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ZIMBABWE'S Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri went ballistic and verbally abused opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai at the Harare International Airport Tuesday after the Australian government deported his son and seven other students linked to Zanu PF officials.
Tsvangirai, the leader of a faction of the splintered Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had just arrived from Australia where he held talks with senior government officials and Prime Minister John Howard.
Chihuri was in a large group of cabinet ministers, journalists and Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) agents awaiting the arrival of the South African Airways afternoon flight from Johannesburg.
Coincidentally, Tsvangirai was on the same plane with Chihuri's son, Sylvester, who had been studying in Australia.
Sources said Chihuri verbally abused and mocked Tsvangirai, accusing him of having achieved his goal of pressuring the Aussies to deport Zanu PF officials' children studying in that country.
"Ndozvawaida Tsvangirai. Waita zvako ufunge. Chifara nekuti zvawaida zvaitika. Iwe ndiwe unekodzero yekuti wako mwana agare kuAustralia vedu vachidzingwa (This is what you wanted, Tsvangirai. Thank you very much. Your wish has been granted. You can be happy now because only your son is privileged to study in Australia while mine is deported)," a journalist at the airport captured Chihuri as saying Tsvangirai, who was harassed by state media journalists who waited outside the plane and later followed him to immigration and eventually the baggage collection section, remained calm, journalists said.
Also on the plane was the son of Rural Housing and Amenities Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The veteran politician was among the group of people who were at the airport at the time of Chihuri's confrontation with Tsvangirai.
Last month the Federal Government of Australia announced it would revoke student visas for eight children of senior members of President Robert Mugabe's regime.
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer announced the measure as part of a strengthening of sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Downer revealed: "I have also initiated steps to reject the student visa applications of a further two adult children who are children of a senior Mugabe regime figure.
"For privacy reasons, the names of the individuals subject to the measures I have outlined will not be released. These new measures will now also prevent these individuals from giving their families the kind of education their policies have denied the ordinary people of Zimbabwe."
Zanu PF officials' known children who were in Australia include Sylvester Chihuri, Tendai
Nguni, son of Sylvester Nguni the Minister of Economic Planning; Kudzai Muchena, son of Olivia Muchena the Minister for Science and Technology; and Thelma Chombo, the daughter of Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo.
The others were Taona Karimanzira, the son of Harare Provincial Governor David Karimanzira and Emmerson Mnangagwa Jnr, the son of Emmerson Mnangagwa. Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono's twin daughters Pride and Praise and his son Passion were also ordered out.
The deportations have stoked political tensions, with government officials accusing Tsvangirai of triggering the deportations.
State media this week questioned how Tsvangirai was paying for his children said to be studying in Australia, accusing him of hypocrisy.
The Chronicle newspaper, a government mouthpiece, claimed Tsvangirai had been berated for his hypocrisy "by some Australian academics and students who attended the meetings he addressed".
The paper quoted a "scathing intellectual" as dismissing Tsvangirai as a "huge bore who lacks charisma, content and is purely driven by the West."
"Morgan is so worryingly unthinking and a political dunderhead with no clue of what he will do in the unlikely event that he wins next year's elections," a Melisa Welsh, said to be an undergraduate humanities student at the University of New South Wales, was quoted as saying.
"It does not surprise us that he does not want to see some Zimbabwean students learning in Australia; his conduct is typical of unlearned loudmouths," she added.
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