Zimbabwe charges for possessing two-way radios

CFP ^ | January 21, 2005 | CFP

[MikeEdwards]

Harare - Zimbabwe authorities have resuscitated a three-year-old charge for a minor misdemeanour against the wife of a jailed opposition MP, her lawyer said on Wednesday. Heather Bennett, whose campaign for the release of her husband, Roy, has aroused international condemnation against President Robert Mugabe's regime, was summoned to appear in court Tuesday on charges of possessing two-way radios without a licence, said lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa. The radios were discovered during a police raid on a farm that Bennett, MP for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, was living on in 2003, she said, and the summons that arrived last week was the first sign of official action since the raid. "One wonders why they are resuscitating this now," said Mtetwa. Said Mrs Bennett: "It's just harassment. It's definitely a political thing." On October 28 last year, Zimbabwe's Parliament, dominated by Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF MPs, voted to send the Bennett to jail for a year for shoving justice minister Patrick Chinamasa to the ground during a debate in chamber in which the minister called Bennett's ancestors thieves and murderers. The 47-year-old white MP, one of the most popular political figures in the country, said Chinamasa's insults were the final straw in a four-year campaign of lawless intimidation against him, his family and the workers on his farm in south-east Zimbabwe. Two of his staff have been murdered by security forces and scores of others were tortured and driven from their homes as the state illegally seized his farm and soldiers and police stole his cattle and crops. . . . .

[headsonpikes]

More good news from Zim!

[seppel]

Zim facts:

Fact/Statistic 1982 1992 Estimate for 2002

People With HIV/AIDS 3% 10% 33.7%

Unemployment Rate 13% 35% 80%

Exchange Rate $1 = Z$1 $1 = Z$2.5 $1 = Z$1,300

Number of People Facing Starvation 400,000 100,000 7.2 million

People Living in Poverty N/A 25.5% 75%

Agricultural Annual Growth 3.5% 2% - 12%

Life Expectancy (in years) 51.8 41.35 37.7

Source: IMF World Bank (2002)

South Africa and Rhodesia were slammed with international snactions instituted by western libs in UNO, EU and US gov, even though the countries, and per definition the blacks living in them, prospered under white rule.

Mugabe gets a wrist slap for crimes far worse than anything done under previous white governments.

[Semper Paratus]

Will wait in vain for an international boycott of the former Southern Rhodesia as was done to pre-ANC South Africa.

[VeritatisSplendor]

I have never understood why the white farmers didn't leave many years ago, when it became obvious how evil Mugabe was. The ones who stayed and are now losing everything they have were well-meaning but politically stupid (which, as John Derbyshire has pointed out, is a distinct form of stupidity that is not correlated with other forms of stupidity).