The revelation, coming just days after the list of Mugabe supporters
who are banned from entering Britain was expanded, has prompted
politicians to express concern that the government is failing to
restrict the activities of those who have helped the Zimbabwean
President maintain his hold on power.
Florence Chitauro, one of Mugabe’s loudest cheerleaders, who during her
time as a Zanu-PF minister was responsible for suppressing strikes
against his regime, lives in a plush town house in west London with her
husband, James, a former senior civil servant in Zimbabwe who played a
key role in advising the Mugabe administration. Their son and daughter
also live in the UK.
When confronted by The Observer, Chitauro said she was a ‘private
citizen at the moment’ and declined to comment further. Asked whether
she now denounced the Mugabe regime, she replied: ‘No, I’m not going to
say that.’
She said that she was in Britain as ‘a way of right’, having
‘contributed to the UK for a long time’. She also confirmed: ‘I’m here,
but sometimes I go back to Zimbabwe.’
Her ability to move back and forth between the UK and Zimbabwe has
raised questions about the measures employed by the government against
the Mugabe regime. All senior Zanu-PF officials are banned from
entering EU countries and another 11 names were added to the list last
Monday. But there are concerns that others are continuing to slip
through the net.
‘The UK Border Agency is obsessed with trying to meet targets on asylum
seekers and keeping out any Zimbabwean who they think might not return
home,’ said Kate Hoey, chair of the parliamentary all-party group on
Zimbabwe. ‘But they need to spend more time checking out some of the
Zanu-PF apparatchiks who have been coming in and out for years and who
are personally responsible for what is happening in Zimbabwe now.’
She added: ‘Some of the families and friends of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF elite
and others of his hangers-on can practically use the UK as their base
because they can show that they have jobs and assets in Zimbabwe and so
are more likely to go back home. They have multiple entry visas that
allow them to fly in and out at will to live it up in London on the
money they make from the economic chaos back in Zimbabwe.’
Chitauro was Minister for Labour, Public Service and Social Welfare
during the mid to late Nineties when she declared that a national
strike against the Mugabe regime was ‘illegal’. She went on national
television to warn those who took industrial action that they would
lose their jobs. Troops were sent into curb the unrest, which
eventually gave birth to the Movement for Democratic Change, the main
opposition. Her husband, James Chitauro, is a former permanent
secretary who worked at the departments of defence, engineering and
water, and education.
She went on to become Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Australia and provoked a
diplomatic furore after she criticised the country’s then Prime
Minister, John Howard, for ‘taking it upon himself to be some kind of
messiah for Zimbabwe’ after he spoke against its readmission to the
Commonwealth. ‘John Howard has not helped this situation by more or
less accusing people of being dictatorial,’ Chitauro said in 2003, in
comments that earned her a rebuke from the Australian government. In
2005 Mugabe recalled Chitauro to stand as a Zanu-PF candidate in
elections for the Zimbabwean parliament’s upper house. Mugabe later
said he did not remember recalling her.
Meanwhile, there are concerns that a website that carries articles
written by UK-based Zimbabweans is acting as a propaganda machine for
the Mugabe regime. Talkzimbabwe.com started life as a critic of Mugabe
but in recent months has positioned itself strongly behind him and
against his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai. Sekai Holland, a veteran
political activist who has been targeted by the Mugabe regime, said she
was worried the site had been ‘infiltrated’ by Zanu-PF supporters.
‘It’s very dangerous,’ Holland said. ‘This website is being used to
spread stories in support of Mugabe.’
Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
Post published in: News