Zimbabwe’s justice minister and a leading white opposition lawmaker traded blows in Parliament on Tuesday allegedly over racial insults during a debate over changing the country’s laws concerning livestock theft.
Roy Bennett from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) charged at Patrick Chinamasa, the parliamentary leader of the ruling Zanu-PF legislators and Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister as he was making comments that ”agitated” Bennett.
”Again for the umpteenth time, he [Chinamasa] took attack and threw racial and all sorts of abuse at me. I confronted him and pushed. He fell over,” said Bennett, one of the three white MPs in the 150-member Parliament.
”Didymus Mutasa [the anti-corruption minister] kicked me from behind and I turned and pushed him,” said Bennett.
”These things get to you and you react and that is what I did today. I don’t regret it,” Bennett said.
”Whatever the consequences, I am ready to die for Zimbabwe. I am a Zimbabwean, I am not a white man, I am not a black man,” he said.
A correspondent for the state-run Ziana news agency said Bennett ”grabbed Chinamasa by the throat, shook him violently and pushed him to the ground.
”While the minister was struggling to sit up, Bennett charged at him again, stood with his legs spread over him and threatened to assault him further,” he said.
MDC leader of the house and party vice-president Gibson Sibanda apologised to Chinamasa and the Parliament speaker, saying his party did not condone such ”unfortunate” behaviour, Ziana said.
”Roy Bennett assaulted the minister of justice,” said Joram Gumbo the chief whip of the governing Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF).
”He left his seat and came shouting towards Chinamasa and he shoved him to the ground,” said Gumbo. ”I ran to the aid of the minister and held his head to prevent it from hitting against a table.”
Several other opposition legislators tried to pacify Bennett. An opposition MP who did not want his name used said that Chinamasa’s comments had enraged Bennett, whose farm was recently seized by government under its controversial land reforms programme.
”Chinamasa got personal about Bennett saying his grandfather stole the land from blacks and that he should not dream of going back to that farm. It was very provocative, abusive and arrogant,” the lawmaker said.
Chinamasa could not be immediately reached for comment.
Bennett said he was opposed to the changes to the proposed law that was being discussed during the altercation which will make it a mandatory for anyone convicted of livestock theft to be imprisoned for nine years.
The lawmaker said he had argued against the mandatory jail sentence because it was too heavy for starving people trying for fend for their families in a country whose economy is in ruins.
He alleged that while Parliament was making laws, no one was observing them.
”You want to pass laws in Parliament, when outside there is no law,” he said in reference to developments at his farm that has been taken over regardless of several court orders that allow him to return to his property. – Sapa-AFP