This contribution was made in flat contravention of a law just enacted by Mugabe forbidding foreign donations to Zimbabwean political parties, a law which is being used to hound the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and prevent it from gaining support abroad for its challenge to Mugabe in the coming presidential election. Gadaafi, who has never tolerated an opposition party, is unlikely to have been bothered by this contradiction. However, the Sunday Times has learnt, Gadaafi's aid went some way beyond this. The purchase of Gracelands was in itself a financial coup for Mugabe. He was built the house for his wife Grace withe Z$6 million he stole from the Pay-For-Your-House scheme set up to provide low cost housing for junior civil servants. Harare's courageous independent press discovered the scam. Most junior civil servants have received no benefit from the contributions they were forced to make to the scheme, and Grace, embarrassed by the scandal, never used the house after it was finished in 1997. Thereafter the house was repeatedly offered at sale for Z$25 million, but Mugabe could find no takers until Gadaafi handsomely paid him Z$35 million for it.
More sinister is the fact that Gadaafi insisted on calling into conclave Harare's small community of Indian Muslims, telling them that they must assist Mugabe's plans by declaring a jihad (holy war) to throw the whites out. If they did not do this, he told the Muslim elders, he would bring in strong arm men from the Pagad movement in Cape Town with which he had close links. There has long been speculation that Gadaafi might have links to Pagad, an extremist Muslim vigilante movement often linked to bombings and murders in the Cape, including bomb attacks on US-linked enterprises such as the Planet Hollywood restaurant on the Cape waterfront, but this is the first open confirmation of the fact. The bulk of Harare's Muslim community, consisting largely of merchants and professionals, was aghast at this demand and has failed to declare a jihad ,a failure which they believe lies behind the sudden spate of attacks on Muslim shops by Zanu-PF youths in the last ten days.
For heaven's sake, said one Muslim merchant, we all do business with whites all the time. We rely on them and most of us are appalled by what Mugabe's doing. It's obvious that those youths who were sent to attack white and Muslim shops were meant to be punishing us for not complying. However, Gadaafi - like Mugabe a virtual paranoiac in matters of personal security - had also left behind two extra bodyguards for Mugabe and four specialist coordinators. These men are believed to have experience in the training and handling of death squads and they have, in the last month, bought up 20 houses right around Zimbabwe to act as safe houses for the squads. The houses are strategically scattered only four are in Harare and there is one in every regional town or centre of any size. [End Excerpt]