Speculation over death of soldier linked to coup plot
Pete1
Speculation over death of soldier linked to coup plot
By Lance Guma 28 June 2007
The death of Brigadier General Ambrose Paul Gunda, a former head of
Mugabe’s presidential guard, has ignited a wildfire of speculation over
his reported links to an alleged coup plot to overthrow Mugabe.
Official reports say General Gunda died last week Thursday when his car
collided with a goods train outside Harare. He was buried at Heroes
Acre.
The UK Independent newspaper however quotes military sources claiming
he had been killed earlier by Mugabe’s security agents and then placed
in a car on the train track to make it look like an accident. A junior
officer who spoke to the paper claims General Gunda had been under
house arrest prior to his death and that no post-mortem of his body was
conducted. Other reports are saying the driver of the train has not
been identified and pointing to a cover up.
Newsreel spoke to a former army colonel who is a close relative of
General Gunda and he disputed the sequence of events reported by the
newspaper. He says Gunda had just dropped his child at Watershed School
near Marondera suggesting he was alive at the time of the accident.
Many other parents had also gone to the school as it was Parents Day
and this would not have been an ideal time or place to plot an
assassination since the road was busy that day. ‘If they had wanted to
kill him they could have used his official service diary to find out
where he was going but this was a personal matter and unlikely that
they knew he was going to Watershed School,’ the relative told us.
The coup plot story itself has been severely eroded in terms of its
credibility. More and more reports indicate that the 6 men being held
for allegedly trying to topple Mugabe are just victims of a ploy by
Mugabe to flush out his enemies and any plans they might have of
removing him. Despite key figures like Emmerson Mnangagwa and former
army general Solomon Mujuru being implicated they have not been
arrested or brought to court. Mnangagwa has called the coup plot
allegations ‘stupid’.
The speculation over Gunda’s death however hits at the heart of the
Zimbabwean view of how Mugabe deals with opponents. He has faced
serious allegations of eliminating his opponents stretching back to the
liberation struggle. Nationalists like Josiah Tongogara, Herbert
Chitepo and others have all had their deaths linked to him. General
Gunda’s accident last week now joins that long list of deaths that have
been considered all too convenient for Mugabe.