| To find all articles tagged or indexed using AfricaWatch, click below: | ||||
| click here >>> | AfricaWatch | <<< click here | ||
| (To view all FR Bump Lists, click here) | ||||
Posted on 01/16/2004 2:27:23 AM PST by Clive
Decrepit and overgrown, the Johannesburg home of Robert Mugabe's vitriolic information minister, Jonathan Moyo, appeared a perfect metaphor for the state of Zimbabwe yesterday.
Dusty "For Sale" signs were stacked in the double garage as the housekeeper offered to show prospective buyers around what was once a smart seven-bedroom house in the up-market northern suburb of Saxonwold.
Mr Moyo is well known to Africans. Although once respected as a political scientist who wrote a book in the 1990s calling for multi-party democracy in Zimbabwe, he has reversed his position and since 2000 has been one of Mr Mugabe's fiercest supporters.
He is believed to have been deeply involved in the vicious state-sponsored clampdown on The Daily News, Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper. He publicly criticised the paper just 24 hours before its printing presses were blown up by unknown attackers.
His involvement in domestic politics and his growing financial problems have clearly left little time to preserve the house's potential charms. The lawn was uncut and the borders overgrown with weeds. The pool was half-full with a green slime.
The house, empty of furniture, has been at the centre of a lengthy legal battle between the financially inept Mr Moyo and some of the many people who claim he owes them money.
Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University, where Mr Moyo once worked as a researcher, claims he absconded with thousands in research money and a South African television company says he owes £10,000.
A legal writ has been issued in the Kenyan High Court against Mr Moyo by the Ford Foundation, an American educational trust that claims he stole £70,000 of its money in the late 1990s.
The house, which Mr Moyo is believed never to have lived in, was bought four years ago by the Talunoza Trust, which has Mr Moyo as the main trustee. He got into arrears about three years ago but was then able to find the necessary funds. Last year the debts began to mount and his mortgage lender, a South African bank, Nedcor, foreclosed to get back the 1.1 million rand (around £100,000) it says is outstanding.
An estate agent acting for Mr Moyo said the property had already been sold for 1.5 million rand. But the bank's lawyers have received no confirmation and the auction is going ahead.
Mr Moyo is known to have received a number of commercial farms seized under Mr Mugabe's illegal land-grab policy.
A New Year trip widely reported in the South African press saw him spending extravagantly on food and goods now unavailable in a Zimbabwe made bankrupt by Mr Mugabe's mismanagement.
But ever loyal to his master, Mr Moyo launched a fierce attack on the South African media and South Africa in general, threatening a diplomatic incident with Zimbabwe's large neighbour.
Mr Moyo is widely seen as one of the most hated people in Zimbabwe. With a penchant for flowery rhetoric, he routinely describes anyone, black or white, who dares criticise Mr Mugabe as a colonialist spy in the pay of MI6.
| To find all articles tagged or indexed using AfricaWatch, click below: | ||||
| click here >>> | AfricaWatch | <<< click here | ||
| (To view all FR Bump Lists, click here) | ||||
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.