is the brains behind the violence that the group inflicts on innocent civilians.
This week the media reports that the MDC MPs for Mbare Gift Chimanikire and Piniel Denga are now banned in constituencies that overwhelmingly voted for them in 2008. In other words Chipangano holds so much sway that not only are ordinary citizens afraid of this grouping, but whole MPs can no longer visit their constituencies for fear of victimisation. “If I walk alone for more than 50 metres I will be beaten up just like a hard core criminal by those people (Chipangano),” Denga told the media this week.
Chipangano started as a small fire that many thought would simply go, however the penchant for violence by ZANU PF was underestimated and this militia group has grown into well organised and oiled violence machinery. Chipangano represents a new kind of organised violence that can easily plunge Zimbabwe into more serious challenges. Hitherto politically motivated violence was periodic and no permanent structures of violence were put in place by ZANU PF. In some instances politically motivated violence was even spontaneous, as spawned by messages of hate spread by ZANU PF and the state owned media. Chipangano is now a permanent stand-by militia along the lines of Malawi’s Kamuzu Banda Young Pioneers.
Reports indicate that leaders of the youth Militia are on a monthly retainer and the foot soldiers are paid off in terms on vending stalls and other small business opportunities and favours in Mbare. For the riffraff a few beers is all that is needed to embark on an orgy of senseless violence. The unfortunate scenario is that almost all political leaders have talked of this grouping in dismissive language. Savanhu and Jim Kunaka have out rightly dismissed their linkages with Chipangano which are however public knowledge. In the MDC parties, it appears that only the victims are speaking out, even as they speak, their voices do not bring any confidence to ordinary residents of Mbare, as the MPs are equally petrified of Chipangano.
Chipangano is reported to be behind a spate of violence in many parts of Harare beyond Mbare. Mid-March 2012 the group disrupted an MDC-T rally in Sunningdale beating many and causing serious injuries. The same grouping was behind a spate of violence in Chitungwiza late 2011. I am in no doubt that Chipangano was in Mutare during President Mugabe’s birthday celebrations in the eastern border town end of February 2012, as many residents reported incidences of violence with many being force marched to Sakubva stadium for the festive of Mugabe’s birthday.
Chipangano is not a localised militia as is reported in the media but the beginning of the spread of structures of violence by non-state actors supported by ZANU PF and given logistical support by the state security agents. Chipangano is the beginning of a more serious and sinister form of organised violence that has the potential to take Zimbabwe down the path of serious violence that will be difficult to control nor end. This grouping is now a parallel rogue security force that I believe is potentially receiving arms to strengthen its hand against any attempts by the MDC parties to defend themselves. Curiously the Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri remains silent on Chipangano lending further credence to allegations that this group has protection at the highest level.
At a time when both civil society and the MDC parties are talking of conditions for free and fair elections, there is need to put the disbanding and arresting of members of Chipangano top of the list. It is not enough to have a non-partisan police, to have a clean voter’s roll, what is needed now is to root out all structures of violence. Civil society need to do more in-depth research and investigations into this grouping and expose those behind it and record the track of violence by this group for future use in litigation and prosecution. At the same time there is need to put the police under pressure through publicity so that they take action against Chipangano. This group, if left alone, is the beginning of the sowing of seeds of civil war in Zimbabwe by narrow minded and selfish politicians.
David RM Mutomba is a Zimbabwean journalist and Human Rights Activist.