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saying it does not reflect the views of the people.
ZNLWA chairman, Cde Jabulani Sibanda, urged Copac to revert to what the people said during the outreach programme in coming up with a draft constitution.
Copac, he said, should publish the national report to enable people to see for themselves whether their views were captured or not.
The war veterans leader said his association would resist any attempts to foist foreign ideas on the people.
Cde Sibanda lashed out at the three Copac chairpersons — Cde Munyaradzi Mangwana (Zanu-PF), Mr Douglas Mwonzora (MDC-T) and Mr Edward Mkhosi (MDC) — for departing from what the people had said on several fundamental issues a development that rendered the draft unacceptable.
The party made changes to provisions regarding Presidential Powers, appointment of Provincial Governors’, devolution, and gay rights, among other issues.
But the two MDC formations have rubber-stamped the draft Constitution, and vowed not to re-negotiate despite demands by Zanu-PF to amend the document.
Addressing journalists, chairman of the war veterans association Jabulani Sibanda said several issues that had not been part of the outreach programme had been smuggled into the draft constitution.
He said issues to do with running mates, appointments of chiefs, National Prosecution Authority, dual citizenship and devolution among others had been smuggled into the draft yet people had rejected them.
He also said it was ‘surprising’ that issues on war veterans benefits had not been mentioned in the draft, something ZNLWVA interpreted as an attempt to disregard the enormous contribution its members made in liberating the country.
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Sibanda said the current situation where other political parties are supporting the flawed draft was a replay of what happened at Lancaster House independence negotiations in 1979.
“At Lancaster, the Patriotic Fund stood for the people but Abel Muzorewa and Ndabaningi Sithole were on the side of the whites, that is what is happening now,” he said.
Sibanda also said dual citizenship was an attempt by former colonisers to become local citizens so that they could re-claim farmland taken for resettlement.
“Europeans want to extend their citizenship into Zimbabwe. I do not want to be a citizen of two countries,” he said.
He said to put differences over the draft Constitution to rest, the National Report — which contained the views of the people — should be released.
“We are saying let us bring the National Report out so that we see what people said since it was recorded; only then we can endorse the draft,” he said.
Sibanda castigated the three COPAC chairpersons for selling out as the draft they came out with contradicted the views of the public.
He also said it was incorrect to say Zanu PF had amended the draft constitution as the party had merely ‘audited’ it to bring it into line with what the people had said.
“Zanu PF did not make an amendment. The draft was audited to bring what the people said. It is after auditing when we can come up with a draft Constitution,” he said.
He also said the draft put out by COPAC was a product of the European Union, which endorsed it before it was released to the Zimbabwean public. — New Ziana-HR.
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