Washington Post
By ANGUS
SHAW
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 29, 2007; 3:52
AM
HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Police denied they arrested Zimbabwe's main
opposition
leader, but his whereabouts remained unknown Thursday, a day
after they
stormed his party's headquarters in a new crackdown on resistance
to
President Robert Mugabe.
The raid came shortly before Mugabe left
for Tanzania to attend an emergency
meeting of southern African leaders
about the crisis in Zimbabwe. A ruling
party spokesman said Mugabe planned
to brief the meeting about the arrests
of activists.
On Wednesday,
Morgan Tsvangirai was detained along with other Mugabe
opponents as he
prepared to talk to reporters about a wave of political
violence that left
him briefly hospitalized, said his aide, Eliphas
Mukonoweshuro.
He
said police sealed off approaches to the Movement for Democratic Change
headquarters and fired tear gas to drive away onlookers before taking
Tsvangirai and the others away in a bus.
"We don't know their
whereabouts. We don't know if they have been charged,"
the aide
said.
Later Wednesday, an opposition lawyer, Alec Mmuchadehama, said he
believed
Tsvangirai had been released. Efforts to contact Tsvangirai or
other
opposition party officials were not successful.
The United
States said Mugabe was trying to intimidate legitimate political
opposition.
"We hold President Mugabe responsible for the safety of
these Zimbabwean
citizens, and we call on Zimbabwean authorities to
investigate these attacks
and punish those responsible," said State
Department deputy spokesman Tom
Casey.
He urged southern African
nations to make clear that Mugabe's actions were
unacceptable. He should be
called to account, Casey said, for his misrule
"not only over the last few
weeks but over the last few years."
The comments echoed statements from
the European Union and Human Rights
Watch.
Police acknowledged the
raid on the Movement for Democratic Change and said
10 people were arrested
but that Tsvangirai was not among them.
"We never arrested him," police
spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said on state
television news late
Wednesday.
Bvudzijena said 10 other suspected opposition activists were
arrested
Tuesday night, including two senior opposition officials whose
homes were
searched for weapons. Police found 53 sticks of dynamite and 35
detonators
in the Harare home of one of the officials, Piniel
Denga.
Bvudzijena said the dynamite was similar to that used in a
gasoline attack
on a train Friday.
"We are not witch-hunting. We are
carrying out investigations and they are
very thorough," he
said.
Mmuchadehama said the opposition legal team was investigating the
reported
arrests but had been denied access to those detained.
State
radio said Mugabe left for Tanzania to attend a meeting of the
Southern
African Development Community on the political turmoil in Zimbabwe
amid
concerns the crisis could threaten regional stability.
Before leaving,
Mugabe held a meeting of his politburo, the ruling party's
highest
policy-making body, to discuss whether to hold national elections in
2008 or
2010.
Ruling party spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira said Mugabe, who has
pushed for a
delay until 2010 that would lengthen his rule, expressed
willingness to run
if nominated.
The radio report said the party
would go ahead with elections regardless of
whether the opposition takes
part. On Tuesday, Tsvangirai said he would
boycott a presidential election
scheduled for next year unless it was
carried out under a new democratic
constitution that ensures it is free and
fair.
Mugabe, 83, is under
growing pressure to step down as leader of the country
he has ruled since
independence in 1980. Tensions are said to be rising in
his party over his
succession, and the opposition blames him for the
country's corruption and
acute shortages of food, hard currency and
gasoline.
Tsvangirai, 54,
was arrested along with about 50 other people on March 11 as
opposition,
church, student and civic groups tried to stage a prayer
meeting. His
supporters said police smashed his head against a wall
repeatedly.
The European Union said it viewed Wednesday's arrest of
Tsvangirai with
"great concern," said Jens Ploetner, a spokesman for the
Foreign Ministry of
EU president Germany.
"The EU president holds the
leadership of Zimbabwe responsible for the
bodily injury to Tsvangirai and
calls for him to have immediate access to
legal, and if necessary, medical
consultation," Ploetner said.
The international human rights group, Human
Rights Watch, called on the
meeting of regional powers to take strong
measures to address the escalating
crisis.
It said in a statement
that the Zimbabwean government has permitted security
forces to commit
serious abuses with impunity against opposition activists
and ordinary
Zimbabweans.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, which is linked to
the opposition,
has called for a national protest strike in early April,
before Zimbabwe's
27th anniversary of independence.
Monsters and Critics
Mar 29, 2007, 7:47 GMT
Harare/Johannesburg - Two
petrol tankers have been petrol- bombed in
Zimbabwe's eastern city of Mutare
in the latest attack to hit the
crisis-ridden country, reports said
Thursday.
In the latest terror bombing, two petrol tankers were bombed
along Sanhanga
Road in Mutare on Wednesday, the state-controlled Herald
newspaper said.
The Herald said police quickly doused the fire before it
spread. There were
no reports of extensive damage. State media accuse the
opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) of being behind a string of
petrol bomb attacks,
but the party denies this.
Police say they have
so far recorded nine petrol bomb attacks in the past
two
weeks.
Overnight Tuesday they mounted a crackdown in which 35 opposition
activists
and party officials including an MP and a member of the party's
national
executive committee were rounded up.
Police claimed late on
Wednesday that they had discovered explosives and
detonators at the Harare
home of one MDC official, Piniel Denga, followig a
police raid.
There
was no immediate response by the MDC to the claim. Zimbabwe has been
gripped
by political tension since the March 11 arrest and assault of key
opposition
and civil rights activists.
The state-sponsored crackdown against the
opposition has provoked renewed
international condemnation of President
Robert Mugabe's government.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
IOL
March 28 2007 at 10:21PM
Harare - The top-decision making body of
Zimbabwe's ruling party has
agreed a presidential election date and its
chosen candidate, but will
reveal the details on Friday, a spokesperson
said.
Nathan Shamuyarira, a spokesperson for Zanu-PF, told state
television
that the party's politburo had "extensively" discussed proposals
to have
simultaneous presidential and parliamentary polls.
"The
resolution on harmonisation (of elections)... has been discussed,
but we
will take the matters to central committee on Friday," he said.
Mugabe, who has ruled the country since 1980, will see his term of
office
expire next year, but his party last December proposed extending his
tenure
by two more years to 2010.
But the proposals have
met with opposition from party elders and
Mugabe also appears to have
abandoned the idea, urging his supporters last
week to gear up for elections
in 2008.
According to Zimbabwe Television, the troubled southern
African
country looks set to hold both the presidential and legislative
elections
next year.
It said Mugabe had "already indicated that
the ruling party favours
holding the elections next year, as consultants
have advised that 2008
presents fewer legal problems".
It
added: "President Mugabe has indicated his willingness to contest
the
election if nominated and already both the Zanu-PF women's league and
youth
league have endorsed his candidature."
Opposition and church
leaders this week said elections under current
constitution would not be
free and fair.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) hinted on Tuesday that he would not
take part in the
elections unless a new people-driven constitution was in
place.
"If Tsvangirai decided to boycott the elections we will go
ahead with
the elections in any case because this is in the constitution,"
said
Shamuyarira for Zanu on television.
"We are doing what is
legal and we are doing what the MDC themselves
were clamouring for." -
Sapa-AFP
New Statesman
William
Gumede
Published 02 April 2007
Across the continent,
liberation movements that fought against colonial rule
proved unable to
sustain democratic governance. We cannot keep blaming the
past.
Zimbabwe's Zanu-PF has become the symbol of the descent of
African
liberation movements into brutal dictatorship.
The great Tunisian
writer Albert Memmi noted this phenomenon back in 1957.
In The Coloniser and
the Colonised, he wrote of the tendency of liberation
movements, once in
power, to mimic the brutality and callousness of former
rulers. Backsliding
liberation movements in Algeria, Angola, Ghana, Kenya,
Namibia and other
countries have left in their wake the lost hopes and
shattered dreams of
millions.
In the inner sanctum of South Africa's ruling African National
Congress they
have coined a word for it: "Zanufication". As Zimbabweans flee
across the
border to avoid police brutality or the hardships of an economy
in free fall
(inflation at more than 1,700 per cent and shortages of basic
foodstuffs),
they whisper it in hushed tones, a warning.
A senior
national executive member of the ANC, Blade Nzim ande, warned
recently: "We
must study closely what is happening in Zimbabwe, because if
we don't, we
may find features in our situation pointing to a similar
development."
Unions, sections within civil society and church groups
daily inveigh
against the South African government's head-in-the-sand policy
towards
Zimbabwe and President Thabo Mbeki's "quiet" diplomacy. The Congress
of
South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has complained to the South African
Broadcasting Corporation, the public broadcaster, over its failure to cover
the Zimbabwean meltdown. Although the ANC in South Africa and Zanu-PF are
light years apart, the spectre of "Zanufication" haunts South Africa,
raising the question: "Is there something inherent in the political culture
of liberation movements that makes it difficult for them to sustain
democratic platforms?"
The irony is that it is the leaders of former
heroic liberation movements
who have become stumbling blocks to building a
political culture on the
African continent based on good governance. The
former South African
president Nelson Mandela and President Thabo Mbeki
enthusiastically
proclaimed in 1994 that the end of official apartheid was
the dawn of a new
era. Yet many liberation movement leaders - Mugabe is a
good example - still
blame colonialism for the mismanagement and corruption
on their watch.
Obviously, the legacy of slavery and colonialism, and now
unequal
globalisation, are barriers to development. However, to blame the
west for
Zimbabwe's recent problems is not reasonable. Yet the diplomacy of
South
Africa, from which most African countries take their cue, is based on
this
assumption. Initially ANC leaders also bought in to this, but
thankfully, on
Zimbabwe, Mbeki is increasingly isolated. True to his
contrarian and
stubborn nature, he still argues that because Zimbabwe was
given a raw deal
by the British, Mugabe's regime should not be criticised
publicly. In terms
of land, for example, black Zimbabweans did indeed
receive a raw deal, yet
that is not the whole story. The Zim babwean
government was idle for at
least a decade; when it finally implemented a
land reform programme, this
consisted of giving fertile land to cronies who
subsequently left the land
fallow.
The story is similar elsewhere on
the continent. As African liberation
movements came to power, their
supporters were keen to overlook
shortcomings. The feeling was that a new,
popularly elected democratic
government needed to be given an extended
chance. Liberation movements were
seen as the embodiment of the nation as a
whole.
In South Africa, criticism of the ANC by supporters has always
been muted.
"You cannot criticise yourself," an ANC veteran once admonished
me. There
has also been a fear that criticising the government gives
ammunition to
powerful opponents. When a top ANC leader, Chris Nissen, broke
rank and
publicly criticised a party official's errant behaviour, he was
warned: "Do
not wash the family's dirty linen in public."
As a
journalist - active in the liberation struggle - I, too, gave in to
this
principle in the heady days after South Africa's first non-racial
democratic
elections in 1994: "Let's not criticise too much; let's give the
new
government a fighting chance." But that was a grave mistake. All
governments
must be kept on their toes. The problem for most liberation
movements is how
to establish a democratic culture.
During a liberation struggle,
decision-making is necessarily left in the
hands of a few. Dissent and
criticisms are not allowed lest they expose
divisions within the movement,
which could be exploited by the colonial
enemy. But if non-criticism
continues during the first crucial years of
power, it becomes entrenched,
part of a political culture. In the early
liberation years, governments
often operate as if under siege. Critics are
marginalised, making later
criticism almost impossible.
Take, for example, the South African
government's initial inaction on the
Aids pandemic. Mbeki embarked on a
fatal policy of denial. Many ANC
supporters knew he was wrong but kept
quiet, in case they were seen as
supporting western governments or big
pharmaceutical companies bent on
perpetuating Africa's underdevelopment.
Many activists preferred to reserve
their misgivings about government
policy, rather than be placed in the camp
of the
"neo-colonialists".
In Zimbabwe, Mugabe brutally quashed rebellions in
the 1980s, killing
thousands in the Matabeleland region. No regional
liberation movement said
anything about it. The silence of Zanu-PF critics
laid the foundations for
his reign of terror.
In many African
countries - with South Africa the exception - the state is
virtually the
only employer after liberation. Patronage can be used to
reward or sideline
critics.
The cold war, during which many African governments started
their life,
reinforced the siege mentality of "them against us" among
African liberation
movements. Mugabe continues to blame imperialism. So,
when the UK or
Australia attacks Zimbabwe, African neighbours will fall
silent: they don't
want to be seen supporting their former
masters.
Similarly, Mbeki's silence on Zimbabwe is partly because he does
not want to
be associated with the "colonial" powers. South Africa's first
strong
political statement on Zimbabwe during the current crisis, by the
deputy
foreign affairs minister Aziz Pahad, one of Mbeki's closest personal
friends, was to attack the South African media for giving too much attention
to the western perspective on Zimbabwe. This was after Tony Blair had called
for sanctions against Zimbabwe and Austra lian leaders had bemoaned South
Africa's silence.
Blair's criticism had the effect of silencing
Zanu-PF's opponents in the
country. About to launch a final assault against
Mugabe, they felt they had
to soft-pedal so that the president could not
paint them as stooges of the
west. One of the main problems of the
opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) has been to fight off
propaganda coming from Mugabe and the
media that they are fronts for the
west.
That is why it is so important for Mbeki to stand up and publicly
condemn
Zanu-PF. It would make it far harder to see the conflict in Zimbabwe
through
the distorting "Africa v the west" prism. Mbeki should follow the
lead of
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and state clearly that Zimbabwe under Robert
Mugabe
represents the worst backsliding of African liberation
movements.
There is also a problem with the cult of the leader. Members
of liberation
movements defer too readily to leaders and many African
countries famously
retained colonial-era "insult laws" by which criticism of
the president
(which, in Zimbabwe, includes poking fun at him) can attract a
lengthy jail
sentence. Thus leaders can remain in power for decades and die
in office if
they are not violently pushed out of power. That is why Mandela
felt it
important to leave after only one term. That is also why the
grass-roots
democracy movements mushrooming on the African continent
invariably demand
that presidents limit their terms in office.
The
anti-colonial struggle was often violent, and few liberation movements
have
attempted to restore a culture of non-violence. Thus it is no surprise
that
Mugabe finds it easy to use violence against his people: the colonial
state
apparatus was attuned to that purpose. Once violence is used, it is
used
again. Even the idea of an opposition - internal or external - is a
difficult concept for many. Mugabe's Zanu coerced the Patriotic Front (PF),
the other major liberation movement in Zimbabwe, to merge with it in the
1980s, hence the name Zanu-PF. This eliminated a possible opposition
force.
The resurgence of an opposition is due partly to a generational
change in
the country's politics. Many of the MDC's supporters are young and
have
experienced Zanu-PF mainly as a party in government that exploits its
people. They are not impressed by past liberation credentials.
The
articulate MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa is not yet 30 years old. In
South
Africa, it is young activists in the Treatment Action Campaign and
their
leader Zackie Achmat who have been responsible for forcing the
government to
adopt more responsible Aids policies. Zwelinzima Vavi, leader
of Cosatu,
says: "We are not prepared to be merely 'yes-leader' workers'
desks."
The sad truth, however, is that waiting for another
generation before there
can be real change is costly, even deadly, for
ordinary Africans, not least
Zimbabweans.
William Gumede is a former
deputy editor of the Sowetan newspaper. His book,
"Thabo Mbeki and the
Battle for the Soul of the ANC" will be republished by
Zed later this
year
Zimbabwe: The nation by numbers
Research by Sarah
O'Connor
100,000 people gathered to watch Bob Marley perform on
independence day, 18
April 1980
20% real growth of economy in first
year of independence
20,000 numbers killed during Mugabe's crackdown on
Matabeleland in the 1980s
70% of farmland still owned by white farmers in
2000, 20 years after
independence
1 million dead people on the
Zimbabwean electoral role in 2002
18% proportion of population made
homeless by "Operation Murambatsvina" slum
clearances, starting
2005
56% of population earn less than $1 a day
52 years since
average income was as low as today
New Statesman
Brian
Cathcart
Published 02 April 2007
Despite years of fine
reporting and many furious editorials, the bloodshed
continues in Darfur and
Mugabe hangs on in Zimbabwe.
Sixth-formers who apply to study journalism
at university often explain
their interest by referring to the power of the
news media, saying something
like: "Journalism shapes the world in which we
live." It is a sort of
commonplace in an age when ministers live and die by
headlines, and no doubt
there is truth in it, in the philosophical sense
that journalists have a
role in defining perceptions of the world, but it
always jars with me. That
is just not my experience.
In day-to-day
terms, much of the job is a desperate struggle to interest the
readers and
give them what they want for their money - not an endeavour that
leaves you
with an overwhelming feeling of power. And when it comes to the
things that
really matter, I suspect that most journalists are conscious of
how little
difference they make, rather than how much.
Darfur is a case in point.
How many times have you read that 200,000 people
have been killed and two
million more displaced in a vicious campaign,
backed by the Khartoum
government, against the people of western Sudan?
Every time you have read
it, some journalist has had to write it, struggling
to find a new way to
communicate the horror behind a message growing staler
by the month. And
whether those journalists were reporting from the field or
sitting at desks
in London, they were probably hoping, however faintly, that
this time
something would change.
No paper has tried harder than the Independent,
which carries about twice as
many articles about Darfur as any of its
rivals, and publishes an editorial
on the subject roughly once a month. Last
weekend, it even had an exclusive
in an open letter from leading European
writers (Stoppard, Grass, Heaney, Fo
. . .) to EU leaders, reproaching them
for celebrating 50 years of the
European idea while massacres continued in
Sudan. "The Europe which allowed
Auschwitz and failed in Bosnia must not
tolerate the murder in Darfur," they
wrote.
The Independent's next
edition was able to report that the letter had forced
the matter on to the
EU summit agenda and that, as demanded by the writers,
stronger sanctions
against the Sudanese government were on the table.
It was a stunt - a
classy one, but a stunt all the same. NGOs and
campaigners are always trying
to dream up new ways of getting the press to
take up Darfur again, and you
will have noticed some of them. Yet, in nearly
four years, nothing, not the
stunts, not the editorials, not the eyewitness
reports, has stopped the
killing.
Would it make a difference if it was the mighty Daily Mail and
not the
Independent that was leading the way? The Mail, as it happens, pays
little
attention to Darfur, but it has not been ignoring another African
horror
story: Zimbabwe. Indeed, for years it has been most energetic in
covering
the outrages of the Mugabe regime.
Why the paper should be
more concerned about Zimbabwe than Darfur is
interesting, but a matter for
another day; my point here is that it has made
no difference. And if the
Daily Mail's best efforts have not troubled
Mugabe, or even obliged the
Foreign Office to take a harder line, then I
would say there is no reason to
believe that any British journalist can make
a real difference to
Darfur.
Perhaps you are now reflecting that changing things isn't the job
of
journalists anyway: it is the business of voters and politicians. And
this,
of course, is true. What journalists are supposed to do is deliver the
news,
with some interpretation or commentary where appropriate. However,
when the
news you bring is 200,000 dead and two million homeless, and when
after you
have reported it the killing just goes on, it becomes even harder
to swallow
the idea that journalism shapes our world.
Horrible, but
not atrocious
Half a century ago, an American cartoon about press values
showed a newsroom
full of people in a state of joyous excitement, and at its
centre a figure
in an eye-shade holding a telephone to his ear as he
performed a gleeful
jig. The caption beneath read: "The editor of a
yellow-press newspaper
receives news of a horrible murder committed in the
most atrocious of
circumstances."
I'm sure no one cheered when word
came that Bob Woolmer had been strangled,
but there was no mistaking the
surge of energy it sent through a bunch of
papers that had been sagging
under the weight of their dreary Budget
coverage.
As the Sunday Times
pointed out, though, most of what we read in the first
frenzy of reporting
seems not to have been correct: police said there was no
sign Woolmer was
about to expose a match-fixing ring and there had been no
row with players,
nor was there evidence of a wild struggle, or of poison,
and nor were the
walls of Woolmer's room spattered with blood, vomit and
faeces (though
"traces" were found). The murder was horrible all right, but
it appears the
circumstances were not that atrocious.
Brian Cathcart is professor of
journalism at Kingston University
Business Day
29 March 2007
John
Kane-Berman
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DUMISANI
Kumalo, SA's ambassador to the United Nations (UN), is actually
right. The
situation in Zimbabwe is not a threat to international peace and
security.
What President Robert Mugabe is doing to his country is
ruinous but it does
not threaten peace beyond his borders. Nor is there much
prospect that
Mugabe's opponents will set up bases in neighbouring states
and launch a
guerrilla war against him. So there is little chance of a
future threat to
security in southern Africa, let alone
internationally.
Kumalo then is right on the technicalities. But the
alternative he proposed,
referring Zimbabwe to the UN's Human Rights
Council, is simply feeble, given
that this body has shown itself, with SA's
help, to be as selectively blind
to human rights violations as was its
predecessor, the Human Rights
Commission (where we previously voted to
shield Mugabe from criticism).
SA's policy of "quiet diplomacy" has
plainly failed. Economic sanctions are
likely to do more harm to Mugabe's
victims than to him. Less harmful to the
people of Zimbabwe would be to turn
Mugabe and his key supporters into
pariahs across the continent, an option
which even at this late stage is
still open, though unfortunately no more
likely than economic sanctions. In
practice, Africa's policy towards
Zimbabwe is to wait for Mugabe to die.
Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz
Pahad repeatedly says that condemnation will
not help the situation in
Zimbabwe. Yet mobilising world opinion against the
apartheid government was
a key strategy of the African National Congress
(ANC) until it took power in
1994. It gave hope to the oppressed, undermined
the self-confidence of the
oppressors, and weakened the National Party when
negotiations finally got
under way after Nelson Mandela's release in 1990.
The real indictment
of SA, however, is not that it has failed to condemn
Mugabe but that it has
all along encouraged him. It did so right from the
start of his campaign of
destruction seven years ago. In 2000, we declared
his first rigged election
to be free and fair. In 2001, when he threw out a
journalist we accepted his
claim that this was not a threat to the press.
When he threatened the bench
we said this did not jeopardise the rule of
law.
Along with other
members of the Southern African Development Community
(SADC), we denied that
there were any human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
We endorsed Mugabe's
attempts to make the British the scapegoats for his
land seizures. Several
ministers said SA could learn from his land "reforms"
(something we no
longer say).
We denigrated the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and
its leader,
Morgan Tsvangirai. In 2002, we endorsed a second violence-ridden
election.
We tried in 2003 to have Zimbabwe reinstated in the Commonwealth
after it
had been suspended.
In 2005, for the third time, we endorsed
a fraudulent election. Only 18
months ago we sent air force jets to join
Zimbabwe air force's 25th birthday
celebrations. And we sold Mugabe spares
for military helicopters.
These were all statements or acts of
government - aptly symbolised in
photographs of Mugabe and Mbeki holding
hands and laughing together.
In addition, the ANC has continued to hail
Mugabe's Zanu (PF) as a sister
party, and sent a solidarity delegate to one
of its congresses. It also
greeted Mugabe as a conquering hero when he
appeared at Mbeki's inauguration
as president in 2004.
Mugabe's
use of violence to destroy democracy, the economy, human rights,
the rule of
law and political opposition has in practice been publicly
encouraged by
both the South African government and the ANC.
The question is:
why?
The usual answer is that there is an unwritten rule that one
liberation
movement does not criticise another. But there is a more worrying
possibility. This is that our government and ruling party share with Mugabe
a belief that liberation movements have a perpetual right to rule. Mugabe
intensified his crusade against democracy only when there were clear signs
that his people were turning against him and he faced the prospect of defeat
at the polls.
Our government, in other words, does not wish to be
hypocritical and condemn
Mugabe when in its heart of hearts it endorses his
desire to stay in power
at all costs.
The implication is that
democracy in SA is safe only for as long as it works
for the
ANC.
Kane-Berman is the CE of the South African Institute of
Race Relations.
Business Day
(Johannesburg)
March 29, 2007
Posted to the web March 29,
2007
Wyndham Hartley
Johannesburg
Government has been stung
into making its strongest condemnation yet of the
violent detentions and
arrests in Zimbabwe, but has insisted that its policy
of quiet diplomacy and
the promotion of dialogue is the right course of
action.
The
statement, in a snap debate in the National Assembly yesterday, came as
President Robert Mugabe cracked down again on opposition leaders, with the
Movement for Democratic Change's Morgan Tsvangirai being detained briefly by
police.
It also came ahead of today's extraordinary summit of
Southern African
Development Community leaders in Tanzania to discuss
Zimbabwe and the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
President Thabo Mbeki
has cancelled all domestic appointments to attend the
meeting, which Mugabe
will also attend.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sue van der Merwe, who stated
government's position
in a rowdy debate, was often interrupted by opposition
MPs who called for
Mugabe to be ousted.
"The latest political
developments in Zimbabwe, including the arrests,
detention and assaults on
senior opposition leaders, are a major cause for
concern.
"The South
African government wishes to stress its concern, disappointment
and
disapproval of the measures undertaken by the security forces in dealing
with the political protests," Van der Merwe said.
She reiterated that
government had maintained contact with all sides of the
political spectrum
in Zimbabwe to promote the dialogue needed to begin
finding a solution to
the crisis.
"We are constantly made aware of messages regarding Zimbabwe
that come from
regional groups such as the European Union, and other
countries. The
difference between their position and ours relates to
geography. We, as
neighbours, will carry the consequences of anything that
happens in
Zimbabwe."
Opposition MPs were not convinced. Inkatha
Freedom Party MP Albert Mncwango
said Mugabe was a hideous and destructive
dictator who had to go.
Democratic Alliance chief whip Douglas Gibson
said SA needed to apply
pressure to "make it clear publicly that SA is
appalled at the mess that is
Zimbabwe and wants it resolved".
"We
need to apply smart sanctions against President Mugabe, his wife and
cabinet, so that SA is no longer their place for luxury shopping. The SADC
must also apply smart sanctions. These target the guilty and not the
poor."
The First Post
Moses
Moyo
President Mugabe is establishing a reserve army to
back up
his regular force. The Government Gazette announced this week: "There
is
hereby established a reserve force of the army to be known as the
War
Veterans Reserve."
Recruitment is open to any
man officially registered as a
war veteran, and all would-be recruits have
been told to report to their
district army headquarters tomorrow. If accepted
they will be armed, clothed
and equipped as normal soldiers - and they'll
benefit from army travel and
medical expenses.
Those
over 50 will be given light and administrative work.
Those under 50 will be
expected to undertake the normal duties of a soldier.
First response has been anger from Zimbabweans who know
that any increase in
armed military personnel means a corresponding increase
in
violent crime.
Soldiers either commit robberies and car-jackings themselves
or
loan
their weapons to criminals.
Yesterday's arrest of the
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
illustrated how much Mugabe relies on the
army to back police in his current
crackdown on opposition activists. Troops
were used to surround the MDC
party headquarters.
The new
force is seen as a sign that, despite renewed pressure
from within his ruling
Zanu-PF party and from other African nations, Mugabe
has no intention of
relinquishing control.
Today Mugabe is in Tanzania for the
meeting of African heads of
state, where South Africa's Thabo Mbeki is
expected for the first time to
urge him to quit - or at least to meet and
talk with his Zimbabwean
opposition. Mugabe is likely to tell Mbeki - to use
his favourite phrase -
to 'go hang'.
When he returns to
Harare, he faces a divided meeting of his
party's central committee. One
faction, led by ex-army commander Solomon
Mujuru, is opposing Mugabe's
candidature in next year's presidential
election. The other, the old guard
which includes party secretary Didymus
Mutasa, will insist that Mugabe
remains leader of the party, and therefore
must represent the party in the
election.
There have been rumours that Solomon Mujuru and his
wife Joyce,
the vice-president, have held secret meetings with foreign envoys
to discuss
a post-Mugabe future.
However, the general
opinion here is that it's still too early
to write Mugabe off. He's expected
to tough it out, backed by his army, his
secret police - and, from tomorrow,
his new War Veterans Reserve.