non-partisanship. ZANU-PF has rejected MDC calls for legislation to regulate the operations of the CIO and have denied that soldiers were being deployed across the country for partisan political purposes. On May 9, 2013, ZANU-PF Spokesperson Rugare Gumbo, told Human Rights Watch: The leaders of Zimbabwe's security forces that we have today did not just emerge out of the blue, they have a history, one of the liberation struggle to overthrow the Rhodesian colonial regime of Ian Smith. You cannot expect them to be non-partisan and neutral. It would be unfair to say the security forces should be impartial given our history of the liberation struggle. The perception is that the MDC is sponsored by the British through the Westminster Foundation to effect regime change in Zimbabwe so our security forces cannot be neutral in light of that. They simply cannot. You cannot expect the leaders of the security forces to fold their arms and be silent in the face of threats of regime change by puppets of western governments.73 On April 20, 2013, the minister of state security, Sydney Sekeramayi, of ZANU-PF, told a provincial party meeting in Marondera, Mashonaland East province, that government would never accept outside calls for security sector reform. He said: Our security sector, comprising the Zimbabwe National Army, the Air Force of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Republic Police, to some extent the Zimbabwe Prison Services and the intelligence services, are professional bodies whose performance is acknowledged even outside Zimbabwe. These are bodies which are headed by some of our most illustrious commanders during the liberation struggle. But, because these commanders are the ones who piloted the freedom of this country, those that we conquered don’t want to see them…They don’t want them to be in command position and we are saying that to all intents and purposes it’s a lot of nonsense [and] we will not accept it. If there is anything that has to be done in terms of the quality of our defense and security forces, we are the ones to do it. Nobody should sit in London or elsewhere and tell us to do security sector 73 Human Rights Watch interview with ZANU-PF Spokesperson, Rugare Gumbo, Harare, May 9, 2013. 31 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH │ MAY 2013