Australia deports 8 students whose parents have links with Zanu PF

By Lance Guma
04 September 2007

A campaign started by online publication ZimDaily.com, to secure the deportation of children of the ruling elite studying abroad, has delivered its first casualties. On Monday a total of eight students were deported with some of them catching the same flight as opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai who was travelling back to Zimbabwe from a trip to Australia. The students were no longer flying back home on a holiday retreat but to permanently join their families in a country that their parents have helped run into the ground.

Reports indicate that police commissioner Augustine Chihuri’s son Sylvester, Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono’s twin daughters Pride and Praise and son Peter were among those deported. Rural Affairs and Housing Minister Emerson Mnangagwa, Economic Planning Minister Sylvester Nguni, Provincial Governor David Karimanzira, Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo and Science and Technology Minister Olivia Muchena all had their kids deported.

According to Tsvangirai’s spokesman, William Bango, Chihuri collected his son at the Johannesburg International Airport in South Africa and accused Tsvangirai of engineering the deportations. In an interview with Newsreel Bango said Chihuri came over to where Tsvangirai was sitting on the plane and said, ‘thank you very much for coming back, you got my child deported from Australia.’ Bango says Tsvangirai did not respond. ‘Morgan Tsvangirai is not such a powerful individual to cause the federal government of Australia to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe,’ he added.

Zanu PF is busy vilifying the MDC leader as they desperately try to deflect attention from the embarrassment of the deportations. Even the best scriptwriters would have struggled to come up with the story of Mnangagwa’s deported daughter sitting next to Tsvangirai’s wife Susan on a flight back to Zimbabwe. Analysts say the Mugabe regime is clearly rattled and the response of the state media betrayed this. A ZBC TV crew waited for Tsvangirai at Harare International Airport and filmed his arrival. As the film ran during the main news they narrated how the opposition leader had come back from a trip where he ‘praised and encouraged Australia to maintain economic sanctions’ against Zimbabwe.

Bango was adamant the deportations had nothing to do with Tsvangirai as the decision was made before his visit. He said Tsvangirai, ‘does not interface with the constituents of the various legislators who make their own laws in their own parliament.’ Tsvangirai went to Australia at the invitation of the Australian government and used the trip to meet interested groups and activists who wanted an update on the situation in the country. He met the leaders of several other parties in that country and also Zimbabweans living in Australia. The MDC, according to Bango, believes the ‘biggest sanctions’ on the people of Zimbabwe have come from Zanu PF and their misplaced policies. These have created food shortages and manyother economic ills.

If Zanu PF hoped to get a sympathetic ear over the deportations from ordinary Zimbabweans, all they have met so far are discreet cheers from a traumatised population.