A former cabinet minister and senior Zanu PF official, Rurare Gumbo, has described the late former President Robert Mugabe as a cruel and autocratic leader.

The former Economic Development Minister says Mugabe was power hungry as he never tolerated any form of opposition during and after the country’s liberation struggle of the 1960s.

Gumbo was expelled from the party in 2015 for allegedly conniving with former vice president Joyce Mujuru, to topple Mugabe and remains bitter to this day.

Gumbo in previous interviews also spoke out against former President Robert Mugabe alleging that he ill-treated political rivals who differed with him during the Second Chimurenga war of liberation.

Gumbo narrated one such experience in which he and fellow liberation war fighters Henry Hamadziripi, former police commissioner general Augustine Chihuri, former ZBC chief executive Happison Muchechetere and Mukudzei Mudzi were subjected to torture and inhumane treatment.

In an interview Gumbo said;

“We were treated like dogs. We spent at least three months detained in holes dug in an open place which were closed from the top at about 5 pm, only to be reopened the following morning.”

“The holes were six metres deep and four metres wide. It was hell on earth and we all thought we were going to die.

“At one point the holes were filled with soil and only our heads were left protruding out. But we all survived the ordeal.”

In an interview with VOA’s Zimbabwe Service after Mugabe’s death, Gumbo, however gives credit to Mugabe for prioritizing education, and giving land to blacks, though he says the process was disorderly.