Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) Tsvangirai hecklers motivated by asylum: UK

Tsvangirai hecklers motivated by asylum: UK
by
02/07/2009 00:00:00

HECKLERS who forced Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to abandon his speech at a London cathedral last week were motivated by fears that “once things are normal in Zimbabwe, they would have to go home”, the UK’s Foreign Officer Minister has said.

“I think there was a lot going on in that church meeting and it wasn’t just a commentary on Morgan Tsvangirai’s performance in Zimbabwe. It had a lot to do with asylum and refugee issues as well …,” Lord Malloch-Brown told BBC Radio 5 Live on Wednesday.

Tsvangirai was forced to cut off his speech after being shouted down by hecklers at the Southwark Cathedral when he declared: “There is peace and stability in the country … Let me tell you that Zimbabweans must come home.”

Tsvangirai’s supporters in the UK immediately fingered two campaign groups as the instigators of the heckling – the Zimbabwe Vigil and the Ephraim Tapa-led Restoration Of Human Rights (ROHR).

In a joint statement, ROHR and ZimVigil dimissed the accusations as “malicious … baseless and outright falsehoods”.

“Why did the people boo the Prime Minister? … it is clear to see (from video clips) that the PM is loudly applauded at one point followed by a somewhat subdued reaction as he continues his speech, finally to be greeted by a spontaneous, deafening chorus of ‘Chinja!, Chinja! Mugabe must go!’ Truly this was not the work of Mr Ephraim Tapa or ROHR Zimbabwe and neither was it the work of its sister organisation, the Zimbabwe Vigil.”

Radio 5 Live’s Shelagh Fogarty suggested, in the interview with Malloch-Brown on this week’s African Union Summit, that Zimbabwean exiles “seemed to think that he (Tsvangirai) was no more than a puppet of the Mugabe regime now that he had come from the outside to the inner circle”.

Malloch-Brown responded by saying the motive of the hecklers was “a little bit more complicated than it was reported”.

He added: “I think people inside Zimbabwe share some of that frustration and worry … Is his (Tsvangirai’s) good nature getting the better of him? Is he being out manoeuvred by Mugabe?

“But equally, they understand that the country was at such a low point that he had to do something, he had to engage, because so many people were going without food, there was the cholera crisis, basic services were breaking down, the schools were closed. And he’s been remarkably successful in turning a lot of that around.

“I think the protesters at Southwark Cathedral were also in part motivated by the fact that there are quite a few so called illegal asylum seekers, those who’ve had their asylum seeking requests refused in the UK who once things are normal in Zimbabwe would have to go home.”

Labels: MDC, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI

posted by MrK @ 3:56 PM