Fugitive Zimbabwean business tycoon Billy Rautenbach, who is also a top ally of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party, has been given up to May to vacate his farm as the government appears determined to seize all land still in the hands of whites.
Rautenbach, wanted in neighbouring South Africa in connection with fraud involving billions of rands, was among the few white landowners who survived Mugabe’s farm seizures on account of their close connections with Zanu-PF.
But the controversial tycoon, who has in the past denied having links with Zanu-PF politicians, is on a list of white farm owners from Mashonaland West province given up to May to surrender their land to the government for redistribution to blacks.
“It has been resolved that you move out of the farm on 14 May 2006 as the land reform is being finalised,” reads part of the eviction order to Rautenbach and other white farmers that was shown to independent news service ZimOnline at the weekend.
Rautenbach, who has extensive interests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), could not be reached for comment on the matter.
The Governor of Mashonaland West province, Nelson Samkange, who sanctions land seizures in the area, said there is nothing special about the move to take Rautenbach’s farm, adding that the tycoon will just have to vacate the property if it has been listed for seizure by the government.
“He [Rautenbach] must go if his farm has been listed for acquisition,” said Samkange.
Rautenbach, who spends most of his time in Harare after fleeing South Africa’s Scorpions anti-crime unit, is said to be connected to former Zimbabwe parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is locked in a vicious struggle with former army general Solomon Mujuru for control of Zanu-PF after Mugabe steps down in two years’ time.
Zanu-PF insiders indicated that Rautenbach may have been targeted for eviction as part of the power struggle in the ruling party.
The tycoon, who ran cobalt-mining ventures in the DRC at the height of that country’s civil war, is alleged to have committed various crimes, including fraud relating to the conduct of his Hyundai motor-vehicle importation business when he was still head of Hyundai South Africa.
South African authorities are said to be pressing for Rautenbach’s extradition from Zimbabwe to face trial for the alleged crimes.
IMF is the ‘devil’
Meanwhile, Mugabe has likened the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the devil, days after his country managed to avert expulsion by clearing its critical debt arrears.
In a late-night interview on Sunday with state television ahead of his 82nd birthday on Tuesday, Mugabe said former colonial power Britain had tried to turn the IMF into a “political monster” to bring about regime change in the country.
“The British wanted to use the fact of our owing the IMF… to bring about, you know, a change of the regime here,” Mugabe claimed. “It’s only in regard to Zimbabwe that the IMF became this political monster that we saw rearing its head in order to consume us,” he said.
Last week Zimbabwe paid back the last nine million US dollars of debt arrears it owed to the IMF’s General Resources Account.
The world body had threatened to expel Zimbabwe if the debt, dating back to 2001, was not cleared by March.
Zimbabwe still owes the IMF around $120-million in arrears under a less critical account — the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility.
In Sunday’s interview, Mugabe said the IMF “had never worked in the interests of Zimbabwe” and likened the institution to the devil.
“We’ve paid back. Yes, that’s their money. If you borrow money from the devil you must know you’re indebted to him and it’s his money — otherwise the devil will devour you and you’ve no excuse.”
Zimbabwe’s central bank governor Gideon Gono has been making strenuous efforts to clear the country’s name with the IMF.
Zimbabwe has not been lent any money from the IMF since August 1999.
For the past six years this once prosperous Southern African country has been dogged by critical shortages of hard cash needed to pay for medical drugs, fuel and power. Inflation is over 600%, and poverty is deepening.
Mugabe also criticised African leaders for failing to stand up to the West, saying they need to show “more courage” in confronting foreign governments.
“None of them will stand up and say: ‘Go to hell, our judgement is final and our eyes are as good as yours if not better’. They will not say that,” Mugabe said.
“They will just keep quiet and this baffles me. We need more courage in the African Union. We can’t be slaves again,” said Mugabe.
He was referring to the failure of fellow African leaders to speak out when western observers questioned the fairness of elections in his country last year.
“What one notices is a kind of surrender to European authority, I suppose because of poverty. We withdraw and shrink instead of asserting our rights,” said Mugabe.
Elections in 2000, 2002 and 2005 in Zimbabwe were condemned by western observers as undemocratic.
In power since Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain in 1980, Mugabe is the last of the 1960s nationalists still in power in Southern Africa.
He has indicated he would step down at the expiry of his current term in 2008 but has not named his successor.
The state-owned Herald newspaper on Monday quoted Mugabe as saying Zanu-PF would choose the next leader at an appropriate time.
“I think when the moment has come they will be able to do it,” Mugabe said of his ruling party.
“You will always get this vying for power. They should go about it the right way. There is time to campaign but campaign at the right time and not become divisive and over-ambitious, with secret meetings taking place and denouncing and denigrating others…”
Last year Mugabe fired former information minister Jonathan Moyo and suspended several ruling party officials for holding a secret meeting to oppose the nomination of Joyce Mujuru as his Vice-President. – Sapa-AFP, ZimOnline