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| author/source:Mail & Guardian (SA) |
| published:Mon 31-Dec-2007 |
| posted on this site:Mon 31-Dec-2007 |
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| Article Type : News |
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| Not immediately clear if he was on a list of officials banned from travelling to Britain |
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Harare - President Robert Mugabe's spokesperson has accused former colonial power Britain and other Western countries of sabotaging Zimbabwe's efforts to turn around its economy by offering a safe haven to criminals. The comments came after an MP from Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party, David Butau, fled to Britain last week. Police in Zimbabwe had placed Butau on a wanted list for alleged foreign-exchange violations. "The criminals follow the sponsor. It's becoming apparent that we are no longer talking about mere economic crime, we are talking about economic subversion that has the blessings of foreign interests," George Charamba was quoted as telling the official Herald newspaper on Monday. "When you follow the footsteps of criminals and indicted persons, this suggests a new geography of crime, which connects Zimbabwe to Britain, Australia, the US and New Zealand."
He said these were the same countries that took a negative stance against the country's controversial seizure of white-owned farms. Butau heads a parliamentary committee on budget and finance. It was not immediately clear if he was on a list of dozens of ruling-party officials banned from travelling to Britain over alleged rights abuses. Britain has become a destination of choice for a handful of Zimbabwean businessmen escaping the Southern African country after the central bank began a crackdown on so-called economic saboteurs in 2004. Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena said the police would continue to pursue the MP. "The arm of the law is quite long and it will soon be catching up with him," Bvudzijena told the Herald.
Last week central bank Governor Gideon Gono accused the parliamentary committee headed by Butau of shying away from their responsibility after it turned down the Reserve Bank chief's offer to name senior government officials engaging in shady deals and hoarding cash. In a telephone interview from Britain, Butau told a state newspaper on Sunday that he was being victimised by Gono. "We received information that Governor Gideon Gono was amongst those sabotaging the economy and when we confronted him with that he acted fast on me and passed on information to the police about my purported exchange control violations," he told the Sunday Mail. The fugitive MP said he would only come back to Zimbabwe once his name was cleared.
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