| |
Back to Index
South
Africa's shame: Roy Bennett refused asylum in SA
Marian Tupy
June 12, 2006
On May 26, South African
government denied political asylum to Roy Bennett, the outspoken critic
of Zimbabwe's ruler Robert Mugabe and former member of that country's
Parliament. Bennett fled to South Africa in April 2006 to escape incarceration
on trumped-up charges of attempting to assassinate Mugabe. If returned
to Zimbabwe, he will likely end up in jail. Bennett's treatment stands
in stark contrast with Pretoria's treatment of Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
whose corrupt and authoritarian rule over Haiti did not prevent him from
getting an asylum in South Africa. Clearly, as far a Pretoria is concerned,
not all political refugees are equal.
Bennett made the news
in May 2004, when he scuffled with Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa
on the floor of Zimbabwe's Parliament. Bennett, who lost his farm during
Mugabe's disastrous land expropriation policy, lost his cool when Chinamasa
said that Bennett "has not forgiven the government for acquiring his farm,
but he forgets that his forefathers were thieves and murderers." Though
he later apologized for the incident, Bennett was sentenced to one year
in prison by the Parliament dominated by Mugabe's loyalists. Bennett was
"made to stand naked in front of prison guards and ... given a prison
uniform covered with human excrement." While in jail, the once stocky
farmer ruined his health and lost 66 pounds.
Earlier this year,
Bennett went into hiding and later fled to South Africa. His flight followed
the alleged discovery of an arms cache on a farm in eastern Zimbabwe.
The government immediately started rounding up opposition figures and
put out a warrant for Bennett's arrest. Once he arrived in South Africa,
Bennett petitioned for political asylum under that country's 1998 Refugees
Act. According to the act,
"no person may be
refused entry into [South Africa], expelled, extradited or returned
to any other country ... if as a result of such refusal, expulsion,
extradition, return or other measure, such person is compelled to return
to or remain in a country where he or she may be subjected to persecution
on account of his or her race, religion, nationality, political opinion
or membership of a particular social group; or his or her life, physical
safety or freedom would be threatened on account of external aggression,
occupation, foreign domination or other events seriously disturbing
or disrupting public order in either part or the whole of that country."
Under normal circumstances,
Bennett would have a strong case for remaining in South Africa. He is
a political refugee from a country where public order and the rule of
law have totally broken down. The government routinely ignores court orders
it disagrees with and murders its political opponents. The country's economy
is being run by and for the benefit of Mugabe and his cronies. And there
is little doubt that Bennett's personal safety would be imperiled, considering
that Zimbabwe's Security Minister Didymus Mutasa already threatened the
regime's opponents with physical elimination. Absurdly, Mutasa's fellow
cabinet minister in charge of Home Affairs, Kembo Mohadi, recently stated
that the government has "never persecuted anybody in Zimbabwe."
However, South Africa's
ruling elite is strangely enamored with Mugabe, the former Marxist revolutionary
turned despot. South Africans have pursued a policy of appeasement toward
Mugabe, which they euphemistically call "quiet diplomacy." The policy
has been a massive failure. In the last few years, Zimbabwe deteriorated
into a primeval state marked by violence, famine and disease, 80 percent
unemployment, and 1,000 percent inflation.
And so Bennett's request
for political asylum was denied. Contrast that with Pretoria's treatment
of the deposed ex-president of Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide. According
to a report by the U.S. State Department, Aristide ran a "corrupt" government
"shot through with drug money." Another recent report by the U.S. Bureau
for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs claimed that "8
percent of illegal drugs entering the United States had passed through
Haiti." Moreover, during his 2004 trial in Florida, Beaudoin Ketant, a
former confidant of Aristide's and his daughter's godfather, testified
that Aristide "controlled the drug trade in Haiti. He turned the country
into a narco-country. It's a one-man show. You either pay [Aristide] or
you die."
In December 2005,
Raoul Peck, who was Haiti's Minister of Culture under Prime Minister Rosny
Smarth, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, that Aristide "turned
into a mob leader. The language of reconciliation gave way to the "necklacing"
of political opponents, the firebombing of radio stations, homes and offices
of opponents, the murder of journalists like Jean Dominique and Brignol
Lindor, and the unwillingness to bring the criminals to justice. Hired
thugs raped and kidnapped even the poorest of the poor in the slums that
Aristide always pretended he was defending." South African government's
response to the mounting evidence of Aristide's misrule was to send him
a shipment of armaments to keep him in power. When that failed, he was
welcomed to South Africa, where he enjoys luxurious exile paid for by
the South African taxpayer.
Pretoria's treatment
of Bennett drips with hypocrisy. Isn't it about time that South African
government started living by the high principles it preaches around the
world?
*Marian
L. Tupy is Assistant Director of the Project
on Global Economic Liberty at the Cato Institute.
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
