On the day the controversial power sharing government was supposed to be sworn in, Roy Bennett, the MDC Treasurer General and Deputy Minister of Agriculture designate, was arrested.
Not a good start to the new government.
Furthermore the Mugabe regime did this under the full gaze of SADC, as the SADC chairman and South African President Kgalema Motlanthe was in Harare when the MDC official was arrested.
The MDC Secretary of Welfare, Kerry Kay, said Bennett was arrested at the Charles Prince Airport, just outside Harare. Kay said he was on his way to South Africa to visit his family and was due to return next week in time for the swearing in of Deputy Ministers.
Additionally she said a warrant of arrest had been issued for her husband, Ian Kay, who is the MDC MP for Marondera, plus another one for election expert Topper Whitehead. It is not clear why these individuals are being sought by police or why police picked up Bennett, although his arrest may be in connection with allegations made in 2006 of plotting to assassinate Robert Mugabe.
Bennett, who completely denies this charge, was forced to flee to South Africa in 2006 and had lived in exile there until his recent return to Zimbabwe at the beginning of February, to join the inclusive government as Deputy Minister of Agriculture.
Bennett is a former commercial farmer and popular MDC MP for Chimanimani, who lost both his farm and parliamentary seat as a result of serious harassment by ZANU PF. The workers on his farm were beaten and tortured by state agents and at least two died in politically motivated attacks. The MDC official also spent nearly a year in jail in 2004 for pushing Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa in parliament, after being verbally abused.
Meanwhile the MDC have been criticised for going ahead with the swearing in ceremony of the cabinet, without securing the release of their own Deputy Minister designate and scores of civic and political activists, still incarcerated at Chikurubi Maximum prison, after extreme torture.
By late afternoon Bennett had been moved from Harare to Goromonzi, then to Marondera police station and finally to Mutare police station.
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Bennet has been arrested probably because he is the Deputy Minister of Agriculture desg. perhaps people who have seized farms ar crapping on the roadside (with the hope ther is a lot of zimdollars to goaround as loo paper!!) he may have an insight to the going ons
" ... The West needs to teach the bugger more lessons. .. "
-- Perhaps you are out to hoodwink the African Child - and make the Child forsake the peoples' heroes and the peoples' deities.
-- Perhaps your faithless gods forgot to tell you.
--- Perhaps you are just dim.
--- Perhaps you are telling us something in your own circuitous way.
.
The west and the rest of the world is going through an epic financial meltdown - and the worst economic recession most can remember.
And the valiant Cde Mugabe had nothing to do with it - and certainly didn't impose inhuman, patently-caucasian economic sanction designed to precipitate the current heavy toll on their populations and social structures.
.
--- Perhaps you are telling us that at the very least you think that Cde Mugabe is not as bad as Bush, Blair, Gordon, Obama, Sarkozy, Putin and the various other Asian and European leaders.
--- Maybe you are a mental cretin lacking the aptitude to read the world news online and figure out a few things about where you fit into the wider picture.
--- Maybe you really wish to praise our hero Cde Mugabe and recognize the resiliency of the valiant and patriotic people of maZimbabwe, but you just don't know how.
Maybe you are a plain, old nitwit.
The comment:
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Author: chokora Sun Feb 22 20:39:08 2009
" ... The West needs to teach the bugger more lessons. ..
---
is disconnected from the right thread.
This comment is in response to
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Author: kjrs120 -- Sun Feb 22 09:07:14 2009
" .. the great WORRIER of Africa, Mugabe, .."
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If Bennett could be arrested on trumped up charges of plotting to assassinate criminal Mugabe, the latter should also be arrested for innumerable crimes, such as the killing of thousands of pro-democracy activists, intimidating over 4 million MDC supporters into exile in neighbouring countries, failing to take adequate measures to prevent the spreading of cholera, etc.
What we are witnessing is not the extension of a hand of friendship or olive branch, but crudely put it's a ZANU-PF plot to harrass MDC-T ministers and Deputies just to prevent them from doing a good job bringing immediate relief to suffering Zimbos.
The GNU is what has saved Mugabe from being dragged before the ICC, but Mugabe will do everything to spoil the GNU.
His senility and lunatic mind is beyond any repairs now. He should be kept hands and feet tied or else he may kill himself! We need him fit to face the ICC.
Bennet's arrest is the perfect opportunity for the new government to demonstrate commitment to the rule of law. Assuming that the arrest was needless and unlawful, the law should take its course and get Bennet freed and then he must sue for unlawful arrest. This will then create the precedent for better respect of people's rights.
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