STATEMENT BY RETIRED GENERALS AND SENIOR CIVIL SERVANTS OF ZIMBABWE:
Air Marshal Henry Muchena (Retired)
For and on behalf of Retired Generals and Senior Civil Servants
8 July 2026
Fellow Zimbabweans,
It has come to our attention that on 7 July 2026, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe signed Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 into law. It is now Constitutional Amendment No. 3. It was gazetted on the same day.
Our collective conscience will not allow us to remain silent while the Constitution is dismantled in silence by a few.
This is not a minor amendment. It is not an administrative adjustment. It is an assault on the constitutional covenant made in 2013 by the people of Zimbabwe, through negotiation, national consensus and referendum.
That Constitution belongs to the people. It does not belong to a President. It does not belong to Parliament. It does not belong to any political party, faction, benefactor or unelectable cabal seeking refuge in legal manipulation.
Let us call this by its true name. Zimbabwe has, in spirit if not in form, returned to the dark logic of 11 November 1965, when a small circle abrogated to itself the power to redefine the law without reference to the governed. Then it was called UDI. Today it wears the clothing of constitutional amendment. The principle is the same: power has placed itself above the people.
Put simply, we are now being asked to live under a Constitution altered not by the sovereign will of the people, but by the decree of those who fear that will. The law is being made to serve power, instead of power submitting to law. The black majority, once again, is being told that it may vote, but may not choose. That is the deepest betrayal.
CAB 3, now Constitutional Amendment No. 3, is vulgar. It is an abomination. It offends the spirit of liberation, the discipline of constitutionalism, and the promise made to every Zimbabwean that never again would the destiny of this nation be arranged by a few men and women behind closed doors.
The merchants of this amendment claimed they were curing toxicity in our body politic. In truth, they have poured poison into the constitutional bloodstream. They sold vinegar as wine. They sat in the shadows, drafted this thing, voted it into law, and betrayed the constituencies that sent them to Parliament on a different mandate.
Those who used the mandate of the people to diminish the power of the people must be judged accordingly. They have taken from Zimbabweans one of the most sacred democratic rights: the right to choose the direction in which this country must be governed.
We make no pretence of prescribing every step that must now follow. But this much is plain: Zimbabweans must now organise, mobilise and use every lawful method available to resist and reject this constitutional abomination. Silence is no longer neutrality. Silence is complicity.
This Constitution was born out of struggle, sacrifice and national expectation. It must not be surrendered to political convenience. It must not be surrendered to fear. It must not be surrendered to those who treat the Republic as their private inheritance.
We did not spend our careers defending this nation’s institutions to now watch them destroyed under colour of legality. Our resistance must be disciplined. It must be lawful. It must be relentless.
History is watching. Let it record that when the hour came, we did not flinch, and we did not break the law to save it.
I thank you.
Air Marshal Henry Muchena (Retired)
For and on behalf of Retired Generals and Senior Civil Servants