Mugabe’s Scottish “friend” sworn in as MP

French-born Christian Allard, who supported President Robert Mugabe’s land reform programme, was sworn in as a member of the Scottish parliament yesterday.

Allard has blasted a documentary about the plight of Zimbabwean farmer Michael Campbell entitled Mugabe and the White African, saying it was made for white people to support white people.

“I agree the comments from the dictator are often vile, but so are the comments of Mike Campbell … Let me be clear, they are men from the past who refuse to accept that Africa is moving on. ….Robert Mugabe and Mike Campbell won’t be there for long and every copy of this ‘documentary’ should be buried with them.”

Allard has lived in Scotland for the past 25 years and is married to a Scottish woman.

He also wrote on the internet: “Mike Campbell, a South African army captain – came to Zimbabwe from South Africa in 1974, in the middle of the guerrilla war against the black majority … Original Rhodesian white farmers have now all left or have complied with the land reform…..This ‘documentary’ was made for white people to support white people to keep hold of the land in Africa.”

The documentary’s producers, Elizabeth Hemlock and David Pearson, said: “Mr Allard seems to have no concern about the violence directed at the Campbell and Freeth families and the 500 farm workers and their families who lived on the farm. ..The Campbell family were kidnapped and brutally beaten and the injuries sustained by Mike Campbell contributed to his death in 2011.”

Allard, responded: “I feel very sorry for the white farmers and what happened to them, but the black majority are suffering more.”

Mugabe’s land reform, long criticised for the economic collapse of the country since the farm invasions in 2000, has now been favourably reviewed in two books one by Ian Scoones and others-Zimbabwe’s land reform- myths and realities and the other by Joseph Hanlon and others,- Zimbabwe takes back its land.

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