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Bennett
slams multi-nationals for "corporate greed, wilful negligence"
The Zimbabwean
March 11, 2011
View this article
on The Zimbabwean website
Any process
of enriching individuals or companies connected to the infamous
criminal syndicate that is Zanu (PF) will be nullified once the
MDC is in power, MDC-T minister of agriculture designate, Roy Bennett,
told a conference of International Fund Managers held at the Mount
Nelson Hotel in Cape Town yesterday.
In a hard-hitting
address, Bennett singled out Old Mutual, Anglo Platinum and
Impala - saying they must "come to terms with their
unacceptable complicity in Mugabe's blackmail". "There
is no excuse for Impala Platinum, in an effort to placate Zanu-PF
and Mugabe, to again offer the state mining rights in ZIMPLATS,
a subsidiary it already owns and controls. These assets belong to
Impala Shareholders," said Bennett, adding that shareholders
must now insist that the companies reflect the demands of this rapidly
evolving new world order. "They must incorporate genuinely
broad-based community equity participation."
"There is no excuse
for Anglo Platinum to have ceded a huge chunk of its ground just
before the 2008 elections - ground that was quickly sold on by a
desperate and cash-poor Zanu (PF) at a $100 million profit. Shareholders
need to demand from management that these rights be properly valued
and retained - not surrendered for the benefit of a blood-thirsty
coterie of gangsters.
"Please don't
legitimise extortion at the expense of the people. Better to lose
what you have and regain it later than to sleep with a serial rapist
and killer. If you do so, remember that he will not only beat and
murder the neighbours, he will turn on YOU in due course and you
will be pitied by no-one," said Bennett.
Referring to
the "sad and seedy role of Old Mutual in the illicit diamond
mining" in the Marange
diamond fields, Bennett said: "These fields are controlled
by the military junta and were attained over the dead bodies of
hundreds of impoverished Zimbabweans. This unacceptable example
of corporate greed and wilful negligence cannot be swept under the
carpet any longer.
"For a respected
London-listed financial services company to continue its investment
and shareholding in a joint venture with a disreputable scrap metal
merchant and infamous confidante of Robert and Grace Mugabe is simply
unbelievable! It is brazen. It is reprehensible and obscene. The
company has said (and I quote): "Old Mutual would like to
point out that [its] ... engagement post-dated any reported wrongdoing
in the mining area. As a result, Old Mutual is most certainly not
associated with activities which contravene the human rights of
citizens." This is cant and obfuscation, a blowing of smoke
and hot air," said Bennett.
He said the MDC had urged
Old Mutual, quietly behind closed doors, to quit their blood-stained
investment. "The company has not listened, so we now air our
grievances publicly. Old Mutual and its partners have benefited
from the daylight robbery of mining rights and from massacres by
the army and air force of Zimbabwe. In a well-documented orgy of
violence, helicopter gunships mowed down civilians in cold blood,
'clearing the decks' for the junta's illegal mining
activities."
The shame for Old Mutual
was compounded by the fact that the proceeds from the sales of these
Blood Diamonds were being used by Zanu-PF to unleash another bout
of political violence against ordinary Zimbabweans, he added. The
International Red Cross are currently feeding starving residents
from Marange Communal Lands, an area adjacent to the diamond mines,
while a "shameless, ruthless and predatory elite plunder the
resources of the Zimbabwean people and use the proceeds to inflict
violence against them".
"As if blood diamonds
were not enough, this company has maintained a significant share
in Zimpapers, the publisher of the government-controlled Herald,
among others. If ever there was a practitioner of hate-speech and
an apostle of vice and violence, this is it. This dirty little rag
plays a very real part in the butchery and battery of our people.
In a lame defence, Old Mutual has said "we do not influence
or involve ourselves in the operational policy or practice of Zimpapers".
But in the same statement it goes on to say: "While we remain
mindful of and sensitive to the social and political climate in
Zimbabwe, these investments are ... meant to meet needs and expectations
in terms of returns for our Zimbabwean customers." There's
no need to continue. We have heard you loud and clear. Profit before
principle - and the Zimbabwean people be damned," continued
Bennett.
"These are but
a couple of examples of the companies that have, and continue, to
walk the halls of shame in Zimbabwe. There is no shortage of them.
When the day of judgement comes, I will not lift a finger to save
them from the consequences of their actions. Quite the contrary.
And I am unreservedly confident that I will have a powerful constituency
behind me. If these companies choose to reap the whirlwind, then
so be it," he said.
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