Published in Herald website
23 April 2011
By Senator David Coltart
Editor,
Re your opinion piece published on the 22 April entitled “Coltart’s anger understandable”
It would be useful if you published truth instead of this distorted representation of what I said, and what I stand for.
I did not write the New Zimbabwe.com article- that is obvious from the article itself, and should have been self evident to any professional editor. Secondly my comment, published on my Facebook site, expressed outrage at the politically motivated detention of my friend and Healing Minister (ex ZIPRA combatant) Moses Mzila Ndlovu over the Independence Day holiday weekend and said that his detention made Independence Day a farce. Independence was meant to usher in freedom from oppression but when Healing Ministers are detained on spurious grounds then that freedom is brought into question. So you have totally twisted what I wrote, no doubt with a political agenda in mind.
Finally whilst I have never made a secret that I was conscripted to fight on the Rhodesian side as a teenager my record since then is self evident. I am committed to democracy in Zimbabwe, which includes majority black rule. What I object to is governance methods which are often indistinguishable from the Rhodesian Front’s methods.
Sincerely,
Senator David Coltart
Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture