'Mugabe has my son's blood on his hands' (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

'Mugabe has my son's blood on his hands'

Zimbabwe dictator Robert MugabeA FATHER blames his son's death on the Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe's brutal regime.

Robin Vetch's family say he lost everything after being forced to leave the African country.

He was found dead in his car he had suffocated to death after igniting petrol cans in the vehicle.

His father David Vetch believes his son would be alive today if it was not for the way he was treated by the Zimbabwean government.

Robin was staying with his parents at The Old Rectory in Stanton Fitzwarren at the time of his death, an inquest heard.

The 46-year-old, who had an 18-year-old daughter, had run a successful business as a pilot in Zimbabwe until President Mugabe's regime interfered.

According to Mr Vetch, a group of government representatives visited Robin at his office demanding that his company should have a black director.

He refused and the men returned a few weeks later and gave him three days to leave the country.

He fled to South Africa, where he was born, but his business in Zimbabwe collapsed and he faced financial ruin.

Mr Vetch is angry at the way his son was bullied.

"I blame the Zimbabwe government entirely," he said.

"He had a jolly nice house and he had his business but he was left with nothing."

Robin was then told by officials in South Africa that he couldn't stay because he didn't have the right paperwork.

On top of everything else, he then suffered an injury which threatened his career as a pilot and his father insisted that he should return to the UK for medical treatment.

When Robin arrived at his parents' home on April 10. His father said there was a dramatic change in his son. "Robin was very depressed due to the injury to his heel which was so painful that it was stopping him from sleeping.

"The authorities in South Africa had given him just three weeks to leave and he had lost everything not just his business but his home too.

"He was only with us for eight days but he had changed enormously.

"When I last saw him around three years ago he was a big fellow and weighed about 18 stone. But in April he only weighed about 13 stone.

"His whole attitude had changed dramatically and I could not believe he was the same chap.

"He was totally distant and it was very difficult to get him to talk about anything."

It became apparent that Robin had run up massive debts of over £120,000 since his business collapsed.

His father paid off most of them but says that even after his death the bills kept coming.

Mr Vetch said his son whose own mother took her life when he was a child had mentioned suicide as an easy way out.

On April 17 Robin went out at about 3pm, saying he was going to post some letters, and when he didn't return his father reported him missing.

The next day his car was found on the access road from the A419 towards Chapel Farm in Blunsdon on a track within a Hill's Waste landfill site.

He had opened the lids of four petrol cans in the car and ignited the vapours, creating a fireball, which sucked out the oxygen. His death was caused by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Recording an open verdict, coroner David Masters said he could not be sure whether Robin had intended to take his life by lighting the vapours from the cans or whether he had actually planned to spray petrol around the car then ignite it.

UN claims inhumane practices

In 1980 President Robert Mugabe's party, the Zimbabwe African National Union, won elections in the country and Mugabe became Prime Minister.

In 1987 Mugabe become the president after the party used its majority to amend the constitution.

It exercised a monopoly on national politics until the emergence of the Movement for Democratic Change in 1999.

But Mugabe's party has since gained the two-thirds majority necessary to change the Zimbabwean constitution.

The presidential elections in 2002 were marked by violence and intimidation.

There have been widespread abuses over the previous few years including draconian limitations placed on the media, civil society and the opposition.

There have been accusations of vote rigging against the leading party.

The MDC is currently challenging the results in 16 constituencies. The Mugabe presidency has brought with it economic decline and food shortages.

Recently there has been international condemnation of Mugabe's Drive Out Trash slum clearance programme, which has left 700,000 people homeless.

It has been dubbed inhumane by the UN.

'Many are forced out of country'

AN expert in Zimbabwean affairs said he knew many people who had been forced out of the country.

James Copestone, a lecturer in development economics at the University of Bath, said: "I have many friends and colleagues who have been hounded out of the country one way or another."

Wilf Mbanga, pictured, editor of the Zimbabwean Limited who now lives in Southampton, edited the Zimbabwean Daily News before he left to escape persecution by the authorities.

"Three years ago the economy was imploding," he said. "Now it is virtually dead. There is 70 per cent unemployment and one in four people now are HIV positive.

"Mr Mugabe kicked out most of the white farmers and any black farmers who supported the opposition. Anyone who was involved in politics and supported the opposition in some way would have incurred the wrath of Mugabe.

"The regime in Zimbabwe is very, very ruthless."

"The only reason Mugabe is still in power is because he terrorises the opposition."

'He was not hounded out'

ZIMBABWEAN Embassy official Godfrey Magwenzi denied that Robin Vetch would have been hounded out of the country.

Mr Magwenzi is the charge-d'affaires at the Zimbabwean Embassy.

"I am 100 per cent sure that he was not told to leave," he said.

"Nobody told him to leave. I know it has never been Government policy to ask people to leave.

"Actually we don't have any argument with the British people. We just have a difference of opinion with the British Government.

"British people are very welcome to visit Zimbabwe and to come and live here. There are a lot of British people living peacefully in Zimbabwe.

"The negative propaganda is spread by the British Government with assistance from the media."

Diana Milne