Mnangagwa, Shamu off the hook ... as poaching dockets ‘disappear’
By ZimEye
July 15, 2009
HARARE
Police dockets implicating Zanu (PF) stalwarts, Emmerson Mnangagwa and Webster Shamu, in the poaching of rhinos have vanished from Attorney General Johannes Tomana's office. (Pictured: Emmerson Mnangagwa and Webster Shamu)
When the MDC investigated, the police superintendent in charge of the case was immediately transferred to a rural outpost in Chiweshe. Mnangagwa and Shamu were connected to the poaching of rhinos in Zimbabwe's national parks after the arrest of a Chinese national early this year. The man was found with six rhino horns at a police roadblock along the Hwange-Bulawayo Road. He then implicated a businessman in Kwekwe who said that Mnangagwa and Shamu were spearheading the operation.
Mnangagwa is the current Defence minister, and was for many years minister in charge of the reviled Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). Shamu is the Media and Information minister. The two were said to have been launching their operation from HKK Safaris, a conservancy Shamu co-owns with South African businessman, Charles Davy.
Davy has, in the past, been accused of violating hunting quotas and Zimbabwe's former stringent foreign currency regulations. He has, however, been shielded from prosecution by Shamu and Davy’s personal friend, President Robert Mugabe. "The President (Mugabe) is very, very embarrassed," said Environmental and Natural Resources Management Minister, Francis Nhema, last week. "He asked me for the names of the ministers involved." But he would not confirm any names to the media.
This comes before an imminent censure from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Zimbabwe officially lost more than 70 rhinos in the past 12 months to well co-ordinated Zimbabwean and international poaching syndicates.
Over the last 10 years, many dockets implicating Zanu (PF) members have disappeared into 'thin air.' In March 2000, paperwork detailing the movements of then-leader of the war veterans, Chenjerai Hunzvi, disappeared within a week.
