I can be Education Minister – Chinotimba

Newsday

By Veneranda Langa

6 November 2010

War veterans leader Joseph Chinotimba will happily take up the ministerial portfolios of either education or lands but says he would never dream of becoming President of Zimbabwe because that would take him “more than 3000 years” to achieve.

Chinotimba told Newsday in an interview in Harare this week that incumbent Education Minister David Coltart was unsuitable for the position because, by virtue of being white, the only culture that he could teach Zimbabweans was “European culture of homosexualism”.

Chinotimba said he is on a warpath against Coltart because of the Minister’s recent statements condemning the ban of artistic works debating the mass murder that took place in the south-western parts of Zimbabwe in the early 1980s describing the massacres as genocide.

As a result, Chinotimba said Coltart was not fit to be a Cabinet minister and he (Chinotimba) should take over his office, if need be, by force.

“There is no culture that a person like Coltart can teach the children of Zimbabwe, otherwise it would be the European culture of ‘homosexualism’,”he said.

Chinotimba has since written to Coltart demanding that he apologises to the war veterans for allegedly saying Gukurahundi was tantamount to genocide and threatened that if the Minister did not apologise within seven days beginning Wednesday, war veterans would visit and eject him from his offices.

“Mr Coltart, your utterances have automatically invited war veterans to your office and we are therefore coming there for explanations. Indeed, you owe us and all Zimbabweans an apology,” read the letter. Coltart yesterday confirmed receiving Chinotimba’s later but said he had no apology to make.

“All I can say for now is that I have received the letter and I will not make any apology,” said Coltart.

“I can be an MP, Senator or Minister – especially the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture because it would be a very good post for me,” said Chinotimba. “I cannot be a president myself because it will take me 3000 years to be at that level.”