Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo has urged traditional chiefs to banish "people who support homosexuality" from their communities and take away their land.
The ZANU PF MP was addressing villagers in Lupane who had come to witness the installation of Chief Mabhikwa Khumalo last Thursday.
"The chiefs are there to protect and promote our cultural values and those who support same sex marriages must be banished from the communities and be dispossessed of their land. What kind of madness is this that when we have beautiful women in our country some people want to marry other men," he said.
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) condemned the remarks saying: "Such utterances will give rise to an increase in incidents of harassment, persecution, as well as unlawful arbitrary evictions and seizure of property," all of which violate national, regional and international human rights.
The lawyers said: "Chombo's appetite for forced evictions, especially in the month of May, is reminiscent of the scorched earth programme of Operation Murambatsvina which had far-reaching consequences on a large portion of the Zimbabwean population."
In 2005 Mugabe's regime sanctioned a large scale campaign to forcibly clear so-called slum areas and 'illegally' built structures across the country. According to United Nations estimates over 700,000 people were affected directly through loss of their homes or livelihoods, while a another 2,4 million were affected indirectly.
The ZLHR say the latest remarks by Chombo underline the blatant disrespect for the rule of law and "the lack of sincerity by a minister from a political party which pretends to support economic and social justice." Almost 7 years after Operation Murambatsvina some victims still live in plastic shacks without basic services.
"Chombo should be ashamed of his, and the government's failure to provide adequate alternative accommodation and/or compensation to those people who were left homeless and jobless almost 7 years ago," the lawyers group said.
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If for some reason, the white colonial community had passed a ruling that all blacks who are gay should be turned out of their homes and banished somewhere, what would have been the reaction of black nationalists? To be honest, that would have met with an angry outcry and rightly so. But now the Zimbabwean black neo-colonialists are threatening to even take away land from those who support gays - in other words those who realize that being gay is not a crime but a human sexual orientation acquired THROUGH BIRTH. Just as NO ONE HAS ANY CONTROL as to whether their child is born male or female, the parents of gay children too do not have that same control.The baby is born gay and that's it. And guess what? That baby is a human being to be accorded its human rights like everyone else. Yes, I know some of you will be throwing some Bible verses in response but cast the stone only if you are a super human being. The straight community which thinks it is a better human being steals, lies, fornicates, rapes, murders and does abominable things to other human beings. Just recently a Zimbabwean "vet" raped and murdered its young daughter and so is that behaviour acceptable? How come no one is talking of chasing this man from his home after committing such a crime. You have nothing better to do as useless jackasses who have failed to run your country sending it to the latrine except pick on gay people. Bullies target those minorities who cannot fight back.
I would like to make a small but meaningful correction to what I have just said. One of the sentences should have read, "You, Minister Ignatius Chombo and your colleagues, have nothing better to do as useless jackasses" etc etc. the reason being that I am outraged as one who is convinced that gay people are born that way. I am outraged too because as Zimbabweans we are one people and when we start to pick at each other, where will it end? Which group is going to be next? The very next thing is that it will be on tribal grounds and war on our whole country.
Emm2497;
You are a misguided idiot!! You are a stupid zealot!! Have you bothered to check the dictionary meaning of the word 'homosexuality'? I doubt it because you are just like an ignoramus fool that has just been placed on a computer and asked to start typing.
Your uncleverness becomes worse when you state categorically that homosexuality "is not a crime but a human sexual orientation acquired THROUGH BIRTH". REALLY! In other words you are saying that a person (be it man or woman) has no control over which sex to be attracted to because this is "acquired at/through birth". This is a PURE LIE and it is silly, stupid, idiotic and foolish to say the least!!
A baby born a boy or girl is, by nature, attracted to another baby of the opposite sex - no two ways about it. Even a baby born with both sexes has one that is more powerful than the other and that is the sex of the baby. There is no room to say such a baby has no known sex because s/he has both organs.
There is, thus, no room to say "gay people are born that way". A "gay" person is defined as a man that is attracted to another man or a man who performs sexual activities with another of the same sex. A lesbian, on the other hand, is a girl or woman who is attracted to another of the same sex. There is no talk of this having been "acquired through birth".
The dictionary definition of homosexuality is "Sexual attraction, orientation, relation or activity with or to a member, a person or another of the same sex. There is no talk of there being no control of that activity. After all, it is an activity, relation, attraction or orientation that manifests itself in adult life and not at birth. Thus, it becomes more of a psychological problem than anything else – not something acquired at or "through birth" - as you would like us to believe.
Nobody has ever said that gays and lesbians are not human beings but to accord them special rights is to make them a special species which they are not. They are human like you and me and so they should enjoy the same rights that we all enjoy.
Homosexuality is an attraction and not a physical deformity like someone with no or thin leg(s) or hand(s), with no eye(s) or what have you. Homosexuality is a sexual feeling within someone that goes to one of his own sex or gender. Therefore, there is no right that extends or that should extend to a man pushing his organ (penis) into the anus of another man - such kind of a right is diabolic, satanic, and devilish and is barbaric.
We should never accept a new definition for homosexuality because that would mean or is tantamount to accepting or allowing Satan to define what God forbids and/or what he allows. The Holy Spirit has clearly and unambiguously stated or defined homosexuality as abhorrent and diabolic and it is clear that anyone, any people, any community, any country or any continent that practices this abominable and abhorrent act shall be destroyed as happened with Sodom and Gomorrah.