Zimbabwe’s new finance minister said on Saturday a top opposition figure’s arrest showed President Robert Mugabe’s party was not ready to work with its former rivals in a freshly sworn in unity government.
Following ministerial nominee Roy Bennett’s arrest Friday on what his party says were treason charges, Tendai Biti said the move was an ominous start for the unity government sworn in the same day.
”Bennett’s arrest proves what we have always argued: that Zanu-PF is not yet ready to work with anyone,” said Biti, referring to Mugabe’s party.
However Biti, who has been the Zimbabwe opposition’s number two and faced treason charges himself in the past, said he and Bennett’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party had no choice but to remain in the government.
”Whoever ordered his arrest is not a friend of Zimbabwe. What it does is to shake any semblance of a foundation for the inclusive government,” said Biti.
”Pulling out does not offer any solution. Sadly we are forced to stay in this arrangement for the sake of the people of Zimbabwe.”
Bennett, designated to become deputy agriculture minister, is to be questioned by police on treason charges later on Saturday, his lawyer said.
”Lawyers representing Roy Bennett have been told that they can only see him at 2pm, the MDC said in a statement.
”We demand the respect of Roy Bennett’s basic human rights and his immediate unconditional release unharmed,” said the MDC in a statement.
His arrest came shortly before Mugabe swore in new ministers for the unity government and cast doubt on the credibility of a power-sharing accord.
The unity government will see the country’s bitter enemies attempt to work together to pull Zimbabwe out of a deep crisis marked by hunger, the world’s highest inflation rate and a deadly cholera epidemic.
Bennett, arrested at an airport on the outskirts of Harare, is a coffee farmer from Chimanimani, a lush region near the border with Mozambique.
He had returned last month from three years of self-imposed exile in South Africa, where he had fled to escape charges of plotting to kill Mugabe.
He was initially charged with attempting to leave the country illegally, but the charge was later changed to treason, according to his party.
Bennett was among the most striking names on new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s cabinet list.
His Charleswood farm was expropriated under Mugabe’s land reforms in 2003, and the following year he was jailed for eight months for assault after he punched the justice minister during a heated debate in parliament on the land programme.
On Friday evening, police fired shots in the air to disperse a crowd of MDC supporters who were gathered outside Mutare police station asking for Bennett’s release, his lawyer said.
One analyst said Bennett’s arrest seemed to reflect concerns from within Mugabe’s ruling party as it begins sharing power for the first time.
”The arrest mirrors divisions among the top brass of the long-ruling party who are not happy about losing power,” said Daniel Makina, a Zimbabwe analyst at the University of South Africa. ”Some of them are against the change.”
Regional leaders pressured Mugabe and Tsvangirai into the power-sharing deal to end nearly a year of political turmoil following disputed elections last March.
They are meant to work together to battle nationwide food shortages, a cholera epidemic that has killed 3 400 people and inflation estimated in multiples of billions.
An estimated three million Zimbabweans have fled the country’s economic and political instability, and are now supporting their families with remittances of both cash and food. – AFP
