The Insider

President Robert Mugabe and his key supporters hungered for the power and luxury that came from Zimbabwe’s resources and were holding Zimbabweans to ransom as a sacrifice to their avarice.

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The International Republican Institute country director for Zimbabwe Djordje Todorovic said the Movement for Democratic Change was a movement and not a political party and was likely to fall apart as soon as President Robert Mugabe was gone.

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Roy Bennett, who had earlier said the Movement for Democratic Change would only participate in a presidential election run-off if there were United Nations observers, changed his mind a month later and was upbeat about the election.

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Movement for Democratic Change advisor Kathi Walther told a United States embassy official in Pretoria that MDC treasurer, Roy Bennett, was now against a government of national unity and described him as more “emotional than rational”.

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Movement for Democratic Change treasurer Roy Bennett told the acting Australian High Commissioner to South Africa, Jane Lambert, that the MDC would only agree to a presidential election run-off if the United Nations observed the elections.

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Roy Bennett has been a pain in the neck of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front since he joined the Movement for Democratic Change. The party first chased him off his farm, claimed he was involved in an attempt to assassinate President Robert Mugabe, hounded him out of Parliament, forced him into exile, refused to appoint him deputy Minister of Agriculture. But the man, popularly known in Chimanimani as Pachedu, still hangs on as the chief fund-raiser of the MDC. There are 117 cables on him. Here they are.

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Movement for Democratic Change treasurer Roy Bennett said Zimbabweans in the diaspora were so divided and “tribalist” that he had chosen to focus on fundraising among the smaller group of elite Zimbabwean businessmen living in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs.

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David Butau, a close associate of Vice-President Joice Mujuru, arranged a secret meeting between United States ambassador Charles Ray and Mrs Mujuru at which no security or foreign affairs officials were present.

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ZANU-PF Member of Parliament and businessman David Butau told a United States embassy official that he had to suck up to the ruling party because that was the only way to safeguard his budding business empire.

(140 VIEWS)