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ZEC: another 33 Senate seats announced
Sokwanele - Enough is Enough -
Zimbabwe
PROMOTING NON-VIOLENT PRINCIPLES TO ACHIEVE
DEMOCRACY
ZEC: another 33 Senate seats announced
Sokwanele : 4
April 2008
The ZEC has now announced results for another 33 Senate seats,
bringing the
total anounced to 43 seats.
The breakdown of 43 seats
translates to Zanu PF having 20 seats, the MDC MT
has 19 seats and the MDC
has 4 seats.
We are now waiting for the results of 17 senate seats to be
announced by the
ZEC.
Please note: a subscriber alerted us to the fact
that our final list of
results for all 207 House of Assembly seats actually
only included details
for 206 constituencies. Thank you for bringing that to
our attention and we
apologise for the error. The missing constituency from
the list was
Muzarabani South. This is an unopposed Zanu PF seat. This does
not affect
the final results per party that we sent you.
We do not have
PVT results to send you for the Senate. However, we would
like to bring your
attention to how the PVT data for the House of Assembly
results was
obtained, using a combination of dedicated polling agents who
used
cellphones, satellite phones and cameras to record the evidence of your
votes as soon as they were counted and posted outside the polling stations
where the public could see them.
This information has been published on
the zimelectionresults.com website.
How the PVT information was
obtained
In terms of Zimbabwean election law upon closure of the polling
station
counting must begin immediately, and the result must be displayed
outside
the polling stations to public view. Candidates and their polling
agents
should be in attendance during the counting
process.
zimelectionresults.com obtained the results using polling agents who
were
specially trained to obtain data officially displayed. This information
was
transmitted to a results centre in South Africa using cellphones and
satellite phones to the centre which was manned by call centre
operators.
Fig 1. [above] shows a typical data file showing the flow of
information.
Polling agents were also equipped with a camera to photograph
the actual
official results posted by the ZEC. These will be archived on
this web site
later as forensic evidence. The polling agents also counted
the number of
people entering each polling station.
A separate report on
discrepancies will be filed on the site later.
These are the full
details for all 43 senate seats announced so far:
Bikita (Masvingo)
MDC MT
22303 / ZPF 17920 /
Bulilima-Mangwe (Matabeleland South)
MDC AM 10354
/ ZPF 9303 / MDC MT 6752 /
Chegutu (Mashonaland West)
ZPF 23032 / MDC
MT 14275 / MDC MT 7897 / MDC AM 4267 /
Chikomba-Seke (Mashonaland
East)
ZPF 25266 / MDC MT 13520 / MDC MT 8690 /
Chikomo (Harare)
MDC
MT 34484 / ZPF 11681 / MDC AM 5122 / IND 3562 / IND 308 / ZPPDP 124
/
Chimanimani (Manicaland)
ZPF 30520 / MDC MT 30221 /
Chiredzi
(Masvingo)
ZPF 33910 / MDC MT 12780 / MDC AM 4623 /
Chisipite
(Harare)
MDC MT 28031 / ZPF 8496 / IND 2774 /
Chitungwiza
(Harare)
MDC MT 37138 / ZPF 14533 / MDC AM 4413 /
Chizhanje
(Harare)
MDC MT 13701 / ZPF 4034 / MDC AM 2487 /
Emganwini
(Bulawayo)
MDC MT 8839 / MDC AM 5229 / ZPF 2909 / IND 899 / UPP 169
/
Gokwe-North (Midlands)
ZPF 30132 / MDC MT 24974 /
Goromonzi
(Mashonaland East)
ZPF 16156 / MDC MT 15287 / MDC AM 4560 /
Gutu
(Masvingo)
MDC MT 28975 / ZPF 23638 / IND 2050 /
Gwabalanda
(Bulawayo)
MDC MT 7469 / MDC AM 5632 / ZPF 1434 / Zapu-FP 734 / FDU 303 / UPP
149 /
Gwanda (Matabeleland South)
ZPF 11873 / MDC AM 9310 / MDC MT
5334 / UPP 1213 /
Gweru-Chirumanzi (Midlands)
MDC MT 31120 / ZPF 29784
/ MDC AM 7379 /
Hurungwe (Mashonaland West)
ZPF 30162 / MDC MT 23786
/
Hwange (Matabeleland North)
MDC MT 18329 / ZPF 7327 / MDC AM 6334
/
Hwata (Harare)
MDC MT 67131 / ZPF 14582 / IND 2354 /
Insiza
(Matabeleland South)
ZPF 10535 / MDC AM 7681 / MDC MT 2753 /
Kadoma
(Mashonaland West)
ZPF 32463 / MDC MT 13172 / MDC MT 11758 /
Kariba
(Mashonaland West)
MDC MT 7161 ! / ZPF 5562 /
Khumalo
(Bulawayo)
MDC AM 8021 / MDC MT 6077 / ZPF 2002 / IND 498 / UPP 241 / PUMA 99
/
Kwekwe (Midlands)
MDC MT 26479 / ZPF 19059 / IND 2005
/
Mabuthweni (Bulawayo)
MDC MT 8657 / MDC AM 3726 / ZPF 2309 / UPP 321
/ PUMA 221 /
Makonde (Mashonaland West)
ZPF 22352 / MDC MT 11072 / MDC
AM 2654 / UPP 1111 /
Makoni (Manicaland)
ZPF 28477 / MDC MT 24494 /
MDC AM 9836 /
Marondera-Wedza (Mashonaland East)
ZPF 24571 / MDC MT
17370 / MDC AM 6994 / IND 1996 /
Masotsha-Ndlovu (Bulawayo)
MDC MT
6225 / MDC AM 5426 / ZPF 1889 / UPP 277 /
Masvingo (Masvingo)
ZPF
23529 / MDC MT 23332 / MDC AM 6399 / IND 1882 / UPP 765 /
Matobo
(Matabeleland South)
MDC MT 6695 / ZPF 6083 / MDC AM 3434 /
Mount
Darwin (Mashonaland Central)
ZPF 34139 / MDC MT 6581 / MDC AM 3130
/
Murewa (Mashonaland East)ZPF 22429 / MDC MT 17401 /
Mutoko
(Mashonaland East)< br>ZPF 26144 / MDC MT 15345 /
Mvurachena
(Harare)
MDC MT 13942 / ZPF 7897 / IND 2238 /
Mwenezi-Chivi
(Masvingo)
ZPF 44829 / MDC MT 20700 / IND 2323 /
Mzilikazi
(Bulawayo)
MDC MT 9157 / MDC AM 4217 / ZPF 1785 / IND 418 / IND 216
/
Nkayi (Matabeleland North)
MDC AM 9181 / ZPF 7946 / MDC MT 2636 /
IND 1719 /
Shurugwi-Zvishavane (Midlands)
ZPF 24055 / MDC MT 11988 /
MDC AM 7034 / IND 2087 /
Umzingwane (Matabeleland South)
MDC AM 4964 /
ZPF 4227 / MDC MT 2658 /
Zaka (Masvingo)
MDC MT 24202 / ZPF 18578 /
IND 1296 /
Zvimba (Mashonaland West)
ZPF 26274 / MDC MT 12651
/
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Delay
in Election Results & the National Political Environment
http://www.kubatana.net
Zimbabwean Civil
Society Organisations
April 04, 2008
Zimbabwean civil society
expresses its gravest concern at the unacceptable
delay in the release of
poll results for local government, House of
Assembly, Senate and
Presidential elections. We find the reasons given by
the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC) for this delay to be inadequate as
all of the results were
displayed outside all polling stations at the close
of counting and
verification on 29 March 2008 and were therefore in the
public domain. We
therefore call upon ZEC to release these results urgently
to restore some
measure of public confidence in the electoral process.
We also call upon
the establishment to desist from unlawfully arresting or
threatening with
arrest, foreign or local journalists, opposition political
party
leaders/activists and civil society leaders/activists at such a
sensitive
national political moment in Zimbabwe. We have been informed that
as of last
night (3 April 2008) armed Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP)
personnel had
raided local hotels and arrested and detained at least 3
journalists and a
number of people celebrating House of Assembly victories
in some parts of
the country for reasons best known to themselves. Such
actions, on the part
of the ZRP and those in charge of them can only but add
to the serious
suspicions by the electorate that their vote is not being
respected.
We also have it on good and reliable record that the Zanu
Pf party has
already embarked on a retributive and violent campaign before
the final
results for the Senate and Presidential elections have been
announced. It is
our view that such actions show lack of respect for the
will of the people.
Further to this, and in the event that there is no
clear winner in the
Presidential election result, a circumstance that will
necessitate an
electoral run off in terms of Section 110 of the Electoral
Act, we urge the
ZEC to ensure that said run-off is undertaken within 21
days as is outlined
by the Electoral Act. This is said because, we have it
on reliable knowledge
that the government has the undemocratic intention of
extending the period
for the holding of a run-off Presidential election from
21 to 90 days using
disputed and autocractic Presidential powers on the
pretext that the ZEC is
ill-prepared to hold it in the stipulated period. We
hold that this is
unacceptable given the anxiety that is gripping the nation
and given that in
essence, such a move is patently undemocratic and has all
the vestiges of
creating a serious constitutional and political crisis of
tremendous
proportions. We therefore insist and call upon ZEC to follow the
Electoral
Act and ensure that the processes of a run-off, should there be
one, are
democratic and instil confidence in the electorate that the ballot
will not
be subject to arbitrary and undemocratic procedures.
For
more information contact MISA Zimbabwe
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material
from this
website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License
unless
stated otherwise.
Arrests Threaten Deeper Crisis
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Zimbabwe:
AU and SADC
Should Intervene to Prevent More Intimidation
(Johannesburg, April 4, 2008) –
African leaders should use their influence
to prevent a post-election
crackdown in Zimbabwe, Human Rights Watch said
today. The recent arrest of
two foreign journalists and a raid on offices
used by the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) raise serious
concerns about widespread
government repression in the aftermath of Zimbabwe’s
March 29, 2008 general
elections.
“We fear this is the prelude to a government crackdown on the
political
opposition and civil society in the wake of hotly contested
elections,” said
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
“Government
harassment of the opposition and journalists only serve to
inflame the
political environment in Zimbabwe.”
On the evening of
April 3, riot police arrested Barry Bearak, a
correspondent for the New York
Times, and another as yet unnamed foreign
correspondent at the York Lodge
guesthouse in the capital Harare. Police
arrested three other people at the
lodge but later released them. Lawyers
representing the journalists told
Human Rights Watch that police denied them
access to their clients and they
had to file an urgent court application
requesting to see their clients. On
the same evening police raided MDC
offices in another Harare
hotel.
Human Rights Watch called on the African Union (AU) and the
Southern African
Development Community (SADC) to publicly urge the
government of Zimbabwe to
stop engaging in acts of
intimidation.
Human Rights Watch also said Zimbabwean authorities should
immediately allow
lawyers to see the two journalists.
Zimbabwe held
simultaneous presidential, parliamentary, senatorial, and
local council
elections on March 29. A Human Rights Watch report on the
pre-election
process concluded that it was deeply flawed and unlikely to
lead to
elections that were free, fair, or credible.
Police spokesperson Wayne
Bvudzijena told the news agency Agence France
Presse that the journalists
were arrested and charged with practicing
without accreditation under the
Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act (AIPPA).
Human
Rights Watch has long argued that the AIPPA severely restricts the
ability
of journalists to report freely in the country, and violates the
rights to
freedom of expression and information. Amendments to the AIPPA in
the run-up
to the 2008 general elections have not removed the restrictive
requirements
on reporting in Zimbabwe. The government denied media
accreditation to
scores of foreign journalists from western governments such
as the United
Kingdom and the United States who wanted to report on the
elections.
Despite these problems, Zimbabweans turned out to vote in
an atmosphere that
was relatively calm and free of violence. After several
days, on April 2 the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) finally concluded
its announcement of
parliamentary results in which the MDC led by Morgan
Tsvangirai party won 99
seats while the ruling Zimbabwe African National
Union Patriotic Front got
97 seats. Ten seats went to a smaller MDC faction
led by Arthur Mutambara,
and one seat went to independent candidate Jonathan
Moyo.
However, almost a week after the vote, the electoral commission has
yet to
announce the results of the presidential election. Predictions by
independent monitors of a close race between the two presidential
candidates, Tsvangirai and the incumbent, Robert Mugabe, suggest a possible
second round of elections.
Human Rights Watch also urged the AU and
SADC to send in monitors to assess
the human rights environment as soon as
the presidential results are
announced.
“It is commendable that
Zimbabweans have remained calm in the face of
unnecessary delays in
announcing the presidential results,” Gagnon said. “If
the presidential
election goes to a second round the potential for political
violence and
intimidation will increase. It’s critical that the AU and SADC
act
now.”
"Preparing for a Rigged Result"
International Crisis Group
François
Grignon in The East African
31 March
The East African
This Saturday [29
March], Zimbabwe holds elections that promise to be
chaotic and possibly
violent. The international community needs to have
contingency plans to deal
with further confrontation in a country steeped in
crisis.
The polls
mark several “firsts”. President Robert Mugabe faces the first
open
challenge from within his ruling ZANU-PF party in the shape of Simba
Makoni,
a former finance minister and respected technocrat. For the first
time then
Mugabe faces two serious opponents: Makoni and opposition leader
Morgan
Tsvangirai. The three-man race raises the possibility of yet another
first:
a run-off election between the top two candidates if none captures
51% in
the first round.
But this is where the firsts end. As usual, the
government’s systematic
abuses that marred previous elections are being
repeated and are expected to
continue up to, through and after the vote,
especially as they spread
confusion over complex new election rules. Above
all, 84-year old Mugabe, at
the helm for almost three decades, shows no sign
of being prepared to accept
defeat. He is apt to do whatever it takes to
stay at State House, including
escalating violence.
A year ago, the
Southern African Development Community nominated President
Thabo Mbeki to
mediate talks between ZANU-PF and the divided opposition.
Mbeki publicly
stated that the priority of his mediation was to guarantee
free, fair and
undisputed elections. Mugabe vetoed this. No matter what
happens on polling
day, the election is already marred by pre-poll
misbehaviour and the outcome
likely to be hotly disputed.
Only “friendly” international observers will
be allowed on the ground for
these elections. But it is critical that the
African Union and the Southern
African Development Community judge the
overall electoral environment, and
not just the voting on the day itself, in
strict accordance with their
regional principles. The refusal of all-African
observer missions to endorse
Kenya’s rigged elections is an example worth
following.
Across the board, electoral preparations have been flawed.
Constituency
demarcation was an exercise in gerrymandering, the voters roll
is littered
with dead, ghost and transferred voters, and there are too few
polling
stations in urban centres where opposition support is strongest.
While
cleverly conceding to a package of reforms, ZANU-PF has used all the
extensive means at its disposal to maintain an unfair advantage. It has
waged a campaign of intimidation against all perceived opponents, and the
state media is tantamount to a Mugabe mouthpiece. The military-security
complex remains as entrenched as ever.
Saturday’s election takes
place amid widespread suffering. Astronomic
inflation has made the currency
worthless. The new ten million dollar note
buys just a loaf of bread. Food,
fuel and essential medicines are in
chronically short supply, and much of
the working population has fled to
South Africa and other neighbours in
search of jobs. The government has
cynically exploited this humanitarian
catastrophe by manipulating aid and
buying votes. Zimbabweans desperately
want all this to end, but have little
confidence elections can produce the
change they desire.
Makoni’s late entry into the race has, however,
generated some excitement.
His challenge is engineered by ZANU-PF
heavyweights -- though all but a
handful remain in background. It has thrown
the ruling party into turmoil
and left Mugabe unsure of his allies. Makoni’s
limited grassroots support
and opaque establishment backing work against him
but his challenge could
open space at the top as it accelerates realignments
in the faction-riddled
ruling party. Whatever the outcome of the elections,
ZANU-PF is a changed
creature.
Three main election scenarios are
possible:
Mugabe is declared winner in the first round. That would likely
require
massive rigging, even given the uneven playing field. It is expected
to take
five days for the election results to be announced. That provides
the
government-controlled electoral commission plenty of time for
chicanery.
Run-off between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. Depending on the scale
of the
rigging, the opposition leader stands a good chance of reaching a
run-off.
He commands loyal following even if his image has been tarnished by
opposition in-fighting. If he must fight a run-off, Mugabe would prefer it
to be against Tsvangirai because the ruling party would more readily rally
behind the incumbent.
Run-off between Mugabe and Makoni. If party
insiders mobilised sufficient
support, Makoni could also reach a run-off.
This is the worse-case scenario
for Mugabe. ZANU-PF could split asunder and
critical mass build if Makoni
formed a united front with the opposition. The
risk of factional violence
would be high.
Mugabe could well power his
way to victory even in such a scenario. But none
of the three scenarios, in
the extent to which they result in his
re-election, can produce a government
capable of ending Zimbabwe’s crisis.
In the face of massive rigging and a
bitter election dispute, the African
Union must stand ready to mediate a
power-sharing agreement to produce a
transitional government with a
reformist agenda. A settlement need not
necessarily remove Mugabe. However
unpalatable, it might be necessary for
Mugabe to serve as a non-executive
head of state during a transitional
period in advance of fresh
elections.
As in Kenya, the region’s leaders, with support from the West,
must act
quickly and robustly if the elections do not produce a legitimate
government. Anything less and Zimbabwe’s dramatic downward slide will
continue, and the ongoing struggle over Mugabe’s succession could easily
provoke more bloodshed.
François Grignon is Africa Program Director
of the International Crisis
Group
Outcome of Mugabe meeting : Plans to buy
time
afrik.com
ZANU-PF party has decided that its leader Robert Mugabe should
contest
a run-off vote against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai if
neither wins a
majority in a presidential
election.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday 4 April 2008, by Bruce
Sibanda
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from
our correspondent in Harare
The party politburo met for close to five
hours at its headquarters to
discuss Mugabe’s next move to face the greatest
crisis of his 28-year rule.
The party’s top leaders met to decide how to
react to election results that
have yet to be announced, six days after the
presidential poll. The
opposition MDC claims its leader received enough
votes to win outright.
Emerging from the meeting Zanu-PF administration
secretary Didymus Mutasa
said there would be a re-run if the election
commission "compels us" He
admitted that the revolutionary party is “ down
but not out," "Absolutely
the candidate will be Robert Gabriel Mugabe - who
else would it be other
than our dear old man?" he said
However the
emergency meeting was delayed by to hours after hours as members
present it
could not make a quorum.
By 10 am, the scheduled time, only 10 members
had turned up. It only kicked
off around launch time with 31
members.
Robert Mugabe arrived well on time. This time the cheering
women’s league
members were there to greet him.
Journalists were told
to leave the politburo meeting after Mugabe formally
opened
proceedings.
"Our meeting is now called to order," he said. Before taking
the chair,
Mugabe could be seen cracking jokes with some of the politburo
members,
telling one who lost his parliamentary seat: "You were struck by
lightning."
Three issues topped ZANU PF emergency meeting agenda. The
49-member
Politburo was split on whether Mugabe should fight on amid claims
by
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai that he has won.
The election
commission has to announce the presidential election result by
the end of
Friday to meet a legal deadline.
Plans to postpone run-off
A camp
on Mugabe’s side is led by Zimbabwe Defence Force chief Constantine
Chiwenga
and police commissioner Augustine Chihuri. It is understood to be
urging
Mugabe to move to a second round of voting, extend the
constitutionally
determined interim period by decree from 21 days to 90 days
and use the time
to bludgeon opposition voters into submission.
The other Cabinet-based
camp — said to include Minister of Defence Sidney
Sekeramayi, Intelligence
Minister Didymus Mutasa is apparently pressing
Mugabe to acknowledge defeat
and negotiate a set of transitional and
security
arrangements.
Several ruling party sources say that three options were
discussed: a
negotiated, immediate departure for Mugabe; a second round of
voting by
April 19 as required by law if no candidate has a majority; or a
90-day
state of emergency in hopes of improving conditions before an
eventual
runoff.
Finances might hamper run-off
But the dire
state of Zimbabwe’s finances makes organizing a second round of
voting
difficult, sources said. Some ruling party officials are arguing that
a
runoff this month is impractical and that Mugabe must use emergency
presidential powers to delay that vote until June or July.
ZANU-PF
lost control of parliament for the first time in elections last
Saturday but
no results have so far emerged from the presidential vote,
prompting
opposition suspicions that Mugabe is trying to engineer a way out
of the
crisis.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says
Tsvangirai won an
absolute majority in the presidential vote and should be
declared president,
ending Mugabe’s long rule since independence in 1980.
ZANU-PF and
independent projections show Tsvangirai winning the presidential
vote but
falling short of the absolute majority needed to avoid a
runoff.
Winning at all cost
One politburo member, speaking
anonymously after the meeting, favoured a
run-off while acknowledging the
MDC had inflicted a major blow.
"We had under-estimated the [opposition]
threat, but this time we will
properly strategise for the run-off, and we
will get it, without doubt.
There is increasing impatience in Zimbabwe at a
six-day wait for the results
of the presidential election.
The MDC
said it would ask the High Court to order the immediate release of
the
results.
Mugabe faces deep discontent as Zimbabwe suffers the world’s
highest
inflation rate of more than 100,000 percent, a virtually worthless
currency
and severe food and fuel shortages.
A runoff should be held
on April 19, three weeks after the elections, but
civil society groups said
Mugabe plans to extend that to 90 days to buy time
to regroup.
Latest
results
Meanwhile, according to the latests senatorial results announced
at 6:30 pm,
the ruling ZANU-PF was leading with 21 seats against the
opposition MDC’s 18
with the breakaway MDC faction 4.
A total of 60
seats are being contested. No official results have been
published yet from
the presidential election, also held on March 29.
Independence and Famine in the Land of Mugabe
Dar Al-Hayat, Lebanon
Elias
Harfoush Alhayat - 04/04/08//
Like many leaders who do not leave
power unless they guarantee that their
people have gone into exile or to the
grave before them, Zimbabwe's
president insists that his country does not
deserve a president who is
better than him and that the people who have
evidently voted against him,
have taken a "wrong" decision that serves the
enemies of Zimbabwe which has
been plagued by Robert Mugabe for 28
years.
Zimbabwe now stands as a shining example of the many states where
independence becomes a hollow word indistinguishable from colonialism,
perhaps even less merciful than colonialism and racism. Unfortunately, it
seems to resemble the regimes systems ruling in our region. Such nations
have escaped the oppression of imperialisms and foreign rule, only to fall
under the rule of so-called nationalists and revolutionists who decorate
radios and cable TV with their glorious speeches: "No voice rises above
sound of battle." The battle, in most cases, is against helpless nations
drowning in their worries to secure their daily living and distracted from
political affairs that are left to the ruler runs affairs with his inherited
wisdom.
If Ian Smith were alive and in power, it would be difficult
to imagine him
doing to the blacks of Rhodesia, which he ruled with
unprecedented and
despicable racism, what the hero of independence is doing
to them today. Of
the twelve million people in this "independent" nation,
two million are
afflicted with AIDS, three million scattered as refugees in
neighboring
countries such as Botswana, Mozambique and South Africa; and 80%
are
unemployed. While illiteracy stands at 90%, the average life expectancy
is
37 years for males and 34 for females; and food prices continue to rise
on a
daily basis, with inflation reaching 150,000 percent! Still, there is
no
alternative to the great leader who lacks no admirers of his "historical
struggle" against colonialism and his daily insults at the British and
Americans who want to "steal" the wealth of his country while he works hard
to ensure that there is nothing left to steal!
Of course there must
be foreigners to blame. Mugabe shields himself from the
will of his people
with his war against western states. He accuses them of
waging a war to
starve Zimbabweans. Were it not for colonialism, all
economic plans would
have succeeded, and Zimbabwe would have been in its
best days. Were it not
for Israel, our regimes would also have been feeding
us democracy along with
fruit and honey, morning and night. However, given
the status quo,
governments are preoccupied with the historic battle and
opposition is
prohibited by virtue of its loyalty that definitely belongs to
foreign
powers.
Have we not recently heard the famous adage in the media of one
of the
regimes in our region: any opposition that disagrees with the regime
is
loyal to foreigners?!
So is the case with the opposition in
Zimbabwe, according to its ruler. As
long as the foreigners are trying to
change the regime, because it has
become a disaster for its people, and its
presence a recipe for the spread
of poverty and famine, and as long as the
opposition leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai agrees with this goal of change, then
he must be a foreign agent
too. Consequently, he should be prevented from
assuming power, even if he
won the elections. Mugabe's slogan has always
been: the opposition will
never rule this country. However, his major
"mistake", a "mistake" that is
difficult to commit in our countries, was
that he called for elections in
response to African pressures, especially
from the leaders of South Africa,
his comrades in confronting apartheid. He
assumed that people would not
"make the mistake" of demanding change and
would find no one better than
Mugabe to preside over their
annihilation.
How could a ruler who has done what he has done to his
people nominate
himself as a candidate, if it were not for the fact that he
thinks so
lightly of them? How could this ruler leave office before ending
his battle
against colonialism by annihilating the last citizen in his
country?
Wait for Zimbabwe Election Results Continues
VOA
By Peta
Thornycroft
Harare
04 April 2008
The
politburo of Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF party has endorsed President Robert
Mugabe
as its candidate for president if a run-off election is necessary.
Peta
Thornycroft reports for VOA from Harare that the endorsement came as
the
country waited for a sixth day for official results from Saturday's
presidential vote.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai Friday told
foreign diplomats that
verification of the counting of the presidential vote
from Saturday's
election has not yet begun. He said officials of his
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party would be carefully checking each
of more than
two million votes cast. He said this would take at least three
days
indicating he did not expect results from the presidential poll before
Tuesday.
Tsvangirai also told diplomats he still believes he won the
presidential
election with more than 50 percent of the vote, but he said Mr.
Mugabe would
be more likely to seek a run-off election than concede
defeat.
Returns from the senate elections were still trickling showing
ZANU-PF and
the MDC with an equal number of seats.
ZANU-PF narrowly
lost its majority in the national assembly when results of
the parliamentary
elections were announced Wednesday by the Zimbabwe
Election
Commission.
Harare seems quiet, subdued even, although groups of ZANU-PF
militants
marched quietly through the city center Friday.
Independent
analysts and opposition parties say there does not appear to be
any
concerted political crackdown underway, but Tsvangirai Friday said he
regretted the delay in announcing the election results because it was
causing tension and hindering the process of political reconciliation and
economic recovery.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, who mediated
talks between the
governing and opposition parties, urged
patience.
"We would hope that again everybody would accept those results
in a way that
those results have been accepted up until now," he said. "And
then the
legal constitutional processes of Zimbabwe would then proceed. If
indeed
Morgan Tsvangirai has been elected in terms of the electoral law and
so on,
that's fine. If there is to be a run-off, that's fine. So it's a
matter that
we must await."
Two foreign journalists, one from the New
York Times and the other from the
London's Sunday Telegraph were arrested
late Thursday on charges of working
in Zimbabwe without
accreditation.
In addition, three pro-democracy activists from the United
States were
reportedly being detained. A western diplomat said Friday that
the
whereabouts of one of them, a staff member of the National Democratic
Institute arrested at Harare airport, are not known.
The signs of
Zimbabwe's economic collapse are everywhere. Stocks of
groceries are low
and the staple, corn meal, is not available in the shops.
The central
bank said Friday it had released a new 50 million Zimbabwe
dollar note,
worth about $1 US on the parallel market. And the central
statistical office
announced that inflation had reached 165,000 percent.
Several diplomats
said Friday they wondered whether Zimbabwe would be able
to fund and
organize the expected presidential run-off election.
Zimbabwe unveils $50-million bank
note to cope with rampant inflation
cbc, Canada
Last Updated:
Friday, April 4, 2008 | 1:28 PM ET
The Associated Press
Authorities in Zimbabwe have issued a new mega bank
note in an attempt to cope with the troubled African country's runaway
inflation.
The size of the new note? Fifty million Zimbabwean
dollars.
An
unidentified man holds the new $50 million Zimbabwean dollar note introduced by
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in Harare, April, 4, 2008. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi
Mukwazhi)
The new bill, issued Friday, marks the third time in
three months that the central bank in Harare has issued a higher denomination
note in response to the country's 100,000 per cent annual inflation
rate.
In practical terms, the $50-million bill is worth
just $1 US in trading on Zimbabwe's widely used black market.
That means it can buy just three loaves of
bread.
Zimbabwe charges two foreign journalists
Reuters
Fri 4 Apr 2008, 17:35
GMT
(Repeats to additional subscribers)
HARARE, April 4 (Reuters)
- Two foreign journalists, including a New York
Times correspondent, have
been charged with violating the country's media
laws, a police spokesman
said on Friday.
"They are being charged with working without
accreditation, they should
appear in court tomorrow (Saturday)," said the
spokesman, Wayne Bvudzijena.
The New York Times said its reporter, Barry
Bearak, who is based in
neighbouring South Africa, was taken into custody
from his hotel in the
capital, Harare, where he is covering the country's
election.
The police have not revealed the identity of the other foreign
journalist.
Both were arrested on Thursday night.
Human Rights Watch
said in a statement it was concerned that the reporters
were being held, and
called on the Zimbabwean authorities to "immediately
allow lawyers to see
the two journalists."
Zimbabwean authorities are also holding another
American, while two other
U.S. citizens have been freed, the State
Department said on Friday.
The other American is a senior program officer
with the National Democratic
Institute, a U.S. organization that monitors
elections worldwide and
promotes democracy.
The institute said
Dileepan Sivapathasundaram was arrested on Thursday at
Harare
airport.
After more than 22 hours during which authorities said he was
not being
held, Sivapathasundaram was finally tracked down to Harare's
central police
station where U.S. diplomats and Zimbabwean human rights
lawyers were
briefly allowed to see him on Friday, the institute
said.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey, who declined to release the
names of
those held because of U.S. Privacy Act concerns, called for their
immediate
release.
He said U.S. consular officials had visited the
Americans, jailed on
Thursday. "They have not been mistreated...as far as I
am aware," said
Casey.
"They were picked up for no legitimate
reason." (Reporting by MacDonald
Dzirutwe; Editing by Jon Boyle)
No case against journalists - Zim lawyer
IOL
April 04 2008 at 07:42PM
Zimbabwe's attorney general
has concluded that there is no case
against two foreign journalists who were
arrested for operating without
accreditation, their lawyer said on
Friday.
"The attorney general's office says there is no case to
answer,"
lawyer Harrison Nkomo said.
"Legally, this means the
attorney general's office has refused to
prosecute them on those particular
charges and this means they should be
released.
"What we do not
know is whether the police are going to release them
or they will prefer
other charges."
New York Times correspondent Barry Bearak, 58, and
a 45-year-old
journalist from Britain were both detained on Thursday during
a raid on a
Harare guest house and later charged with breaching the
country's tough
media laws.
Police say the reporters had been
trying to cover the country's
general election without authorisation. -
Sapa-AFP
Zimbabwe: post election
security alert no. 1
MEDIA ALERT
4 April 2008
Reports coming through from Zimbabwe
indicate that the stalling of an
announcement on the results of the
Presidential elections could be a
mechanism for buying time and provoking
violence in order to mobilise the
armed forces and militia against the
people.
Yesterday afternoon, Zanu PF youths dressed in the
regalia of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party visited
the MDC’s headquarters at
Harvest House in Harare, saying that "we must
demonstrate on the streets".
Fortunately, the MDC received prior
warning and the situation was defused.
This was followed by an
intelligence report earlier this morning that Zanu
PF had called in youths
to their headquarters in Harare. They were told
that the MDC had brought
back all of the white people from the region to
take back the farms. They
were also fed the traditional Zanu PF rhetoric
that Zimbabweans – through
their voting - have demonstrated they no longer
believe.
According to our sources, they were then planning to
march to Harvest House
and provoke a situation. Riot police have been put
on stand by to "deal
with any situations".
A report just
received from the Masvingo in the south of the country warns
that armed men
are being deployed in the rural areas.
Zimbabwe is on a knife
edge. The MDC says it is absolutely essential for
South Africa and
neighbouring countries to act now as the situation is
extremely
volatile.
The Zimbabwean government has acted with ruthlessness
in the past and all
indications are that it will do so
again.
We will keep you informed of
developments.
Thursday 3 April 2008
Police raided
a hotel used by the MDC and ransacked some of the rooms. Riot
police also
surrounded another hotel where foreign journalists were staying
and arrested
two journalists.
The New York Times confirmed that its correspondent,
Barry Bearak, had been
taken into custody by the
police.
Background
In February 2000, the electorate
delivered a resounding “no” vote on a new
constitution that would have
further entrenched President Mugabe’s power.
Retribution was
swift and ruthless. Three days later, the violent invasions
of the
commercial farms began. Both the farmers and farm workers were
believed to
have supported the fledgling opposition MDC.
In March 2005, the
MDC won the Parliamentary elections. The announcement
was also delayed as
massive rigging was required in order to deliver a
Zanu-PF
victory.
After votes had been counted at the polling stations in
the 2005 election,
the results were not posted outside polling station for
civil society, the
opposition and members of the public to
view.
This was the reason for the opposition’s insistence that
the 2008 results be
displayed publicly at the polling station directly they
had been confirmed.
Immediately they were posted, the results were
photographed and logged by
the opposition using the parallel vote tabulation
system.
Retribution for the March 2005 elections took the form of
Operation
Murambatsvina. During May, at the height of the cold winter, the
government
bulldozed countless homes in cities and towns across the country,
leaving
more than 700 000 people homeless. The United Nations said more
than 2.4
million people were affected.
Operation
Murambatsvina also resulted in the destruction of at least 32 500
small and
micro-businesses across the country, creating a loss of livelihood
for more
than 96 600 people, mostly women.
Although the state claimed the
operation was a slum clearance exercise,
commentators said the objective was
to reduce the opposition’s urban power
base and to force the victims into
the rural areas where they would be
widely dispersed and easier to
control.
The highly criticised delimitation process in the 2008 elections
has
resulted in the rural constituencies being substantially divided. This
is
believed to be an attempt to gain advantage and to garner more seats for
Zanu PF in their strongholds.
Secondly, the increase in the number of
constituencies has resulted in
smaller voting areas, making it possible for
Zanu PF to identify those which
did not vote for them.
As a highly
respected Zimbabwean explained prior to the election, the
election period
itself is usually deceptively calm, especially when the
observer missions
are in place. The danger comes after the monitors have
left, when the
people are once again highly vulnerable.
According to Politicsweb SA of 4
April, 2008, “A rerun of the presidential
poll would allow Zanu-PF a second
chance to intimidate the electorate and
fix the result. This is, after all,
what happened in early 2000. Following
Zanu-PF's loss in the constitutional
referendum in February, the regime was
able to regroup. They then used
violence, intimidation, and vote-rigging to
secure a slim majority in the
parliamentary elections in June of that
year.”
ENDS
Media release supplied
by:
Zimbabwe Democracy Now, Zimbabwe – location unspecified.
Justice postponed?
The Guardian
The number one priority is to remove
Robert Mugabe from power. Dealing with
his many crimes may have to come
later
Peter Tatchell
April 4, 2008 6:30 PM
President Robert
Mugabe is on his way out. The Zimbabwean tyrant and his
political party,
Zanu-PF, have lost the election, clearly and conclusively.
Even his
three-card box of tricks - intimidating the media and opposition,
bribing
the electorate with land and food, and stuffing the ballot boxes -
was not
enough to secure him victory.
The people of Zimbabwe have spoken: there
has been a mass rejection of
Mugabe's many years of fiddled elections,
economic mismanagement and human
rights abuses.
The election results
were posted at many polling stations the day after the
elections. Most
showed substantial wins for the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change
(MDC) in both the presidential and parliamentary ballots.
The delayed
release of the ballot results by the Mugabe-controlled electoral
commission
has been a vain attempt to massage the results in favour of
Zanu-PF.
For Mugabe's men, removing large numbers of MDC votes and
secretly disposing
of them, and then substituting fake ballot papers in
favour of Zanu-PF, was
a task too big to complete in a short space of time
for both the
presidential and parliamentary elections. Moreover, the delays
in declaring
the results have fuelled suspicions of large-scale voting fraud
and this has
left Mugabe's men in an embarrassing quandary: they don't mind
rigging
elections but they don't like to be seen as having done so. Even
they care
about issues of credibility.
Whatever the results that are
finally announced by the electoral commission,
we are now witnessing the end
game of Mugabe's 28-year rule. The delay in
announcing the results and the
failure of Mugabe to claim victory is a sign
of defeat and weakness. It also
signifies possible splits within Zanu-PF
about how to respond to their
party's electoral meltdown.
Mugabe's end may come quickly if the Zanu-PF
leadership withdraw their
support. Alternatively, the finale demise of the
liberation hero turned
despot could be long and drawn out if Mugabe's
cronies decide to stand
defiant and defend their man.
There are a
number of possible scenarios:
First, the electoral commission could
announce an election stalemate: that
no presidential candidate has won more
than 50% of the vote, and therefore
order a runoff election between Mugabe
and the MDC candidate, Morgan
Tsvangirai. Zanu-PF's hope is that next time,
without the distraction of
having to simultaneously rig the parliamentary
election, they will have the
people and resources to fix the second
presidential vote.
The second scenario is that at Mugabe's instigation,
the electoral
commission could declare the recent poll neither free or fair
(without
specifying the culprits). It could then order a new poll, with a
promise to
clean up the electoral register and the vote counting process.
Since this
would take time to put in place, the electoral commission could
set the new
presidential poll date in three or more month's time. In this
scenario, a
month or so later, Mugabe could retire on health grounds and be
replaced by
a less tainted Zanu-PF leader who might stand a better chance of
winning
(especially with more sophisticated and discreet ballot rigging),
thereby
retaining power for Zanu-PF and protecting Mugabe's legacy.
A
third possible scenario is that Mugabe might agree to stand down in
exchange
for immunity from prosecution for crimes against humanity. They
fact that he
is apparently contemplating such a deal is a tacit admission of
his guilt.
He knows that he has committed crimes under Zimbabwean and
international
law. That's why he wants a deal.
Mugabe has good reasons to fear
prosecution. He could be arraigned on
charges of war crimes, such as the
massacres in Matabeleland in the 1980s
when around 20,000 civilians were
slaughtered on the suspicion that they
supported Mugabe's rival liberation
hero, Joshua Nkomo. There are also
torture and rape charges, arising from
the mass torture and rape of
political detainees. And there are charges of
kidnapping, detaining without
trial and murdering of
oppositionists.
These abuses have been confirmed by a wide range of human
rights
organisations. According to Amnesty International and Human Rights
Watch,
Mugabe's regime is guilty of detention without trial, torture, rape,
extra-judicial killings, media censorship, financial corruption, election
fraud, mass starvation and the violent suppression of strikes and
protests.
Mugabe is not the world's only tyrant and not the worst.
Nevertheless, he
has killed more black Africans than even the murderous
apartheid regime in
South Africa. His slaughter of 20,000 civilians in
Matabeleland was the
equivalent of a Sharpeville massacre every day for over
nine months. Once a
freedom fighter, he became the moral equivalent of PW
Botha, but with a
black face - only many times worse, particularly over the
last decade.
As well as Mugabe, at least 500 top Zanu-PF leaders, police
and military
officials are directly implicated in serious human rights
abuses - plus
several thousand lower level party activists, militia members
and war
veterans.
Should Mugabe and his accomplices get immunity from
prosecution in exchange
for stepping down and going quietly?
The
number one priority right now is to remove Mugabe from power. This is
the
most likely way, although no absolute guarantee, of unravelling the
Zanu-PF
apparatus of fraud and repression. With Mugabe gone, the ruling
party will
lose its main authority. Lacking another giant Mugabe-like
leader, Zanu-PF
will be severely weakened. This will be good for democratic
governance and
accountability.
If giving Mugabe immunity from prosecution for crimes
against humanity is
the way to ensure that he goes quickly and quietly, and
avoids the risk of
Kenya-style bloodletting, then it might be the best
option. But this is, of
course, something that the people of Zimbabwe must
decide.
What happens in the long-term is something else. Even if an MDC
government
grants him immunity, this deal is not binding on the
international
community. Under international human rights law, such as the
UN convention
against torture, Mugabe would still be liable to arrest and
trial if he set
foot in any of the 130-plus countries that have signed the
convention.
A different option would be a South African-style truth and
reconciliation
commission, where Mugabe and other Zanu-PF leaders would be
granted
exemption from prosecution if they confessed to their crimes and
apologised
to their victims. This model seems to have mostly worked well in
post-apartheid South Africa - although it fell way short of giving justice
to the victims of terrible, ruthless crimes, including torture and murder by
the South African police and military.
Is this the model for
Zimbabwe, in order to overcome the divisions caused by
the terror of the
Mugabe era and to rebuild a peaceful, democratic and
prosperous nation? It
is up to Zimbabweans to decide. But many will
doubtless ask, if Slobodan
Milosevic can be put on trial in The Hague, why
not Robert Mugabe and his
henchmen?
If major human rights abusers like Mugabe are allowed to escape
prosecution,
it signals to tyrants everywhere that they can get away with
war crimes and
crimes against humanity. It makes a mockery of international
humanitarian
law, which exists to prevent such crimes and, failing that, to
punish the
perpetrators.
On the other hand, if Mugabe and other human
rights abusers (for example
George Bush of the US, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan,
King Abdullah of Saudi
Arabia and General Than Shwe of Burma) start facing
justice in courts of
law, it acts as a deterrent and warning that those who
commit crimes against
humanity will be caught and punished.
Human
rights law is meant to be enforced. It will never be respected and
observed,
as long as violators like Mugabe know they can make deals to avoid
prosecution.
What is now needed is a global people's movement to
demand the universal
enforcement of humanitarian law, and this includes its
enforcement against
our own government when it commits illegal acts against
the people of our
country and against the people of other countries like
Iraq. Mugabe isn't
the only leader who deserves to be in the dock - not by a
long way.
Mugabe's last waltz, or playing for
time?
Business Day
04 April 2008
Aubrey
Matshiqi
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DID
you hear that? It was the sound of another African dictator biting the
dust.
Or is it too early to celebrate the demise of Robert Mugabe? Last week
I
wrote about his legendary middle finger and how in the past he has used it
in defiance of international opinion and the will of the people of
Zimbabwe.
I hope that he will not use it this time to subvert what seems
to have been
an imperfect but largely democratic electoral process. Despite
the misplaced
confidence of the opposition in Mugabe's ability to rig the
election, the
national assembly results suggest that Zanu (PF) and its
strongman have lost
not only the support of Zimbabweans but also their
capacity to effect
democratic reversals. Yet the opposition should not be
sanguine until the
results of the presidential election are
known.
If Wednesday's front-page story in Mugabe's Herald is anything
to go by, the
Zimbabwean authorities will announce a run-off election
irrespective of
whether this is a reflection of the will of the Zimbabwean
people or not.
Our understanding of why a run-off is likely to be the
preferred option of
the Zimbabwean authorities depends on what we think has
been going on behind
the scenes since polling stations closed on Saturday.
It is not unreasonable
to surmise that by Monday, at least, the results must
have been known to key
actors, such as Zanu(PF) and Mugabe, the Movement for
Democratic Change
(MDC) and Morgan Tsvangirai, the African Union (AU),
Southern African
Development Community (SADC), the British and the
Americans.
THIS partly explains why the Zimbabwean Election
Commission (ZEC) announced
the results at snail's pace . If we give the ZEC
the benefit of the doubt,
the task of supervising four elections at the same
time must have been more
than daunting. On the other hand, the lethargy of
the election authorities
has given Mugabe the time and space to consider
several tactical options,
since constitutional amendment 18 imposed serious
constraints on his ability
to rig elections. The delay also gave other
actors the opportunity to
consider options for an exit strategy for Mugabe
.
If I am correct, actors such as SADC and the AU must have been
working
frantically to find a compromise that excludes an outright win by
Tsvangirai. The idea behind such a strategy would be to sell a run-off
election as a compromise to both Mugabe and Tsvangirai. Since the
Organisation of African Unity's instincts are still very strong in the AU,
the primary objective would be to ensure that Mugabe emerges with as little
egg on his face as possible.
Tsvangirai's less-than-bullish
"presidential" demeanour at a media briefing
on Tuesday may be a sign of the
pressure he is under to accept a run-off
election, despite his belief that
he has trounced Mugabe.
The responses of Mugabe and Tsvangirai will,
among other things, be shaped
by their respective reading of the balance of
forces within Zanu (PF) and
the security establishment. It must be clear to
many within the ruling party
by now that they need to separate their
political interests from those of
Mugabe or risk sinking with
him.
If Tsvangirai has already received clear messages of support
from security
chiefs in favour of a run-off election, we might see the MDC
lowering the
volume on their insistence that Tsvangirai's performance has
exceeded the
constitutional requirement. Tsvangirai may accept a run-off in
exchange for
assurances that Mugabe will not participate, or for assurances
from the
security establishment that it will defend a run-off election from
the
possibility of an undemocratic reversal of last week's election
result.
What should Mugabe do? Well, he should step down and do it
yesterday. If he
tries to test his rigging skills, the AU must grow a spine.
Don't they have
a principle that forbids change through unconstitutional
means? Mugabe must
not be allowed to stage a coup. I suspect, though, that
his army and party
will not allow him. But I have been wrong
before.
a.. Matshiqi is senior associate political analyst at
the Centre for Policy
Studies.
Mugabe holds Zimbabwe hostage
The Namibian
Friday, April 4, 2008 - Web posted at 6:26:51
GMT
HARARE - Zimbabwe's
election results were further delayed yesterday as
President Robert Mugabe
called a meeting of his top leadership to discuss
how to face the biggest
crisis of his 28-year rule.
Amid uncertainty over
whether Mugabe will be able to hang on to power,
authorities said results of
elections to the upper house of parliament -
which must precede the
presidential results - had been delayed by
"logistical
problems".
They had been expected yesterday.
Zimbabweans have been waiting since last Saturday to hear whether
Mugabe was
defeated in the vote, as the Movement for Democratic Change
opposition says
based on its own tallies.
The opposition, and many Zimbabweans,
believe the unprecedented delay
in issuing results masks attempts by
Mugabe's entourage to find a way out of
the crisis.
Ruling
Zanu-PF party sources said Mugabe would chair a leadership
meeting called
for today.
Senior Zanu-PF official Didymus Mutasa declined to
comment on whether
the party was planning for a runoff against MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai,
although another official said earlier it was ready for a
vote and would win
it.
"All I can confirm is there is a
politburo meeting.
That's enough, that's all I can say at the
moment," said Mutasa, the
party secretary for administration.
State media gave Zimbabweans a hint of how President Mugabe's
embattled
party might wage its campaign for a presidential runoff, with
stories
yesterday portraying the opposition as divided, controlled by former
colonial ruler Britain and as posing a threat to land reform.
War veteran Garikai Sithole urged Zimbabweans to "avoid aborting the
revolution at this critical stage", according to the state-run Herald
newspaper.
NEXT MOVE Analysts said Mugabe was believed to have
convened the
leadership to discuss their next move after Zanu-PF's first
defeat in a
parliamentary election and to gauge how much support there was
for him
running in a second round.
Party projections show
Mugabe failing to win a majority for the first
time since he took power
after independence from Britain in 1980.
But they also show
Tsvangirai falling short of the required absolute
majority to avoid a second
round.
Political commentator John Makumbe, a fierce Mugabe critic,
said there
was concern that the party would try to engineer a way of staying
in power
despite election defeat.
"The concern for the people
on Zimbabwe is, are the members of the
politburo going to stick to the laws
of the land or are they going to
backtrack," he said.
All the
signs are that Mugabe, a liberation war leader still respected
in Africa, is
in the worst trouble of his rule after facing an unprecedented
challenge in
the elections because of the collapse of the Zimbabwean
economy.
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said
earlier the party was
ready for a second round, in the strongest indication
yet that Mugabe
intended to stand, despite calls by the opposition to
concede defeat and
avoid embarrassment.
The MDC says Tsvangirai
won an absolute majority and no re-run is
necessary.
BALLOT
MYSTERY In an interview with Reuters Television, Matonga added:
"We think,
and it is my assumption ...
there may not be a clear winner of the
presidential one (vote) and it
points to a re-run."
In his
first public appearance since the March 29 election, Mugabe
yesterday met
the head of an African Union election observer team at his
residence in
Harare, state television reported.
Asked by about his meeting with
Mugabe, Sierra Leone's former
President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah told ZTV: "He
looked very relaxed, and is of
the view that the problems of the country
will be resolved amicably, and he
is very relaxed about it."
Jonathan Moyo, Mugabe's former information minister who is now an
independent in parliament, said authorities were not coping well with
defeat.
Security chiefs, who have said they would not accept an
opposition
victory, were anxious.
"You have generals who
unwisely, or rather foolishly, told the world
that they would only salute
one candidate, who happened to have lost the
election," he told
reporters.
An election commission member indicated presidential
results would be
announced today, speaking on condition of anonymity because
he was not
authorised to speak to the media.
The commission
said it still was receiving ballot boxes from the
provinces, raising
questions about where those votes had been since
Saturday's elections, amid
charges there was a plot to rig the results.
On Wednesday, official
election returns showed Mugabe's Zanu-PF party
had lost its parliamentary
majority.
Yesterday, The Herald charged Tsvangirai would hand back
farmland to
the whites.
Tsvangirai has not said that, promising
instead an equitable
distribution of land to people who know how to
farm.
Mugabe claimed his land reforms were to benefit poor blacks,
but gave
most seized farms to relatives, friends and cronies, with some
senior
officials and military commanders receiving several fertile farms
that have
been overtaken by weeds.
The Herald said white
farmers had returned from Zambia and Mozambique
and were threatening to
evict blacks.
It quoted the war veterans association that
spearheaded violent land
grabs as saying, "We will be left with no option
except to take up arms and
defend our pieces of land."
Religious leaders and diplomats were involved in a flurry of
initiatives
yesterday to try to persuade Mugabe to step down.
Diplomats who
spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the issue said
Western leaders were contacting southern
African leaders.
Amani
Countess of the Washington-based TransAfrica Forum said
religious leaders
were asking counterparts in the region to pressure
presidents to approach
Mugabe.
Nampa-Reuters-AP
'Defend the revolution'
IOL
April 04 2008 at
06:51AM
By Moshoeshoe Monare
Zanu-PF hawks were due to
tell President Robert Mugabe on Friday to
fight for his presidency at all
costs, even if it meant mobilising the war
veterans to "defend the
revolution".
The politburo - the most influential organ in the
ruling party - is
meeting for the first time since March 5 to fortify the
party's and Mugabe's
28-year rule.
Diplomatic sources said the
party would insist on a runoff to wrest
the presidency from Movement for
Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai,
who has won but without the
required majority threshold.
The Zimbabwean Electoral Commission
was still mum on the official
presidential results late on Thursday. The
delay is fuelling speculation
that this is a ploy to give Mugabe an excuse
to postpone holding a runoff
from within 21 days to three
months.
Zanu-PF spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira said on Thursday
the agenda of
the politburo meeting was not for public
consumption.
Asked about the possibility of a rerun, he said: "I
cannot say
anything about that because it is not yet certain whether it will
be part of
the meeting."
However, a politburo insider said
Mugabe - who was seen on state
television on Thursday for the first time
since Saturday - would feel
humiliated to go for a runoff.
"Politburo diehards will try to convince him that he is not up to it.
He
still can't believe this is happening to him. But they still believe they
own this country, and he will agree," said the insider.
However, he said "moderates" would suggest that Mugabe concede
defeat.
Shortly after he cast his vote on Saturday, Mugabe told
reporters that
those who crafted the runoff clause should have looked "at
what the
president gets, combining that with what his party gets and the sum
total
should be the winner".
Zanu-PF - which won a two-thirds
majority in 2005 - has lost control
of parliament to the opposition, thus
forfeiting the Speaker position.
Zanu-PF hawks believe they could
twist the hand of the rural voters,
their traditional power base, after the
elimination of independent
presidential candidate Simba Makoni in the second
round.
However, a Zanu-PF-sympathetic academic, Joseph Kurebwa,
warned that
Makoni, the two Movement for Democratic Change factions and some
in Zanu-PF
could club together to punish Mugabe.
The politburo
is not united and it is meeting for the first time since
a senior member,
Dumiso Dabengwa, rebelled and supported Makoni.
The politburo
failed to meet on March 19, a crisis assembly at which
Mugabe was expected
to conduct a loyalty audit after Dabengwa claimed that
60 percent of
politburo members supported Makoni.
Dabengwa said on Thursday he
wasn't invited to the politburo meeting,
but it is believed the party would
formally expel him - as they did Makoni.
Analysts fear that the
party would use violent tactics during the
runoff, shutting some areas as
no-go ones for the opposition.
The party is already provoking the
emotions of the war veterans by
insisting that white farmers evicted from
their farms during the land-grab
campaign are threatening to reclaim their
property if the MDC wins.
Independent Newspapers understands that
some farmers have lodged a
case with the Southern African Development
Community tribunal to reclaim
their property.
The state-owned
Herald newspaper quoted Zimbabwe National Liberation
War Veterans'
Association junior leader Edmore Matanhike as saying they
would not sit and
watch the white farmers reversing the gains of the
liberation
struggle.
Zimbabwean lawyer and political analyst Brian Kagoro said
Mugabe might
want more than three months to rearm the veterans.
"We are likely to see an announcement that we require a little more
time,
more than 21 days to go into the rerun, particularly because, even if
you
deploy war veterans and other forms of militia in the rural areas, it is
impossible within 21 days to turn around what we saw as the new tsunami in
the rural sector," Kagoro told the Harare-based Quill Press
Club.
"I believe we are likely to see war veterans re-emerging. Of
course, a
lot of money was put into war veteran mobilisation . I am not
persuaded that
terror won't be reintroduced, whether covert or overt," said
Kagoro.
Zanu-PF's Shamuyarira could not be reached for
comment.
.. Sapa reports that South African helicopter
pilot Brent Smyth was
acquitted of immigration transgressions in a Harare
court on Thursday and
was flying back to South Africa.
Smyth
was arrested last week for alleged fraud and immigration
transgressions as
he was preparing to ferry Tsvangirai.
This article was
originally published on page 1 of The Star on April
04, 2008
Troubling signs of a
crackdown as Zimbabwe awaits vote results
Houston Chronicle
April 3, 2008, 11:25PM
Police forces stage raids against
opposition party, foreign journalists
By MICHAEL WINES
New York
Times
Zimbabwe's government staged separate police raids on Thursday
against the
main opposition party, foreign journalists and at least one
democracy
advocate, raising the specter of a broad crackdown aimed at
keeping the
country's imperiled leaders in power.
With the government
facing election results that threaten its 28-year reign,
security officers
raided the Miekles Hotel in central Harare on Thursday
afternoon, searching
rooms that the main opposition party, the Movement for
Democratic Change,
had rented for election operations, said Tendai Biti, the
party's general
secretary.
A second group of riot officers sealed off the York Lodge, a
small hotel in
suburban Harare frequented by foreign journalists, at about
the same time.
A lodge worker who refused to be identified said six
people were detained,
including Barry Bearak, a correspondent for The New
York Times.
The identities of the other journalists could not be learned,
but Bearak was
later located in a Harare jail.
Zimbabwe lawyer
Beatrice Mtetwa said two of the journalists were jailed and
told they would
be charged Friday with practicing journalism without
licenses.
Zimbabwe prohibits foreign journalists from reporting there
without
government approval, which is granted only rarely. In recent years,
Western
journalists lacking accreditation have routinely entered the nation
openly,
although quietly, to chronicle political and economic problems
there.
Leaders of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic
Change,
said the raids heralded a campaign of political repression to
safeguard
President Robert Mugabe. His party, ZANU-PF, has already lost
control of the
lower house of Parliament, according to results from
Saturday's elections —
a huge turnabout in a nation where Mugabe has long
controlled all levers of
power.
But the government has not released
the outcome of the race for president,
inviting international criticism over
the delay and concern that attempts
were underway to manipulate the results.
The government has said the vote
has been slow because this was the first
simultaneous election for all
national offices.
The opposition says
that tallies posted at each polling place show that its
presidential
candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won 50.3 percent of the vote,
barely enough to
avert a second runoff election against Mugabe.
But the outcome is far
less certain. One independent projection of polling
data estimated that
Tsvangirai was well in the lead, but that a run-off
would still be
necessary.
Beyond that, Mugabe repeatedly said before the election that
he would not
allow the opposition to take power.
"He's not giving up;
he's not going anywhere," Bright Matonga, the
government's deputy
information minister, told the British Broadcasting
Corp. "He hasn't lost
the election."
Zimbabwe has been tense, and police officers have been
deployed in force
since before the election. But except for the raids and
detentions, both
Harare and Bulawayo were generally quiet, according to
observers in both
cities.
The Associated Press contributed to this
report.
Apology To People Of Zim
The Namibian
Friday, April 4, 2008 - Web posted at 8:24:27
GMT
I AM one of the SADC
lawyers who were refused accreditation to observe
elections in
Zimbabwe.
The decision of the Zimbabwean government was
a disappointment for all
of us.
So what do we do? We considered
going in without visas, but decided
against it.
For one,
chances a that we will not even get into Harare and none of
us had the time
for trip to Johannesburg and Harare and back.
Some of the
delegation suggested that we go in as independent legal
auditors, in other
words we get work permits not be arrested as working
tourists.
But instead of monitoring the elections - which we could not do
without
accreditation, we planned to observe the process from a distance and
try to
establish if the role players abide by the election laws and SADC
protocols
involved.
By Thursday we were informed by our colleagues in
Zimbabwe that we
will not get work permits and that it will not be safe to
proceed with the
mission.
It was called off.
Some
of (including myself) remained on standby hoping for a miracle
that will
eventually let us in.
It never happened.
SADC lawyers
were turned down.
I was comforted by the pre-election statements of
Jose Marcos Barrica,
head of the official SADC mission.
He
assured us that they are in Zimbabwe without preconceived ideas.
Their only purpose was to monitor the elections objectively and
without any
bias.
Really? Then why were they so eager to declare the elections
peaceful,
credible and an expression of the will of the people before even
one result
was announced? To leave is in no doubt of their intentions when
they
encourage Zimbabweans to accept the results, which they describe as the
will
of the people? What results? If nothing is on the table to accept, how
can
the SADC observers be so sure that the will of the people will be
triumphant? Angolan sports minister is here to explain.
If
Zimbabweans are not going to accept the results, they may end in an
Angolan
type civil war? But he fails to tell us why Zimbabweans will
revolt.
Is it because he expects President Mugabe to rig the
elections and
drive the MDC people to the streets? Or is he expecting that
the heads of
police and the defence force will keep the president in power
even if he
loses? Well, please tell us, Mister Observer.
We are
unable to read your mind.
Can we get one thing straight here: Will
the elections still be a
reflection of the will of the people if the
election results are falsified
during the counting process? By the way, why
using the words peaceful and
credible? Maybe the team had too much
self-respect to use the words that we
all wanted to hear: FREE AND
FAIR.
After all, this is the primary mandate of observers: To find
out if
the elections were free and fair.
Will the SADC
observers then give us a new evaluation? How about a new
one after every
suspicious act during the last two days? Please evaluate the
meaning of
President's Mugabe's statement that the early announcement of
results will
amount to a coup d'état; And the fact that the presidential
ballots were not
counted in the constituencies; The slow counting and
reluctant results; The
co-incidence that every MDC victory was matched by a
ZANU-PF victory; The
anger of the electoral commission when political
observers and the
opposition announced a huge victory for the opposition
based on exit polls;
The fact than no presidential result was announced yet
48 hours after the
closing of the ballots.
The list goes on.
The SADC
observers criticised the heads of police, the army and
prisons for
announcing they will only serve under Mugabe, but still believe
it did not
have an effect on the elections.
Come on, was it not meant to
intimidate the voters and the opposition?
And what about the fact that the
press did not treat the opposition and the
ruling party equal? Does the SADC
Protocol on the role of the press mean
nothing to the leaders who are
supposed to represent us? We can go on
forever criticizing the declaration
of Jose Marcos Barrica.
Suffice to say that the biggest losers will
once again be the
Zimbabwean people.
SADC did not even wait to
find out if their expressions were going to
be honoured.
The
jury was out the moment the biggest danger for election rigging
started: the
counting process.
I, as a citizen of a SADC country, apologise to
the people of
Zimbabwe.
Nico Horn, Via e-mail
Profile of Robert Mugabe
International Herald Tribune
The
Associated PressPublished: April 1, 2008
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa:
Robert Gabriel Mugabe once assured Zimbabwe's
fleeing whites that "there is
a place for you in the sun." Now his own place
in the country he has ruled
for 28 years is uncertain.
Mugabe was born in 1924, the son of a village
carpenter in Zvimba, 40 miles
west of Zimbabwe's capital Harare. As a child,
he tended his grandfather's
cattle, fished for bream in muddy water holes,
played football and "boxed a
lot," as he recalled later.
Few blacks
at the time learned to write their names. But Mugabe went to
school, where
he was taught by Jesuit priests. Classmates described him as
shy and
bookish, a loner deeply attached to his mother and resentful of his
absent
father, according to Heidi Holland, author of "Dinner with
Mugabe."
Mugabe later became a primary school teacher himself, and taught
at mission
schools until he won a scholarship to all-black Fort Hare
University in
neighboring South Africa.
There he underwent a
political baptism of sorts. He avidly studied Karl
Marx. Gripped by the
"passive resistance" movement of Mahatma Gandhi in
India, he vowed to play a
similar role in helping his own country to end
British rule.
In 1951,
he earned a bachelor of arts degree. It was the first of seven
degrees,
including one in law.
Back in Zimbabwe — then known as Rhodesia — Mugabe
quickly became
disenchanted with the white government. In 1958 he flew to
Ghana, a newly
independent former British colony, to teach. There he married
his
Ghanaian-born first wife, Sally Hayfron.
He was known as austere,
a non-smoking, non-drinking Roman Catholic. Mrs.
Mugabe said of her husband:
"He's very warm and gentle at home. He is very
fair. He will go to any
limits to see that justice is done. He has never
been violent for the sake
of violence, though we have both struggled for our
freedom."
Upon his
return to Zimbabwe, Mugabe became a political activist and was
jailed for 10
years by the white minority regime of Ian Smith. While in
jail, his son died
from malaria, and his appeal for parole to attend the
funeral was
denied.
When he was released, he fled into exile in neighboring
Mozambique. There he
became the head of a liberation movement and guerrilla
army and dreamed of a
one-party Marxist state.
He came to power in
1980 after a seven-year bush war for black rule, serving
first as prime
minister and then as president. At independence, he was
hailed for his
policies of racial reconciliation and development that
brought education and
health to millions. Zimbabwe's economy thrived, and
Mugabe appealed to
whites to stay in the country.
Twenty years later, many wished they
hadn't.
Mugabe ordered the often-violent seizure of white-owned farms on
behalf of a
landless black majority. But instead, he gave the farms to black
relatives,
friends and cronies.
Mugabe also lost no time in
establishing his absolute power. He quickly
crushed political opponents, and
sent North Korean-trained troops into
Matabeleland to hunt down armed
anti-government rebels in the 1980s.
Thousands of people, mainly civilians
of the minority Ndebele tribe, were
killed.
Using the same draconian
regulations used to keep him in jail for a decade,
he put scores of
political opponents in detention without trial. Zimbabwe's
economy gradually
fell apart, and a third of the country fled.
In 1992, Mugabe's first wife
died of kidney failure. He married Grace
Marufu, his former secretary, 40
years his junior. He had three children
with Marufu, and was 73 when she
gave birth to their third child.
Mugabe is now 84 years old. During his
rule, the average life expectancy of
Zimbabweans has fallen from 60 to 35
years.
Mugabe's Zanu-PF prepares for battle
BBC
16:17 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008
|
|
|
By Grant Ferrett
BBC
News, Johannesburg | 
Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF has for several days been on the defensive.
In the face of the party's defeat in parliamentary elections, losing its
majority for the first time in 28 years of independence, the leadership had
nothing to say in public.
Requests for interviews were summarily dismissed. In private, Zanu-PF was
trying to work out how to respond to what a serious and unexpected blow.
Joyce Mujuru is thought to have led a faction seeking to replace
Mr Mugabe |
Although the results of the presidential election had not been officially
released, Zanu-PF knew the outcome.
Its candidate, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, had failed to pass the 50%
barrier needed to avoid a second-round run-off.
The 84-year-old president had never before come close to losing other
elections, according to the official results.
What is more, with the independent candidate Simba Makoni out of the running
after trailing a distant third place, in the next round of voting Mr Mugabe
would face a single opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai.
If the results of the parliamentary ballot were to be replicated, President
Mugabe would lose.
The broad choice facing the Zanu-PF bosses was a simple one: unite once again
behind the man who helped the country win independence and keep the party in
power for almost three decades, or abandon him.
Past outweighs the future
Zanu-PF has split badly in recent years. The Vice-President, Joyce Mujuru, is
thought to have led a faction seeking to replace the party's ageing leader.
 |
 There's little that can be done but stay in and fight 
|
A former finance minister, Mr Makoni went so far as to stand against Mr
Mugabe for the presidency.
The divisions clearly helped to undermine the party's performance at the
polls.
Mr Mugabe is likely to have told the politburo that the lesson was a clear
one: the party had to rally around him and stand firm against what he calls
"Western stooges" of the opposition, or face defeat in the run-off for the
presidency.
"There's little that can be done but stay in and fight," said Didymus Mutasa,
one of Mr Mugabe's closest and most loyal aides.
He pointed out that Zanu-PF won the most votes of any single party in the
parliamentary vote, and would clinch a second-round victory in the presidential
poll.
In effect, the past outweighed the future.
The risk of a humiliating defeat at the hands of an emboldened opposition was
outweighed by the need to show loyalty.
|
Campaign posters are being taken down 
|
Put more crudely, members of the politburo do not tell Robert Mugabe what to
do; he tells them.
So he will stand in the second round, if - as expected - the electoral
commission show the need of a second round.
The strategy for the campaign ahead is likely to be based on the one employed
for the year 2000, the last time Mr Mugabe's authority was seriously challenged.
Hard-line party supporters, known as the war veterans, are likely to be
deployed.
Their reputation for violence is well-deserved.
In the first round of the vote, they were conspicuously absent.
Intimidation
Even as the politburo met to consider its plans at Zanu-PF headquarters in
the capital, Harare, several hundred war veterans marched through the centre of
the city with a police escort.
Intimidation is also likely to be a part of the second round.
Offices used by the opposition were ransacked on Thursday night. Two foreign
nationals accused of violating the country's media laws have been detained.
A non-governmental organisation worker involved in promoting democracy was
detained as he tried to leave Zimbabwe.
Mr Mugabe was said to be ready to fight 'to the
last' |
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga has talked of "unleashing" greater
effort in the political fight to come.
Given that towns and cities have long since been lost to the opposition,
Zanu-PF will once again be relying on it traditional supporters in rural areas
to go out and vote in overwhelming numbers.
But with the economy in meltdown and the land redistribution card already
played, Mr Mugabe and his party have little to offer.
Appeals to loyalty, combined with intimidation and violence are likely to be
key components of what could well be a turbulent campaign.
But will the party which Robert Mugabe has utterly dominated for so long back
his campaign?
Mr Mugabe ensured that the presidential and parliamentary elections were held
simultaneously in March precisely to ensure that his fortunes and those of the
wider party were tied up together.
With the parliamentary elections now over, it is possible that Zanu-PF MPs
will step back, and leave their president to campaign alone.
What is more, many Zimbabweans who previously felt their votes did not count
may feel emboldened to cast their ballots in the second round after watching
Zanu-PF lose its majority in parliament.
In one of his last rallies before the vote in March, Mr Mugabe was asked if
he was confident of victory.
He replied with a single utterance: "Overconfident."
He is unlikely to make that mistake again. |
'Zim commision will decide new date'
IOL
April 04
2008 at 06:53PM
Harare - Zimbabwe's electoral commission will
decide the date for a
presidential run-off vote if one is necessary, a
senior ruling party
official said on Friday.
The statement by
Zanu-PF administration secretary Didymus Mutasa
suggested President Robert
Mugabe's government would change the expected
date for the run-off on April
19.
No results have been issued from the presidential election but
the
opposition MDC says its leader won an absolute majority. -
Reuters
Mugabe's Former Aide Says Leader Wants To Rule For
Life
nasdaq
By Susan Njanji, Of AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
HARARE,
Zimbabwe (AFP)--Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's one-time
mouthpiece
Jonathan Moyo is convinced Africa's oldest leader intends to rule
for life
despite his setback in last weekend's general election.
Moyo, now a
maverick opposition politician, dismissed in an interview with
AFP the
prospect of the veteran leader retiring from the political scene
gracefully
and said Mugabe's aides were prepared to "fight to the bitter
end."
"Mugabe has always wanted to remain in power for life" and any
talk that the
84-year-old strongman might step down of his own accord is
only
"politicking", Moyo said, the day Mugabe's party announced he would
fight a
second run-off presidential round.
Moyo, known by critics as
'Mugabe's Goebbels' until the two fell out in 2005
as part of a
power-struggle over a possible successor, said the ruling
Zimbabwe African
National Union - Patriotic Front was determined to find a
way to keep the
president in power.
The party's politburo held a meeting Friday, six days
after simultaneous
parliamentary and presidential polls which have left
Mugabe facing his
toughest political battle since he came to power in
1980.
The electoral commission has announced the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change has taken control of parliament. Its leader Morgan
Tsvangirai looks to have soundly beaten Mugabe in the presidential count
even if he is short of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a second round
run-off.
The prospect of another poll is hardly appetizing for Mugabe
himself as the
MDC is expected to win the support of smaller opposition
factions.
Moyo said a delay in announcing the results was just a way of
"managing
shock and defeat" and suggested it was still to early to count his
former
boss out with the ruling party gearing up for a second
ballot.
"There is a serious post-mortem going on to enable ZANU-PF...to
shut the
opposition MDC out of (Mugabe strongholds in the populous) rural
areas. They
are saying where did we go wrong (in the first round) and are
trying to
close the gaps they will have identified."
Moyo predicted
things could get messy.
"So we will see the (independence) war veterans
and militias terrorize the
villagers, but Zimbabweans have become immune to
violence. There is no
amount of violence that will influence the
electorate," he said.
Even if Mugabe stood down for Tsvangirai - whom the
president has described
as a stooge of Western powers that will never rule
the country as long as he
lives - the country still faced a major upheaval,
Moyo said.
"In the 28 years of independence in Zimbabwe there has never
been a change
of government so any scenario to that effect presents shock to
the
bureaucracy."
Moyo said whoever takes over the running of the
country which has been
ravaged by a record economic meltdown would have to
reach out to the poll
losers in a bid to "heal" the much polarized nation of
13 million people.
"There is no way the economy will turn around and
stabilize unless the
political house is put in order...without the winner
reaching out to the
losers, " he said.
(END) Dow Jones
Newswires
04-04-081150ET
Held captive on their own farm by the commissioner of police, Edmore
Veterai
Digby and Jessie Nesbitt have been held captive on their Farm by
the
Commissioner of Police – Edmore Veterai. He has stated he is “above the
law”
and continues to defy court orders, to leave the Nesbitts and their
farming
operation, that supports the community and an orphanage in
peace.
This is Jessie’s story of the happenings in their house hat they
have not
left for over a month.
INVASION OF FARM 30 – N & B SUGAR
ESTATES – D.NESBITT
The following is the story of our nightmare that
began weeks ago with no end
in sight as yet. We had numerous phone calls
from various people wanting us
to go public with what was happening on the
farm. However, we were reluctant
to do so, hoping that the justice system in
this country would prevail
because we had various court orders supposedly
preventing this nightmare
from happening.
Because we had not
evacuated our farm by 30th November, 2007 we were
summonsed to court at 9
a.m. on the morning of 28th January, 2008
The reason we had not left our farm
by that date was because we had been
informed by four top government
officials, one of which was a minister who
informed us that the honourable
minister Mutasa was coming down to the
Lowveld on the 19th December to
resolve our issue on the farm.
On the 18th we were informed that the
honourable minister Mutusa could not
come down on that date due to other
commitments but would come in early
January. During the month of January my
husband, Digby was asked to report
to the Police Station in Chiredzi to be
charged. He had to give a statement
and was told to report to the court on
the 28th January at 9 a.m. When he
arrived there, he was told that the court
case was postponed to 12 p.m. He
went back at 12 p.m. only to be told that
it was now postponed to the 10th
March 2008.
That afternoon when
returning to work in Chiredzi from farm 30, Digby met up
with Mr Veterai,
the assist commissioner in the Police. He stopped Digby and
said that he did
not care about the court case as he was above the law and
that he was taking
over the farm immediately. He ranted and raved like a
madman and said that
he was going to kick Digby’s white arse of the farm no
matter what.
Digby
drove to town and reported the incident to the member-in-charge at the
Police Station, who said that they could only intervene if there was
violence as this was a land issue and unless he had some kind of court
order, they could do nothing. He then went straight home as he was afraid
for my safety as we had had previous altercations with Veterai before and he
has a temper on him and always walks around armed with a pistol and
sometimes also a folding buttAK 47 rifle.
On the Tuesday morning at
6.30 Veterai arrived at our house with about 15
people including his wife
and green bombers. Veterai showed us his new offer
letter which said that he
was taking over 71 hectares instead of the
original 40 that he had been
allocated. This meant that absolutely nothing
was left for us. When I told
the governor, Mr Chiwewe, he said that Veterai’s
offer letter was fraudulent
and he said that I should tell Veterai that he
had said that. Veterai said
that he did not care and that he was taking his
71 hectares and that no
politician would stop him because they are all
corrupt.
Veterai had just
broken into our office down at the compound and taken
everything out and
dumped it on the lawn. He also broke into my mother’s
cottage and took all
the keys with the result that every time I went to feed
her cats, I had to
climb through the lounge window where two louvers were
missing.
Veterai
threatened our crocodile manager, Sam and said that he was going to
kill him
and throw his body into the croc pen. A couple of weeks before, Sam
was told
that he was going to be castrated if he did not move out of his
house. While
we were in South Africa during the month of December, his
furniture was
thrown ou
It
has come to our realisation that the elections were used as another war front to
prepare for the reinvasion of our country
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