Barefoot at his front door, wearing faded shorts and a T-shirt, Roy Bennett looks tired. As well he might. Next week, instead of starting the New Year discharging a brief as deputy agriculture minister in Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government, Bennett will be back in Harare’s high court, enduring a further installment of a trial in which he faces life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
Under the draconian Public Order and Security Act, the former commercial farmer is accused of buying £3,000 (US$4,850) of arms in 2006 to carry out acts of insurgency, sabotage, banditry or terrorism. The prosecution claims to have e-mail evidence, along with a confession from Mike Hitschmann, an arms dealer and alleged conspirator, that Bennett bought the weapons to be used as part of an anti-government plot.
“It’s complete nonsense,” he told me at his home in the capital where he is currently on bail. “I had seen Mike Hitschmann at political rallies, but I never bought a single gun from him. The court experience is a total nightmare. Sitting in that court every day, listening to people lying, is like one of those dreams where someone is trying to murder you, but you can’t defend yourself because your gun won’t work.”
Amid no-shows by witnesses and chaos in the paperwork, no one knows when the trial will end.
Bennett, who is also treasurer-general of Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was arrested in February, on the day he was due to be sworn in to the “inclusive” government that the MDC had finally agreed to join following disputed elections.
He is the 10th person to face treason charges since Mugabe came to power in 1980, but the fact that he is white, his political track record and the timing have given this trial a special significance.
Last month, at the Zanu-PF party congress in Harare, Mugabe took his latest swipe at the “settler’s son” who is held up by the veteran president as evidence that the MDC is a white-led — or British — conspiracy to dispossess all black Zimbabweans.
“Open your eyes,” Mugabe said. “This is your country and not for whites. Not the Bennetts. They are settlers. Even if they were born here, they are offspring of settlers.”
Lawyers say the country’s legal system — flawed as it is — should clear Bennett.
Dubious witnesses, cobbled-together exhibits and the mysterious disappearance of evidence have marred the prosecution’s case, but if he is found guilty, the MDC could find itself at a dangerous crossroads.
The secretive nature of the current round of talks between Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the 85-year-old Mugabe has led to a growing restiveness among MDC supporters. A touchy-feely joint press conference just before Christmas left Zimbabweans feeling Tsvangirai was in danger of giving too much ground to his old foe. Diplomats are worried, too.
“We are getting very few clear signals from the talks and we are worried that some MDC ministers are being coopted by Zanu-PF,” a European ambassador said.
It is in that political context that Bennett’s trial gives an insight into the workings of power in Zimbabwe.
“The outcome of the trial is on the table of the political talks. Mugabe is dangling the danger of Bennett’s conviction in front of the MDC as a threat. Mugabe has calculated that, if Bennett goes to jail, Tsvangirai will be considerably weakened in people’s eyes,” said John Makumbe of the University of Zimbabwe.
As he prepares to face the prosecutors again, Bennett admits he is exhausted. He terribly regrets having “ruined” his family’s life.
“It has been awful for them. My son Charles, who is 24, had his room raided by strangers when he was 10 and he has not had a permanent home since then. They want to break you and they get close, but I am not a politician. I cannot be corrupted or intimidated,” Bennett said. “I got into this to help people who now have hung their hats on the fact that I am committed to represent them honestly and fairly. If it was not for those people, I would have walked away from this thing long ago.”
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