| President Mugabe says he is sure of
victory |
|
| There has been a
high turnout in Zimbabwe's elections despite opposition claims of widespread
intimidation by government supporters.
Foreign observers say the polling is generally
proceeding smoothly. The election poses the first real threat to President
Robert Mugabe's 20-year rule, as ITN's Africa Correspondent
Tim Ewart reports.
 Zimbabwe's voters were out early and out in
force. In the capital, Harare, the turnout suggested that if there was
intimidation it wasn't working. A big turnout has always been seen as favouring
the opposition - but only hours after the poll opened President Mugabe was
claiming victory.
"We are winning the elections
hands down - as you can see and feel it is very quiet, people are voting quietly
and massively," said Mr Mugabe.
It is the rural constituencies
which will be decisive - the workforce here has borne the brunt of political
violence. But these workers were not deterred from going to vote - although they
faced continuing threats.
 Many people in rural areas will be too
scared to vote but the intimidation may have backfired. There is much resentment
of the behaviour of Mr Mugabe's supporters.
For the beleaguered white farmers,
this weekend will be a turning point. They are hoping for change but are fearing
the worst. "Things may turn violent again and there may be serious
retributions," said farmer Bernard Hacking.
 Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has
always insisted he can win the election even if the vote is rigged. Mr Mugabe is
not standing for re-election but this is effectively a vote on his leadership.
At the moment, he is in no mood to talk about compromise let alone
defeat.
|
| Good turn out in Zimbabwe
election |
|
 Polls have opened in Zimbabwe after an election campaign
plagued by violence and intimidation.
For the first time in his twenty year rule
President Mugabe's party faces a strong opposition challenge.
ITN's Kevin Dunn reports.
VIDEO
From first light voters queued at polling
stations across Zimbabwe and when they opened voting was reported to be
brisk.
 At stake are one hundred and twenty parliamentary seats
in what is regarded as the most important election since independence twenty
years ago.
It is in effect a referendum on President Robert
Mugabe's rule, though his presidential term runs for two more years. His ruling
ZANU-PF party has been widely blamed for orchestrating violence which has
claimed at least 30 lives in the run-up to the election.
 But Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai hopes to inflict
a first defeat on the ruling party, by exploiting discontent over the country's
disastrous economic decline.
In rural areas, where the violence and
intimidation has been worst, farm labourers were driven to the polling stations,
where they queued alongside white farm owners hopeful of a peaceful election.
 Farmer Graham Douse said: "We hope that the rule of law
and the rights of each and every citizen of Zimbabwe can now be protected by the
rule of law
Some incidents were reported but overall
international monitors said voting was going smoothly. The results will be known
on Monday. |
ELECTION UPDATES 24 JUNE
reports to 9.30am
Reports of massive
intimidation were being received from around the country.
They ranged from
barricades being set up by war veterans and blocking or
attacking polling
agents; to international observers appearing not to know
electoral law; to
the abduction of polling agents; or polling agents not
being allowed into
booths; and many complaints about people who were on the
original voters roll
or supplementary rolls, not being on the roll today.
Problems with
voter rolls reported from Borrowdale and Harare East. Craighie
Polling
Station has the wrong voters roll. Mt Pleasant High was missing two
voters
rolls.
MASHONALAND CENTRAL:
Guruve South: Bus in Victory Block
attacked, 10 injured, one missing.
Reported to police.
Midvale Farm
W/Vets camped at Gapwe/Dunavete.
Dalston Farm 400 youths collected
Friday night at Chinhamwe and were
intimidating workers (Mark Hook
091236491)
Marijnara Farm Abductions of farmworkers reported
MAZOE EAST
Hayshot farm - followed by a Zanu PF truck with 13 Zanu PF youths
followed
his truck to polling station and forced them to turn around. The
youths then
proceeded to polling station and were threatening
voters.
BINDURA - ZanuPF truck is blocking the main road into Pinto Park,
the
polling station and not allowing anyone to go through
HARARE EAST
Chikurubi polling station not accepting receipts for the supplementary
roll,
telling people to return Sunday.
Highlands School polling station -
four local monitors ejected from the
polling booth by the presiding officer
just after international observers
passed through.
The constituency
registrar was turning away transfers even though people
were on the roll at
Hatfield.
Queensdale Polling station - all polling agents were pushed out
and were
told their accreditation was not valid until the MDC candidate
arrived and
ensured their readmittance.
OAU observers tried to disallow
the MDC candidate from the Hatfield
constituency.
HARARE
NORTH
Sangononoyi Inn Policeman refused to allow MDC candidate Trudy
Stevenson
(091-315-289) into polling station and would not give his police
force
number.
MASHONALAND WEST:
ZVIMBA NORTH - Voters are being
made to put ink on their fingers before
their names are
checked
MASHONALAND CENTRAL:
Centenary: Extensive intimidation of
farmworkers and farmers reported.
Nyanmetsa Polling station - no MDC polling
agents, 3 war vets inside polling
station. Muzarabani
constituency
HWEDZA:
Peter Trigg, an election agent and polling agents
were stopped at barricades
on a farm and around 20 war veterans tried to pull
them from their vehicle,
they resisted and the car was pelted with stones and
badly damaged. They
managed to drive to a polling station and reported the
incident to 4 police
officers who did nothing. They left that polling station
and encountered
another barricade with around 15 war vets, they drove back to
the polling
station and this time police reinforcements came
out.
MATABELELAND
BULAWAYO:
Dumiso Dabengwa, Minister of Home
Affairs was not on the voters' roll but
the Constituence Officer allowed him
to vote; this privilege was also
extended to MDC legal head, David Coltart
who was also not on the voters
roll.
No supplementary roll in many places,
people with a receipt for
re-registration are not allowed to vote because
they are not on roll. At the
Famona firestation, Bulawayo South the
international observers and police
said people should be allowed to vote if
they have a receipt, but generally
this is not happening.
Last night 10
people in Lobengula were beaten up and had their ID cards
stolen by
ZanuPF.
Five MDC youths were abducted from homes in Lobengula West, were
beaten up,
then held in Block 59 Ndlovu's house and then released. A number
of
additional youths still being held. Police notified at Mpopoma
police
station.
COLLEEN BAWN - a policeman in that area has Tendai Buzi
(016-284-387)
Keep up the
momentum!
Regards,
MDC Support Centre
8th Floor, Gold
Bridge
Eastgate
Harare
Guqula Izenzo/Maitiro
Chinja
"Zimbabwe's strength lies in racial and ethnic diversity - we will
overcome
attempts to divide us" (Morgan Tsvangirai)
Just to let you know that Kwekwe at least is very quiet and orderly at
present. I voted at 1000 after standing in a queue for nearly an hour. The
monitors were evident and police removed any groups of youth that looked as
though they wanted to cause trouble. I have had no feed back from the high
density areas, but hopefully things are under control there
too.
Hi there, from Bulawayo, all very peaceful and orderly, i found the blacks in
the lines to be very chatty and cheerful. I had to vote in the Rural areas
because that is where i live, but going through town i found it the same. If
there is going to be any trouble it will be in the townships. There was about 5
policemen there all very relaxed.
Hi all, Election Day is well on now and I went off this morning to exercise
my democratic right. My wife, domestic ancillary worker and I went to a nearby
school and waited for about half an hour in the queue (the best queue to join).
There were about 6 police on guard and about 4 election monitors. There was also
a foreign observer (he didn't sound as though he had much of an accent so
couldn't be sure of where he was from) and he was worried that the ballot box
had a loose panel where papers could be slipped in overnight. Apart from that,
all seemed peaceful and we have been past a few polling stations and there were
long queues to be seen - of all colours and races. Everyone is talking together
and joking around. We went through town and it is DEAD - there is noone around
and most shops are closed. Peaceful now but let's wait for the results. I will
post more as I find it out. Thanks for the wishes. Regards to all, A in Harare
COMMERCIAL FARMERS' UNION
FARM INVASIONS UPDATE
SATURDAY 24th JUNE 2000
REGIONAL REPORTS
MASHONALAND CENTRAL
Polling is progressing well in
all areas. There have been some logistical problems with election monitors, but
these have generally been resolved. Some polling stations did not have the
supplementary voters roll at the start of polling, but this has been resolved in
most cases. The only general comment is that the procedures are slow.
-
In a last-minute attempt at
"re-education", two workers were assaulted on Duneverty Farm in Guruve last
night.
-
The only other district that
has reported small pockets of intimidation is Mvurwi, but even here it is
thought that the intimidation is of minimal consequence.
-
The manager of Glenara Farm in
Harare West was subjected to demands for meat from the resident war
vets.
MASVINGO
Peaceful and quiet. Incidence
of where farmer and workers had checked the voters roll and now not on the
roll.
Save Consevancy - a mobile
polling station was accompanied by Zanu(pf) youths. Two MDC vehicles were stoned
and no International observers present.
MIDLANDS
Voting peaceful and turnout good at the polls. The
atmosphere is bouyant. One farmer who had confirmed his name on the voters roll,
now not on the roll.
MASHONALAND WEST NORTH
Quiet. However one incident reported in
Mtorashanga where Zanu(pf) youths rounded up the labour and told the labour to
vote by a certain time. A death threat was made on the farmer. The police
reacted and now sorted out.
MASHONALAND WEST SOUTH - peaceful and orderly voting going
on. Some administrative problems with people registered in the wrong
constitiuency, and confusion with mobile polling stations in the Kadoma
area.
Selous - Bottleneck at the polling queues and processing
only 20 people per hour.
Marondera - Polling stations in the town have
longer queues. On the Dormervale Road a road block was set up by youth asking
passers-by on their voting intention.
Harare South/Beatrice - Large
turnout with jovial queues at polling stations.
Wedza -long queues reported in
the area. Unofficial road blocks reported on Skipton and Nelson farm. On Fels
farm a large pungwe was held all night and the workers did not arrive for work
today. An election monitors' vehicle was damaged by ill-wishers this morning
near Bolton farm. On Nelson farm a labourer was abducted last night and his
whereabouts are still unknown. The police are dealing with it. War vets on
Nelson have been preventing workers from voting at the polling station of their
choice.
Macheke/Virginia/Enterprise/Bromley - voting going along
peacefully.
MATABELELAND
Long queues been experienced at polling
stations
MANICALAND
Quiet and voting going on
peacefully.
As at 1.00pm today, all other areas had
nothing further to report
<<... press
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI VOTES FOR A FREE
ZIMBABWE
24 June 2000
Morgan Tsvangirai, president of the Movement
for Democratic Change will vote
in his home constituency of Buhera North this
morning at the polling station
at the Buhera District
Office.
Accompanying Tsvangirai will be his wife, Susan. His mother Lydia
(69) and
his father, Dzingirai (72), a retired bricklayer, will vote at a
nearby
school which is closer to the family home.
A few hours before
he cast his vote, Tsvangirai reflected, "the die is cast.
This is the day we
move forward as a country, or backward into an economic
abyss. Hope is our
future.
"We have had liberation for 20 years, but this vote is about real
freedom."
He said he felt an "inner excitement, but I am also aware of the
huge
challenges and responsibilities, my vote and that of every
Zimbawean
carries."
Tsvangirai left his home in Harare early to travel
to Buhera. He will vote,
visit a few constituencies in the area and then
travel back to Harare today.
* Helicopter flights should land at the
soccer field close to the township
and reporters should travel from
there.
Keep up the momentum!
Regards,
MDC Support
Centre
8th Floor, Gold Bridge
Eastgate
Harare
Guqula
Izenzo/Maitiro Chinja
"Zimbabwe's strength lies in racial and ethnic
diversity - we will overcome
attempts to divide us" (Morgan
Tsvangirai)
Update for 22 June 2000
THURSDAY 22 JUNE 2000
NB: The Daily Election Updates are also
available on our web site:
http://www.icon.co.zw/mmpz.
PRINT
On the eve of the 2000 Election, the Media Monitoring Project
(MMPZ) notes that the state-controlled media has not provided fair or
balanced coverage of election issues.
Numerous calls by MMPZ, other
civic organizations and interested individuals for all- inclusive
coverage of the electoral process have gone unheeded. The publicly
funded print media has made no effort to inform voters impartially about
the issues at stake in the election. The percentage distribution of
voices on election stories in the state- controlled print media from
June 1 to June 22 show that 77% of the party political voices quoted
belonged to ZANU PF, 18% (MDC), 1% (ZUD) 1%(UP), 0,5% (ZAPU) and 0,5%
(DP). This is hardly representative of the political parties contesting in
the polls. The tone of reporting on the opposition, particularly the
MDC, was mostly negative, that is, in the context of political
violence, intra-party divisions and all manner of unsubstantiated
conspiracies. ZANU PF officials made ludicrous allegations against
the opposition in the state-controlled media with impunity. No verification
was sought from independent voices and no comment was accessed from the
parties involved. An overview of issues that dominated the state
controlled media in the pre-poll period includes:
i.
Land; which is ZANU PF's main election campaign platform;
ii. The blame
on exogenous forces working hand in hand with the opposition and
whites to undermine the economy and the government; and
iii. Lack of
balanced coverage of political violence, with the opposition being
blamed
iv. That the opposition particularly the MDC is a front of
former Rhodesians and imperial forces
v. Saturation coverage
of President Mugabe's campaign rallies even though he is not standing
in the election.
MMPZ notes that in the past 23 days leading to
the election, the private press continued to fill the gap for the
expression of discontent and alternative views from those purveyed by
the public media. However, the private press has not been infallible,
as it dedicated most of its coverage to the MDC and to a lesser
extent, other opposition parties, resulting in a polarized media
environment. The Financial Gazette and The Daily News, for example,
have provided non-partisan voter education reporting and equitable
coverage of political parties in their Election 2000
special supplements.
However, in their editorial columns, the private
press was heavily slanted in favour of the MDC.
In
yesterday's coverage, ZIMPAPERS continued to report ZANU PF activities
favourably and without question, while denigrating the opposition. The Herald
quoted President Mugabe as saying that resettlement would be speedily
implemented at a campaign rally in Mashonaland Central, while the
article, "Nyasha Chikwinya: a true woman of the people", continued
the paper's tradition of showering ZANU PF candidates with unstinting
praise.
The Herald's front-page article "Bikita villagers
condemn MDC's alliance with whites" quoted three villagers (including
a chief) who "castigated the MDC for making an alliance with the
whites and former colonial masters which seek to destabilize the
country". The Herald's other article on the MDC was headlined "MDC's
Welshman breached copyright rules".
The role of women in the
elections was reported in The Herald under the headline "More women
contest parliamentary elections", but only ZANU PF women candidates were
featured. The Bulawayo-based Chronicle continued to give negligible
coverage of the electoral process. The newspaper reported that preparations
for the polls were on course, that the EU observer team was happy with
its unimpeded access to all constituencies in Matabeleland, the war
veterans' call for peaceful polls, and the statement by the National
Council of Disabled Persons of Zimbabwe that they wanted their own
guides when they vote.
ZIMPAPERS' dailies reported the High
Court ruling rejecting the Electoral Supervisory Commission's
application challenging the accreditation of international observers
by the Election Directorate and the accreditation of those observers by
the Registrar- General's Office. The two state-controlled dailies
have not analyzed why the ESC has been sidelined in the electoral
process, or why it was necessary to amend the Electoral Act at the
last minute when it has served adequately in
previous elections.
The Daily News quoted four opposition
parties criticizing the Registrar-General's Office for violating the
Electoral Act by issuing postal ballot forms irregularly. The
Financial Gazette reported that the Movement for Democratic Change had
filed an urgent application with the High Court seeking to bar the
Registrar-General from processing postal vote applications, which do
not bear the signature of the applicant and a competent witness.
There was no comment from the Registrar-General's Office. The Daily
News reported that policeman deployed away from their homes
during voting were not happy with the fact that they were going to
vote through the postal ballot.
The Financial Gazette reported that
local and international observers expressed misgivings about yet
another amendment to the Electoral Act this week which effectively
barred 20 000 local monitors by decreeing that only one monitor would
be allowed per polling station instead of the original six. The
observers said the refusal to accredit these 20 000 and hundreds of
international observers and the seizure of identity documents by
government supporters had seriously undermined the credibility of the
elections. In another story confusingly headlined: Top EU observer slams
state roadblocks, violence, the EU observer mission head Pierre Schori
said:
We have never encountered so many problems with
accreditation anywhere in the world. And we have never seen so much
violence.
Intimidation and violence have no place in a democratic
environment Schori also dismissed Government and the state-owned press
claims that the British government had planted Kenyans and Nigerians
to pose as EU members. Schori said the EU regularly included African
observer missions in its programme to support democracy and
governance in Africa. The Financial Gazette article "Tsvangirai demands
Mugabe negotiates power sharing" quoted MDC president Morgan
Tsvangirai as saying that if his party won a simple majority of the
elected seats (61) MDC would demand that President Mugabe not use his
presidential authority to appoint 30 extra parliamentary seats, thereby
turning defeat into victory. Tsvangirai suggested the seats be
allocated proportionally according to the election
results.
The Daily News and The Financial Gazette continued to
report political violence by war veterans and ZANU PF supporters
against members of the opposition. The Daily News article "Opposition
parties failing to campaign in occupied farms" quoted the MDC as
saying that "opposition candidates in whose constituencies have farms
invaded by war veterans and ZANU PF supporters" were having
difficulties getting access to those areas for campaign purposes. The
Daily News reported that President Mugabe told his supporters to
strike back with an axe if the opposition
attacked them.
ZBC
Statistics
Campaigns/ Rallies
Radio 1/3 Radio
2/4 TV
Stories 6 13 5
Zanu PF Voices 6 (66%) 13 (87%) 9
(81%)
Alternative Voices 3 (33%) 0 0
Opposition Voices 0 2
(14%)ZUD/MDC 2 (19%)
Electoral Process/Issues
Radio 1/3
Radio 2/4 TV
Stories 12 9 9
Election Officials 3 6 3
Foreign Voices 4 0 0
Zanu PF Voices 2 0 4
Opposition Voices 0 0
0
Alternative Voices 3 6 0
Police Voice 0 2 2
Political Violence Radio 1/3 Radio 2/4 TV
Stories 0 1 9
Zanu PF
voices 0 0 12
Police voices 0 0 3
Alternative 0 0 1
Professional 0 1 1
*Alternative voices include :trade unions, teachers
and student bodies etc
while
professional voices include ZNCC,
Banker and professionals.
ZBC continued to give biased coverage
of political campaigns. On Radio
1/3's news
coverage of campaigns and
rallies, 66% of the voices belonged to Zanu PF
and none
came from the
opposition. On Radio 2/4 87% of the voices belonged to Zanu
PF
against 14% from the opposition, while on TV 19% of the voices were
from
the
opposition's ZUD and MDC parties in which candidates of
Harare South said
they were
confident of winning the elections. This
TV clip was 55 seconds long
(6pm). Radio 2/4
featured the story on
its 6pm and 8pm bulletins.
In the morning's regular police Peace
Report programme on Television's AM Zimbabwe the ZRP abused its
access to ZBC's airtime by attacking the MDC and foreign
observers.
In a statement, it accused the MDC of embarking on a campaign
of violence to discredit the police and the ruling party. The
statement appears which also attacked international observers as
"glaringly partisan" appears to have been based on two poorly sourced
reports of violence and an incident in Hwedza where observers were
said to have connived with the MDC to witness a violent incident
involving BBC journalists and war veterans, which police said never
happened.
The police official said: "It is an open secret that the MDC
is employing foreign journalists to try and create the impression
that the MDC is being denied the opportunity to hold rallies by the
ruling party.
He did not elaborate how these alleged activities would
discredit the police.
This was followed up by a news report
on TV 1:30pm, 6pm and 8pm. ZBC abandoned its own obligation to
impartiality in this report and chose to support the allegations with
archival footage of an old CNN clip in which MDC's Tsvangirai
received donations from white farmers. The link between this clip
and the political violence was unclear.
Election result predictions
were sought from people who predicted a Zanu PF win and there was no
attempt to balance this opinion with opposing predictions
(Radio 1/3
6pm & 8pm and TV 8pm).
Coverage of the election
process and issues concentrated on assurances from election agency
officials - excluding the Electoral Supervisory Commission - that
adequate preparations had been made with only one helpful item that the blind
and those who could not write would be assisted by a polling officer.
(TV, Radio 6pm and 8pm).
Violence
Incidents of political violence were blamed on the opposition. For example,
the Matabeleland war veterans' office was allegedly burnt down by
MDC supporters (TV 6pm and 8pm), and houses belonging to war vets and
ZANU PF supporters were attacked by MDC supporters (TV 8pm). The
reporter said no comment was available from the MDC. Notably, none of
the media in Zimbabwe shed any light on international media reports
that another MDC supporter had been dragged from his rural home in
Gokwe and beaten to death. He is said to have died on Wednesday
morning.
Current Affairs
In welcome relief from the
heavily biased ZTV news bulletins, the current affairs programme,
Election 2000, provided the voting public with compelling viewing
when Claude Mararike bravely hosted representatives from six political
parties. What ensued was a lively debate on important election issues
that provided a clear example of the rich diversity of political
opinion that does exist in Zimbabwe given the chance.
Mararike should
be congratulated for managing a difficult but lively discussion.
ENDS
Media Monitoring Project
Zimbabwe
Friday 23 June 2000
ZBC
Coverage of
campaigns and rallies on television and radio was devoted
entirely to
the
ruling party on all ZBC news bulletins monitored, Radio (6 am, 7 am,
8 am,
1 pm, 6
pm & 8 pm and TV 7 am, 1:30 pm, 6 pm, 8 pm & 11
pm., except for one story
on the
TV's 7am bulletin which covered an
MDC candidate. All of TV's 11pm news
items
were about Zanu PF.
Seven out of the 15 political stories on TV
discredited the
MDC.
Electoral issues were given wide coverage on Radio. On
Radio 2/4 there
were 20
stories on the electoral process against nine
on political campaigns. On
Radios 1/3
there were 28 electoral stories
and 16 campaign stories. There was a wide
variety of
sources on
electoral process news stories. However, the story reported on
all
stations;
that the MDC had lost a court application to bar postal votes
only sought
comment
from the Registrar General's office. There was no
comment sought from the
MDC. ZBC
initially ignored MDC's court
application.
On TV, political campaign reports nearly matched electoral
issues (15
against 16).
In the run-up to the election ZBC had
not aired any political party's TV
adverts but
broke this precedent
yesterday when it aired Zanu PF party's election
advert just
before
and during the main news bulletin.
On the eve of the elections,
Zanu PF propaganda masqueraded as news on
ZBC's
8pm TV bulletin.
Reports discrediting the MDC were given prominence over
electoral
issues. Two notable items on the bulletin existed only for their efforts
to
discredit the
MDC. One was an opinion piece extracted from a South
African newspaper
speculating about MDC's South African connections,
while the other quoted
a ZANU
PF official. In this report, a
legitimate campaign strategy in which MDC
used an
aeroplane to drop
leaflets, was blown out of proportion in a statement
from Zanu PF
campaign coordinator Jonathan Moyo. He equated the measure with
those
employed
by the Rhodesians who had no respect for Africans. He
added that he hoped
the
MDC's antics had not escaped the attention of
observers. Radio's morning
bulletins
reported that an unidentified
aeroplane flew over Plumtree dumping heaps
of MDC
campaigning
materials.
In the report on the opinion piece in the South
African Star newspaper
alleging that
Zimbabwe would be run from South
Africa if the MDC were to win the
elections, ZBC
newsreaders claimed
the report substantiated allegations that MDC was
being
controlled by
South Africans.
Newsreader: "Reports coming in from South Africa are
increasingly
substantiating claims that the opposition MDC is being
controlled by
forces in
South Africa."
Only one fact was
established in this propaganda piece; that a South
African journalist
was helping the MDC with its campaign strategy. Vague reference was also
made
to
an unnamed opposition party and rich South African business people
who it
accused
of funding the MDC. The rest of the report speculated
about the reasons
for South
Africa's interest in Zimbabwe saying it
was to ensure that the land
redistribution did
not take
place.
The reporter's claim that all concerned parties "could not be
reached" for
comment was
just not good enough. The report
contradicted previous reports on ZBC
which have
alleged an
Anglo-American conspiracy to topple Zanu PF and install a
puppet MDC
government. ZBC did not examine these contradictions.
A ZBC
(TV6pm and 8pm, radio 6pm & 8pm) story on foreign funding of
political
parties
gave a variety of opinions from civic society, all of whom
advocated
restrictions on
foreign funding. The report however, only
quoted Zanu PF exonerating
itself by saying
that it's funds for the
elections were sourced locally.
Political Violence
TV
reported one incident of political violence, 6pm where several huts
were
burnt in
Wedza. MDC was blamed but no comment was sought from
them.
Current Affairs
ZRP continued its previous day's
bias against the opposition in its
regular TV morning
slot by
choosing to highlight only MDC inspired acts of political
violence.. The
police
officer reported an incident in which an MDC candidate allegedly
saw a
group of war
veterans at a beerhall, went to his home, got a
shot gun and shot at them
without any
provocation. He said no-one was
injured.
He said the police would seize firearms "if used carelessly",
and that
"war veterans are
not wild or dangerous so as to be shot on
sight," he said.
For the first time in weeks, Radio 2 provided a voter
education programme.
The
programme featured Register-General Mudede,
Election Directorate chairman,
Nzuwa
and the police commissioner
Chihuri. The programme talked about the
documents
required to vote (a
metal ID, a valid driver's licence or a passport), and
allayed fears
about the secrecy of the ballot.
In its 6.45a.m.re-run of CNN's 6a.m.
news bulletin, ZBC edited out an item
on
Zimbabwe. The story, quoting
the opposition MDC prediction that they would
win the
election,
appeared on the headlines but not in the body of the
bulletin.
PRINT
ZIMPAPERS' dailies, The
Chronicle and The Herald, quoting sources from the
Election Directorate
and the Registrar-General, reported that preparations
for
conducting
the parliamentary elections were now complete. However, the
Zimbabwe
Independent reported that there was confusion at the
accreditation
of
polling agents and officers in Harare, raising questions about whether
electoral preparations would be finished in time for polling. The
same
story
said at least 600 local observers were still awaiting
accreditation by
Thursday
evening. The Chronicle reported that the EU
observer team had expressed
satisfaction with its unimpeded access to
all constituencies.
The private press continued to report widespread
incidences of politically
motivated violence.
The Daily News
reported that the MDC candidate for Hwedza had fled the
country after
receiving threats to his life.
The Zimbabwe Independent carried a
gruesome front-page picture of an MDC
supporter who had allegedly been
beaten and burnt by ZANU PF supporters.
The picture accompanied the
story, ZANU PF thugs ravage Mataga, which
reported that two brothers,
members of the opposition MDC, had been
abducted by 18 ZANU PF
supporters and tortured, resulting in the death of
one of them. The man
who died had signed the nomination papers of the MDC
candidate for the
area. The story reported that despite numerous
identification
parades
the police had not moved to arrest the culprits but seemed to be
working
in collaboration with the perpetrators of the violence. The
survivor
said:
"I thought I had the right to support any party of my choice, but
now I
think
these politics are dirty."
This story reflects
other reports of the violence and intimidation that
continues
to
plague the rural areas. Such stories are not being reported by
the
publicly
owned media, but raise serious concerns as to the
possibility of free and
fair
elections under this reign of
terror.
The Dispatch also reported that the wife of journalist Phineas
Mukwazo of
the
Chronicle and Sunday News was abducted and tortured by
war veterans who
wanted her to release the whereabouts of her husband.
This story also
appeared in The Zimbabwe Mirror as a suffix to a story
about violence
between ruling party and MDC supporters in Bulawayo's
Nkulumane suburb.
Trouble started on Saturday when MDC youths went on
the rampage and
torched the former freedom fighters' offices in the
suburb after they
refused to
board transport hired by the ruling
party to take residents to President
Mugabe's rally at White City
Stadium, the paper reported.
The Dispatch reported that an independent
candidate for Cowdry Park in
Bulawayo had been harassed by war veterans
who had also embarked on a
door-to-door campaign to "sniff out"
opposition supporters in the area.
Similar
harassment of the
electorate was reported in Binga.
The Zimbabwe Mirror continued to
provide fair coverage of various parties'
election candidates in the
various constituencies around the country. It
also
carried articles
assessing the current political situation and what might
happen after
the election. Its article, Constitutional crisis if MDC wins
poll?
analyzed the constitutional problems the country was likely to face
should
MDC win the majority of the parliamentary seats, which it
considered
unlikely.
Unlike the private press the Zimpapers stable
continued to saturate its
pages
with blanket coverage to the ZANU PF
campaign, particularly President
Mugabe's rally statements at the
expense of all other parties. Where other
parties were covered it was
negative and unbalanced. For example, "Suspect
addresses MDC rally in
Beitbridge" was the only story covering the MDC
campaign. The other
story Opposition parties going flat out to ensure
elections are not
declared free and fair, was unbalanced and biased
against
the
opposition. The Herald said:
"The local and international
anti-Zimbabwe government network
has never worked harder than they
have been doing for this
weekend's parliamentary elections as they
perceive a chance of
ousting the liberation movement from power
through black stooges
and fronts."
This reflected the
headline of the paper's lead story on its front page
reporting
Mugae's rally at Mucheke Stadium in Masvingo: "Tsvangirai a stooge of
the
UK: President".
Zimpapers also continued to blame all
political violence on the MDC. In
the
stories MDC youths provoke
violence in Hwedza: police and Zanu PF
supporters severely assaulted.
Both blamed MDC supporters for political
violence. The state controlled
papers did not carry any reports in the
privately
owned papers
reflecting the involvement of ZANU PF in the violence.
The Zimbabwe
Independent in its front-page editorial declared support for
the
MDC
saying to vote for the party would be to vote for the future,
while
voting
for ZANU PF would be a vote for doom. The Herald
editorial on the other
hand
re-affirmed its support for ZANU
PF.
In-fighting within ZANU PF Masvingo province was reported in
The
Independent, with allegations by the Masvingo governor that
Minister
without
portfolio Eddison Zvobgo was planning to form a
political party. The paper
also
reported that ZANU PF was frantically
trying to persuade independent
candidates, particularly in Harare, to
step down from the poll.
In terms of voter education, The Herald carried
a story informing voters
not to
shake hands with those that have not
voted as the ink would rub off making
them ineligible. This was
important information, but the story was
relegated to
page 6. The
article quoted ZANU PF secretary for administration saying:
. some
schools, in connivance with organizations bent on
disrupting the
parliamentary elections, are believed to have issued
the special
(indelible) ink to pupils .
There was no verification of these
allegations.
The Daily News reported that the MDC had applied to seek a
High Court
order
restraining the Registrar-General from accepting
postal votes.
On the election observers, The Daily News reported that
only 302 out of
500
international election observers had been
accredited.
ENDS
For more information about the Project,
previous issues of the Weekly and
Daily
Updates, please visit our
website at http://www.icon.co.zw/mmpz
or contact
the
Project Coordinator, MMPZ, 221 Fife Avenue, Harare,
Tel/fax: 263 4 733486,
734207, E-mail: monitors@icon.co.zw
Staying on
Peter Godwin 's 1997
best-selling
book told the story of a white
boy
growing up in rural Rhodesia. Now,
on the eve of
Zimbabwe's
elections, he has returned to
meet
the handful of defiant white families
who remain in his home
town
Zimbabwe: special report
Education
Unlimited
Friday June 23,
2000
Heaven is empty and
the Frog and Fern is
closed. The war vets are on
the warpath
and Chimanimani's lodges are desolate. It
is election time in Zimbabwe
and I have
come home. Although it's been years
since I lived here,
Chimanimani (which
used to be called Melsetter,
after the
Orkney town) remains stuck in my mind
as that central reference
point from which
all other places radiate. It
lies in an
isolated valley along the eastern border
with Mozambique, nestled in
the crook of
a winding range of glittering granite
mountains from which the
village now
takes its name. In recent times it has
become even more remote;
cyclone Eline
swept away its bridges earlier this year,
leaving it cut off by road for
more than a
month. As my car strains up the hillside
from the Biriwiri valley, the
road is reduced
to one lane, the other has
been washed
down into the valley below.
The shadows of war
are long here. In
1964, on this road etched into
the
cliff-side, the first attack of the
Chimurenga, the liberation
war, was
carried out by a band of guerrillas called
the Crocodile Gang. The victim
was our
next-door neighbour, Piet Oberholzer. My
mother was the attending
doctor. By
independence in 1980, one of every four
white farmers had been killed
by
guerrillas. And now, 20 years later,
Chimanimani is under siege
once more by
remnants of those same guerrillas. But
the power struggle has
changed
dramatically since then. Now Robert
Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party
is fighting
for its political life against an upsurgent
opposition, the Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC), a party that didn't even
exist a year ago.
I wander over to the
Msasa cafe where I
find its owner, John Barlow,
in the back
carving an African drum from a log of blue
mahogany. "This was supposed
to be the
best year of my life," says Barlow sadly,
as we sit in his newly
renovated, empty,
cafe, sipping fresh local
coffee by the fire
and discussing evacuation
routes, the
subject du jour around many Zimbabwean
dinner tables this
week.
Most white
Zimbabweans, and indeed
many middle-class black
people, have
what they call "gap bags" packed and
ready, in case the election
results trigger
a spasm of violence. My sister
and her
friends have a complicated plan that
involves various rendezvous
along the
route from Harare, then crossing the
Zambezi into Zambia. (The
Zanu-PF
candidate in my sister's garden suburb of
northern Harare is Comrade
Stalin Mau
Mau - a deliberately unsettling nom de
guerre that jumps out at you
from posters
on every lamppost there.) They have food
supplies and visas and have
registered
their cars with the police so they can drive
across the border. Some here
have acted
pre-emptively, going "on holiday" for the
next couple of weeks, deaf to
the
entreaties of the opposition MDC that
everyone with a vote should
stay and use
it.
President Mugabe
appears convinced that
his present travails are all
the fault of the
whites, and his racial
rhetoric has become
white hot. Never mind that
there are only
70,000 whites left here (in a
population of
over 12m) many of whom have been in
deep political hibernation. Or
that only four
of the MDC's 120 candidates
are white.
The veterans' leader Chenjerai "Hitler"
Hunzvi has said - in fact he
keeps saying
it - that if Zanu-PF loses the election, he
and his men will go back to
war. Add
these two ingredients together: a threat of
war and conveniently
colour-coded
culprits, and the evacuation plans don't
seem quite so
nutty.
Evacuating from
Chimanimani however, is
particularly tricky. With its
back to the
soaring mountains, there are only two
roads in, and one of them has
been
blocked
by cyclone Eline. If the other one
is controlled by war vets, how
to get out?
The whites here have already evacuated
once, last month, when several
truckloads
of
vets became incensed at a rumour that
Hunzvi's house in Harare had
been
torched
(it was just another of a spate of
wild rumours) and decided to
take out
their ire on the local whites. There aren't
very many of them left, only
about 20
families. Warned first by their domestic
workers and black colleagues,
and then
by
the local police chief (who has since
been demoted and transferred
for his
troubles), the whites formed a convoy and
drove up to Skyline junction,
and out of
the valley, to lie low till it cooled down.
John Barlow was about
the only white to
stay that time, but even he is
taking
evacuation seriously now. He has decided
that if it comes down to it,
the only way
out for him might be to grab his kids and
do a Sound of Music - climb up
over the
mountains and into Mozambique. The very
idea of going to Mozambique
for
sanctuary
strikes me as absurd: it is
officially one of the poorest
countries in
the world after being ravaged by 30 years
of civil war.
Having stripped and
beaten the black
school teachers in front of
their pupils,
and threatened the black managers at
some of the saw mills, the
vets in
Chimanimani are particularly interested in
one white man, Roy Bennet, the
owner of
Charleswood. This 7,000-acre farm is
arguably the prettiest farm in
the country,
tucked up against the national park. It is
latticed with irrigation
canals, which feed
the red earth and the neat
rows of coffee
bushes that sprout from it.
The local Ndau
people call Bennet, Pachedu .
It means
"one
of us". A pitch-perfect Shona
speaker, he was approached by
a
delegation
of local councillors and kraal
(village) heads who were sick
of absentee
MPs and stagnant development, and
asked to stand as their
candidate. After
flirting with Zanu-PF, he's
now standing for
the MDC, a white man standing
in a rural
constituency where over 99.9% of the
electorate is black. He shows
me a file fat
with letters from black supporters. Some
address him as Father
Chimanimani,
others thank him for helping to repair
bridges after the
cyclone.
Bennet's rival, the
Zanu-PF candidate, is
Munacho Mutezo, an
engineering
graduate from Birmingham and Glasgow
universities. His father was
detained by
the old Rhodesian authorities, Bennet
tells me, for being involved
with the
Crocodile Gang. Now the battle lines are
drawn once more. But this time
the
homeboy
is a white man who spends
most of his time here. Mutezo
on the
other
hand, is based five hours away in
Harare.
Judging by his
reception from the locals,
Bennet is probably a shoo-in -
if he can
just stay alive until the polls open
tomorrow. He has had a steady
stream of
death threats. His farm is guarded by
dozens of youths armed with
clubs and
iron bars, and he has informers in the
village and the black township
who warn
him
of approaching danger.
Bennet has only just
moved back on to
his farm after war vets
invaded it. They
seized his wife, Heather, who
was
pregnant
at the time, put a machete to her
throat and made her chant
Zanu-PF
slogans. They beat up several of the
workers and then they occupied
the
farmhouse
and trashed it over several
weeks, stealing many of its
contents and
smearing shit on the walls. They cut the
paws off the lion skin rug, to
use them for
muti - a type of traditional medicine.
Heather miscarried. But
Bennet
negotiated a return and the vets eventually
left, feeling vulnerable to a
hostile
workforce that had had a gut-full of being
bullied.
"These white farmers
who appease - I've
got no time for them.
Appeasement has
never worked, just look at
history," says
Bennet, a great bear of a man,
who
played
polo-cross for the national side and
often goes barefoot in public.
"What's so
heartening about these elections is that
there's a good percentage of
Zimbabwean
whites who've said, 'sod it, let's get
involved,' and we've suffered
together with
the blacks, and feared together with them.
We've made a stand and shown
that we're
prepared to sacrifice ourselves for this
country. And isn't that what a
patriot is,
after all? It's the first time I've felt really
Zimbabwean."
As we sit talking
under the tall thatch by
the fire, the radio crackles
into life with a
message of trouble - a truck
of war vets
has been spotted coming this way. All
Roy's hunting rifles are in
police custody,
but one of his mechanics peels
down a
horse
blanket on the sofa to reveal a
shotgun and a bandolier of
cartridges.
"Our guys," as Bennet
calls his MDC
guards, are gathering in strategic points to
repulse the attack. "I'm sick
of running
now," he says. "If they're gonna come,
they must come and let's get
this over
with."
But tonight is not to
be the night and I
eventually fall asleep to the
gurgling of the
river and the call of the
nightjars. I wake
up once to the sound of
murmuring
outside the window and peep out to see
the MDC guards huddled round a
fire
there,
with blankets draped over their
shoulders, hands clasped
around enamel
mugs of coffee. These are brave men,
many are kids still, who are
taking on the
full wrath of the state for their vision of
better Zimbabwe, and they are
in just as
much danger as Bennet.
Later, I accompany
Bennet to the police
station where he has been
summoned for
a meeting with the vets. They tell him that
they intend to reoccupy his
farm, but they
are prepared to do it
peacefully,
cooperatively. "That's what you said last
time," spits Bennet, raising
his voice and
reeling off a litany of the crimes they
committed when they first
visited
Charleswood. The room is thick with
tension and several of the
vets look as
though they would shoot him this second,
if they were
armed.
We discover en route
from Bennet's
election agent, James Mukwaya, that the
rally Bennet is supposed to
address this
morning in the Ngorima communal lands
has been cancelled. Gangs from
Zanu-PF
have
been there overnight, moving from
house to house, warning people
that if
they
attend they will be killed. But Bennet
is not down hearted. They're
all on our
side anyway, he says, so why risk their
lives with public rallies, we
know how
they'll vote when the time comes.
Along the foothills
from Charleswood, the
Steyns aren't quite so
optimistic about the
future. They are having a bad
week and to
make it worse, a bush fire has just
crossed the mountain from
Mozambique
and is threatening to burn down their farm.
In the old farmhouse with its
Cape
Constantia gables, Louis Steyn seems
lost in a kind of numbed
reverie. He sits in
his plum-coloured draylon
chair, sucking
heavily on his pipe, while
Daleen, his wife,
keeps up a cheerful
chatter.
Louis Steyn's
grandfather came here in
1893, leading the Steyn trek
up from the
Orange Free State in South Africa. There
have been Steyns farming these
lush
hillsides ever since, but it looks like Louis
could be the last. His farm
has been
designated by the government for
compulsory takeover, though he
vows:
"We'll
fight it to the bloody end." A
delegation of ministry envoys
arrived by
car last week, having driven all the way
from Harare to deliver the
designation
letter by hand.
"I offered them a
sandwich and a cup of
tea," says Daleen, "but they
were in a
hurry because they had lots more
designation orders to deliver
to white
farmers."
The Steyns have also
been "occupied" by
war veterans for some months
now. When
the
vets first arrived, Daleen told them:
"We worship the same God you
and I,
let's
pray together to him for justice." And
so they did, the vets and the
Steyns, they
got down on their knees on the lawn
outside the farmhouse and
prayed
together, and then the vets went off and
pegged their land.
Between occupation
and designation it
does look pretty bleak for the
Steyns. Not
that they haven't been through tough
times before. For nearly a
decade during
the war they had to commute to the farm
from the village because it
was too
dangerous to stay overnight.
"Then we got ambushed
in our car,"
remembers Daleen. "They shot at us and
fired at us with a rocket
launcher. There
was so much smoke it was dark
and we
saw
tracer bullets flying all over the place,
it was like a starry night."
The car took 11
hits, but Louis managed to
coax it to the
next bend in the road. "I
drove out of there
on the rims of the tyres
spinning on the
road," adds Louis.
Their Rhodesian
ridgeback canters after
my car as the Steyn's wave
goodbye,
having asked me to give their apologies to
Lord and Lady Plunket who are
holding a
tea
party this afternoon. The Plunkets own
a modest timber est ate and
have been
migratory residents here ever since I can
remember. Lady Plunket has
laid on quite
a spread - the table is laden with plates of
buttered gingerbread and
delicate
triangles of crustless sandwiches. Pretty
much the whole white community
is here.
They
fit comfortably on to the Plunket's
veranda. Though it has brought
much
oppro
brium down upon them, most of the
whites here support Roy
Bennet's stand.
"He's my hero," says Lady
Plunket,
clasping her hands to her heart.
As the first fingers
of the night mist creep
down the mountain gorges,
and
pine-scented smoke from the hearth fire
fills the air, we fall
inevitably to discussing
the election; the chances of a
fair ballot,
or of the government accepting a defeat;
the possibility of a coup.
There is talk too
of an Idi Amin option where,
just as the
Ugandan dictator expelled all Asians, a
furious Mugabe decides to
purge the
country of whites and gorge on their
property. From the look and
the sound of
him these days, this is what he'd most
like to do.
I leave early the
next morning, after a tour
of the Plunket's gardens,
viewing their
lichen-blotched Shona soapstone
sculptures. The sun is just
breaking
through the granite ramparts of the
mountain, dissolving the mist
as I drive up
and out of the valley to Skyline junction.
But there is no skyline, just
fat grey
clouds sitting heavily on the hill, and rain.
Work gangs in olive-green
plastic ponchos
dig on in the downpour, trying
to keep the
road open. As I drop down the other side,
the rain stops and the clouds
lift and the
baobabs begin. I come up behind a
slow-moving old Land Rover
filled with
young black men singing exuberantly.
They wave me the open-palmed
sign of
the
MDC and throw some fliers up into the
air. For a brief moment one
sticks to my
windscreen and I see the grinning visage
of Roy Bennet and the headline
"Chinja
Maitiro - Change your ways. Vote MDC",
and then it blows off into the
bush.
- Peter Godwin is
the author of Mukiwa -
A White Boy in Africa,
published by
Picador.