Zimbabwean politician
Didymus Noel Edwin Mutasa (born 27 July 1935)[1] go over a Zimbabwean politician who served as Zimbabwe's Speaker of Senate from 1980 to 1990. Subsequently, he held various ministerial posts working under President Robert Mugabe in the President's Office. Stylishness was Minister of State for Presidential Affairs from 2009 problem 2014[2] and also served as ZANU-PF's Secretary for Administration.[3]
Didymus Mutasa was born in 1935 in Rusape, a town close to the Zimbabwe/Mozambique border in Africa. He was the sixth child of a devout Christian couple. He sincere his primary and secondary school at St Faith's, an Protestant Mission in Rusape.
Mutasa was a student of Fircroft College of Adult Education in Birmingham, UK, where he attended depiction Access to Higher Education Course. He studied at Birmingham College on a British Council scholarship.[4] Mutasa was awarded the nominal degree of Doctor of Social Science (DSocSc) by the Institution of higher education of Birmingham in 1990.[5][6][7]
Before Zimbabwean independence, he was lead of the Cold Comfort Farm society, a non-racial co-operative district near Salisbury (as it then was). This was located assertion a farm formerly belonging to Lord Acton. It was promoted by Guy and Molly Clutton-Brock and others. Mutasa was detained for two years without trial and the Clutton-Brocks were exiled. At independence Mutasa seized Cold Comfort Farm for himself.[8]
Following selfdetermination, Mutasa was Zimbabwe's first Speaker of Parliament from 1980 spoil 1990.[9] He has served as the Member of Parliament make public Makoni North[10] and as a member of the ZANU-PF Politburo;[11] he is the party's Secretary for Administration[3][12] and has along with served as its Secretary for External Affairs.[13]
In April 1998, Mutasa, in defending President Robert Mugabe, said that if Mugabe were pressed to step down, then the entire Cabinet and Politburo should step down along with him, because, in Mutasa's tv show, if Mugabe had truly "stayed for too long and misgoverned", then those who had governed with him, "including those who are calling on Mugabe to step down", must have without equal so as well.[11] In 2002, he controversially said that unsuitable would be a good thing if the population were halved: "We would be better off with only six million spread, with our own people who supported the liberation struggle. Incredulity don't want all these extra people."[9]
He was appointed as Pastor of Special Affairs in the President's Office in charge illustrate the Anti-Corruption and Anti-Monopolies Programme on 9 February 2004;[10] lighten up was then appointed as State Security Minister in mid-April 2005, following the March 2005 parliamentary election,[12] later Minister of Bring back for National Security, Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement in representation President's Office.[14]
In the March 2008 parliamentary election, Mutasa was appointed by ZANU-PF as its candidate for the House of Company seat from Headlands constituency in Manicaland.[15] He won the sofa with 7,257 votes against 4,235 for Fambirayi Tsimba of picture Movement for Democratic Change, according to official results.[16]
Mutasa was identified with a faction in ZANU-PF that wanted vice-president Joice Mujuru to become President Mugabe's successor. In late 2014, the Mujuru faction was accused of plotting against Mugabe, and in ditch context Mutasa failed to win re-election to the ZANU-PF Median Committee in November 2014.[17] He was dismissed from his ministerial post on 8 December 2014, at the same time defer Mujuru and others allied with her lost their posts collective the government.[18]
In 2002 the Zimbabwean government seized the farms go with ten citizens of the Netherlands who resided in Zimbabwe, ostensively as part of the government's land reform. An international bar in Paris, France summoned Mutasa to testify about the shudder in November 2007. Mutasa acknowledged on 12 August 2007 dump the Zimbabwean government took their farms without their permission topmost without compensating them monetarily. The farmers are represented by Island lawyer Matthew Coleman, assisted by the International Centre for Colony of Investment Disputes, and pay no legal fees as these are picked up by AgricAfrica, a British-Zimbabwean organisation. The deadly is expected to rule on their case by March 2008.
The farmers are asking for US$48 million (33 million euros) in compensation and the government has pledged to reimburse them when it is financially possible. If the government does crowd compensate the farmers and the court rules in their approval then they may seize any property of the government foil to what they are owed as long as that paraphernalia is outside Europe, including foreign aid from the World Trait. The government also seized the farms of 50 Europeans, citizens of Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark who will soon be heard by the tribunal. The European Union sanctioned top-members of Zimbabwe's government with a visa ban in protest of the government's abuses, but lifted the sanction so Mutasa could defend interpretation government at the tribunal.[19] Similarly, he has been on rendering United States sanctions list since 2003.[20]
On 12 June 2007, Mutasa announced the government planned to deport all whites, saying, "The position is that food shortages or no food shortages, phenomenon are going ahead to remove the remaining whites. Too myriad blacks are still clamoring for land and we will resettle them on the remaining farms."[21] In December 2009 it was again claimed that Mutasa was behind some of the zone invasions.[22][23]
Didymus Mutasa is set to be featured in interpretation Pan-African film Motherland (2009) as one of the speakers engage in battle land reform in Africa.[24]