Mugabe land grab leader at UK university

The Sunday Times ^ | December 8, 2002 | Tom Walker

[MadIvan]

TUCKING into a McDonald’s burger in south London last week, Chris Pasipamire did not look like one of the war veterans who organised the farm seizures ordered in Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe.

Wearing a leather jacket and three bangles representing the Shona spirits of his homeland, Pasipamire shook his head in apparent despair at the violence that has brought Zimbabwean agriculture to a standstill.

Pasipamire, 44, said he had come to Britain to study for a doctorate in land reform, preferably at Greenwich University, so that he could help achieve “peaceful coexistence with whites”.

A different impression of Pasipamire emerged, however, from the white commercial farmers of the Mazowe valley, northwest of Harare. Many of them are frightened even to discuss his role during the past two years of mayhem as Mugabe has gone about confiscating white-owned land by force and redistributing it among blacks.

Until he came to Britain 10 days ago, Pasipamire was a leading member of the Harare land allocation committee, helping to move at least 15 farmers off their land. A spokesman for the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) described Pasipamire as “a well-known troublemaker who drives the farm occupations”. White farmers still grimly hanging onto their properties in Mazowe called him a “ringleader”.

At one farm, he is said to have pranced in front of the dispossessed owner, smoking a cigar and drinking a gin and tonic. His conduct on an estate called Mayfield, which he has taken over himself in the carve-up, gave rise to more serious allegations.

Pasipamire and 12 youths from the ruling Zanu-PF party were charged with assaulting resettled farmers and farm workers. Harare magistrates dropped the charges in September after an important witness died.

Confronted with the allegations last week, Pasipamire denied farmers’ claims that he had used Zanu-PF’s youth brigades to establish control over the 280-acre Mayfield property and said the charges against him had been “a set-up”.

He also rejected CFU claims that he had co-ordinated violence against farmers with two other war veteran leaders, Endy Mhlanga and Patrick Nyaruwata. “They were given a farm between the two of them, and are nothing to do with me,” he said. “I advised them that whatever they negotiate should be proper and legal.”

Pasipamire said his land allocation committee worked on the same principle. “We moved as a team with the police,” he said. “We would explain to the farmer concerned, ‘Your farm has been acquired,’ and we received various reactions. Some co-operated, some were very hostile. Others had friends in the system.

“There was no forcing — it was a matter of just informing them of the procedures. In the case of a problem we would send the police again to get the message over. Any inconveniences are regretted.”

Pasipamire is an articulate man with an easy smile. He was educated at Mugabe’s old Roman Catholic school in Kutama before studying political science at the University of Rhodesia. In the mid-1970s he worked as a journalist campaigning against the regime of Ian Smith. During Zimbabwe’s war of independence, he was wounded by a bazooka in 1979 near the Mozambique border. “I think it was an accidental discharge from our side,” he said.

In 1981 his political career took off as he represented Zimbabwe at an international youth conference in Yugoslavia. After completing his masters degree at Birmingham, where he concentrated on local government planning, he returned home and in 1989 was elected to the ruling body of the Harare District War Veterans’ Association. He was diagnosed as disabled from shrapnel wounds. This entitled him to compensation equivalent to £21,000 at the time.

CFU officials said they were horrified that Pasipamire had been able to obtain a visa from the British high commission in Harare when Mugabe and 78 other members of the Zanu-PF elite are barred from the European Union. “It’s disgraceful that he is in Britain,” said one. “He has been the frontrunner in the trouble in Mazowe. If there’s any blacklist he should be very high up it.”

But Pasipamire insists he has been wrongly labelled as a thug and has every right to be in Britain.

“I’ve never been involved in farm invasions,” he said. “Isolating Zimbabwe is not correct. A lot of us are being turned away. It’s getting childish, and we need a policy of more positive engagement.”

Positive engagement is the last description the farmer who alleges Pasipamire drank and smoked in front of him would have used. Browsing through his Greenwich prospectus, however, Pasipamire was unruffled.

“I might smoke a cigar but if I drink I do so in my own house only after 7pm,” he said. “And I don’t drink gin and tonic — only whisky.”

[MadIvan]

He should be detained at the very least. If the court in the Hague is there to try crimes against humanity, why not put this blighter in front of it?

Regards, Ivan

Flag of Rhodesia

[MadIvan]

Bump!

[muawiyah]

The Brits only have guts to arrest senile old Chilean dictators these days. They wouldn't dare lay hands on a young fellow in his prime unless, for example, they wanted to "make a date" for an assignation somewhere, eh?!

[lilylangtree]

He's damage control over Mugabe's illegal and treacherous actions. He also appears to portray himself and his actions as victims rather than perpetrators. He may also try to set himself up as the Zimbabweans savior against Mugabe in the eyes of the world. But he's another two-bit wannabe dictator just waiting in the wings. He'll play himself as the lesser of two evils. Sheesh!

[razorback-bert]

study for a doctorate in land reform, preferably at Greenwich University

Is there really a degree offered in land reform?