This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 HARARE 000954 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR J. FRAZER 
LONDON FOR C. GURNEY 
PARIS FOR C. NEARY 
NAIROBI FOR T. PFLAUMER 
DS/OP/AF 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/31/2013 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR ASEC ZI MDC
SUBJECT: MDC BOMBER CONFESSES 
 
REF: A. HARARE 628 
     ¶B. HARARE 516 
 
Classified By: Political Officer Audu Besmer for reasons 1.5 b/d 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
¶1. (S) MDC activist Sedweak Munyaradzi Mupazviripo Munya 
(protect) has informed embassy officer that he had made and 
thrown nine petrol bombs at three different ZANU-PF 
meetings-in-progress on about April 25.  It is likely that 
MDC security head Solomon Chikowero is the highest MDC 
official aware of Munya's activities.  However, in the 
current economic downturn, there are likely many other 
unemployed young men with tenuous connections to the MDC who 
could be inclined to commit similar acts.  We continue to 
press the MDC leadership to make their best effort to nip 
these activities in the bud.  End Summary. 
 
Confessed Bomber 
---------------- 
 
¶2. (S) In a May 8 conversation with Poloff, MDC activist 
Sedweak Munyaradzi Mupazviripo Munya revealed that he had 
made and thrown nine petrol bombs at three different ZANU-PF 
meetings-in-progress on about April 25.  Munya said that to 
his knowledge the highest MDC official involved in initiating 
these activities was Solomon (Sox) Chikowero, who MDC 
intelligence officers identify as the head of MDC 
intelligence (Ref B).  Munya called him the head of MDC 
security.  (Note: Chikowero recently fled to South Africa 
after repeated threats on his life by alleged CIO officers, 
and is reportedly staying at a training facility where MDC 
members have allegedly received military-style training in 
the past.  End Note.)  Activities such as those undertaken by 
Munya were executed using the MDC's "action committees" - 
communication and meetings structures set up by the MDC 
security department to convey orders and pass information 
between the MDC leadership and activists around the country. 
With Chikowero out of the country, Munya said there are no 
current plans afoot for more bombings. 
 
¶3. (S) Munya said he had attended planning meetings of up to 
fifteen people led by MDC MP's including Fidelis Mhashu.  In 
the planning meetings, they discussed National Youth Service 
members (green bombers) beating hundreds of MDC activists and 
residents in Harare's high-density suburbs following the 
March 18-19 MDC stayaway.  They decided to lob petrol bombs 
into green bombers' meetings in order to disrupt their 
planning, and to intimidate them, although these attacks were 
not intended to kill anyone.  Munya's awareness was limited 
to the planning meetings he had personally attended, and the 
activities in which he participated. 
 
Targeted Green Bombers 
---------------------- 
 
¶4. (S) Munya claims to be a longtime MDC activist whose 
network of contacts includes hundreds of Chitungwiza 
residents, including police officers and army soldiers. 
(Note: Munya's credibility is uncorroborated, and the 
bombings he described were not reported in the press.  End 
Note.)  Munya told Poloff that his contacts revealed that the 
heads of the "One Commando Barracks" (an army barracks along 
the airport road near Harare) had supplied green bombers with 
army T-shirts and camouflage trousers (under the table). 
Munya also said that green bombers had been assigned as 
constabularies to Harare Central Police Station and St. 
Mary's Police Station (near Harare).  War veterans who had 
been hired into the ZRP in 2001 directed these 
constabularies.  According to Munya these two police stations 
occasionally issued the constabularies loaded AK-47 rifles, 
which they carried during green bomber raids on the homes of 
MDC activists in the days following the March 18-19 stayaway. 
 During the raids, the green bombers wore fatigues from One 
Commando Barracks and carried baton sticks reportedly from 
the Tomlinson Depot.  The constabularies were in plain 
clothes. 
 
¶5. (S) Activists, including Munya, first surveiled green 
bombers for at least three days, noting their meeting times 
and locations, before attacking.  Munya borrowed a car with 
one or two other associates, and made bombs with 750 ml wine 
bottles half-filled with petrol and a cloth wick/fuse.  Late 
at night on about April 25 at the Chibuku Stadium, they 
lobbed three of these bombs onto at least one parked vehicle 
that they had determined was carrying camouflage trousers and 
T-shirts from the One Commando Barracks.  Green bombers and 
war vets were holding a meeting nearby. 
¶6. (S) On the same night, they lobbed another four bombs over 
the wall of the residence of a ZANU-PF Councilor for Seke 
named Manombo (first name unknown).  Green bombers and war 
vets were holding a large meeting in the yard behind; Munya 
said they lobbed the bombs over the wall in the direction of 
the meeting.  The bombs lighted, they heard shouting and 
commotion and some attendees fled the yard over the wall. 
They following day they heard that no-one had been injured. 
 
¶7. (S) Again on the same night, they lobbed two bombs into a 
meeting of green bombers and war vets being held in an open 
area under a large tree in the light industrial area of 
Chitungwiza. 
 
Tortured by CIO 
--------------- 
 
¶8. (S) Although none of these petrol bombings was reported in 
the press, on April 30 suspected CIO agents raided Munya's 
house at about 2 o'clock in the morning.  They fired a tear 
gas canister into his house, pried his security gate off with 
a power drill, and took him to Harare Central Police Station. 
 They interrogated him, beat him with broom handles on the 
kidneys, put a large clamp on the back of his neck, poured 
water on him, forced him to crawl on his belly like an inch 
worm, and administered electric shocks.  They told him there 
were only two options, that he would need to go to jail for 
other charges he faces (see paragraph 10 below), or he must 
die. 
 
¶9. (S) They accused him of being the MDC's general 
coordinator for explosives, and for participating in various 
high-profile petrol bombings around the time of the March 
18-19 stayaway including a school bus carrying primary school 
aged children in Chitungwiza, a Zimbabwe United Passenger 
Company (ZUPCO) bus in Epworth, and the ZANU-PF offices in 
Kwekwe.  (Note: Other sources familiar with the Kwekwe event 
have suggested that when ZANU-PF youths petrol bombed the 
General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe 
(GAPWUZ) Kwekwe offices in March, the fire spread to the 
ZANU-PF offices next door.  End Note.)  (Further Note:  It is 
unclear why they accused him of these bombings and not the 
petrol bombings he had actually participated in only days 
earlier.  End further note.) 
 
Charged with Assaulting Ben Menashe 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (S) Poloff first met Munya in February at the treason 
trial of MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai and other MDC 
leaders.  In about the second week of the trial, Munya 
actually confronted the State's star witness Ari Ben Menashe 
and asked him whether he was aware that ordinary Zimbabweans 
could hardly feed themselves while he, Ben Menashe, was 
living extravagantly at the Sheraton Hotel, eating rice and 
chips at taxpayers' expense and publicly lying to everyone. 
Ben Menashe responded that he was not aware of the suffering. 
 Their conversation was interrupted by a suspected CIO agent 
who accosted Munya.  Police then arrested Munya and charged 
him with assaulting Ben Menashe. 
 
¶11. (S) On about May 4, Munya happened to meet Maxwell 
Matanire, the Magistrate handling Munya's case on charges of 
assaulting Ben Menashe, at a local shop near Munya's home in 
Chitungwiza.  The Magistrate, who has been suspended until 
June 23 pending an investigation into trumped up allegations 
of fraud, took him aside and cautioned him that he was being 
forced to convict Munya and sentence him to at least four 
years in prison.  Matanire said the only way for the 
authorities to fire a sitting Magistrate was to convict him 
on corruption or fraud charges and that the charges against 
him were fabricated to influence his decisions, and 
specifically to gain a conviction against Munya.  Matanire 
said that suspected CIO agents had taken him to a meeting 
with Vice President Joseph Msika who told him, among other 
things, that he must convict Munya for four years or more, or 
he would lose his magistrate job in the pending fraud 
investigation. 
 
Comment: 
-------- 
 
¶12. (S) Although some of the events Munya described dovetail 
with other pieces of information we have obtained separately, 
it is not possible to corroborate the claims he has made. We 
are also unable to judge how compartmentalized the alleged 
MDC structures he described may be.  There is no credible 
evidence of awareness or direction of the actions of Munya 
and his accomplices at levels of MDC leadership above 
Chikowero.  Morgan Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube and other MDC 
leaders have repeatedly assured us that violence is 
antithetical to MDC policy.  This does not mean that all 
elements within MDC share this view.  With Chikowero out of 
the country, it is possible that violence of this nature will 
cease, if he is indeed the organizing force.  However, we 
note that in Sox' absence a bomb squad official was killed 
while handling a suspicious package sent to the tobacco 
auction floor about ten days ago in a still unexplained 
attack reported to us (but not in the press) by the head of 
the Tobacco Growers' Association and corroborated by other 
sources.  In addition to whatever organized forces might 
exist, there is also the legion of disaffected and unemployed 
urban youth with tenuous connections to the opposition who 
may be inclined to act on their own, whatever stated MDC 
policy might be.  We will continue to press the MDC 
leadership to counsel their supporters to eschew violence, 
and given the sensitive nature of this issue, we have 
suspended further contacts with Munya and will follow suit 
with Chikowero, should the latter return to Zimbabwe.  End 
Comment. 
WHITEHEAD