How Mugabe’s racist scum provoked Roy Bennett

Original Post Date: 2004-05-21 Time: 15:39:46  Posted By: Jan

[Minister said Bennet’s forefathers were theives… yet Bennett bought his farm in 1983 (under black rule). Note how the blacks used racist name-calling of their own. Jan]

Listeners to the VOA Studio 7 broadcast were yesterday treated to another bravura performance by Didymus Mutasa – the honourable minister of corruption, and he of the infamous “let them starve” speech. The subject was the recent parliamentary fracas which started with Roy Bennett – an opposition MP – losing his temper, and finished with two honourable ministers – Mutasa, and his colleague Patrick Chinamasa – flat on the floor. The most immediate context of the broadcast was the Zanu rent-a-mob which had just finished attacking the Harare offices of the opposition party, injuring at least one person, after baying for Bennett’s head outside parliament – egged on by two other honourable ministers, Amos Midzi and Witness Mangwende. Bennett, Mutasa informed us, was “mad member of parliament charging at everybody he found”. Pressed by the interviewer that Bennett may have been provoked by Chinamasa calling him a cattle thief, Mutasa’s response was: “What’s wrong with that? That’s what politics is all about, and you don’t get into politics to be easily provoked, and then to take such terrible action and turn mad. We deplore that very, very strongly.”

Let’s put that “terrible action” into context. This is how Hansard’s rather sanitised account reports what Chinamasa said: “He forgets that his forefathers were thieves. And he forgets that what he owns – the whole of Chimanimani – was not because of his intelligence but was a legacy…That is an inheritance of stolen wealth accumulated over a century-and-a-half. I want to warn him that we have taken over Charleswood Farm, and he must not set foot again on that ground.” “Bennett – I hope you are listening. Your forefathers were thieves whether they came here in 1890 or stayed in England.” Insulting enough, when one considers that Bennett bought Charleswood Farm in 1983, with a certificate of No Present Interest from the government, and only bought the farm after consultation with the local traditional leaders, who consented to his purchase. The property comprises 7000 acres, of which 300 are arable and the remainder mountainside. Hardly the whole of Chimanimani. Charleswood is designated an Export Processing Zone – it exported coffee – and there is a tourist lodge on the land built with South African foreign investment. Both these businesses generated employment and foreign currency.

To put this in context, Mutasa has spent the last few months investigating his honourable party colleagues, caught with their fingers in the foreign currency till. Chinamasa’s ministry has been chasing a handful of them through the courts. They, and their party, have no grounds to call Bennett a thief. To give even more context, what Hansard fails to report is that Chinamasa called Bennett “mabhunu”. The word in literal terms means white man, and is derived from the Afrikaans word for farmer. But it is also a racist term of abuse, equivalent in its meaning, in reverse, to the k-word or the n-word. And this is not the only provocation which Bennett has received. Charleswood Farm was first invaded on 19 May 2000, in the run-up to the general election in which Bennett, a “mabhunu” in an overwhelming black constituency, was elected to parliament. In the violence, Mrs Bennett, pregnant at the time, was kidnapped. Four days later, the foetal heartbeat stopped, and the baby later miscarried. For four years, the CIO and the army have run riot in the area, lead by Joseph Mwale, an outstanding Zanu thug. In the process, one Charleswood employee has been murdered, two raped, and over 200 beaten senseless. For four years, Bennett has fought the violence through the courts. He has won no less than six court orders confirming his ownership of Charleswood, and his and his employees’ right to be left in peace. The last two of the court decisions were made “with consent” i.e. the Attorney General’s office did not contest them.

In the face of four years of attacks, Bennett finally lost his self-restraint. He did not rape or kill or beat anyone senseless. Yet Mutasa yesterday blatantly licensed mob violence against him. “We are just letting the events unfold in the country,” Mutasa said. “If people go violent against Bennett and if he gets hurt in the process, it is his own outlook. That is what he has been inviting, and he’s going to have it.” Many millions of Zimbabweans have similarly endured what has been thrown at them by their own government – loss of livelihood, loss of home, loss of dignity, loss of loved ones. By Mutasa’s twisted logic, there are an awful lot of people who have “brought things upon themselves”. One more piece of contextual background. Readers of a certain age may dimly recall a previous honourable minister in a previous regime. Like Mutasa, P K van der Byl liked to cultivate his image as the blunt-talking hard man in a party he regarded as full of wimps. Like Chinamasa, van der Byl’s highly polished self-regard was once ever present. Who remembers van der Byl now? The honourable ministers should not forget.

Source: ZWNEWS.COM

xxxxx Sign Up