UK firm funded Zanu violence

Revelations about the dealings and about the involvement of Rautenbach came to
light in a documentary in the Dispatches slot on Britains Channel 4 last Monday.
The programme revealed that Rautenbach, a major shareholder in Camec, had
been given a massive 300,000 hectares of Nuanetsi Ranch in the south of the country,
left in trust by former vice- President Joshua Nkomo to develop black agriculture. but
a At a time when all but a few hundred of Zimbabwes white farmers have been evicted
from their land and homes, Rautenbach received the land as a majority shareholder
in a new company, Cutstar Investments (Pvt Ltd).
Black farmers in the area alleged Rautenbach had removed stock fencing and
cut off water supplies in a campaign of harassment to get them off the land.
Rancher Moffat Ndou told Channel 4 journalist Aidan Hartley: We were invited to
a meeting at ranch headquarters. At this meeting we had Billy Rautenbach, we had the
managing director of Nuanetsi ranch and we were then informed that Nuanetsi ranch
had got into a joint venture.
He (Rautenbach) said (to us) what part of f**k off do you not understand? He says he is well-connected… a powerful man, said another rancher, Terry Mkowa The pro-Zanu (PF) Sunday Mail ran a front page story on July 19 headlined Mega bucks project, which said an anonymous investor was injecting $1bn into Nuanetsi, partly to grow 100,000 hectares of sugar cane, which would be turned into ethanol to reduce Zimbabwes fuel bill.
However, water experts warned there was not enough water to support so much
sugar. Even if all local water available was dammed, there wouldnt be nearly enough, so this project is just talk, a farmer said on the programme. The anonymous investor is none other than Rautenbach.
Rautenbach is on the US and EU sanctions list, which means he can neither travel
nor trade there. Camec says it has frozen Rautenbachs shareholding in the company, but its operations in Zimbabwe, at least in platinum drilling, are organised by Rautenbach and financed from a bank account in Gibraltar, belonging to one of its subsidiaries. Camecs chief executive, Andrew Groves, confirmed that the US$100m payment to Mugabe had been made for concessions which Anglo Platinum had to hand over to protect the development of its platinum mine in central Zimbabwe.
Rautenbachs history is a disreputable one little wonder that Finance Minister
Tendai Biti and deputy agriculture minister designate Roy Bennett have distanced
themselves from him.
South Africa applied for him to be extradited from Zimbabwe more than two years ago to stand trial on charges of major customs fraud and the suspected murder of a Korean businessman.
But the Zanu (PF) government refused to hand him over. South African prosecutors
say they have proof that Rautenbach tried to get charges against him withdrawn
or reduced, by sending $45,000 to former police commissioner Jackie Selebi.
Rautenbach took over the Democratic Republic of Congos state mining company Gecamines when Mugabes troops entered the war there in 1998. He was dismissed
by late DRC president Laurent Kabila after he allegedly stole the states share of
the cobalt joint venture.
After Kabilas assassination, Rautenbach went on to develop a cobalt site given to him
by the DRC, but was deported two years ago. He sold his DRC assets to Camec and
still run its one cobalt mining project from Harare.
What I know of him is not complimentary.