Z.A.P.U. men sacked from Cabinet

Press, 14 November 1984, Page 10

Z.A.P.U. men sacked from Cabinet

NZPA-AP Harare The Zimbabwean Prime ' Minister, Mr Robert Mugabe, yesterday fired two Cabinet Ministers from the leading opposition party of Joshua Nkomo, who said that the action could trigger a “blood-bath.”.

Mr Mugabe said that he could not retain the two Ministers, both high-ranking members of Mr Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union, because their Opposition group was “dedicated to a deliberate policy of violence and banditry.” Sacked were Cephas

Msipa, Minister of Water Resources and Development, and John Nkomo, a Minister of State in the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office, who is not related to Joshua Nkomo. The statement, issued after Mr Mugabe’s depar-

ture for the African summit conference in Ethiopia, linked Z.A.P.U. with the assassination on November 9 of a Mugabe-appointed senator, Moven Alex Ndlovu. Joshua Nkomo reacted angrily to the dismissals, predicting that it could only

spell trouble for Zimbabwe. He also denied any Z.A.P.U. link with Mr Ndlovu’s killing. “He wants to put this country in the blood-bath,” Mr Nkomo said from his home in Bulawayo, capital of Matebeleland. The province is a stronghold of the minority Ndebele tribe, from which he draws most support. He accused Mr Mugabe of engineering a crisis to manipulate the country’s first post-independence elections, scheduled before March, 1985.