HARARE - President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday night procrastinated meetings with the Prime Minister late into the night, keeping the premier on tenterhooks and eventually scuttling the meeting altogether, requested to discuss deputy Agriculture minister-designate Roy Bennett's incarceration. Authoritative sources told The Zimbabwean that officials in the President’s office who were intermediaries in arranging the meeting ended up switching off their phones, refusing to entertain questions on the detention of Bennett by a Zimbabwean court on Wednesday.
Bennett is an MDC treasury and Senator, a white figure who has yet to be sworn in as agriculture minister almost a year after formation of the power-sharing government between President Mugabe, Prime Minister Tsvangirai and deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara.
A furious Prime Minister Tsvangirai was said to have insisted that the meeting to get Bennett out of incarceration should be held last night without fail. But officials in the President’s Office refused to entertain the request and the President was said to have switched off his phone, according to our source.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman James Maridadi confirmed last night that the Prime Minister had requested a meeting to deal with Bennett’s issue.
“The Prime Minister wanted the issue resolved tonight,” Maridadi said last night. “He wanted to meet the three of them, Chinamasa, Tomana and the President.”
Sources said Mugabe told the Prime Minister that “No we cant meet now. We will get back to you.” There was no communication after that, and efforts to reach the intermediators were futile as phones went dead.
Tsvangirai was said to be apoplectic with fury over the indictment of Bennett, who is sheduled to go on trial on what rights groups and the MDC say are “trumped-up” terrorism charges on Monday.
Tsvangirai specifically blames Attorney General Johannes Tomana and Justice ad Legal Affairs minister Patrick Chinamasa for pursuing vindictive charges against him. Bennett himself has said he believes Chinamasa is being vindictive against him because of the 2005 altercation in which he shoved Chinamasa to the ground during a heated parliamentary discussion. Bennett was jailed for 1 year for that offense, but says Chinamasa believes the sentence was too light and wants him behind bars.
Bennett also accuses Chinamasa of standing in the way of his swearing in into the unity government. Bennett returned from exile to Zimbabwe to join the unity government in February. He was arrested just after his return, and languished in jail for one month before he was released on bail.
His trial was supposed to start in the Mutare magistrates court in eastern Zimbabwe near the Mozambican border, where he lived for decades before his coffee farm was seized by the Mugabe government.
Bennett’s lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said there was no State outline against and said there was abuse of the court process.
The return of Bennett to prison has dangerously escalated tensions in the troubled eight month-old inclusive government.
The Zimbabwean heard that Tsvangirai and Finance Minister Tendai Biti were due to adress a press conference today at 1130hrs at Munhumutapa Boardroom. Top of the agenda is Bennett’s arrest. Other issues on the agenda are the outstanding issues of Tomana, controversy surrounding the IMF Fund and Special Drawing Rights, the public feuding between the minister of Finance and the RBZ governor Gideon Gono.
The MDC said in a statement it was convinced Bennett was innocent. Tsvangirai was said to have threatened to call off the Council of Ministers meeting over the dispute over Bennett, who he wants to be released immediately. Tsvangirai also says Bennett is innocent, and has attempted to act as his guarantor the last time he was jailed.
Mugabe stammered in a recent interview on CNN before saying Bennett faces charges of “organizing arms of war” against Zimbabwe.
“Charged with — with having, you know, tried to put — I think he was found responsible for — that’s the allegation,” Mugabe said. “The allegation is that he’s responsible for organizing arms of war against Zimbabwe…”
He added that he had heard the prosecution lacks evidence in the case, but said he won’t agree to swearing in Bennett until after any charges are dropped.
The MDC said this latest action was “deliberately provocative, unnecessary and motivated by hatred of a personality.”
“The MDC takes this matter as a serious attack on the integrity and honesty of the party; it is not acceptable and will not be taken lightly,” the statement said.
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