The incident happened two days before the Chimanimani Arts festival.
Deure allegedly wrote the letter to the owners of the building, the Kidd family, advising them to immediately stop MDC from carrying out its party business at the building which is located about 500 metres from the venue of the festival.
Birgit Kidd, a member of the family who is also the MDC ‘s Manicaland Provincial Secretary for Policy and Research, confirmed the letter.
“I received a letter from Deure stating that our stand number 129 is supposed to operate as a bottle store and not as MDC offices. We wonder why the council is raising this issue now when the party has been using the building as its offices for the past 10 years?
Again the building was defaced last week in a move which we believe was meant to prevent revellers coming for the festival from admiring and viewing the party’s name, logo and slogans which were inscribed on the building. This is really politics,” said Kidd.
Davis Munengu, the MDC councillor for ward 15, said the decision to close the MDC‘s offices was never discussed in council.
“This is a private property and the owners of the building have the right to use the building for whatever they want. We feel the owners of the property are being victimised for supporting the MDC,” said Munengu.
Zanu (PF) has on numerous occasions threatened to invade the building and the family’s Saw mill, accusing the family of supporting the MDC. The Kidd family, which is close to Roy Bennett, arrived in the area more than 40 years ago and has been assisting the local people. When reached for comment Deure denied writing the letter.
“I think that letter which you are talking about is fake because I never wrote a letter to that effect to the Kidd family. The council is dominated by MDC councillors and there is no way I can do such a decision without consulting the council” said Deure.
Post published in: News