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Report: Zim moves to quell same-sex comments
Mail & Guardian (SA)
December 07, 2006

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=292646

Zimbabwe's controversial State Security Minister, Didymus Mutasa, was just joking when he criticised South Africa for passing laws allowing same-sex marriage, a Cabinet minister was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Mutasa is reported to have ruffled diplomatic feathers when he slammed South Africa's recent passing of the Civil Union Act during a speech to welcome a 60-strong delegation of top-level officials from South Africa last month.

A local weekly said Mutasa's comments had angered the delegates, who included South Africa' defence minister, so much that Pretoria may even file a formal complaint, further complicating relations between the neighbours.

But Zimbabwe's acting leader of the House of Parliament, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has claimed Mutasa was not serious when he made the comments, the state-controlled Herald reported on Thursday.

"Minister Mutasa was just joking with his colleague," Mnangagwa said in remarks interpreted in Harare as an attempt at damage control.

"We have no duty in this Parliament to criticise laws passed by another Parliament," the minister added in comments carried by the Herald.

Mutasa's exact comments have not been widely reported but he is believed to have said he was surprised that South Africa had passed the Civil Union Act, adding that same-sex marriages would never be condoned in Zimbabwe.

During his speech to the Joint Permanent Commission on Defence and Security meeting in Victoria Falls, the minister -- considered a hardliner in President Robert Mugabe's Cabinet -- is also alleged to have criticised South African ambassador Mlungisi Makhalima for his attempts to defend white South African sugar-cane farmers, whose farms in southern Zimbabwe are under threat of invasion.

Officially, South Africa maintains a policy of quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe. The two countries are tied by a common history of struggle against white minority regimes.

But there are indications South Africa is finding it increasingly difficult to put up with the fallout from Zimbabwe's current political and economic crisis, with hundreds of desperate Zimbabweans sneaking across the Limpopo River every week looking for a better life.

Meanwhile, it was reported on Thursday that a Zimbabwean Parliament session during which neighbouring South Africa's same-sex marriage law was discussed erupted when an opposition lawmaker accused some top government leaders of being homosexuals.

Movement for Democratic Change lawmaker Moses Mzila-Ndlovu did not name any government leaders and later "apologised in the interests of progress" during Wednesday's debate, officials said on Thursday.

Homosexuality is illegal in Zimbabwe, but the government stays out of South Africa's affairs, the official media reported on Thursday. -- Sapa-dpa, AP

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