KASUKUWERE ARRESTED AS GOVERNMENT CLOSES IN ON GRACE MUGABE


Saviour Kasukuwere, Mugabe's former Minister of Public Government and former G40 faction kingpin, arriving at Rotten Row Magistrate Court earlier today to face charges of border jumping


Saviour Kasukuwere, the former Minister in Mugabe's government accused of being a G40 faction kingpin, has been arrested on border jumping charges.

He appeared in Court 9 at Rotten Row today in Harare, where he was granted $300 bail and asked to report to Borrowdale Police Station once a week. He will also have to surrender his passport.

Kasukuwere is charged with the same offence that his brother, Dickson Mafios, was jailed 11 months for earlier this week.

The former Minister, who has refused even now to properly narrate to the authorities how exactly he left Zimbabwe, is being hauled into court precisely because the authorities would like to identify not only how exactly he left the country, but also who assisted him in doing so.

The issue of who assisted Kasukuwere and Jonathan Moyo to evade capture by the army in November last year is a particularly important one for the ZANU PF government to understand, especially after Jonathan Moyo publicly stated that he would never reveal their names (calling the helpers "angels" as he did so).

The fear is that, it could well be that these "angels" are still in the ZANU PF structures, leading "bhora musango" and leaking information to Mugabe and to NPF as well.

The fact that Jonathan Moyo and other members of G40 are able to get internal, confidential ZANU PF documents moments after they are distributed is also contributing to the suspicion that their G40 friends and helpers are still embedded deep within the party.

The arrest of Kasukuwere is also designed to get him to reveal information the authorities are sure he has about former First Lady Grace Mugabe's alleged ivory-smuggling activities. I'll explain this later on in this article.

I am told that you will also see three other arrests before 30 July, election day, as the government and ZANU PF go into overdrive to neutralise the effort by NPF and G40 to frustrate Mnangagwa's campaign and deny him a victory at the polls.

Kasukuwere, as far as can be established, has not made any moves at all to join his brother's crusade in the "bhora musango" brigade, which has led those close to the former Minister to say that this is being used simply as a shot across the bow - a warning that should he dabble in politics at this sensitive moment, more is sure to come.

With the ZANU PF government sitting on a dossier of charges for Kasukuwere from his time as Minister of Local Government as well as his time as Minister of Environment, it is indeed perplexing that he would be charged with the single offence of border jumping.

It can be expected that, should Kasukuwere fail to play ball with the "new dispensation", the charges previously raised in public against by President Mnangagwa's Lacoste faction will be activated, which may happen before election day.

Kasukuwere is accused by foreign environmental campaigners as well as supporters of President Mnangagwa of having aided and abetted poaching of elephants when he was Minister of Environment. It is also alleged that he worked with a named Chinese national to smuggle ivory outside the country.

This specific charge will be the big guns to be brought out in the event of continued non-cooperation by Kasukuwere.

Government is eager to also paralyse any efforts Mrs Mugabe may be making to support opposition to Mnangagwa. Despite denials by Jonathan Moyo, government and ZANU PF are convinced that Grace Mugabe is the "muchembere" Jonathan Moyo mentioned in his accidental Twitter video as bankrolling the New Patriotic Front (NPF) party set up to split the ZANU PF vote.

Which is why there is the hurry to smoke Kasukuwere out and, in the process, also rope Grace Mugabe in so that she can be charged with smuggling ivory and, if need be, poaching.

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