Zanu-PF mafia ruining Zimbabwe, says Bennett

Top MDC-T official Roy Bennett says Zimbabwe is being run by a "criminal syndicate" dressed in swanky suits, but operating like a "mafia".

This syndicate has ruined the country through repression and looting, forcing millions to flee to neighbouring countries and overseas, he said.

In a hard-hitting speech at the International Human Rights Congress in London this week, Bennett said the "criminal cabal" had forced millions of Zimbabweans, including himself, to seek political and economic asylum, mainly in SA and the UK.

"Zimbabwe is now ruled by a mafia - a criminal syndicate that dresses itself in elaborate forms of propaganda, but make no mistake, it is a criminal syndicate," said the former MP, who spent eight months in jail for flooring Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa during a heated parliamentary debate in 2004.

"This lot, Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, strut around in the vestments of anti-colonial liberation, but they are a bunch of felons, pure and simple. Zanu-PF is the operatic performer of Africa's Cosa Nostra. All frills and shrills, but at heart a common crook and criminal, no less. It must be dragged kicking and screaming to the penitentiary."

Speaking on the conference theme - immigration and integration - Bennett, who left the country after his farm and other assets were seized by Mugabe's regime, said Zimbabweans were running away from "vicious political repression".

"International migration is, of course, a complex phenomenon. But the Zimbabwean experience is the one I know and - apart from its own importance in terms of scale - I believe there are a series of lessons to be learnt from Zimbabwe that apply to many countries and situations in the world," he said.

"So Zimbabweans are, by and large, reluctant migrants. It is critical to grasp this point. Of the millions who left the country in the last 10 years, the majority have done so because they felt they had to, not because they wanted to. There are an estimated three to five-million Zimbabweans who have set up camp in SA. This represents between 20% to 30% of Zimbabwe's population, including the diaspora," Bennett said.

"The great Zimbabwean migration of the 21st century is directly and indirectly political.

"Many Zimbabweans have fled under direct threat to life and limb, others have been forced to leave as a consequence of systematic collapse, but it is a collapse that has occurred for political reasons."