War veterans threaten Coltart

Newzimbabwe.com

12 November 2010

WAR veterans leader Joseph Chinotimba has demanded that Education Minister David Coltart apologises within seven days for calling Gukurahundi a “genocide”.

“We cannot continue folding our hands and watch former Rhodesians insulting us,” Chinotimba, deputy chairman of the Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans’ Association, declared on Thursday.

The public threats against Coltart, who is white, came as the minister posted a letter he received from the chairman of the Harare Province of the war veterans’ association, and his reply to it, on his website.

Chinotimba is incensed that Coltart, whom he erroneously called a former ‘Selous Scout’ – the special forces regiment of the Rhodesian army – used the annual Lozikeyi Lecture on October 29 to state that the first 30 years of Zimbabwe’s independence had been marked by “serious and consistent human rights abuses, including a politicide, if not genocide, which occurred in the mid-1980s in the south-west of the country.”

The minister’s lecture, reproduced on New Zimbabwe.com in full, was reported in a news story by the NewsDay newspaper which used the headline: ‘It was genocide – Coltart’.

“It is quite preposterous in the extreme for Coltart to preach about human rights violations and post-independence disturbances when taking into cognisance his background as a former member of the brutal and murderous Rhodesian Selous Scouts,” Chinotimba blasted.

He claimed Coltart’s comments were a “despicable attack” on the war veterans, adding: “The utterances are unacceptable and an insult to our country’s liberation struggle, national reconciliation and the legacy of national independence.

“Coltart owes us and the rest of the nation an apology within seven days. We cannot continue folding our hands and watch former Rhodesians insulting us.

“Your utterances have given us second thoughts on those white farmers who are still on our land yet you benefited from the reconciliation policy.”

Coltart has now released a letter he sent to Charles Mpofu, the Harare province chairman of the war veterans’ association, explaining his comments.

Coltart said: “I was misquoted by NewsDay in so far as their headline is concerned. In this regard, I attach a copy of the actual speech I gave which I trust will set the record straight.

“Amongst other things, you will note that I made reference in it to the Nyadzonia Massacre and to my concern that human rights violations of the past, including the colonial era, have not been adequately dealt with in my view.

“… human rights are universal, eternal and sacrosanct and whenever they are breached, men and women of goodwill have a duty to speak out against such breaches.”

Coltart, a respected human rights lawyer, used his letter to clarify his role in the white minority Rhodesian government.

“For the record, I was never a member of the Selous Scouts or any unit of the army,” Coltart said. “I was a member of the British South Africa Police (BSAP) having been conscripted by the Rhodesian government (as applied to all white 18 year old men).

“As my speech (and many others I have given) makes clear, I strongly believe that racial discrimination and many other actions of the Rhodesian Front government were unjust and wrong.

“However, we now all have an obligation to reconcile and move forward in the best interests of our beloved nation and her future — which predominantly rests in all our children.

“As my speech makes clear, if we do not deal with the mistakes we have all made in the past in different ways, then our nation will be doomed to repeat them in future.”