HARARE – Zimbabwe army commanders have put severe restrictions on issuance of weapons, fearing possible mutiny by disgruntled junior soldiers who have staged riots and looted property in recent months, sources told ZimOnline.

Soldiers going on national assignments were now being vetted thoroughly before they are issued with arms and ammunition, according to our sources, who are senior officers in the army and spoke on condition they were not named.

They said the decision to be extra-careful about who gets issued with guns was taken last December soon after some disgruntled soldiers rioted, looting clothes and cash in central Harare and demanding that their salaries be paid in foreign currency.

“We are now being vetted before we sign for guns and sent for national duty. They began monitoring the behaviour of individual soldiers after the riots,” said a soldier based at 2 Brigade Cranborne Barracks in Harare.

A colonel at Inkomo Barracks on Harare’s northwestern border said: “It has never been easy accessing arms from the armoury but with what is going on in the army, it was decided that more stringent measures be put in place. We don’t want arms to fall into the wrong hands.”

The colonel added that as an additional precautionary measure commanders constantly rotated soldiers deployed on national duty to ensure no group of soldiers stays together away from barracks for long enough to plot any act of serious disobedience.

Soldiers deployed to flush out illegal miners at the Chiadzwa diamond field in the eastern Manicaland province were rotated regularly, according to the colonel.

Army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Simon Tsatsi was not immediately available for comment on the matter.

Unconfirmed reports say several soldiers have been held in military detention on allegations of planning to topple President Robert Mugabe’s administration. Some of the soldiers are accused of having links with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

MDC secretary for security and intelligence Giles Mutsekwa said the new vetting of soldiers showed that the military top brass no longer trusted the ordinary trooper who is as unhappy as every citizen is over worsening economic hardships in the country.

“I have heard of the vetting and once you don’t trust your safety with the people who are supposed to protect you then you have a serious problem,” said Mutsekwa, himself a former soldier.

In the past few weeks, soldiers have looted shops and cash around the country saying their salaries were too little to feed them. Soldiers have joined teachers, nurses and doctors in demanding the government pays them in hard cash.

Last week, a group of about 15 armed soldiers looted a shop belonging to MDC legislator for Mkoba, Amos Chibaya, at Mabika Shopping Centre in Chivi in Mlidlands province saying they were hungry.

This was after another group raided central bank Governor Gideon Gono’s farm in Norton and forcibly took 175 chickens valued at US$787.50.

Last month some soldiers looted clothes and cash in Harare and only stopped after the army and police launched joint patrols in the city. Soldiers are demanding their pay in foreign currency.

These incidents underline the deep discontent within Mugabe's of about 25 000 men and women that has also suffered massive desertion by soldiers fleeing to neighbouring countries where they earn better working as security guards.

Analysts rule out the possibility of well-paid top army generals staging a coup against Mugabe. But they have always speculated that worsening hunger could at some point force the underpaid ordinary trooper to either openly revolt or to simply refuse to defend the government should Zimbabweans rise up in a civil rebellion. – ZimOnline