PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday claimed the British are seeking the Zanu PF government’s assistance for the return of thousands of Zimbabweans who fled the country citing human rights abuses. EVERSON MUSHAVA CHIEF REPORTER
The British Office of National Statistics in 2010 reported that there were 122 000 Zimbabwean-born people formally living in the United Kingdom while community organisations claim the figure could be close to half a million, including undocumented immigrants.
Most of them left the country citing economic hardships, unemployment and State-sponsored political violence at the turn of the century after the formation of the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC.
Mugabe told mourners who gathered for the burial of the late Brigadier-General Eliah Bandama at the national shrine in Harare yesterday that most of the Zimbabweans now living in the United Kingdom secured visas by “lying that they were running away from his misrule”.
He said the British gladly gave Zimbabweans visas because they were keen to discredit his government as a regime change agenda following the “successful implementation of the land reform”.
He said now that the regime change plot had failed, the British government was now soliciting the help of his government to process papers for the deportation of the Zimbabweans in the UK.
“The British have now approached us for help with paperwork to send back the Zimbabweans living there,” Mugabe said.
“Britain now wants to send them back. Why did you (Britain) take them you now want to send them back to Mugabe’s misrule?”
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Mugabe said many Zimbabweans risked their lives jumping borders to neighbouring South Africa.
He lashed out at people who were critical of the way his party awards hero status saying only those who made “outstanding” contribution to the liberation of Zimbabweans deserved to be buried there.
In apparent reference to Tsvangirai whose party has been critical of the selection of people awarded the national hero status, Mugabe said the National Heroes’ Acre was not a place for people who were colluding with the former colonial masters.
“Not sell-outs who worked for Rhodesia and still hanker to work for it beyond its demise and grave. Rhodesia which cadrés like Bandama defeated and destroyed, should have honoured them, given them an acre in honour of their treachery before giving way to our independence. Not us, Never!” Mugabe fumed.
He said Zimbabwe had been under isolation, but through ZimAsset, the party’s economic blueprint, the country would produce its own food to strengthen its integrity and sovereignty.
“Let the Americans keep their food, it destroys our soul and integrity as a free and sovereign people. This latest measure gives us impetus to work harder for ourselves,” he said.
The 90-year-old leader also took an opportunity to attack men who hopped from one woman to the other — in another sarcastic reference to Tsvangirai.
