BANNED IN ZIMBABWE !!!

TWO veterans of Zimbabwe's independence war appeared at a well attended book launch in Harare Thursday, and denounced their former hero, President Robert Mugabe, 82.

First time author, Edgar Tekere, 69, son of an Anglican priest, joined the ruling Zanu PF in 1963 and was detained by the Rhodesians for 10 years.

Once more feared by whites than Mr Mugabe, he was acquitted of murdering a white farmer shortly after independence in 1980, and was sacked from his cabinet post.

He was the first Zanu PF heavyweight to turn against Mr Mugabe and stood against him in the presidential election of 1990, but only won 16 percent of the vote. He admitted regularly to journalists in those years that he had long had a drinking problem.

He was sober and seemed in robust health when he launched his book, ‘A lifetime of struggle.' He was joined at the launch by another former stalwart, Enos Nkala, 74, still writing his book, which will only be published after his death.

Both men said that Mr Mugabe had "betrayed the liberation struggle." Mr Nkala doesn't deny that it was he, as defence minister, who gave orders for massacres in the Matabeleland provinces from 1983 - 1987, in which thousands were killed by North Korean-trained Zimbabwe soldiers.

Since then, Mr Nkala says he has found God and regrets his actions. Both men called for Zimbabweans to resist Mr Mugabe's intentions to extend his term of office, due to end in March 2008, by a further two years.

Neither man is any threat to Mr Mugabe or Zanu PF, but they made a striking duo at the launch, and anger at the ruling party is growing. Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate has now hit nearly 1300 percent. Staggering.

At the press conference, Tekere absolved President Robert Mugabe from having killed nationalist and Zanla leader Josiah Magama Tongogara, who died in 1979 in a horrific car crash in Maputo, Mozambique.

Tekere, affectionately known as Two-Boy, said Mugabe, contrary to widely held belief that he had Tongogara assassinated, had nothing to with the death of one of Zimbabwe's most revered freedom fighters.

"I have heard it whispered that Mugabe killed Tongogara. That is not true. Mugabe did not doctor anything in Comrade Tongogara's death.

"He died in an accident, simple! When Tongogara died, he was in the middle of disobeying orders from our host Samora Machel who warned that it was dangerous driving at night up north Maputo towards the rural areas.

"In fact, Machel warned us after Tongogara had earlier been involved in an accident when his VW Beatle rammed into a buffalo. Tongogara was the only survivor. Five other people died in the first crash," said Tekere.

Since independence, there has been speculation that Mugabe engineered Tongogara's death to block the veteran fighter's ascendancy to become the new Zimbabwe's leader.

Nkala said: "We made the mistake to appoint Mugabe...I do admit I was part of the mistake.

"He was refusing to take the leadership position he now enjoys. We produced a creature that destroyed this country. I am not saying it out of anger, but this is a fact."