Zimbabwe’s Army on Wednesday said it has President Robert Mugabe and his wife in custody and is securing Government offices in a bid for smooth transition of power, and claimed it’s not a coup. But war veterans praised the military for “a bloodless correction of gross abuse of power”.
Mugabe’s decades-long grip on power appeared to be fading as military vehicles blocked roads outside Parliament in Harare and senior soldiers delivered a late-night television address to the nation. “The President... And his family are safe and sound and their security is guaranteed,” Major General Sibusiso Moyo said.
For the first time, this southern African nation is seeing the military oppose the 93-year-old Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state and one of the longest-serving authoritarian rulers.