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Zim 'needs money more'
04/10/2005 14:04 - (SA)
Harare - A former veteran of Zimbabwe's independence war who led invasions of white-owned farms has come under fierce criticism for setting up a fund to help the United States victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association said it had taken over the fund set up by controversial former guerrilla Joseph Chinotimba who wanted to raise Z$30bn ($1.1m) for victims of Katrina, the privately-owned Daily Mirror reported.
Chinotimba, who led fellow veterans in farm invasions in 2000, said he planned to travel to New Orleans to witness the destruction caused by the hurricane which struck on August 29.
But spokesperson Andrew Ndlovu of the war vets association said the money would be better spent helping Zimbabweans.
"It's folly of the highest order for him to say we want to donate Z$30bn to the Americans when some of our own comrades and spouses of deceased war veterans are living in abject poverty," said Ndlovu.
Money to come from private donors
Chinotimba dismissed Ndlovu as "mad" saying the money would come from private donors, not from the Zimbabwean government.
"Spouses of late war veterans are receiving pensions from the government. If Ndlovu wants to help them he must give them money from his own pocket," Chinotimba said.
President Robert Mugabe, who has riled at the US branding of his country as an "outpost of tyranny", last month attacked the US administration of President George W. Bush for its slow response to the hurricane disaster.
"A whole community of mainly non-whites was deliberately abandoned to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina as sacrificial lambs," he said.
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