The commissioner of prisons Paradzai Zimondi has been fingered as a proponent cum-cog of the elimination axis that also targets co-Home Affairs Minister Giles Mutsekwa amid revelations that the recent Marondera road mishap that befell the minister was pay back for his earlier “outbursts” that he was eager to clip the wings of the former member of the notorious Joint Operation Command (JOC) as he was a stumbling block to national healing, Zimbabwe Telegraph has heard.

Following Mutsekwa’s public announcement that he wanted to tame Zimondi, other members of JOC notoriously known as the junta joined in the silent and subtle war and elevated his name to the top of the elimination list before he pounced his claws on their fellow soldier of misfortune.

Mutsekwa is included in the elimination list of senior MDC officials that include Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Vice Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe, Finance Minister Tendai Biti, among others.

A family member of the Mutsekwa stable has since said that the accident that befell the co-home affairs minister was suspicious.

Mutsekwa was alone in his official Mercedes Benz when the near-tragedy occurred.

Mutsekwa was not reachable for comment by the time of going to print. He is however credited for having facilitated for the freedom of human rights director Jestina Mukoko while his fellow co-home affairs minister Kembo Mohadi was in Zambia.

The powers of the Junta were partially clipped following Robert Mugabe’s signature of the national security council bill which created the National Security Council .

Meanwhile a political commentator has said that the all-inclusive government was heading for a brick-wall as ZANU PF has mooted a plan to express its sincerity for only a year and would change its game plan in the second half of the all-inclusive arrangement.

The second half of the all-inclusive government would be used as a build up of the campaign of retribution against the MDC and other perceived enemies of the state*

From left: Paradzai Zimondi,  Perrence Shiri, Constantine Chiwenga and Augustine Chihuri.

HARARE (New York Times) – President Robert Mugabe’s top lieutenants are trying to force the opposition Movement of Democratic Change to grant them amnesty for their past crimes, according to senior members of Mugabe’s party.

Their fixation on getting amnesty was described by four senior ruling party officials, all Mugabe confidants, who spoke to a Zimbabwean journalist working for The New York Times.

To protect themselves, some of Mugabe’s lieutenants are trying to implicate opposition officials in a supposed plot to overthrow the president, hoping to use it as leverage in any amnesty talks, the officials said.

Mugabe’s generals and politicians in Zanu-PF have organised campaigns of terror for decades to keep him and his party in power.

Crimes committed during last year’s election campaign, while the world watched, included abducting, detaining and torturing opposition officials and activists.

Mugabe’s lieutenants, part of an inner circle called the Joint Operations Command, know that their 85-year-old leader may not be around much longer to shield them, and fear losing not just their power and ill-gotten wealth, but their freedom, party officials said. The security chiefs include General Constantine Chiwenga, commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Air Marshall Perrence Shiri, commander of the Air Force, Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri of the police and Paradzai Zimondi commissioner of the Zimbabwe Prison Services.

Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, one of Mugabe’s principal negotiators in the power-sharing talks that led to the current government, informally told opposition officials around the time that the transitional government took office in February that his party wanted an amnesty, according to a senior Zanu-PF official close to the talks.

“The MDC did not sound very forthcoming,” said the official.

President Robert Mugabe’s regime has reneged on an agreement to release dozens of opposition activists, who have been abducted and severely tortured to extract false confessions of terrorism, before Wednesday’s swearing in of a power-sharing government in Zimbabwe.

Doctors’ affidavits seen by the Guardian reveal a pattern of torture of many of the 30 political and human rights activists held by the state for months. Nine of the prisoners seen by doctors were subjected to simulated drowning, being hung by their wrists in handcuffs and beaten, and high-voltage electric shocks.

One man was hung upside down from a tree and dumped into a water-filled drum until he passed out.

A 72-year-old man was held in a deep freeze before scalding water was poured on his genitals.

Human rights lawyers say the detainees have been tortured to force them to falsely confess to bomb attacks on police stations or plots to overthrow Mugabe, in an attempt by his regime to justify further state violence against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had demanded the release of the detainees, who include his own security chief and a former close aide, as a condition for being sworn in on Wednesday as prime minister in a power-sharing government with Mugabe.

A deal was reached between the MDC and Nicholas Goche, a senior negotiator in Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF, for 16 detainees to be released.

Some were to be taken to hospital last Friday and then quietly freed by a judge in order for the regime to save face. Eight were to appear in court on Monday on the understanding they would be freed.

But none of the detainees were produced after the prisons commissioner, Major-General Paradzai Zimondi, refused to hand them over.

Zimondi is a hardline member of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), which acts as Mugabe’s security cabinet. JOC organised the campaign of terror, beatings and killings against MDC supporters during last year’s elections. The general has threatened violence against the opposition, and recently he burst into a court and broke up a hearing on the release of some of the detainees.

The MDC is interpreting Zimondi’s intervention as evidence that the JOC intends to subvert the power-sharing administration by continuing the violence and intimidation against Tsvangirai’s officials and supporters.

Suspicion over Mugabe’s intent has been further reinforced by what the MDC says is false allegations of corruption laid against seven of its MPs last week in an attempt to overturn the party’s newly won majority in Parliament.

The tortured detainees include Kisimusi “Chris” Dhlamini, a former officer in the Central Intelligence Organisation, who became the MDC’s head of security.

According to an affidavit from a doctor who examined Dhlamini in Harare’s maximum security prison, he was repeatedly assaulted, including being subjected to simulated drowning, hung by his wrists in handcuffs, beaten and burned. The affidavit said there were injuries consistent with high-voltage electric shocks as well.

Gandi Mudzingwa, Tsvangirai’s former personal assistant, was severely beaten with sticks, kicked, subjected to simulated drowning and had his feet smashed with bricks.

Doctors’ affidavits on other prisoners show they were subjected to similar tortures, particularly having their heads forced underwater. A 72-year-old MDC activist, Fidelis Chiramba, was forced into a freezer, stripped naked and had his genitals burned with hot water.

Eight women are being held, including Jestina Mukoko, the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, who was abducted and tortured, and has been held in prison since last year, accused of training insurgents in Botswana to overthrow Mugabe. – guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2009