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NewsDay

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Chinese slave drivers must be stopped

Columnists
Four months ago, I wrote in this space about the increasingly worrying phenomenon involving Chinese nationals that have literally invaded Zimbabwe and the abusive manner in which they treat Zimbabweans under their employ. It may be the fact that the majority of these people cannot read English that they fail to realise how much Zimbabweans […]

Four months ago, I wrote in this space about the increasingly worrying phenomenon involving Chinese nationals that have literally invaded Zimbabwe and the abusive manner in which they treat Zimbabweans under their employ.

It may be the fact that the majority of these people cannot read English that they fail to realise how much Zimbabweans loathe their behaviour and therefore their presence in this country.

The Chinese are making newspaper headlines on a daily basis for their animal treatment of their workers.

What boggles the mind is the impunity with which the Orientals go about their savagery and the deafening silence from our government and parliamentarians who read every day about Chinese brutality at workplaces where they also pay slave wages.

As if that were not enough our government, through the Ministry of Defence, chose to openly flout the country’s laws by facilitating a rotten deal where a Chinese construction company building the Defence College is allowed to import everything, including bricks, from the Asian country!

The reason was that the Chinese were doing us a favour by, through a diamond mining company Anjin, which for all intents and purposes, could be getting the money from our Chiadzwa gems, funding the construction.

So our defence college will, just like the Anjin headquarters in the leafy Borrowdale suburb, be totally Chinese in outlook, including the pink colour!

MPs tried in vain to counsel reason, begging Defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa to see the clear fact that Zimbabweans would not benefit anything out of the deal except the building.

The minister refused to see that and declared if the Chinese wished to import even the pit sand, they would do so and questions would not be asked.

What is so special about these people from the East?

The fact that they have become the world’s fastest growing economy does not give them the licence to support that growth by enslaving Zimbabweans.

These Chinese did not get their economy growing like that by being stupid or donating defence colleges. Who can honestly believe they are in Chiadzwa just to extract our diamonds for us?

We hear Anjin, which has so far extracted millions of carats worth of high quality diamonds, has not yet started selling the diamonds and we also hear that the strongroom in which the diamonds are stored is secured by several locks kept by an equal number of Zimbabwean security agents and Chinese authorities. Whose diamonds are these?

Like I said in my earlier instalment, Zimbabweans should be very afraid of these Chinese that our government has visited upon us.

Reasons to be afraid continue to rise and someone should start ringing alarm bells before things get out of hand and to avoid future generations having to take up arms to drive off this crop of Orientals whose roots are fast growing deep and wide on the nourishing Zimbabwean soil.

What is disturbing is that these Chinese slave drivers do not make it a secret that they are untouchable because of their government connections. What government is it that gives foreigners the licence to brutalise its own citizens?

But whatever the case may be, those in government that are in this thing with these kicking bullies should remember that survival instinct has the last word. People will start taking the law into their hands and chase these people out of their areas.

I have nothing against Chinese people as fellow humans, but where their presence threatens the existence or welfare of my grandchildren’s children, then I have a right to get worried.

No one wants a visitor who comes into one’s home to bring misery and inflict pain to the family. No government should be allowed to bring misery and pain upon its people for any reason.

Chinese people have made huge strides in their invasion of Zimbabwe since our government, desperate for rich friends, declared its camaraderie with these people from the East.

The issue of Chinese nationals violating labour laws and ill-treating, to the point of physical assaults, workers must be the main reason for a visit to the country yesterday by a high-powered delegation of politicians from China’s ruling party, the National People’s Congress (NPC).

Seven of them, led by chairman of the party’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee, Yu Linxiang, were at our Parliament building yesterday where they met and were introduced to Senate President Madam Edna Madzongwe.

They said they were in the country at the invitation of their embassy, to take part in the economic development of Zimbabwe (really?) and to meet with thousands of their nationals that have flocked to Zimbabwe over the years.

“Our delegation came to Zimbabwe to meet the Chinese people in Zimbabwe and particularly learn how they live and how they deal with the Zimbabwean people,” said Yu.

Other than getting to enjoy Zimbabwean hospitality and working on doing sweet things to our economy, and our diamonds, the Chinese delegation should be advised to spend most of their time meeting with their rogue relatives counselling them against continuing to treat Zimbabweans like animals or some machine of mass production in some factory back in China!

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