Los Angeles Times
In a
possible sign of a preelection government crackdown, opposition
activists
are beaten and arrested, and mobs try to drive white farmers off
their
land.
From a Times Staff Writer
April 7, 2008
HARARE, ZIMBABWE
-- Militant war veterans allied with Zimbabwe's ruler
threatened to evict
white farmers Sunday, and about a dozen opposition
activists were beaten and
arrested by police over the weekend. The attacks
raised fears that President
Robert Mugabe's government was launching a
violent campaign to assure his
victory in an expected presidential runoff
election.
Eighteen farmers
were threatened and several were forced to flee their
properties as they
were besieged by chanting, drum-beating mobs.
Representatives of the farmers
said there was no police response even as the
situation worsened late
Sunday.
"I'm feeling a bit speechless and a bit gutted at the moment, to
be honest,"
said one of the farmers, who asked that his name not be used for
fear of
inflaming a volatile situation. He, his wife and three children
moved out
for safety, after hearing 50 people were approaching the farm to
evict him.
"I'm still afraid. You don't know what the future holds, do
you?" he said.
Hendrik Olivier, director of the Commercial Farmers'
Union, said, "This
thing can get very quickly out of control if it's not
dealt with. We can
only go to the police, and it's regrettable that we're
not getting
assistance from the police."
Mugabe has encouraged the
seizure of land from white farmers in the past as
part of his land reform
program, with the property being turned over to his
supporters.
Earlier, the government demanded a full recount of
results in last month's
parliamentary elections, according to the
state-owned Sunday Mail. The
balloting saw Mugabe's party lose its majority
for the first time in 28
years.
The regime also called for the
release of presidential results to be
deferred, citing "revelations of
errors and miscalculations in the
compilation of the poll result," the
newspaper said.
The paper said that an examination of "anomalies"
indicated that Mugabe's
vote had been understated, and it reported that some
Zimbabwe Election
Commission officials had been arrested.
The
pressure comes after warnings from Mugabe's hard-line security minister,
Didymus Mutasa, that the commission would be purged.
The election
commission has not released the results of the three-way
presidential race,
which opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai maintains he
has won outright.
Despite his claim, it is widely expected that a
second-round election
between him and Mugabe will be declared.
The opposition said a recount in
the parliamentary elections could only have
been called for within 48 hours
of the vote, and otherwise was illegal.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic
Change went to court Sunday to compel
the release of the presidential
results, but there was no immediate
decision.
The main pressure
points in weekend violence were Masvingo, Manicaland and
Mashonaland
provinces, former ruling party strongholds that swung over to
Tsvangirai's
party in the March 29 elections.
Roadblocks sprang up in Manicaland and
other areas, and the opposition said
that riot police were deployed in
suburbs around Harare, the capital, that
are key opposition
strongholds.
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga called reports of
violence "a lot
of nonsense."
Olivier of the Commercial Farmers'
Union said that chanting crowds had given
18 farmers in Masvingo and
Mashonaland five to 10 hours to vacate their
land. Among those targeted were
the last 12 white farmers in a tobacco
farming district near Centenary in
Mashonaland.
Tobacco was once Zimbabwe's most important export crop, but
production
plummeted after the invasions of white farms in 2000 that Mugabe
encouraged.
The farm seizures led to the collapse of agriculture and the
ruin of the
nation's economy. Zimbabwe, once a food exporter, now depends on
food aid to
feed a third of its population.
At one of the Masvingo
farms, a crew from the state-owned television station
ZBC was present when a
mob demanded the farmer leave, leading to fears the
operation was
state-organized.
Olivier feared the regime was gearing up a campaign of
violence and
intimidation, as occurred in elections in 2000.
"People
are seen singing and chanting and beating drums, threatening to move
into
the homestead, demanding that it is the farmers' time to give it up,"
he
said.
He said in some cases invaders had tried to force their way into
houses,
including one that a farmer and his family fled. "The people want to
move
into his house," he said. "They're running around the house banging on
the
windows. I don't need to tell you what effect that has on a
family.
"We are hoping that this thing doesn't spread to the rest of the
country,"
he added. "When we look back to 2000, there are a lot of
similarities."
Another farmers' representative, John Worsick of Justice
for Agriculture,
said farmers were afraid of losing everything. He said
officials from the
ruling ZANU-PF party had told him the government's aim
was to get all white
farmers off their land by April 18, Zimbabwe's
independence day.
"We are being told that by Independence Day they want
to be able to say [to
the people], 'We gave you all your land. Every white
farmer is off. What
more can we give you?' " Worsick said.
Opposition
spokesman Ian Makone said his party's activists and candidates
who had won
seats in ZANU-PF's rural heartland faced the greatest threat of
violence.
"It's really the old subversion and intimidation," he
said.
The Times was unable to get immediate comment from ZANU-PF
officials Sunday.
However, several days earlier, a senior figure warned in a
phone interview
that a presidential runoff election would not be peaceful,
and that land
would be the central issue.
06 April 2008
By
Never Kadungure
Nehanda Radio can exclusively reveal that a special unit
of the army and
Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) unit is 'burning
midnight oil' while
tampering with the presidential ballot papers at the
army's KG 6
headquarters.
President Robert Mugabe we are told was
comprehensibly beaten by his main
rival and MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai
without the need for a run-off.
The secret operation is meant to take votes
from Tsvangirai and place him
below the 50 percent threshold.
A
highly placed source in the army told us that claims by MDC Secretary
General Tendai Biti that Tsvangirai got over 50,3 percent of the vote were
in fact lower than the actual figure.
'It is looking like Tsvangirai
might have got over 56 percent at the last
official count and this is why
the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission have been
told to stop what they are
doing,' the source explained.
Mugabe is now looking at a run-off as his
salvation from losing power and
the delay in announcing the results is meant
to give him time to massage the
figures and produce acceptable percentages
that would necessitate a secound
round of voting.
On Sunday the MDC
urged High Court judge Tendai Uchena to force the ZEC to
release the figures
which were already public knowledge by the 30th of
March. ZEC officials
however argued the High Court had no jurisdiction to
hear the case. A
decision is now expected Monday morning.
Mugabe is said to have been
deeply embarrassed by the party and his first
electoral defeat in 28 years
and considered resigning for the good part of
last week. First Lady Grace
Mugabe was at the forefront of urging him to
quit but party zealots
expressed concern, 'if the old man left we would be
left to face the music,'
the source said. never@nehandaradio.com
.
Nehanda Radio: Zimbabwe's first 24 hour internet radio news
channel.
Leader
The Guardian,
Monday April 7
2008
Robert Mugabe is flailing around like a wounded beast. As he lies
panting on
the ground, he is guarded by a core of generals, who refuse to
contemplate
surrender. No one can tell whether he is going to get to his
feet again. But
it would be foolish to underestimate his powers of
recuperation. He clearly
believes he still has options, despite losing
control of parliament for the
first time in 28 years and almost certainly
losing the presidential poll a
week ago.
Yesterday he fought on two
fronts simultaneously. On the political front,
his Zanu-PF party played for
time - demanding a recount to check "errors and
miscalculations". If
accepted, this will delay the presidential announcement
still further. But
as opposition lawyers were petitioning the high court,
demanding the
election results, another front was engaged. Three white
cattle ranchers
were forced off their land on Saturday and a fourth was said
to be holding
out against 50 war veterans threatening to break down the
gates. Mr Mugabe
is returning to tried and tested techniques of
intimidation. Not all white
farmers left after the seizures eight years ago,
and attacking the remainder
who still work on parts of their former
properties sends out two messages.
First, Zimbabwe's problems are all down
to the white man. Second, Zanu-PF
can turn on the violence anytime it likes.
These tactics worked in the
last elections in 2002, and Mr Mugabe must be
toying with the idea of using
them again. The longer a second round run-off
is delayed, the more time Mr
Mugabe has to "correct" the rural vote in his
favour. The farm seizures took
place in provinces that switched to the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
last Sunday. Zanu-PF know exactly which
villages voted against them. Without
proper monitors (those from the
Southern African Development Community ran
off without the results being
declared), villagers who turned against their
traditional masters are now
even more vulnerable than the white farmers to a
knock on the door at night.
Mr Mugabe may have other ruses up his sleeve.
If and when it announces the
presidential results, the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission is expected to say
neither candidate got more than 50%.
Accordingly, the government will be
given 21 days to mount a run-off. But Mr
Mugabe might be able to use
presidential decree to postpone a new vote for
three months - especially if
there is violence.
The MDC will almost
certainly have to contest the re-run and prove to its
supporters that it
will not be intimidated by violence as it was in 2002. If
for no other
reason than protecting defenceless villages in remote provinces
from the
retribution of a vengeful regime, this time the MDC must stand up
and be
counted.
Mugabe must hand over the reins of power so we can get
on with sorting out
our troubled country
Morgan Tsvangirai
The
Guardian,
Monday April 7 2008
Once again, Robert Mugabe and his
cronies are attempting to maintain their
grip on power in Zimbabwe. While
disheartening, this act of political
thuggery does not diminish the victory
of democracy over dictatorship in a
country ravaged by misrule and
ignorance. Ultimately, this is a victory for
the strong hearts and sturdy
backs that have carried us here: a victory for
all Zimbabweans.
But
democracy is an orphan in Zimbabwe. Since the infamous universal
declaration
of independence in 1965 made by the white government of Ian
Smith in what
was then Rhodesia - in an effort to block the extension of
suffrage to the
country's black majority - the cry of democracy has been
ignored. Mugabe's
28-year rule has similarly undermined the development of
institutional
democracy.
Adept at stealing elections from the hands of voters, Mugabe
is now amassing
government troops; blocking court proceedings where we have
attempted to
seek an order simply for the electoral commission to release
the final tally
of the March 29 poll; raiding the offices of the Movement
for Democratic
Change (MDC); and casting a pall of suppression and gloom
over the country.
The feared militias, made up of misguided activists and
the same war
veterans who pushed for and benefited from the disastrous land
confiscations
from the late 1990s, are being mobilised. This can only mean,
despite some
earlier evidence to the contrary, that sanity has been
discarded along with
truth in the offices of Zanu-PF.
The
parliamentary majority the MDC has already attained has clearly been
replicated in the presidential results. The MDC has tracked every polling
station and recorded the results as they are released, and we can guarantee
that Zanu-PF and Mugabe have met their demise in the face of Zimbabwean
democracy. As official results will confirm when at last released, a mooted
presidential run-off (initiated if no individual reaches a 50% threshold) is
a sham. Our country is on a razor's edge.
How can global leaders
espouse the values of democracy, yet when they are
being challenged fail to
open their mouths? Why is it that a supposed "war
on terror" ignores the
very real terror of broken minds and mangled bodies
that lie along the trail
left by Mugabe?
This is a time for strong action. We urge the
International Monetary Fund,
at its meeting this week, to withhold the £1bn
of aid to Zimbabwe unless the
defeated ex-president accepts the election
results in full and hands over
the reins of power. This is also the time for
firm diplomacy. Major powers
here, such as South Africa, the US and Britain,
must act to remove the
white-knuckle grip of Mugabe's suicidal reign and
oblige him and his minions
to retire.
We have assured Mugabe that the
new government will not pursue him legally
through government offices. The
work ahead is monumental and we need no
further self-made distractions.
Recrimination is not on the new government's
job list. Our agenda is to
restore the rule of law and good governance; to
face up to our dire health
problems, including an HIV-Aids epidemic; to
reconstruct our once
cutting-edge education system; to bring our abundant
farmlands back into
health; to tackle rampant inflation and over 70%
unemployment; to encourage
foreign investment and public works spending; to
depoliticise our security
services; to stamp out corruption and graft. Every
day the new government is
denied, these problems each get worse.
The new leadership is committed to
nurturing democracy in Zimbabwe and to
begin rebuilding our shattered
country. It is time to make a stand.
· Morgan Tsvangirai is president of
the Movement for Democratic Change
· MDC may boycott run-off to
protect voters
· High court to rule on forced release of results
Chris
McGreal in Harare
The Guardian,
Monday April 7 2008
Zimbabwe's war
veterans have launched fresh invasions of the country's few
remaining
white-owned farms as Robert Mugabe appears to be falling back on
the tested
tactics of violence and raising racial tensions in preparation
for a run-off
vote in the presidential election.
But the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change warned that it might
boycott a second round of elections
because it would lead Zimbabweans "to
the slaughter" of a wave of
government-sponsored violence.
It is instead taking legal action to force
the state election commission to
immediately release results from the
presidential election, held nine days
ago, which the MDC says will show that
its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won
outright with 50.3% of the vote,
making a run-off election unnecessary. The
high court is expected to rule on
the petition today.
Writing in today's Guardian, Tsvangirai calls on
Britain, the US and South
Africa to come to the defence of democracy in
Zimbabwe. He said Zanu-PF was
withholding the election results and planning
a violent second round
campaign in an attempt to maintain its "untenable
grip on power".
War veterans, many of whom did not actually fight in the
liberation struggle
against white rule, targeted farms in Masvingo, one of
the provinces where a
significant number of rural voters swung from Mugabe
to the MDC in the
presidential and parliamentary elections.
A camera
crew from state television accompanied the war veterans, who gave
one white
family four hours to get out of their home, suggesting the
invasions were
officially sanctioned.
The police eventually moved in and some of the
families were able to return.
But Hendrik Olivier, director of the
Commercial Farmer's Union, said the
country's remaining 300 white farmers,
out of the 4,200 a decade ago, feared
they were again to be made political
targets.
"It's the war veterans in Masvingo, about six farms there, where
they've
been going round giving notice to farmers to get off immediately.
They've
been taking over equipment and livestock and telling the farmers
their time
is up," he said.
"The police have been cooperating but the
authorities stand back for these
things to happen. Why was the Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corporation there to
film the threats to the farmer? You can
see this thing is orchestrated."
Chanting war veterans, some of them
beating drums, also threatened farmers
in Centenary, where the owners were
given hours to leave.
There were also signs of pressure on the opposition
in Manicaland, another
province with a significant rural swing away from
Mugabe. Prosper Mutseyami,
a newly elected opposition MP from Manicaland,
said the police were
arresting MDC election agents there.
"Nine of
our agents were beaten up by the police and then arrested for
behaviour
likely to provoke a breach of the peace," he said.
In a sign that the
government intends again to make white farmers an
election issue, the
justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, a Zanu-PF
hardliner, claimed the MDC
was bringing exiled farmers back in to Zimbabwe
ready to reclaim their land.
"The MDC claim they have won and they are
unleashing former white farmers on
farms occupied by new farmers to reverse
the land reform programme," he
said."Their intention is to destabilise the
country into chaos over the land
issue."
However, if the government is attempting to rekindle the land
battles of the
past it may not have the same resonance with
voters.
"The problem is that the countryside has turned and it will be a
tall order
to turn sentiment around," said Wilfred Mhanda, head of the
Zimbabwe
Liberators' Platform, a group of war veterans who no longer support
Mugabe.
"He is a desperate man and the money printing machine will be
working
overtime. Some will take part [in land invasions] but not out of
conviction.
They will be more or less like mercenaries.
"There's a
lot of misery in the countryside and people know who is to blame.
Life is
getting more desperate for them by the day."
Writing in the Guardian,
Tsvangirai accused Mugabe of a systematic attempt
to overturn the election
results.
"Adept at stealing elections from the hands of voters, Mugabe is
now
amassing government troops; blocking court proceedings where we have
attempted to seek an order simply for the electoral commission to release
the final tally of the March 29 poll, raiding the offices of the Movement
for Democratic Change; and casting a pall of suppression and gloom over the
country," he wrote.
"This can only mean, despite some earlier
evidence to the contrary, that
sanity has been discarded along with truth in
the offices of Zanu-PF."
Zanu-PF was stalling further on releasing the
results yesterday. The
state-run Sunday Herald newspaper said the party was
demanding a recount,
claiming the figures had been manipulated against
Mugabe, in a sign that
there may be resistance within the electoral
commission to efforts by
Zimbabwe's president to ensure there is a second
round of elections because
no candidate won more than half the
vote.
Tsvangirai also called on foreign powers to defend democracy in
Zimbabwe.
"Major powers here, such as South Africa, the US and Britain,
must act to
remove the white-knuckle grip of Mugabe's suicidal reign, and
oblige him and
his minions to retire," he wrote.
The MDC feels badly
let down by South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, and
other regional
leaders, in particular.
In the party's view, Mbeki has played a deceptive
role in which he has
projected himself as honest broker but sought to
engineer a result in which
Mugabe leaves office but Zanu-PF remains in
power.
The Scotsman
White farmers in front line as Mugabe steps up
fight
By Jane Fields
in Harare
ROBERT Mugabe's feared war
veterans this weekend launched a new wave of
white farm invasions in
retribution for the ruling party's poor showing in
last week's
polls.
Mobs invaded "five or six" farms in southern Masvingo province on
Saturday,
said an official from the Commercial Farmers' Union
(CFU).
State-run ZTV filmed about 50 militants as they tried to break
through the
gates of Crest Farm, owned by Graham Goddard, making the
invasions appear
orchestrated, the official said.
"It's totally
stage-managed. There was a government bus company that went
round and
collected them (the veterans] this morning," said the
official.
Zimbabwe's agricultural sector is in crisis. With food
shortages rife,
attacking white farmers will only make the situation
worse.
Mugabe, increasingly desperate, is lashing out in anger as
suspicions grow
he may not even have secured enough votes in the 29 March
presidential polls
to warrant a rerun against opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
The president, who is 84, claims white farmers gave Mr
Tsvangirai's Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) financial support and are
planning to recolonise
Zimbabwe.
Several electoral officials have
been arrested for "miscounting" votes in
favour of the opposition leader,
the official Sunday Mail reported.
Lawyers for Mugabe's Zanu-PF, which
has been in power virtually unchallenged
since independence in 1980, have
demanded a recount of all votes, claiming
mistakes had been detected in at
least four constituencies. This is likely
to further delay the release of
results.
Unused to defeat, ruling party officials now say the polls were
"the worst
run ever".
The MDC went to court twice at the weekend to
try to force the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission to release presidential
results, claiming the eight-day
delay was causing "unnecessary
anxiety".
On Saturday, a man in a Zanu-PF T-shirt barred opposition
lawyer Alec
Muchadehama from entering Harare High Court. Backed by three
armed police,
the man told Muchadehama that if he went in he would not come
out, the
lawyer said.
There was no police presence at the court
yesterday and Judge Tendai Uchena
announced he would give a ruling
today.
Opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa maintained his party's claim
that Mr
Tsvangirai won the poll outright and dismissed calls for a recount
and a
run-off. Zimbabwe's electoral laws say a rerun must be held within
three
weeks if no presidential candidate secures a majority of 50 per cent
plus
one vote. The MDC says Mr Tsvangirai won 50.3 per cent of the
vote.
Zimbabwe's remaining 450 or so white farmers looked to be first in
line for
attack yesterday after war veterans vowed to evict them. At least
12 white
farmers have been killed since Mugabe unleashed bands of thugs on
to
hundreds of white-owned farms in 2000, shortly after his unexpected
defeat
in a constitutional referendum.
The authorities, trying to
raise anti-white sentiment, claim there has been
a "huge influx" of white
former farmers in the Save Valley
Conservancy who are waiting to take back
their land if Mr Tsvangirai gets
into power.
State media have claimed
that farmers have been massing in Mozambique and
near Lake Kariba. Farmers'
groups deny the claims.
THE RESULTS SO FAR…
OFFICIAL results give
the MDC 99 seats in parliament, a breakaway opposition
faction ten and
Zanu-PF 97. One seat went to an independent. No presidential
results have so
far been released.
Senate results show contested seats split 30-30
between the combined
opposition and the ruling party. Control of the 93-seat
Senate will depend
on who becomes president, with powers to appoint 15
members directly and
strongly influence who gets other positions. The MDC
said Mr Tsvangirai won
the presidential poll outright. Zanu-PF projections
show that although he
won he fell short of the absolute majority needed for
first-round victory.
The full article contains 643 words and
appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Last Updated: 06 April 2008 8:34 PM
Agence France-Presse
Date: 07 Apr 2008
HARARE, April 7, 2008 (AFP) - President
Robert Mugabe called for Zimbabweans
to protect their land from whites,
stoking emotive land issues as the
country anxiously awaited presidential
poll results, a newspaper reported
Monday.
"Land must remain in our
hands. The land is ours, it must not be allowed to
slip back into the hands
of whites," Mugabe was quoted as saying by the
state daily Herald amid
reports that his loyalists invaded several
white-owned farms at the
weekend.
Speaking at a funeral of his wife's uncle, Mugabe urged
Zimbabweans to
jealously guard the land for which thousands of freedom
fighters died during
the liberation war in the 1970s.
"Today, we
cannot afford to retreat in the battle for land," said Mugabe.
Mugabe's
supporters on seized Saturday one of Zimbabwe's few remaining
white-owned
farms, state media said, amid heightened tensions over the
unclear outcome
of last week's presidential elections.
Ruling ZANU-PF spokesman Patrick
Chinamasa has accused the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of
seeking to reverse Mugabe's
controversial land reforms.
"The MDC
claim they have won and they are unleashing former white farmers on
farms
occupied by new farmers to reverse the land reform pbread and cooking
oil
are now hard to come by.
OhMyNews
Women and
children flee farm seizures
Nelson G. Katsande
Published 2008-04-07 13:22 (KST)
Reports of fresh farm invasions have
surfaced in Zimbabwe, with Mugabe's war
veterans seizing a couple of farms
in the opposition MDC stronghold. In
Bulawayo, the second-largest city, war
veterans evicted two white commercial
farmers and assaulted laborers,
forcing women and young children to flee.
As the political impasse
between President Robert Mugabe and opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai
continues, Mugabe's supporters have threatened to
burn houses of opposition
loyalists. This follows reports that Mugabe was
outvoted by Tsvangirai at
the just ended presidential elections held on
March 29.
The Zimbabwe
electoral commission's credibility has been questioned
following its failure
to release the much-awaited results. The ruling
ZANU-PF party has already
called for an election runoff citing
irregularities in the electoral
process, claims refuted by the MDC.
Bright Matonga, a junior minister has
attacked the opposition leader in the
government-controlled press. A
Bulawayo-based MDC activist likened Matonga
to the late Saddam Hussein's
"Chemical Ali." He said of Matonga, "Despite
conclusive evidence that Mugabe
lost the election, Matonga still insists the
people of Zimbabwe are in
support of Mugabe. Chemical Ali alleged that Iraq
was defeating the Western
allies yet it was vice versa."
Matonga's rise to political stardom is
questionable. From being the
state-controlled Herald newspaper's columnist,
he became the Chief Executive
Officer of the government-controlled ZUPCO bus
company. Previously accused
of corruption at the bus company, he joined
Mugabe's cabinet as deputy
minister of information. Opposition supporters
now call him deputy minister
of "misinformation."
Zimbabwe now has
the highest inflation rate in the world. It suffers a high
unemployment rate
and an acute shortage of basic commodities and medicine.
At government
hospitals patients are reportedly turned away due to
inadequate medicines,
linens and food. Those lucky enough to be admitted in
hospitals are required
to bring their own linen and foodstuffs.
At Parirenyatwa hospital nurses
are reported to be selling foodstuff to
vulnerable patience at exorbitant
prices. The shortage of fuel and spare
parts has forced ambulances off the
road and the government has failed to
intervene.
Mugabe's land
distribution exercise of 2000 is blamed for the country's
woes. It left more
than 3,000 white commercial farmers displaced. Those who
refused to let go
of their land were either killed or maimed. Industries and
commercial
entities were also threatened with closure.
The fresh farm invasions will
no doubt cripple the already paralyzed
economy. Mugabe who has ruled the
Southern African country for 28 years has
been accused of hanging on to
power despite reports of his defeat to
Tsvangirai. The government controlled
state radio has been playing
liberation war songs since the elections were
held.
There has been growing pressure on Mugabe to release the
presidential
results.
Business Day
07 April 2008
Dumisani
Muyela
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IT’S
a touch-and-go situation in Zimbabwe as President Robert Mugabe fights
for
political survival after his defeat by main opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai in the recent election.
After a week of growing tension
and uncertainty, sparked by the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission’s (ZEC’s)
failure to release election results in time,
the country is headed for a
potentially explosive run-off between Mugabe and
Tsvangirai. Indications are
that it will be a dirty and ugly affair.
Elections in Zimbabwe have a
history of violence, intimidation and ballot
fraud.
The fever for the
run-off is climbing, and social unrest too. Within Zanu
(PF), some want
violent methods to secure a Mugabe victory , while others
reject this —
creating a vacuum likely to be occupied by a “third force”.
This leaves room
for a vicious campaign that would further damage the
already crumbling
economy and worsen social misery.
Shocked by Mugabe’s and the party’s
defeat, the Zanu (PF) leadership is
prepared to go to any lengths to fight
back against Tsvangirai and his
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). On
Friday, Zanu (PF) defined the
terrain for the contest after its highly
charged politburo meeting to review
the election results and map the way
forward. It is said the meeting was
characterised by fascist utterances and
belligerent rhetoric that set the
parameters for the looming
fight.
Insiders say Zanu (PF)’s Jacobin club — made up of hawkish core
members of
the party — took charge at the meeting, urging the party to fight
back like
a wounded buffalo. They resolved the party should mobilise social
and
economic resources on a massive scale for the run-off. This means state
resources will be commandeered to boost the party’s campaign for
Mugabe.
The Zanu (PF) diehards demanded a recount of presidential and
parliamentary
election ballots, even though results for the presidential
poll are not yet
out. They also demanded that the ZEC be disbanded, that
some of its
officials be arrested and jailed for incompetence, vote-rigging
and
accepting bribes.
Already, the signs are there that Zanu (PF)
will fight dirty. Last week,
there were raids at the MDC’s offices; foreign
journalists were arrested and
harassed; and people were put on notice that
fierce repression would soon be
visited upon them for voting for the
MDC.
The war veterans came out of the woodwork, breathing fire and
spoiling for a
fight. They accused the MDC of provoking “freedom fighters”
and warned it of
dire consequences. White farmers, scapegoats for Zanu (PF)
policy and
leadership failures, were accused out of the blue of
“re-invading” the
country to march on to the farms because the MDC was about
to assume power.
War veterans started conducting raids on the farms to
justify Zanu (PF)’s
strategy of wreaking havoc in the farms and rural areas
.
Farmers would be used during the run-off as the pretext for a violent
campaign. Zanu (PF) thrives in conditions of violence and chaos; its history
shows that. Usually, infighting takes over when there is no “war” for it to
fight and it becomes disjointed. Sometimes the party creates enemies where
real ones don’t exist to keep itself going. Now the perceived enemies are
the farmers, whereas in the 1980s, “dissidents” had to be created in
Matabeleland to crush the then main opposition, Zapu.
Zanu (PF)
operates on the basis on a spurious correlation between violence
and victory
at the ballot. Because, in the past, the party was able to
coerce people to
vote through violent measures, it now believes that brute
force
automatically yields votes whenever applied in calibrated dosages.
The
argument in Zanu (PF) is that Tsvangirai and the MDC won because they
were
given too much room to campaign freely and this must not be allowed
again in
the run-off, if Mugabe is to win.
Zimbabweans and the international
community must step up pressure on Mugabe
to stop him from plunging the
country into turmoil in his desperate bid to
hang on to
power.
Muleya is Harare correspondent.
VOA
By James Butty
Washington,
D.C.
07 April 2008
There’s great expectation and
anxiety in Zimbabwe and perhaps the whole of
Africa as the country waits to
see whether the Zimbabwe High Court will
Monday rule to force the country’s
electoral commission to announce the
results of the March 29 presidential
election.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) asked the
court Sunday
to force the release of the results. But President Robert
Mugabe’s ruling
ZANU-PF party said the results should be delayed and that
there should be a
vote recount. The MDC said it will not accept any recount
because its leader
Morgan Tsvangirai won the election and should be declare
president of
Zimbabwe.
Nelson Chamissa is MDC spokesman. He told VOA
the MDC has already begun
forming a government of inclusion irrespective of
what the high court might
rule.
“The judgment we need is to have an
urgent effect within four hours upon
judgment haven being handed down to
release the results so that people will
know how the various candidates
performed. This is what the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission and ZANU-PF are
reluctant to do because they know that
they were defeated and wouldn’t want
to announce the outcome to the people.
And we are saying this has caused an
unnecessary anxiety in the nation
because people would know the outcome of
this election. It’s a life defining
election,” he said.
Chamissa
rejected the ruling ZANU-PF’s demand for a vote recount of the
presidential
election vote because he said Mugabe’s people have tampered
with the ballot
papers and boxes. He also said the demand is a clear
demonstration of the
party’s inability to accept defeat.
“They have been defeated; they have
been rejected by the people because of
their still and sterile policies,
because of their antiquated program. So
they are finding it very difficult.
It’s a bitter pill for them to swallow
for them. Surprisingly, you can’t
talk of a recount of an election which
result is not known. It would be
quite a myth for a student to ask for a
remark of an exam whose results he’s
not had,” Chamissa said.
He also brushed off any suggestion of a run-off
election, saying the MDC is
already working on plans to form a government
based on inclusiveness and
accommodation.
“As far as we are concerned
the so-called run-off is a non-starter for us.
We know that we won the
election and this is why they are pussyfooting and
dragging their feet. But
we are already putting plans afoot to form a
government, a government based
on inclusivity and accommodation. And that is
our focus at the moment,” he
said.
Chamissa said given Zimbabwe’s political configuration, the high
court
judges might be unable to render an independent judgment. But he said
the
MDC has other options.
“You must understand that we are taking
this matter to court for posterity
purposes and also to put the record
straight. We have a number of tools in
our box. And in our tool box the
legal option is only one of them. If it is
not effective enough, we are
going to use our most important weapon; that is
the people tool. It is what
is going to achieve the results for us,”
Chamissa said.
He said MDC
does not intend to resort to the violence that followed Kenya’s
presidential
election last year. But he Chamissa said the people of Zimbabwe
have the
right to reclaim their dignity if they feel that their government
has not
respected them.
“We don’t want the lost of blood. You will want a
situation whereby people
are able to at least get respected. If they are not
respected, they have the
right to reclaim their dignity,” Chamissa said.
Business Day
07 April 2008
Paul
Moorcraft
--------------------------------------------------------------------
IT WAS his mincing manner that surprised me most. When I first
interviewed
Robert Mugabe in January 1980, it seemed odd in a tough
guerrilla chieftain.
And his articulate English was slightly contrived;
almost perfect BBC. His
intelligence impressed me the most, however. For
four years I had
interviewed many black and white political leaders in the
dying Rhodesia.
Mugabe was head and shoulders above them all.
Rhodesian
propaganda had portrayed this Catholic-trained Marxist
as a bloodthirsty
latter-day Hitler. Whites were preparing for the Beit
Bridge 500, the dash
for the South African border, when Mugabe won the
election in March 1980.
Instead, the vast majority stayed, swayed by Mugabe’s
clarion call for
reconciliation.
Mugabe was the popular son of the masses.
Only he could bring
peace, and that is why the majority of Shonas voted for
him. Nevertheless,
his party still engaged in massive electoral
intimidation.
Prefiguring by 14 years the almost
saint-like quality of Nelson
Mandela’s magnanimity, the new Zimbabwean
president started well. He
appointed a ministry of all the talents,
including Rhodesian Front
stalwarts. As a former teacher, Mugabe set about
reforming the country’s
education system, with impressive results. Later, he
helped to end the civil
war in Mozambique.
Had he
anticipated Mandela’s style by remaining in office for
just one term,
Mugabe’s legacy would have been that of a world-famous
statesman. Instead,
in Desmond Tutu’s phrase, he became the caricature of an
African despot. So
what went wrong?
He may be bad, but he has never been
mad. The idea that absolute
power over 28 years, plus senility, caused him
eventually to become demented
is not convincing. Mugabe’s sober and ruthless
determination has always been
a mark of his character. He outflanked the
original Zanu leader, Ndabaningi
Sithole, then imposed his leadership during
the final dramatic three years
of the liberation war. Opponents were
crushed.
He has displayed a logical consistency in
transforming his
country. The white settlers seized the land illegally in
the 1890s, and thus
inspired the first Chimurenga, or uprising. The second
Chimurenga of 1965-79
was based partly on the historical grievances of the
original resistance
movements.
After taking power, Mugabe
waged a third Chimurenga against all
his perceived enemies: first the
Ndebele, then trade unionists who supported
the opposition parties, and
finally white farmers and businessmen. Along the
way he silenced the
churches, media, judiciary, social activists and
especially the gay and
lesbian community.
His greatest crime was committed early
in his dictatorship: the
Gukurahundi in Matabeleland in the 1980s. Estimates
vary, but at least 10000
Ndebeles were killed and many more were raped,
tortured and abducted. It is
true that South African intelligence backed a
few hundred dissidents in the
apartheid war of regional destabilisation, but
the main reason for the
devastation wrought by Mugabe’s Fifth Brigade was to
eradicate the power
base of Joshua Nkomo’s rival Zapu
party.
Eventually, Nkomo had to sue for peace, and accept
Mugabe’s
one-party state. The Zanu (PF) leader stayed in power by bribing
his
cronies, particularly in the security services. In many African states,
the
military, rather than the ballot box, had been the main instrument for
change of leadership. This was not possible in Zimbabwe because of a
creeping coup. The generals, police chiefs and the Central Intelligence
Organisation had been absorbed into the inner core of the dictatorship. They
would stand and fall with their boss. This suited Mugabe’s leadership
style.
The president doesn’t like being thwarted. Mugabe
faced his
first loss of face when he was defeated in a referendum on a draft
constitution in 2000.
Blaming whites for supporting the
opposition, he encouraged his
thugs to seize white commercial farms, even
though many farmers had been
given legal land rights after 1980. This
accelerated the economic meltdown.
A few thousand white farmers were
ejected, but hundreds of thousands of farm
workers were also put out of
work. Agriculture collapsed. Famine meant
Mugabe’s henchmen could control
the countryside by centralising the
distribution of
food.
The cities turned to the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC),
led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe’s solution? Bulldoze the
urban shantytowns.
More than 700000 city dwellers lost their homes or
livelihoods.
Farming had been destroyed. So had tourism.
The final straw was
to force foreign companies, especially mining, to give
51% control to
indigenous black Zimbabweans, effectively a last handout to
Mugabe’s
cronies.
Under Mugabe, life expectancy has
been halved; unemployment
reached 80%; nearly all the whites and more than
3-million blacks fled the
country. Zimbabwe became a rogue state, which
threatened to implode the
whole region.
His last
throw was simply to print money. The inevitable result
was hyperinflation.
The Commonwealth turned its back, largely because of
human rights abuses.
And the international financial organisations deserted
him because of
chronic financial mismanagement and broken pledges.
Some
African leaders stood by him out of a misplaced sense of
solidarity,
including President Thabo Mbeki, who held the economic levers.
Then Jacob
Zuma’s ascendancy spawned a change in the African National
Congress.
Tsvangirai became a much more attractive option.
The
South African role in Mugabe’s long farewell is still a
mystery, yet to
unfold: no news yet on any deal for Mugabe’s retirement. The
MDC has said it
wants to follow the South African model of reconciliation,
but there may be
precious little truth, or justice.
Destroying one’s
country with lunatic policies is not a criminal
offence, but crimes against
humanity, especially the genocide in
Matabeleland, are different. Liberia’s
Charles Taylor ended up in The Hague,
but that is a special case. In theory,
the International Criminal Court
could try Mugabe for crimes committed after
2002, in this case the
destruction of urban settlements in
2005.
The endgame will be political, not legal. China’s
influence in
Harare has to be finessed, and SA might have to provide
rock-solid
amnesties, probably in-country, not abroad, for Mugabe and his
top military
and police enforcers.
It could be a
golden — but brief — hour for possible
reconstruction. The United Nations
and the International Monetary Fund will
promise much, but do little. All
hopes for reconstruction efforts are
predicated on Mugabe’s
exit.
If events turn violent, as recent clampdowns indicate,
perhaps
the Commonwealth, as it did in 1980, might just provide a core
British-officered monitoring force. The African Union is overstretched in
Darfur. The Southern African Development Community is too complicit in
Mugabe’s follies.
It will take decades to rebuild the
three main pillars of the
economy: agriculture, tourism and mining. Is
Tsvangirai capable of
rebuilding from ground zero?
Mugabe had always been a master manipulator. And stubborn. Now,
short of
massive rigging and naked use of the army and militias, he cannot
win if he
has to enter a second presidential round. Worse, he could declare
martial
law and rule by decree.
He could have saved something of
his reputation had he conceded
early and gone into a dignified retirement.
Instead, he has created massive
uncertainty for a transition, which could
yet become a second Kenya. Mugabe’s
rule destroyed Zimbabwe. The manner of
his departure might yet disgrace the
whole
continent.
.. Prof Moorcraft is the director of the
Centre for Foreign
Policy Analysis. His new book on conflict in Zimbabwe,
The Rhodesian War, is
published this month.
Dispatch, SA
2008/04/07
ZIMBABWE’S
former finance minister, Simba Makoni, may have come a distant
third in the
presidential election, but he could emerge as the kingmaker .
Makoni, 58,
quit the ruling Zanu-PF party to mount his challenge against
President
Robert Mugabe and main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, but
unofficial
results put him a distant third in the March 29 vote.
“Obviously he will
be a kingmaker. Either of the two will need Makoni,” said
Professor Eldred
Masunungure, a political expert at the University of
Zimbabwe.
Makoni
is thought to have played a “spoiling” role in the presidential
battle so
far, winning enough votes to prevent his rivals from passing the
50% mark
needed for outright victory. But this could change if the duel for
the
presidency goes to a run-off.
Analysts believe his supporters will hold
the balance of power.
In an apparent bid to spruce up his electoral
machinery, Makoni’s camp
announced plans on Saturday to form a his own
party, after he stood as an
independent in the presidential elections. “We
will be formalising our
movement into a fully-fledged political party,” his
spokesperson, Denford
Magora, told reporters.
For the parliamentary
polls, Makoni entered a loose alliance with a splinter
faction of
Tsvangirai’s MDC and a host of independent candidates.
The MDC faction
garnered just 10 of the 210 parliamentary seats, while
Tsvangirai’s main
bloc took 99 and Mugabe’s Zanu-PF, 97.
Makoni’s movement is expected to
back Tsvangirai in the event of a run- off
with President Mugabe, but his
spokesperson said nothing had yet been
finalised. “We are still awaiting
results of the presidential elections,” he
said.
However, if
Zimbabwe’s elections have proved anything so far it is that
nothing is for
certain.
One-time Mugabe information minister Jonathan Moyo believes
Makoni’s
candidacy is actually a ruling party ploy. “He denied Tsvangirai an
outright
victory and gave Mugabe a new lease of life. It was a Zanu-PF
project aimed
at preventing Tsvangirai from the leadership,” said
Moyo.
But in the run-up to the polls, Mugabe labelled his former
protégé a
political “prostitute” and described him as “a frog trying to
inflate itself
to the size of an ox”, warning he would “burst in the
attempt”.
Less than half of Zimbabwe’s 5.9million eligible voters voted
last week, and
both Mugabe and Tsvangirai will look to tap into this huge
reserve of voters
if the presidency goes to a run-off. — Sapa-AFP
From (Swedish) Dn.se
Unofficial translation
http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=148&a=758443
April
6, 2008
Dagens Nyheter’s
correspondent, Anna Koblanck, has been observing events in
Zimbabwe
following the presidential elections. She, and several other
Swedish
journalists, traveled to the country, without permission from the
authorities, and have remained in the capital of Harare since Thursday. On
Sunday, she succeeded in leaving the country.
Late Sunday evening,
Anna Koblanck, (Swedish) Dagens Nyheter’s
correspondent, landed in
Johannesburg after four days living in an apartment
in Harare. When she
arrived in Harare on Thursday, the situation still
seemed bright. Ten days
of openness had swept through the country and it
seemed as if foreign
journalists would be able to report freely.
“But at the same time, just
as I landed, armed riot police attacked a hotel
where many foreign
journalists were staying. In an instant, everything
changed,” she
says.
Instead of being able to conduct interviews and report home to
Sweden, she,
and other Swedish journalists from Swedish [state] Television,
TT, TV 4, and
Radio Sweden, were left sitting in a [private] house, without
being able to
leave. The risk of being arrested was too great. The reports
she managed to
file, she did so anonymously.
[Reporter] Why did you
enter the country without permission?
“A number of journalists applied for
permission to cover the elections, but
only a handful were allowed by the
Zimbabwean government. All Swedish
applications were denied. When we thought
that the climate was improving, we
decided to go anyway. At the time we left
South Africa, everything seemed
calm.
“Instead, a witch hunt of
journalists had begun. I could hardly leave the
house we were staying in and
had to gather information from international
news agencies, my own
impressions and the few telephone calls I could make.
None of us dared to go
out on the streets. If anyone discovered who we were,
there was a big risk
that we would be arrested.”
[Reporter] How did it happen that you
couldn’t write using your own name?
“Some of my colleagues had already
reported back, using their own names. But
we know that Zimbabwe’s embassies
know what is written and send these
reports to Harare. So, I made a quick
decision, not to be seen, using my
name or filing date. On the other hand, I
couldn’t do much else. It wasn’t
possible to hold any interviews and the
telephone hardly worked. Mostly, I
sat in the house and waited for new
information.”
When Anna Koblanck’s plane lifted from Harare International
Airport late
Sunday evening, the sun shone in through the cabin windows on
one side. On
the other side, it was as dark as one could see. While she felt
an enormous
relief about being on the way back to South Africa, she also
felt very
worried about what will happen now in Zimbabwe.
“Darkness
or light. That’s how it feels in Zimbabwe, at the moment. It can
go whatever
way possible. Mugabe has, once again, taken the initiative. The
War Veterans
and youth militias are back on the streets.”
[Reporter] Are you going to
be able to go back to Zimbabwe?
“I don’t know. As I see it, I’ll still be
able to come back and visit
friends. I also hope to be able to continue
working as a journalist in the
country. But everything depends on the
political developments.”
Reporter: Clas Svahn