6th March 2002
News Release
(On behalf of the Commercial Farmers
Union)
A Full account - Assault to Leslie de Jager (Jnr) and Wireless
Antonio
LESLIE de Jager (36 yrs) and Assistant driver, Wireless Antonio
(48) were
assaulted by a group of approximately 20 settlers on Manyamba farm
in
Mashonaland West, 45 kilometers from Chinhoyi town.
Mr De Jager
sustained an injury to his head requiring 12 stitches and also
sustained
4-inch wounds to both forearms. Antonio was whipped with the shaft
of a spear
and was subsequently treated and discharged. De Jager is expected
to remain
hospitalised for a few days.
Leslie is one of 24 Chinhoyi farmers facing
public violence charges for
disturbances on Listonshields farm in August. At
the hearing for this case,
which was set down for 14 January, the state
requested a postponement until
after the elections.
Mr de Jager was in
shock yesterday and was unable to recount the
circumstances under which he
was attacked.
But a neighbour interviewed eye witnesses and submitted
this account:
"A Driver and assistant Wireless Antonio were assigned to
mow the grass on
the airfield at Manyamba farm. They commenced this task at
0800hrs.
At 1000hrs +- 20 settlers armed with traditional weapons, which
included
badzas (hoes), spears, knives, and axe handles arrived and asked the
driver
why they were mowing the grass on "their farm".
The settlers
became hot-tempered and told the driver and assistant to
proceed to the
settler's village, 5 settlers escorted them. The driver and
assistant were
told to mow within the farm village until the diesel in the
tractor ran
out.
The owner Leslie de Jager, upon noticing what was going on and
proceeded to
investigate. The driver informed de Jager that he had been
forced to proceed
to the settler's village. De Jager instructed the driver
(in the presence of
the 20 odd settlers) to go back to the farm
workshop.
The settlers became violent when they heard what was being
said. One
settler namely "Dennis Kamusocha" assaulted Antonio with the shaft
of a
spear on his neck and back. Just before striking the driver, Kamusocha
had
speared one rear wheel and two front wheels of the tractor.
The
driver and Antonio took flight back to the workshop. Simultaneously
another
portion of the group also punctured all tyres of de Jager's
Toyota
pickup.
This group led by Phiri (alias Piri-Piri) then attacked
de Jager. Piri Piri
struck him on the head with an axe handle, and the rest
of the group joined
in beating him with various weapons until he was
unconscious. De Jager was
also stabbed on the forearms with unknown sharp
objects.
The foreman, on seeing de Jager lying prone on the ground,
attempted to
carry him to the pick-up but was threatened with violence, and
withdrew to
report the incident.
About 5 minutes later de Jager
regained consciousness and walked towards his
vehicle but fell, he then
regained his footing and reached his vehicle.
Despite the punctured tyres he
managed to drive to his residence.
Both injured persons were taken for
medical attention. Antonio was treated
and discharged and de Jager had to be
transferred to Harare, as he was
unconscious.
Police finally arrived
on the farm. Six suspects were arrested but the
remainder of the group had
already absconded."
Ends
6th March 2002
For more
information, please contact Jenni Williams
Mobile (263) 11 213 885 or 91 300
456
Email: jennipr@mweb.co.zw <mailto:jennipr@mweb.co.zw> or
prnews@telconet.co.zw <mailto:prnews@telconet.co.zw>
Jenni
Williams Mobile (Code +263) 91 300 456 or 11 213 885
Email jennipr@mweb.co.zw
Office landlines:
(+2639) 72546 Fax 63978
Email prnews@telconet.co.zw
Visit our news
website http://site.mweb.co.zw/zimbabweataglance/
Christian Science Monitor
Once a Mugabe supporter, now his
opponent
By Nicole Itano | Special to The Christian Science
Monitor
HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Here in Zimbabwe's capital city, the streets
are
plastered with posters bearing the smiling, round face of opposition
leader
Morgan Tsvangirai. Graffiti bearing the initials of his party, the
Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC), is everywhere.
These alone are signs
of changing times in Zimbabwe. For the first time in
the country's short
history, voters going to the polls this weekend have a
real alternative to
the 22-year rule of President Robert Mugabe and his
ZANU-PF Party.
In
three short years, Mr. Tsvangirai has built this alternative. And
despite
widespread political violence aimed at MDC supporters, several polls
have
shown Tsvangirai with a substantial lead over the
incumbent.
Mugabe dismisses the MDC as a "stooge party" and says
Tsvangirai is a front
for white colonial interests. Newspaper advertisements
for the ZANU-PF have
even called the opposition candidate British Prime
Minister Tony Blair's
"tea boy."
But Tsvangirai began as a ZANU-PF
Party man, and has record of political
activism that stretches back more than
two decades.
The eldest son of a bricklayer, Tsvangirai's political
schooling took place
in the back rooms of labor politics and in the depths of
a Zimbabwean mine.
During his 10 years at the Trojan Nickel Mine in Bindura,
50 miles north of
Harare, Tsvangirai rose to branch chairman of the national
mine workers
union, and by 1988 he was general secretary of the Zimbabwe
Congress of
Trade Unions (ZCTU) in charge of the country's labor
unions.
Under his leadership, the ZCTU moved into a more antagonistic
position with
government.
In the early 1990s, Tsvangirai challenged
Mugabe's economic restructuring
program, which the union believed would harm
urban workers. He helped the
ZCTU wage a successful battle against several
proposed tax increases,
including one that would have funded an increase in
the pensions of war
veterans. Those same war veterans later led bands of
landless squatters who
occupied much of the country's white-owned
farmland.
"[Tsvangirai] led the ZCTU to its rightful place as a labor
movement and a
part of civil society," says Wellington Chibebe, the current
secretary
general of the ZCTU and a longtime member of the organization's
governing
board.
Tsvangirai's wife of 24 years, Susan, says this
period was one of gradual
disillusionment. By 1997, when eight men tried to
throw her husband from the
eighth floor of his office in retaliation for
helping to organize a national
protest of the new taxes, he had lost all
faith in the government. The
opposition candidate still bears a long scar on
his forehead from that
encounter.
"He used to be a good man, Mugabe,"
says Mrs. Tsvangirai. "We all supported
him. My husband was even active in
the party. But when [Morgan] started
working in the trade union, he realized
that the government wasn't
supporting the worker."
In September 1999,
the MDC was launched by the ZCTU and a variety of
civil-society organizations
representing women and students. Tsvangirai was
unanimously voted president
of the new party.
Although it was less than a year old, the MDC won 57
seats in Zimbabwe's
June 2000 parliamentary elections, compared with 62 for
the ruling party.
Tsvangirai, however, who chose to run in his rural home
constituency of
Buhera instead of in his party's stronghold, Harare, lost in
that election.
Central to the MDC's platform has been a return to law and
order. Despite
widespread attacks on supporters by government-run youth
militias and
repeated legislative changes intended to limit his party's
ability to
campaign, Tsvangirai is committed to nonviolence and working
within the
current legal framework. The party has largely obeyed the
government's new
laws, including a a requirement that political gatherings
gain the approval
of local police.
In recent days, while Mugabe has
hinted at retribution against MDC
supporters after the election, Tsvangirai
has called for national healing.
He wants to form a truth-and-reconciliation
commission, modeled after that
of neighboring South Africa, to help Zimbabwe
overcome the past several
years of violence.
The Zimbabwean people, he
said, have "gone through nearly three years of
nonstop violence,
intimidation, and political intolerance. They are now
crying for peace and
reconciliation."
While the current government has failed to put forward
any formal economic
plan, the MDC has presented a detailed program that has
won praise from the
international community.
Tsvangirai says he still
believes that the MDC will emerge victorious from
this weekend's elections.
First on his agenda, he said, will be disbanding
the youth militias that have
imposed a reign of terror on rural areas and
dealing with the severe food
crisis gripping much of the country.
If the MDC is not elected to power,
however, Tsvangirai has warned that the
result for Zimbabwe would be
tragic.
"If we lose this election," he said, "God forbid, this country is
doomed."
ABC Australia
Mugabe accused of terror tactics to win
votes
Zimbabwe's Opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, has accused
the
Government of using state-sponsored terrorism to steal
tomorrow's
presidential election.
Mr Tsvangirai, the leader of the
Opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), says the ruling party has
used a systematic campaign of violence and
intimidation in the lead-up to the
poll.
He says President Mugabe has used state agencies to terrorise
the
population, but Mr Mugabe is confident he will retain power.
The
President says he was shaken by the MDC during the 2000 general
election, but
he says he will not fail this time.
Zimbabwean security forces have been
placed on alert amid fears of further
violence.
But the Opposition
says 22 of its polling agents have been abducted by Mr
Mugabe's supporters in
the past week.
Observers
A team of Commonwealth observers is
making final preparations ahead of this
weekend's election.
Shadow
Foreign Affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd, part of the Commonwealth
Observers
Group, says the election promises to be hotly contested.
He says
observers will play an important role, trying to ensure the election
is
conducted fairly.
"The sorts of things we'll be focusing on are the
actual opening of polling
stations on time, sealing of ballot boxes, the use
of indelible ink to mark
those people who have voted so they don't vote again
and probably really
importantly the actual nature of the counting procedures
which will occur on
Monday," he said.
Newsweek
A member of
Zimbabwe's progovernment Youth Brigade monitors the crowd at an election rally
for President Robert Mugabe in the town of Chinoyi on Thursday
 |
|
 |
|
|
| Unfree and
Unfair? |
| Zimbabwe’s
tough—and often violent—presidential race has little chance of reflecting the
will of the people |
|
By Karen MacGregor
and Newton Kanhema
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE |
|
| |
|
March 7 — Not surprisingly, the
tension is palpable. With just two days to go before Zimbabwe goes to the polls
for the hardest-fought presidential election in the country’s history, both
black and white residents are stockpiling food and making plans for a rapid exit
in case further violence erupts in their troubled nation. |
|
| |
|
|
IN THE CAPITAL OF HARARE, a white man opens his wallet to
reveal a box of bullets. “I stocked up with these today,” he says. “And I feel
safer for it.” In the nearby town of Ruwa, a black man driving his family north
to Lake Kariba—on the border with Zambia—says he is going fishing. “If the worst
comes to the worst, we can sail across to safety,” he says.
One of
the biggest fears among the southern African nation’s 5.6 million voters? That
the army will rise in a coup if opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai overcomes
the odds to beat incumbent President Robert Mugabe. Mugabe, however, is unlikely
to lose. While polls put Mugabe behind his challenger—support for the president
is 30 percent or less—the weekend vote is nonetheless expected to return him to
power. |
|
|
|
Indeed, there is little chance that this election could ever turn out to be free
and fair. Since January 2001, there have been 30,000 recorded cases of
intimidation and political violence. Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), has found it almost impossible to operate since its
unexpectedly strong showing the parliamentary elections almost two years ago.
The Mugabe government passed draconian security laws in January that
have been used to forcefully break up antigovernment protests during the
election campaign. More than 100 MDC rallies have been banned; MDC officials say
at least 107 of its supporters have been killed by Mugabe’s thugs over the past
year. Police roadblocks restrict free movement around the country. (One recent
traveler encountered seven such checkpoints driving from the southwestern city
of Bulawayo to Harare this week.) Bands of self-styled progovernment “war
veterans”—now joined by thousands of National Youth Brigade militias—roam the
countryside and towns, beating up and torturing people suspected of supporting
the MDC. The wounded pack the offices of the civil-society support group, the
Amani Trust, waiting to tell their stories. A young man with gaping head
injuries lifts his trouser legs to reveal more ghastly gashes: “Youths attacked
me with stones. They accused me of supporting the MDC,” says one. The MDC has
taken to campaigning in the dead of night, and spreading their messages by word
of mouth.
The Mugabe government has taken other measures to influence
the outcome, too. Hundreds of thousands of citizens have been disenfranchised
for a variety of reasons, including holding dual citizenship—among them
thousands of the country’s white minority who were recently struck off the
voters’ roll and are now in court over the issue. The number of polling stations
in MDC-supporting areas has been slashed by half; security personnel are
allegedly forced to cast postal ballots in front of their government-supporting
superiors, and rural residents are told to vote in line with their progovernment
chiefs.
Zimbabwe’s once-respected judiciary, meanwhile, has been
reconstituted in an attempt to ensure court rulings favorable to the government,
with Mugabe overriding decisions he does not like. Just this week, Mugabe
overturned a Supreme Court ruling that tried to strike down some of the new laws
stripping citizens of the right to vote.
Another disadvantage for the
MDC is Mugabe’s stranglehold on the media. With state-controlled radio and TV
the only electronic media accessible to the poor and illiterate, government
propaganda has reached fever pitch during recent weeks. Coverage is given only
to Mugabe’s anti-MDC and antiwhite rallies; the “news” is a tiring stream of
praise about government gifts to Zimbabweans—land for peasants, cash for the
poor. In TV ads dubbed “Reflections,” Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party airs 1970s
speeches by liberation war heroes about colonialism, evil whites, Zimbabwean
nationalism and the land. Between programs, there is footage of happy people
dancing amidst fields of lush maize. They look nothing like the shriveled crops
aside the roads of a country suffering drought and a rapidly deepening food
crisis.
Mugabe has also used his control of the media to mount a
dirty tricks campaign against top MDC figures. Tsvangirai faces potential
treason charges after Montreal-based government consultants drew him into a
videotaped discussion about assassinating Mugabe.
Electoral
organization is equally chaotic. With just a day to go, citizens do not yet know
exactly where their 4,500 polling stations will be located. Nor are they likely
to have much faith in the secrecy of their vote: only government-employed
workers will be allowed to staff polling stations, and only a handful of the
12,000 would-be independent observers have been accredited to monitor the
voting.
European observers were thrown out last month, prompting the
European Union and the United States to slap “smart sanctions” against Mugabe
and more than 20 of his senior colleagues. They are being banned from traveling
to the West, their assets secreted abroad are being identified and frozen, and
restrictions imposed on military imports and training. Only African and
Commonwealth observers have been allowed in, along with a few other small
groups. This week, NEWSWEEK learned that South Africa’s strong observer mission
“has already written 80 percent” of its election report for Pretoria, which
appears desperate to recognize even the most-flawed voting in an effort to
maintain regional stability.
Against this backdrop, Mugabe today
launched his biggest show of military force, deploying the army nationwide.
“This is unprecedented,” says Michael Quintana, editor of the African Defence
Journal. “They are being spread around like pieces on a chessboard.” Concerns
about the possibility of a military takeover rose still further after Didymus
Mutasa, a confidante of Mugabe, told South African television this week that
victory for the opposition would cause mayhem. Mutasa was echoing warnings he
made last year that Mugabe’s party would take up arms if it lost the ballot. For
Zimbabwean voters, it was an ominous message at an anxious time.
|
Human Rights Watch
Zimbabwe: Abuses Plague Land Reform
Land Issues
at the Heart of Political Crisis
(New York, March 8, 2002) The “fast
track” land reform program in Zimbabwe
has been accompanied by significant
human rights abuses that harm the very
people it was designed to assist,
Human Rights Watch charged in a report
released on the eve of Zimbabwe’s
elections.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
“Many
of the people who were supposed to benefit from this reform have
actually
been targets of the violence.”
Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the
Africa Division of Human
Rights
Watch
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Militia
groups affiliated with the party of President Robert Mugabe have
carried out
serious acts of violence against rural dwellers and landless
workers on
commercial farms, the report said. Human Rights Watch also
received reports
of discrimination in the distribution of land on political
grounds.
“Many
of the people who were supposed to benefit from this reform have
actually
been targets of the violence,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive
director of
the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch.
Colonial policies of
expropriation gave white farmers huge, free tracts of
fertile land in what is
now Zimbabwe, while rural black people were
restricted to crowded “tribal
reserves” of little agricultural value. From
independence in 1980 until 2000,
this unjust situation changed little.
In 2000, President Mugabe’s
government passed new laws allowing
expropriation of land without
compensation, and encouraging landless
peasants to occupy commercial
farmland.
In the forty-page report, “Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe,”
Human Rights
Watch provides testimonies from people who said that many of
those who
wanted land under the “fast track” program had to show support for
the
ruling party, ZANU-PF, and those who supported the opposition were
denied
land. The landless laborers who live and work on the commercial farms
have
been largely excluded from land redistribution. Among the most
disadvantaged
Zimbabweans, they have also been particular targets of
state-sponsored
violence.
The government also failed to ensure that
women, particularly married women,
benefited from the land reform, despite
its stated commitment to gender
balance.
While there has been some
reduced violence on commercial farms in recent
months, and undoubtedly some
land has been allocated, problems persist. Many
people are being allocated
land without security of title and without
adequate start-up infrastructure
or resources to become self-sufficient
farmers.
Party militias led by
veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war have been in the
forefront of the
violence, though farm workers and opposition supporters
have also retaliated
on occasion. The Human Rights Watch report, researched
in 2001, documents how
these militia assaulted farm owners, farm workers,
and residents of rural
areas surrounding commercial farmland. The report
says that the police did
almost nothing to stop the violence.
Human Rights Watch called for the
post-election government in Zimbabwe to
bring to justice those responsible
for abuses, and take steps to ensure that
the violence does not recur.
Additionally, any government-sponsored land
reform must respect the rule of
law.
A successful program of land reform is crucial for human rights in
Zimbabwe,
and the international community should be committed to addressing
the plight
of rural dwellers and farm workers. International logistic and
financial
assistance is critical to improve the infrastructure necessary to
for land
reform.
Telegraph
Bloodshed feared as Mugabe's army leaves barracks
By Peta
Thornycroft in Harare and Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor
(Filed:
08/03/2002)
LARGE elements of the Zimbabwean army moved out of
barracks yesterday in an
ominous sign that the country may be plunged into
large-scale bloodshed
after this weekend's presidential
elections.
Three MiG-21 fighters flew low over farmland in Mashonaland
West in an
apparent intimidatory display meant to underline the threat being
spread by
ruling party thugs: "If President Mugabe loses the election, we
will go to
war."
President Mugabe: opposition leaders are accusing
him of trying to 'steal'
the election
Michael Quintana, editor of the
Africa Defence Journal, said he had toured
all military barracks in Harare
yesterday and found that soldiers were
moving out in small convoys of three
lorries at a time.
At Cranborne Barracks on the outskirts of the capital
he saw soldiers towing
a BM-21 multiple-rocket launcher, a fearsome weapon
that can can fire 40 122
mm rockets in six seconds.
"I was surprised
to see the [rockets] coming out. They have never been used
before, not even
in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo," he said.
He estimated that
about two thirds of the soldiers in each of the barracks
had moved out. "They
would not move in convoys as that would attract too
much attention," said Mr
Quintana. "I do not know where the army was going."
He said the armed
forces had about 16,000 servicemen in the country, with a
further 11,000
serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The government has admitted
that some units have returned from Congo,
claiming the redeployment is not
linked to the elections but is rather a
move to meet the terms of the peace
accords to end the Congolese civil war.
Zimbabwean commanders have given
warning that they would not accept Mr
Mugabe's defeat, but it is unclear
whether more junior ranks would obey an
order to crush the
opposition.
The opposition is accusing Mr Mugabe of trying to "steal" the
election
through violence, intimidation and vote-rigging, but has not said
how it
will respond to a victory by the president.
Seeking to win over
the armed forces and waverers in the ruling Zanu-PF
party, Morgan Tsvangirai,
the presidential candidate of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change,
renewed his pledge to seek national unity.
He even promised not to hound Mr
Mugabe.
"We have far bigger problems than chasing Mugabe around the
corner," he told
the South African eTV channel. "Let him retire in peace. We
will do no harm
to him."
His words of reconciliation were in stark
contrast to Mr Mugabe's ever more
strident threats of retribution. Mr
Tsvangirai has been charged with treason
after being shown allegedly
discussing the possibility of murdering the
president.
Mr Mugabe told
a rally in eastern Zimbabwe on Wednesday that he would settle
scores with Mr
Tsvangirai. "No murderer will go unpunished. No one we know
to have planned
such deeds will escape . . . We'll see this issue to its
conclusion once this
[election] is out of the way," he said.
Evoking his familiar themes of
the anti-colonial struggle against white-rule
Rhodesia, Mr Mugabe accused the
opposition leader of being a British stooge.
"You suffered for this country
while the Tsvangirais fled the war . . . now
he is licking the white man's
boots," Mr Mugabe said.
Tony Blair has given warning that the stability
of the whole of southern
Africa would be affected by the crisis in Zimbabwe.
But Mr Mugabe instead
presented himself as the bulwark preventing
recolonisation of the region by
whites.
Zimbabwe on the brink
Mugabe holds its future in his
hands
Leader
Friday March 8, 2002
The Guardian
Despite the
imposition of EU sanctions, the threat of imminent suspension
from the
Commonwealth, the withholding of US and multilateral financial
assistance, a
string of determined protests and legal challenges from within
and intense
international pressure from without, Robert Mugabe seems intent
on winning
this weekend's presidential election in Zimbabwe by hook or by
crook, by fair
means or foul, and - or so it would regrettably appear - at
almost any
cost.
The impression that Mr Mugabe will stop at nothing to hold on to power
has
been reinforced by a relentless stream of reports from Harare and
other
parts of the country this week. It has long been clear that lawless
elements
in or allied to his ruling Zanu-PF, particularly the party's youth
militia
and the "war veterans", were conducting a widespread campaign
of
intimidation against the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change.
There is already little doubt that sustained efforts have been
made to
discredit the MDC's popular but inexperienced presidential candidate,
Morgan
Tsvangirai, for example by linking him to spurious assassination
plots. Like
his supporters, Mr Tsvangirai has been the subject of constant
harassment.
He has been accused of colluding with foreign powers, principally
Britain,
to overthrow Zimbabwean independence, of being the credulous stooge
of
colonialist conspirators.
On Wednesday, Mr Mugabe said his rival
was "licking the white man's boots"
and warned that he faced a fearsome
reckoning once the poll was over. To
such provocations and threats Mr
Tsvangirai has usually responded with
admirable calm. For his part, he has
pledged not to prosecute or otherwise
pursue Mr Mugabe, should he become
president, and has offered to create a
national unity government.
In
recent days, and despite the iniquitous restrictions placed on
independent
domestic and foreign journalists, systematic government efforts
to
gerrymander electoral rolls, disenfranchise opposition voters, limit
the
number of polling stations, deny access and information to poll monitors
and
further intimidate the electorate have come to light. If all that were
not
enough (and it may not be), the army has been placed in overall control
of
the conduct of the poll. Some troops have been reportedly withdrawn
from
Congo and all leave has been cancelled.
Given that military
chiefs have already warned that they will not recognise
an opposition
victory, and given that Zimbabwe's highest court has been
filled with Mr
Mugabe's placemen, there seems to be little hope of a free
and fair outcome.
In truth, all the indicators point the other way: to a
massive, ruthless,
scandalous but ultimately unstoppable fraud. Those who do
not care for
democracy and human rights and honesty and justice may look the
other way.
Those who do care may only cry for their beloved country.
Short of some
kind of popular insurrection, there may be only one way out of
this deepening
morass. Mr Mugabe is many things, but he is not stupid. For
all his silly
rhetoric, he knows in his heart this election is not about
colonial plots or
white revanchism. It is about maize, not guns; about jobs
and land, not
ideology or race; about the nation's children, not its old men
and their old
battles. He knows it is about the future of a country that he
once led with
distinction but which no longer wants him.
If a free vote goes against
him, as it surely will, Mr Mugabe must take the
dignified course and resign.
He must let go. If he refuses, he will fully
deserve everything that may
follow. Zimbabweans, however, will not.
THE MEDIA AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Commonwealth "observation"
ill-considered
7TH March 2002
In the past few days MMPZ has noted
that the leaders of two international
observer missions in Zimbabwe have
commented on the incidence of politically
motivated violence in the country.
They have said that journalists have
exaggerated this violence. However, they
have not made it clear which
journalists and media organizations they were
referring to. Furthermore,
they have made no effort to substantiate their
observations in their public
statements. These comments include those made by
the head of the
Commonwealth Observer mission to Zimbabwe, Abdulsalami
Abubakar. In its 8pm
Newshour bulletin on March 2nd ZTV quoted him saying on
the steps of State
House: ".I think there is all the violence and the high
sounding news you
people deliver is not all that correct. We rarely observe
violence; here and
there but not to the magnitude you people are
reporting.When I say you
people I mean you news people and reporters" The
Commonwealth observer group
has been charged with the responsibility of
informing the Commonwealth on
the legitimacy of the forthcoming presidential
election. Other groups have
similar responsibilities. But it is on the advice
of the Commonwealth
observer delegation that the Commonwealth will decide
what action to take
against Zimbabwe, according to the communiqué issued at
the recent
Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Australia. It is
therefore
important that Mr. Abubakar provides some evidence to substantiate
his claim
that violence is not as bad as it appears to have been presented
by
journalists.
A similar comment was made by the head of the Namibian
observer delegation,
Kaire Mbuende. He was quoted in The Herald (28/2) as
saying incidences of
political violence in Zimbabwe were being exaggerated:
"It is our considered
view that the prevalence of violence is exaggerated
.There is violence
associated with the electioneering process coming from
both sides of the
political divide."
But he also failed to provide any
evidence to substantiate this claim. The
statistics are somewhat confusing,
due in part to conflicting reports by the
police themselves, and figures
provided by a human rights organization. The
Herald of March 6th 2002 reports
that the police had recorded
14 deaths since the beginning of the year due to
political violence; the
Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum reports a total of 31
deaths due to
political violence between January 1st and February
28th,
2002. This disparity requires urgent and thorough investigation. The
same
issue of The Herald reports a senior police spokesman as saying that in
the
first 25 days of February ".520 genuine cases of political violence had
been
reported in the country." This would mean an average of 20.8 incidents
of
politically motivated violence being reported every day. This cannot
be
considered to be a healthy figure by any standard. These
statistics
supercede earlier figures provided by the Commissioner of Police,
Augustine
Chihuri, towards the end of February when he was reported on
television (ZTV
8pm 26/2) as saying 250 cases of political violence had been
recorded by the
police in the first 25 days of February. This would represent
a figure of 10
incidents of political violence being reported every day; also
a grim
statistic. MMPZ has been monitoring the incidence of politically
motivated
violence reported in the mainstream Zimbabwean media and in the
periods
given by the police, we can state the
following:
ELECTRONIC MEDIA COVERAGE OF POLITICALLY MOTIVATED
VIOLENCE
Deaths reported between January 1st and March 6th
2002
ZTV reported six deaths as a result of political violence. Of these,
five
were reported to be ZANU PF supporters and the political affiliation of
one
was not confirmed. Radio 3FM aired four reports of politically
motivated
killings. All victims were reported to be ZANU PF supporters. Radio
Zimbabwe
carried five reports. Two of the victims were reported to be ZANU PF
and the
political affiliation of the other three was not
stated.
Incidents of violence reported (1st- 25th February
2002)
During this period ZTV reported only 25 incidents while 3FM
reported 32 and
Radio Zimbabwe reported 15. By any standard, this would
appear to be a gross
under-reporting of politically motivated violence by
Zimbabwe's national
broadcasting corporation. Television report just half the
official police
figure for those killed as a result of political violence,
while ZBC's radio
stations reported even smaller percentages relating to
political killings.
The figures for ZBC's coverage of incidents of political
violence not
resulting in deaths are even more appalling. ZTV reported just
10% of the
lower police figure for the same period (or less than 5% if the
higher
figure of 520 is used). Three FM recorded just 13% and Radio Zimbabwe,
which
has by far the biggest national audience of all stations, recorded just
6%
of the police figures for political violence. Far from being
an
exaggeration, these figures represent a clear suppression of the
truth.
PRINT MEDIA COVERAGE OF POLITICALLY MOTIVATED
VIOLENCE
The findings of the Media Monitoring Project reveal that the
private and
public print media reported the loss of 22 lives to politically
motivated
violence between January 1st and March 3rd 2002. The public press
recorded
seven deaths. Five were alleged to be ZANU PF supporters, while one
was said
to be a member of the MDC, and the other was un-attributed. The
private
press recorded 16 deaths. Fifteen were alleged MDC supporters and one
was
said to be a ZANU PF supporter. Only one death- of an alleged ZANU
PF
supporter in Budiriro- was reported in both Zimpapers and the private
press.
A total of 156 incidents of political violence were recorded in
the first 25
days of February 2002 in all sections of the print media. The
public press
carried 51 incidents of political violence. MDC was blamed in 47
incidents
and four were not attributed. The private press carried 106
incidents in
which ZANU PF was blamed 91 times, 14 were blamed on war
veterans, CIO, the
army and the National Youths Service, and one on MDC
supporters. Both
sections of the print media reported one incident of
political violence in
which MDC legislators were arrested. The private press
reported that they
were arrested for trying to hold a campaign rally, while
the public media
reported that the legislators were arrested for carrying
weapons. Print
monitors were unable to establish whether any other incidents
of violence
were duplicated in the public and private print media. This was
due to the
fact that the public Press relied more heavily on police
statements
providing insufficient evidence to be able to compare incidents in
the
privately owned Press, whose reports tended to rely more on the evidence
of
eye-witnesses and the victims themselves. While the police have been used
as
sources in the privately owned Press, they have rarely been used as
the
primary source, presumably because senior police officers have
publicly
stated that they will not cooperate with the private Press. In any
case,
duplication would bring the figure for the number of incidents
of
politically motivated violence reported in all the local mainstream
print
media even lower than the 156 cases reported. It can be
demonstrated
therefore, that all sections of the Press seriously
under-reported the
occurrence of politically motivated violence when compared
with Police
Commissioner, Chihuri's official statement. While the privately
owned Press
can be said to be providing a more accurate picture of the
situation on the
ground (according to police statistics), they are still only
managing to
cover 42% of the number of incidents reported to the police.
However, in the
case of the public Press (chiefly The Herald and The Sunday
Mail), which
enjoys unfettered access to police information, it must be said
that they
have utterly failed in their duty to provide their readers with a
remotely
accurate figure of the violence occurring in the country, reporting
barely
one-fifth (20%) of the number of incidences reported to the police.
MMPZ
deplores this abject failure by the state-owned media to fulfil their
public
mandate by providing their audiences with a truthful and accurate
reflection
of the real situation regarding the occurrence of political
violence in
Zimbabwe. Considering that the state media have unrestricted
access to
government authorities, including the police, this extreme
distortion of the
truth suggests that the public media are deliberately
suppressing the true
nature of the intensity and extent of the role political
violence has played
in this presidential election campaign. In view of these
facts, MMPZ
therefore, laments the publicly unsubstantiated "observations" of
Mr.
Abubaka and Mr. Mbuende and considers them to be rash and ill
considered.
Ends
This report was produced by the Media Monitoring
Project Zimbabwe, MMPZ, P.
O. Box UA 156, Union Avenue, Harare, Tel/fax: 263
4 703702, E-mail:
monitors@mweb.co.zw, Web: http://www.icon.co.zw/mmpz Please feel
free to
respond to MMPZ. We may not be able to respond to everything, but we
will
look at each message. Also, please feel free to circulate this
message.
The Times
Youth schooled in intimidation and terror
From Janine di
Giovanni in Bulawayo
RAYMOND does not yet have the eyes of a
killer. But he has the eyes of
someone who has done evil things.
The
scrawny 18-year-old former Zanu (PF) youth militiaman wears an orange
and
blue T-shirt and sits in a safe house talking about his life
and
indoctrination into President Mugabe’s terror squad.
Raymond left
school at 14 and, like many youths here, drifted aimlessly,
unsure of a
future. In January, he claims he was abducted into the Zanu (PF)
youth
militia, known as the Green Bombers by war veterans, and was promised
a job
after the election. All the teenagers in the militia camps, believed
to be
about 146 in total, are trained in terror and intimidation tactics
against
opposition MDC voters.
The teenagers live in the camps and are
“re-educated”, given political
“lessons” and taught to distinguish MDC from
Zanu (PF) supporters.
They are trained with wooden guns and military
drills and taught to torture.
Many were initially trained at the Border Gezi
camp near Bindura, north of
Harare. But since November, when Mr Mugabe
established and began encouraging
the youth militia, satellite camps
throughout the country have been
established.
Human rights groups have
expressed concern over the youths, who have been
largely responsible for the
wave of terror, beatings and intimidation of
anyone who does not openly
support Zanu (PF).
“The militias are a new phenomenon. They didn’t exist
before November and
only arrived here in mid-January,” Shari Eppel, from
Amani Trust, a human
rights organisation, said.
Raymond, who defected
from the militia this week, was brought by a relative
to Bulawayo where he
would be safe. He tells a chilling tale of the
psychological training the
teenagers are given.
Their daily routine consisted of military drills and
lessons in brutality.
They lived in the bush and during the day stalked
shopping centres for
victims.
By night, they were given individual
tasks to terrorise civilians. Raymond’s
group commandeered a roadblock near a
bridge. His speciality was nearly
drowning victims.
“We were taught
how to hold their heads under water as long as possible,” he
said. He was
also told to beat women who were not wearing long sleeves and
to inflict
other manners of torture. One time his group beat a victim in
front of a
police officer. “He was bleeding like hell and the police
did
nothing.”
The militias operate in groups of ten. In Raymond’s
unit, most were aged
between 14 and 15. They were told to stop all vehicles
and chant a Zanu (PF)
slogan.
If the driver did not respond with the
code, he was yanked from the car and
tortured. Some victims were forced to
drink a toxic brew of unfermented
home-made beer, which could poison
them.
“We all had to take heed of this code. If we didn’t we were beaten
with
whips and axes.”
The confiscation of victims’ Identity cards,
crucial to vote in Zimbabwe,
was done by their commanders.
Raymond’s
life with the militias was uncomfortable as well as terrifying.
Although the
boys were fed and promised jobs if they performed well, they
slept without
blankets and travelled on foot in packs. While they often
talked among
themselves of escaping, they were afraid of repercussions. “We
were told if
we wavered in beating MDC victims, then we were sympathisers
and would be
punished.”
After more than a month as a Green Bomber, Raymond escaped. He
is undergoing
trauma counselling and rebuilding his life, but like everyone
here one day
before the election, he is extremely frightened.
The
creation of the militias is of serious concern in Zimbabwe. It is
widely
believed Mr Mugabe has opened a Pandora’s box of terror against the
civilian
population by creating these youth brigades. “They are extremely
dangerous
as a group, like a pack of dogs,” David Coltart, an Opposition MP
who has
been targeted by the militias, said.
“The problem that Mugabe
will face afterwards if he gets in is, now that he
has created them, how do
you suddenly rehabilitate them?” he said. “You can’
t just turn people on and
off like that.”
There are hundreds of victims of the militias each with
gruesome stories.
Two men in their early twenties yesterday told their
stories to The Times.
They had been abducted by a gang of Green Bombers and
tortured and beaten
throughout the course of an entire day. They had been
kicked and beaten
repeatedly in the groin, beaten with bull whips until their
flesh was
punctured by deep criss-crosses and burnt with cigarettes. Shots
were fired
over their heads and they were forced to roll between two lines of
men with
whips and pickaxes who rained blows over them.
Miss Eppel
said: “The torture is unimaginable. You just think ‘How can
people do this to
each other?’”
Daily Star News
When yesterday's liberator becomes today's
liability
Wilson Johwa
A few weeks ago, a Belgian I
had just met here in Dhaka forwarded me an
email whose subject was "Please
help, Zimbabwe needs you." The source of the
letter was a media watchdog
body, the Media Institute of Southern Africa
(MISA) that is based in the
Namibian capital, Windhoek.
"This is an invitation for you to visit our
web pages on the situation in
Zimbabwe and do your bit for that embattled
country," read the first part of
the letter that was prompted by the
beleaguered Harare government's newest
attempts at curtailing freedom of the
press.
Since I had been expecting something else when the Belgian
announced that he
had sent me mail, I was very surprised that the situation
at home was so bad
as to warrant an appeal to masses of faceless members of
the international
community. Coupled with the surprise was the embarrassment
that President
Mugabe and his coterie of self-serving sycophants, had reduced
the country
into being the latest African trouble spot and object of global
concerned
pity.
Not so long ago, many activists and other
personalities around the world,
including myself, had gotten used to
receiving letters appealing for one to
"spare a thought" for the people of
Ethiopia, Somalia, Rwanda and such other
countries in distress. The appeal on
Zimbabwe had caught me off-guard.
Despite the intensification of
State-sponsored terror and its concomitant
devastation of the Zimbabwe
economy, dubbed the world's fastest
deteriorating economy by the
British-based Economist magazine last year, I
had thought the situation would
resolve itself. But of course this was an
exercise in
self-deception.
There are no rebels in Zimbabwe. Instead, Mugabe's
once-popular government
has been playing a double role: on the one hand
terrorising anyone suspected
on supporting the opposition and on the other
pretending to be a
well-intentioned Africanist government. Hence the election
this weekend will
be a watershed determining whether misrule continues for at
least another
six years.
However, even before polling begins, we
are waiting with bated breaths,
hoping that the presidential poll will usher
in a new leader who will
immediately begin the onerous task of repairing the
economy and regaining
the country's place in the sun. The desire in Zimbabwe
is that after this
weekend the political upheavals will be halted and the
last two years will
serve as a low point below which the country would strive
not to sink. But
right now the question that begs for an answer is: Where did
it go wrong
since Mugabe took over power with such promise 22 years
ago?
This week a British newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph, reported
that over the
last three months Mugabe has sent more than £10 million through
the Channel
Islands. The transfer of the money is seen as a hint that he may
flee the
country if he loses the poll pitting him against his most
formidable
challenger ever, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic
Change
(MDC).
The Sunday Telegraph said most of the money was
moved through financial
institutions without their knowledge and that it
ended up in Malaysia, with
whom Mugabe has good relations.
Other
reports are that the government has been slow in announcing election
details
and that polling stations have been deliberately kept at a minimum
in the
urban areas where support for the opposition is strongest. Indeed, as
all
indications are that the present government is determined to steal
the
election, a look at its once-revered leader's career is perhaps pertinent
at
this stage.
Born on February 21, 1924 at Kutama Mission
north-west of the capital
Harare, Robert Gabriel Mugabe had a Jesuit
upbringing and as president
regularly lectures Zimbabweans on morality.
However, this did not prevent
him from having two children by his young
secretary, Grace, while his
popular Ghanaian first wife, Sally, was dying
from cancer. He married Grace
in 1996. Immediately after, his political
fortunes -- together with the coun
try's economic performance -- began
clinging.
Mugabe qualified as a primary school teacher at the age of
17 but took his
first steps along the political path when he quit teaching to
take up a
scholarship at South Africa's black university, Fort Hare. There,
before
graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951, he came into
contact with
many of southern Africa's future black nationalist
leaders.
After completing his bachelor's degree, he returned to the
then Southern
Rhodesia to teach, moving to Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and
later
teaching in Ghana where he met and married his first
wife.
In 1960 Mugabe returned home to enter politics. He first joined
the
nationalist group the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), but in
1964,
after several arrests and a fall-out with its leadership, Mugabe went
to
Tanzania and joined the newly-formed Zimbabwe African National Union
(ZANU).
ZANU inaugurated the war for independence that same year. Mugabe
was
detained along with several other nationalist leaders in 1964 and spent
the
next 10 years in prison camps and in jail.
He used those years
to acquire six university degrees and to consolidate his
position in ZANU.
Emerging from prison in November 1974 as leader, Mugabe
then left for
neighbouring Mozambique, from where his banned party had begun
launching
guerilla attacks into Rhodesia.
After four more years of war, Mugabe
and Joshua Nkomo, who led the rival
Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU),
entered negotiations with the
Rhodesians, concluding with Zimbabwe's
independence in April 1980. In
elections just before independence, Mugabe and
ZANU won by a landslide, and
he became prime minister.
Upon
assuming power, he announced a policy of reconciliation with the
country's
white minority, but now regularly blames them for many of
Zimbabwe's
problems. As the country's fortunes have deteriorated, he has
tried to
resurrect the nationalist agenda of the 1970s -- land
and
anti-colonialism.
He began a programme of free-market reforms
in 1991, but the International
Monetary Fund has suspended aid because, it
says, the reforms are not on
track. One sticking point in negotiations with
the IMF has been Zimbabwe's
involvement in the Democratic Republic of
Congo.
The country's 10000-plus military deployment complements
smaller contingents
from Angola and Namibia which have also been propping up
the Congolese
government since the ouster of Mobutu Sese Seko three years
ago. There is
hardly any discernible reason for Zimbabwe's involvement in the
Congo. Apart
from being a costly enterprise for a small country of limited
means, the
Congo campaign is seen as merely a lucrative adventure for the
political and
military elite who are believed to be helping themselves to the
Congo's
abundant resources.
Mugabe, who has survived three
assassination attempts since 1980,
consolidated his power in 1987 when his
party swallowed ZAPU in a unity
accord. The man nick-named the Christopher
Columbus of Africa for his
numerous overseas trips, then assumed the position
of executive president
and unsuccessfully tried to impose a one-party state.
Still, for 20 years
his party had a free-rein in parliament since it had all
but three seats in
the 150-member chamber.
However, with the
emergence of a strong and well-organised opposition two
years ago, the ruling
party lost 58 of those seats, triggering panic within
the higher echelons of
the party. Their response was to launch a campaign of
terror and intimidation
that seen the occupation of white-owned farms in the
vain hope that the
nationalist rhetoric of the liberation war would appeal
to less sophisticated
rural voters, who traditionally have been Mugabe's
strongest support
base.
The irony is that since Zimbabwe has the highest literacy rate
in Africa --
thanks to Mugabe's policies -- the people have perhaps been
better able to
analyse events. With inflation now at three-digit levels,
unemployed at a
record 50 per cent and the country having to import food
since farming and
industry are hamstrung, many Zimbabweans will this weekend
vote with their
stomachs.
Wilson Johwa is a Zimbabwean journalist
presently working for Drik Picture
Library and Pathshala, the South Asian
Institute of Photography, under the
auspices of the Norwegian Fredskporset
programme.
'Make or break' for whites as election nears
By a Special Correspondent in
Mashonaland
(Filed: 06/03/2002)
WHITE Zimbabweans yesterday put
the finishing touches to detailed plans for
this weekend's
election.
Even for a community that survived guerrilla war and sanctions
during the
Rhodesian era, nothing compares with the pressure felt now by the
last
50,000 whites in Zimbabwe. The stakes have never been
higher.
More than 300 whites gathered in a sweltering room in a
Mashonaland country
club and heard a farmer open the meeting with the words:
"This weekend our
destiny will be decided. This weekend is make or break for
ourselves and for
our country."
If President Mugabe wins re-election,
few whites doubt that their best
option will be a hasty
exit.
Government-supported land invasions have already seen the
occupation of
1,700 farms, the murder of eight landowners and relentless
official attacks
on the white minority. Inflation of 120 per cent and a
collapsing currency
have wiped out savings and pensions.
More of the
same could spell the end for the white community, which includes
about 25,000
British nationals. But if Mr Mugabe loses, his supporters could
plunge
Zimbabwe into turmoil and take revenge on any white face.
Fearing both
possibilities, many whites will spend the next few days
gathering their
children, packing precious possessions and heading for
remote lodges near the
border.
There they will spend the crucial days when votes are cast in the
knowledge
that escape across the frontier is only a short dash
away.
Since the collapse of Zimbabwe's tourist industry, most game lodges
have
been virtually empty. Many of those in the right location have
suddenly
found themselves coping with a flood of bookings.
Private
schools are taking an impromptu half-term break, beginning tomorrow
and
continuing until the end of next week or longer if necessary. "Our
attitude
is very much one of wait and see," said one parent.
Most businesses will
close on Friday afternoon and have no plans to reopen
next week. Families are
obtaining official permits allowing them to drive
across the
border.
Last week, British diplomats visited hotels in the border town of
Siavonga,
in neighbouring Zambia, and discovered how many Zimbabwean refugees
could be
accommodated and fed.
The Zambian government has been asked
to waive the £40 visa fee which is
currently demanded from all Britons at the
frontier. But those determined to
remain in their homes while votes are cast
have laid detailed plans.
At yesterday's meeting, the audience listened
with rapt attention as a
farmer laid down the code names for an evacuation,
each redolent with bitter
memories.
"Red evacuation is a Congo type,
meaning you've got 10 minutes to get out of
your house," he said, summoning
memories of the flight of the Belgian
settlers from the Congo in
1960.
"Orange evacuation is a Doma type, meaning women and kids out,"
he
continued, recalling the looting and destruction of 45 farms in the
Doma
area of Zimbabwe last August. "Yellow evacuation is a tactical
withdrawal."
Short of a full evacuation, plans for the election include
rapid response
teams to rescue families from emergencies and a network of
safe houses where
farmers' wives living in isolated places can
gather.
Peta Thornycroft in Harare writes: A diplomatic source said
that in the
event of widespread lawlessness "the British will advise their
citizens to
make for the borders, in convoy, and they will be met by consular
staff in
South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique. That is all they can
offer."
Sophie Honey, spokesman for the British High Commission, said:
"The
Government has contingency plans in most countries, including Zimbabwe,
to
assist British citizens in case of emergency."
SATAN'S LITTLE HELPERS
I have a very interesting article written about Mugabe's consorting with
Sekuru Mushore, and the deeply intrinsic ancestral and animist spirituality
which pervades the country and the political power-base; however, I'm not at
liberty to publish it as I cannot contact the writer for his permission. In
reality, the struggle truly is between good and evil, light and dark. There is
a Christian revival happening in Africa right now, and Zimbabwe is at the
forefront, with some 60% of Zimbabweans claiming to be practical Christians, and
more converting every day (compare that to New Zealand with around 3%). The MDC
are essentially and publicly a Christian party, whereas ZANU(PF) obviously work
for the opposition. Mugabe's public displays of church attendance are
completely at odds with his behaviour, which is demonic, to say the least.
My real concern is that when Bugs loses the
election, he still has three weeks before the handover, and he is going to
unleash the maddest of his dogs. And even if he was to try to call all the
mongrels back that he has already let loose, they will just tell him to go the
hell. I don't believe he has anything other than titular presence now. The
demons have been freed and they're not going to go back in the bag. I believe
that if he tries to stop their ravaging now, one of his shamwaris will put a
bullet through him. And then all hell will break loose.
Bugame has sold his soul to the devil, no doubt
about it. He frequently swears oaths on the name of Ambuya Nehanda. He's up to
his armpits in blood.
Just re-reading 'Guns & Rain: Guerrillas
and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe' by David Lan -- definitive text on the
involvement/control of the witchdoctors during the war and their importance
post-independence -- and some interesting and at the same time disturbing
implications that can be drawn from it. The book was published in 1985. I've
quoted at length, below. Relate it to what is happening today, particularly
considering Bugs' regular consultation with the mhondoro Sekuru Mushore
at Saffron Walden farm (where the very first war veteran farm invasion in
Mashonaland took place) and other prominent politicos' involvement in the
devil's work; Hunzvi, for example was consulting one with whom he had a very
public fallout over an unpaid bill; and the mayor of Chinoyi had a human head on
the back seat in his car.
I quote [comments in square brackets are mine -
Sender]:
"The symbolism of the mhondoro gains its
extraordinary effectiveness as an expression of the struggle for Zimbabwe from
its ability to combine the economic and political aspects of this struggle in a
single unforgettable image: the chiefs of the past, independent and prosperous,
benign and generous to their followers, in sole possession and control of their
bountiful, fertile lands. It is an image that has proved attractive to
ministers of state and senior members of ZANU/PF. The ancestors, the original
and legitimate owners of the country, are nowadays charged with protecting the
nation against its new potential 'conquerors', for example the South African
state or the more abstract but no less real forces of neo-colonialism and so
on." (p 219)
[Interesting quote from the Guardian, 10 October
1983]
"The Prime Minister, Mr Mugabe, swearing by the
name of the legendary anti-British spirit medium Ambuya Nehanda, vowed that his
government would confiscate white-owned land for peasant resettlement if Mrs
Thatcher suspends promised British compensation ... "If they do that we will say
'Well and good, you British gave us back the land because you never paid for it
in the first place. The land belongs to us. It is ours by inheritance from our
forefathers'", the Prime Minister said." (p 219)
Quote:
"We are more than familiar with Shona politicians
claiming legitimacy for their rule over the land in the name of their ancestors,
but over the last few years, an important change in the articulation of
ancestral authority has taken place.
"In 1981 an Act of Parliament known as the
Traditional Medical Practitioners Act passed into law. The purpose of this Act
was to establish a Traditional Medical Practitioners Council and to give legal
standing to ZINATHA (the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association)
which had been in existence for some years though in competition with a number
of other traditional healers' associations which have since been disbanded. The
function of the Council according to the Act will be to 'supervise and control
the practice of traditional medical practitioners and to foster research into,
and develop the knowledge of such practice.'
"The Council is required to set up a register of
all traditional medical practitioners. Once they are registered, those whose
healing techniques do not include possession may add the initials TMP
(Traditional Medical Practitioner) after their names. Those who are proficient
at possession may use the letters SM (Spirit Medium). The explicit function of
this body is to organise and centralise the practice of TMPs and SMs so that
they can provide a service to the community parallel to the Western-style
medicine made available in clinics and hospitals throughout the
country.
"But the Act goes further. It allows for TMPs and
SMs who do not measure up to the standards of the Council to be expelled. The
Council may 'order the suspension of the registered person for a specified
period from practising as a traditional medical practitioner or performing any
act specially pertaining to the practice of TMPs.' In addition, if individuals
make use of these titles when they have not been registered, they are liable to
a fine of $1000 or imprisonment for two years.' It is only necessary to point
out that the Council consists of twelve members of whom five are appointed by
the Minister of Health [Stamps!] and that six members constitute a quorum of
this Council for it to be clear that, to all intents and purposes, the
government has provided itself with an agency fully capable of declaring who is
and who is not a legitimate and authentic spirit medium.
"Of course one, and perhaps the most predominant,
effect of this legislation will be that mediums whose curing techniques are
either ineffective or harmful will not be allowed to put the safety of the
public at risk. But curing has long been only one of the
duties of the mhondoro mediums. Another is the choosing and installing
of the political leadership.
"At a public meeting in Dande in 1982
a senior mhondoro medium, speaking in a trance, described his dismay at
the slow rate of progress achieved by the government in fulfilling their promise
of economic aid to the Dande region. He reminded his listeners of the
contribution that he and other mediums had made to the struggle. His warning
was perfectly clear. It was, he said, the mhondoro who had enabled the
present government to come to power. If they failed the people and therefore
failed their ancestors, the mhondoro would transfer their authority
elsewhere.
"The mhondoro mediums provided the
resistance with the set of symbols with which its moral authority was
expressed. They lent it their skills, their knowledge, and the weight of their
prestige. it was inevitable that after the successful conclusion of the war
they should feel that the power to control the destiny of the new nation was in
their hands.
"A number of other Dande mediums have complained of
the neglect they have suffered since Independence and of the failure of the
government to reward them for the help which they gave. One circumstance that
has contributed to this feeling of neglect is the recent removal of authority
from the party village committees which operate, in Dande at least, under the
jurisdiction of the ancestors. The committees have been subordinated to two new
administrative bodies. First, the authority to hear and resolve disputes has
been transferred to the so-called Primary Level Courts. Operated by a judge and
two assessors who are elected from an area corresponding roughly to the old
wards of the chiefs, these courts fall under the Ministry of Justice. Secondly,
most of the other powers which were inherited by the committee from the
guerrillas have been inherited in turn by the District Councils established
under the Ministry of Local Government. These Councils, also based more or less
on the old ward system, require only one individual to represent a constituency
of some thousands of people, and deal with all the major issues such as
education, transport, economic development and so on.
"The ZANU/PF committees have therefore been left
with almost no functions at all except to inform the villagers of new party
policies, to hear minor disputes and to look after village matters such as
sanitation and the allocation of new sites for homes. The overall effect has
been to remove power from ZANU/PF with its direct experience of the liberation
struggle in the countryside and from the hands of the villagers themselves and
surrender it to the institutions of government which are based in the capital
and staffed largely by career politicians and civil servants.
"At present, the likelihood that the mediums will
actually transfer their allegiance, and that of the ancestors, away from ZANU/PF
and the government is slight, though the possibility that if they did so the
chiefs might be the beneficiaries is perhaps one of the reasons that the chiefs'
old relationship of subservience and dependence on the state has been
perpetuated from the previous government. But the threat that they might is
significant because it is a threat to that special sort of legitimacy which only
the ancestors can provide and which, in addition to the legitimacy it has
obtained by its overwhelmingly popular democratic election, the government
elected in 1980 claims for itself.
"In effect the traditional Medical Practitioners
Acts entrenches in law precisely that control over the mediums that political
authorities of the past, whether chiefs or district commissioners, attempted to
enforce in its own 'descent' from the ancestors thus minimising the importance
of that other technique by which the mhondoro are represented on earth,
possession (see fig 9.1). To take a very long
historical view indeed, the present state of play is reminiscent of Dos Santos'
account of the 'king' Quiteve in 1609. It was to Quiteve rather than to the
mediums that his followers turned to for rain and though the 'king' periodically
consulted his ancestors, the role of the medium was relatively undeveloped, the
ancestor choosing a medium at random from amongst those attending the royal
ceremonies.
"One final point about the relationship between the
ancestors and the state. It comes at the end not because I consider it
insignificant but so that everything that has gone before can be reconsidered in
its light. It is the unique quality of the Shona spirit mediums that they are
able to present a complex 'performance' of the past combined with a vision of
the future in a way that enhances the peoples' belief in the value of their much
maligned history and thereby strengthens their belief in their ability to create
a better future. Among the particular skills of the mediums
that were called upon during the war was their ability to accumulate followings
that crossed chiefly boundaries. These they put at the disposal of the
nationalist leaders. And the most senior of the mhondoro mediums,
those of Nehanda and, to a lesser extent, Mutota were able to command loyalties
that stretched far beyond local priorities, that extend almost to the nation as
a whole.
"If Zimbabwe is the spirit province of the great
Shona ancestor Nehanda, then it follows that there are two distinct Zimbabwes.
There is the nation/spirit province, owned by the ancestors of the Shona people
in which the Shona have the perpetual, inextinguishable right of autochthons to
live and govern forever. And there is the territory that was Rhodesia, the
borders of which were drawn by politicians in Britain and Portugal with no
regard for the peoples who lived within them, with a history less than a hundred
years long. Within this second Zimbabwe live the Shona but also the Ndebele,
the Shangaan, the whites, and the other marginal ethnic groups as well [yeah,
right - what about the true autochthons -- the Khoi and San bushmen, who were
there before the lot of them?].
"From the point of view of Dande, the two Zimbabwes
are one. From many other parts of the country this is not so. Will the Ndebele
and other small populations accept that the Shona ancestors can provide them
with their fertility or will they insist on maintaining their own integrity,
insist, that is, that their own ancestors, their own political traditions should
also form part of the symbolism of the new state?
"Since Independence, numbers of ex-guerrillas loyal
to ZAPU have taken up arms against the new state. By this action they declare
their belief that the state does not adequately represent the interests of the
Ndebele people [and look what happened to them -- gukurahundi]. Of the
two Zimbabwes, one, the Zimbabwe of Nehanda and the other Shona
mhondoro, Zimbabwe the spirit province, has survived numerous
transformations in the past and will no doubt survive many more. But it seems
clear that the peaceful survival of the other Zimbabwe, the modern nation state,
requires more than the benefits that any one set of ancestors can provide." (p
219-222)
(David Lan. "Guns & Rain: Guerrillas &
Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe". Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1985, p
219-222)
There is occasional reference in the media to
Ambuya Nehanda's bones and mhondoro mediums in her name. This would
fly in the face of the following, taken from the record of her execution along
with Kagubi's (who, incidentally, converted to Christianity in the cell while
listening to Nehanda screaming blue murder on the gallows above, before they
pulled the pin on the trap and dropped her). He went quietly.
Quote:
'Everyone felt relieved after the execution,'
confesses Father Richartz, 'as the very existence of the main actors in the
horrors of the rebellion, though they were secured in prison, made one feel
uncomfortable.' With their deaths, it was universally felt, the rebellion was
finished; 'their bodies were buried in a secret place, so
that no natives could take away their bodies and claim that their spirits had
descended to any other prophetess or witchdoctor'.
(Ranger, T. O. "Revolt in Southern Rhodesia
1896-7". London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1967, p 310. Quoting from:
Richartz, 'The End of Kakubi', Zambesi Mission Record, Vol. 1, No. 2,
Nov. 1898)
USA Today
Zimbabwe election crucial to Africa's future
By Rena
Singer, Special for USA TODAY
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Archibald Zvidzai didn't
consider voting for the
opposition party when this country's economy began to
sour two years ago and
his auto-body business took a beating. His loyalty to
the ruling party
remained unquestioned even when staples like milk, cooking
oil and sugar
became scarce a few months ago.
But this life-long
supporter of the ruling party finally reconsidered last
month when his own
party's militants knocked on his door in the middle of
the night and demanded
that he prove he was one of them. He had
absent-mindedly left his party
identity card in his country home.
The men didn't believe him when he
said he backed President Robert Mugabe's
Zimbabwe African National Union
Patriotic Front. As his wife and three
children screamed for mercy, Zvidzai
was beaten until he was covered with
blood. Three weeks later, he still can't
see out of his right eye. "Before,
I didn't think about politics," said
Zvidzai, 42. "Now I am thinking I want
a change."
Zvidzai is one of
hundreds of Zimbabweans beaten, tortured or threatened as
elections loom.
Mugabe, 78, president since 1987, is aiming for a fourth
term. He faces the
first formidable challenge to his rule in two days of
voting Saturday and
Sunday. Once acclaimed as a hero of the new black,
democratic Africa, Mugabe
has responded to this threat by employing the
tactics of Africa's worst
dictators, attacking perceived political opponents
and sowing chaos and
fear.
Now, Zimbabwe, once a symbol of the promise of racial
reconciliation and
Africa's potential economic might, is experiencing a
spectacular economic
and political free-fall. Zimbabweans are poorer than
they were at
independence. An estimated 60% of adults are unemployed and 75%
of the
population lives at or below poverty.
As the region's second
largest economy and second most populous country,
Zimbabwe casts a large
shadow. "Zimbabwe is a fulcrum on which the future of
Southern Africa rests;
if it tips the right way, the region could face a
more prosperous future. If
not, regional prospects could deteriorate," Greg
Mills, director of the South
African Institute of International Affairs said
in a recent
report.
Already, deteriorating conditions in Zimbabwe and images of
bloodied white
farmers fleeing their land, have scared off the tourists who
flock to
Victoria Falls and Lake Kariba.
Investors have taken Mugabe's
threats of nationalizing all white-owned or
connected businesses as an
opportunity to redline all of southern Africa.
The Brussels-based
International Crisis Group reported this year that
southern Africa will lose
$36 billion in investment thanks to Mugabe's
actions. Development aid for all
of Africa is at risk. Ed Royce, chairman of
the U.S. House Subcommittee on
Africa, warned last week that events in
Zimbabwe made more aid to Africa a
hard sell. Last month, U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the election
a critical test for
democracy across Africa: "For the sake of the people of
Zimbabwe, of its
neighbors and the entire continent of Africa, I appeal to
the government to
let the people make their choice, and to live by
it."
Zimbabwe's fall from political and economic stability began in
February 2000
when Mugabe backed a referendum aimed at giving himself more
power. Voters,
in this California-sized country of 13 million, rejected
it.
In response, Mugabe launched a campaign of intimidation against
opponents.
He announced that white-owned farms would be redistributed to poor
landless
blacks, a plan guaranteed to win the backing of millions of landless
blacks.
Few Zimbabweans disagree. A few thousand whites hold two-thirds
of all
privately farmed land. Even the white-dominated Commercial Farmers
Union
supports land redistribution. However, the government's methods have
plunged
vast swaths of the country into lawlessness.
Gangs of
unemployed youths led by veterans of the country's war of
independence
against Britain arrived on farms without notice — some armed
with guns,
hatchets and clubs. The gangs threatened white farm owners and
black
employees. Dozens of people, most of them black, have died.
At his
rallies, surrounded by banners that say "Zimbabwe will never be a
colony
again," Mugabe maintains that his "fast-track land resettlement
program,"
will rid the country of the white colonialists. The president vows
to create
a healthy, black-dominated agricultural industry.
For now, the opposite
appears to be the case. The country's farms have been
left without clear
owners. Fields remain uncultivated. Food shortages loom.
Last month the U.N.
World Food Program began emergency food aid
distributions in
Zimbabwe.
Mugabe's harsh regime also has touched urban areas. The
independent
newspaper's printing press was blown up, schools were closed and
opposition
party offices have been attacked. Ordinary Zimbabweans like
Zvidzai have
been threatened or attacked.
Former union activist Morgan
Tsvangirai, 49, Mugabe's opponent, has been
fired on by police and threatened
with treason charges. "The conditions
under which these elections are being
held do not resemble anything that
nears free and fair," Tsvangirai said
Thursday. "The electoral process has
been blatantly and outrageously
distorted in favor of the ruling party."
Despite this, Mugabe remains
popular with many Zimbabweans who recall the
decade he spent in jail for
demanding independence for colonial Rhodesia.
Mugabe, who has dominated
politics here since Zimbabwe became independent 22
years ago, can take credit
for much of the country's successes. Before
independence, only half of black
children attended school. Today the
literacy rate is 97% among youth.
Zimbabwe's health care system, road
network, and national parks were
remarkable, until the current turmoil began
to erase much of the gains. "I
admire the guy," says Munyaradzi, a
30-year-old opposition party supporter
who gave only one name for fear of
retribution. "Look at what he has
achieved. He is a good leader. He fought
for our independence. But he has
overstayed."
If Mugabe wins re-election, experts say Zimbabwe will plunge
further into
international isolation, destabilizing the region. If Tsvangirai
wins,
Zimbabwe's armed forces have threatened a coup.
Ask any
Zimbabwean how they plan to vote in this weekend's election and they
are
likely to look over both shoulders, then whisper, "It is my secret."
| Zimbabwe court bars tens of thousands from
voting |
Zimbabwe's Supreme Court has barred tens of thousands of people with dual
citizenship from voting on the eve of the presidential elections.
The court, largely stacked with judges loyal to Mugabe, disqualified many
whites and tens of thousands of black farm workers from neighbouring countries -
almost all of whom the MDC said would have voted for their leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai.
The MDC said the Supreme Court ruling to only allow citizens to vote in their
home voting districts, effectively disenfranchised thousands of its supporters
driven from their homes by political violence, as well as urban supporters now
required to return to rural home districts to vote.
Mugabe, 78, toured his rural strongholds north of Harare today. His
popularity has crashed amid economic chaos and political violence blamed mostly
on his supporters.
Tsvangirai, 49, planned to spend the last day of campaigning in industrial
districts of the capital - strongholds of the union-backed MDC.
MDC officials said there were widespread state-backed efforts to deter voting
tomorrow and on Sunday.
They said more than 80% of the people who had died in the last two years
remained on the register in some areas and in other places more than a third of
the names of people who voted in the last election had been removed.
Also, ruling party militia bases were located next to polling places in some
districts, increasing chances of violence against opposition supporters.
They said 31 of their party monitors were abducted this morning by ruling
Zanu-PF youth militia and more than 200 MDC supporters had their ID cards stolen
rendering them ineligible to vote.
In violation of electoral laws, they said, Zanu-PF supporters were still
registering to vote despite the deadline for registration being 3 March.
Story filed: 11:23 Friday 8th March 2002
Zimbabwe: INFORMATIONAL
RELEASE
(On behalf of the Commercial
Farmers’ Union)
ZIMBABWE LAND DISTRIBUTION
BY SECTOR SEPT 2001
|
|
SECTOR |
HECTARES
|
PERCENTAGE
|
|
1. |
Large Scale Commercial
|
11 020
000 |
28.2 |
|
2. |
Small Scale Commercial
|
1 380
000 |
3.15 |
|
3. |
Communal
Area |
16 350
000 |
41.8 |
|
4. |
Resettlement
Area |
3 540
000 |
9.1 |
|
5. |
Parks/Forest
Land |
6 339
000 |
16.2 |
|
6. |
ARDA (State
Farming) |
250
000 |
0.6 |
|
7. |
Urban
Area |
200
000 |
0.5 |
|
|
TOTAL |
39
079 000 |
100.00 |
|
1. |
LARGE SCALE COMMERCIAL
SECTOR |
HECTARES |
|
1a |
Commercial Farmers’
Union Members |
8 595 000 |
|
1b |
Indigenous Commercial
Farmers Union |
700 000 (approx) |
|
1c |
Non Members (either
Union) |
600 000
(approx) |
|
1d |
Development Trust of
Zimbabwe
(Government of Zimbabwe
GoZ) |
332 000 |
|
1e |
Indigenous/Tenant
Schemes/Leases (GoZ) |
470 000 |
|
1f |
Cold Storage Company
(GoZ) |
211 000 |
|
1g |
Forestry Commission
(GoZ) |
112 000 |
|
|
TOTAL (Large
Scale Commercial) |
11
020 000 |
|
|
HECTARES |
PERCENTAGE |
|
STATE LAND |
27 604 000 |
70.6 |
|
PRIVATE LAND |
11 275 000 |
28.9 |
|
URBAN LAND |
200 000 |
0.5 |
|
TOTAL
|
39
079 000 |
100.0 |
Statistics
on compulsory acquisition as at 01 March 2002
are:
|
Gross
listed: |
5 648
farms |
10 231
950 ha |
|
Delisted: |
706
farms |
1 475
378 ha |
|
Relisted: |
51
farms |
90
698 ha |
|
Duplicates: |
467
farms |
N/a |
|
Nett
listed: |
4 526
farms |
8 847
270 ha |
Ends
For more information, please contact
Jenni Williams
Mobile 263 – 91 300 456 or 263 -11
213 885
Or email me at jennipr@mweb.co.zw or
prnews@telconet.co.zw
From The Christian Science Monitor,
7 March
Zimbabwe battens down for uneasy
election
Predictions of unrest and doubts
about a widely acceptable result precede weekend poll
Harare - Fabulous Beauty Salon on the corner of Mugabe street
in downtown Harare is cram-packed. Patricia is getting her nails done. Nancy is
fiddling with her hair extensions. On Monday this shop will be closed. No one
seems to be sure about Tuesday. Or Wednesday. The manager fits a new metal gate
to his storefront window and closes his account books. "I don't know, I don't
know," he responds to a future appointment inquiry. As Zimbabweans go to the
polls this weekend - amid fears that the violence which has marked the election
campaign will reach even greater levels - the country is grinding to a
standstill. No matter who wins - whether Zanu PF incumbent President Robert
Mugabe, or his challenger, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) candidate Morgan
Tsvangirai - most predict there will be unrest. Foreigners are evacuating.
Locals who can afford it are either locking up and flying out, or stocking up on
food. And the majority of the population - dirt poor, hungry, increasingly
frustrated, and without options - is just waiting. "It is not a question of
whether or not there will be violence," one senior Western diplomat wrote in a
cable to his capital last week. "It's a question of how much and for how long
... and how Zimbabwe is going to come out of it."
Due to the political climate, people are afraid to say whom
they will be voting for. Nonetheless, several independent polls clearly indicate
that Mr. Tsvangirai has more popular support than Mr. Mugabe, possibly much
more. The country is experiencing an economic free fall. Unemployment is
estimated at 60 percent, inflation is more than 100 percent. Half a million
people are faced with starvation because of drought and the forced occupation of
white commercial farms by squatters. Foreign investment has all but dried up,
and tourists are staying away. Zimbabwe has become a pariah state
internationally. It is likely that if Mugabe continues as president, the
European Union (EU) will impose full sanctions here, and relations with the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and other donors will
collapse. The opposition party slogan is as simple as it is appealing. "Change!
Change! Change!"
Some envision a scenario whereby Mugabe - an aging soldier who
has run Zimbabwe since white rule ended in 1980 and who blames the current
economic mess on former colonial power Britain - takes note of his loss and
steps down. "Mugabe might say he does not intend to step down," says Masiphula
Sithole, a professor of political science at the University of Zimbabwe. "But
when faced with the facts – especially if he loses by such a large margin that
it is impossible to tamper with it - he will leave." Most pundits however, scoff
at this idea and say that Mugabe - power hungry and fearful of possible
retribution for his bloody crackdown in Matabeland in the 1980s - will refuse to
release the reins of power. "There is no option of Mugabe winning fairly. And no
option of his accepting a loss. It's all about stealing the elections," says
Wilfred Mhanda, a war veteran who heads the Zimbabwe Liberators Platform, an
alternative association of former fighters who oppose Mugabe. "And this has
already been done - such theft does not just happen on election day."
Mugabe's detractors point at a very long list of irregularities
- from mere voter confusion tactics to outright brutal intimidation - as
evidence that the election heist began long ago. British Prime Minister Tony
Blair claims that a free and fair election is now virtually impossible.
Sixty-nine of Tsvangirai's rallies have been banned or disrupted by thugs. More
than 400,000 serious human-rights abuses have been reported, and 107 MDC
supporters and activists have been reported to have died in political violence
over the past two years. While some, such Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa,
claim Mugabe has more support than most realize and can win legitimately, by and
large neither the outside world nor ordinary Zimbabweans will trust any Mugabe
victory.
If Mugabe does declare victory, it is generally expected that a
good number of those who stayed in the country with a wait-and-see attitude will
leave - joining the 25 percent of productive labor force that has already fled
in the past four years. And that many others, especially in the urban areas,
will take to the streets in protest. "People have pegged their hopes for change
on this election, and frustration will be tremendous. Explosions come when there
is no recourse," says Brian Kogoro, director of Crisis in Zimbabwe, a
civic-society umbrella organization. "Mugabe can claim victory but not
legitimacy, and with no food, no work, and no recourse, people will certainly
revolt. They have nothing to lose." "The people have been wanting to rise up
against the government for a long time, but the opposition held them down -
saying they were going to win," adds Mhanda. He explains that the revolt will be
organized, and he admits that preparations are already under way. "Aims are
being debated. Discussions are focused on whether there should be call for a
recount of votes or simply a power takeover," he says. "In any case, reaction
will be immediate. We can't wait. We are chomping at the bit."
What results such a revolt will bring, however, depends on how
the military responds. Those Army generals who have risen within Mugabe's system
of patronage, and who have become rich off looting diamond mines in Congo, are
none too keen to see the president lose power. In fact, the top brass have made
it clear that they will respect only one outcome. The Defense force commander,
Gen. Vitalis Zvinavashe, has said that he will not serve a president who does
not have a liberation war background. Tsvangirai, a former miner and union boss,
has no such background. The real question seems to be what the lower-ranking
military men will do if forced to choose between turning their guns on civilians
or on their superiors. "These young military men are the key," says Sithole.
"The Army is more than a handful of generals, and the rank and file don't ride
in Mercedes or have exorbitant salaries." Sithole believes these men, who live
meagre lives, would be unlikely to support Mugabe in such a scenario. "They will
come together and tell Mugabe: 'Listen, you don't have a chance of resisting the
will of the people. Call Morgan and concede the elections. They will dial the
numbers.'" Mhanda is not so sure. "This is an academic debate. We will have to
wait and see," he says.
"On Saturday and Sunday, I predict quiet," says one Western
diplomat. "It's in Mugabe's interest to make elections look as free and fair as
possible, and Tsvangirai wants to maintain quiet so that as many people as
possible come out to vote." On Monday and Tuesday, there will also be quiet,
continues the diplomat - who had just finished sending off to South Africa all
the dependents in his embassy - because everyone will be waiting to hear the
results, and there is no point in making noise before that. "The announcement
will come on Wednesday or Thursday," he concludes. "And then hell will break
loose." Perhaps not coincidentally, Thursday is also the day on which every
accredited foreign journalist's visa to Zimbabwe runs out. Back at the Fabulous
Beauty Salon, Nancy is still leafing through women's magazines, waiting for all
her hair extensions to be braided. Her hairdo should stay in shape for at least
a month. "I hope by then we will be over the worst, and this country will calm
down so I can come get it reset and rebraided," she says. "But who knows?"
From The Washington Post, 8
March
Zimbabweans see trouble
ahead
Harare - Wellington Chinyama sat down in a barber's chair
today, unfolded his newspaper and without glancing up asked the young man
trimming his hair the question that seems to be on virtually everyone's mind
here: "So Joseph, have you prepared yourself for Zimbabwe's civil war?" Two days
before Zimbabweans go to the polls to re-elect or oust Robert Mugabe, the only
leader the country has ever known, the question of who will win the election
seemed almost secondary to how the loser and his followers will respond. Surveys
show the challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, a trade union leader, ahead of Mugabe.
But a surge in political violence and accusations that the governing party
changed election laws to rig the vote have fanned widespread concerns among
Zimbabweans, election monitors and foreign diplomats that neither political
party nor their supporters are prepared to accept the final tally.
"It does not take a vivid imagination to envision a scenario on
the ground where either rioters or the military takes to the streets in the days
to come," an African diplomat said. Most disturbing are pronouncements by senior
government officials and military leaders that they would not allow this former
British colony to be led by Tsvangirai and his political party, the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC). In a television interview broadcast this week, Didymus
Mutasa, a spokesman for Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party, said he and other
veterans of the country's independence war found the prospect of an MDC
government intolerable. "People have said being ruled by the MDC is being ruled
by Ian Smith," Mutasa said, referring to the prime minister of white-ruled
Rhodesia, as the country was known before gaining independence in 1980. "Under
these circumstances, if there were to be a coup, we would support it very
definitely."
At least 34 people have died in political violence this year,
almost all of them MDC supporters. State Department officials this week accused
Mugabe's government of numerous human rights violations during the election
campaign, an allegation vehemently denied by Zanu PF officials. A newspaper
reported today that Mugabe had put the armed forces on "high alert" and recalled
soldiers from neighboring Congo, where they have been deployed in that country's
civil war. Police commissioner Augustine Chihuri denied the reports. Still, many
Zimbabweans see this weekend's election as a contest between immovable forces: a
78-year-old autocrat desperate to remain in power and an opposition party
dominated by restless young citizens weary of government corruption, food
shortages and unemployment. "If Mugabe announces that he has won the election, I
think that people will not believe it and will storm the castle," said Sibongile
Mbuyiso, an MDC supporter. "But if the MDC wins, I believe Mugabe will announce
martial law, throw Tsvangirai in jail for plotting to kill him and send the army
into the streets."
Government officials last month charged Tsvangirai and two
other MDC officials with high treason for allegedly plotting to assassinate
Mugabe. That charge is based largely on a heavily edited videotape in which
Tsvangirai refers to the "elimination" of Mugabe. Tsvangirai was responding to a
question posed by a Canadian publicist with whom he was meeting and who
subsequently signed a contract with Zanu PF. Political analysts say the charges
may have laid the groundwork for Mugabe to jail Tsvangirai as a last-ditch
effort to stay in power should he lose the election. But that outcome is
certainly not a foregone conclusion. MDC officials say that 22 of their polling
agents have been abducted in the past week, and a surge in violent attacks in
swing districts could persuade enough MDC supporters to vote for Zanu PF to
ensure Mugabe's victory.
In addition, governing party officials have revised election
laws and procedures in a manner that could change the outcome of the vote,
according to independent election observers. Zanu PF officials have told
election observers that they intend to increase the number of polling stations
in rural areas believed to be their strongholds and reduce the number of
stations in urban areas, where there is strong support for the opposition.
Observers say that could produce long voting lines and discourage some MDC
supporters from casting ballots. Zanu PF election officials also plan to use
civil service employees to monitor the vote-counting and bar independent
monitors from nonprofit organizations from assisting in such routine tasks as
transporting ballot boxes to counting stations. A residency requirement
introduced last month bans registered voters from casting ballots if they cannot
provide leases or utility bills in their names. That, according to foreign
diplomats and MDC supporters, could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of
young opposition supporters who live with their parents.
"Clearly, Mugabe is doing everything he can to steal this
election," said John Makumbe, a political science professor at the University of
Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai said at a news conference tonight that if he wins the
election, he would not prosecute Mugabe. That could ease pressure on Mugabe to
remain in power to avoid prosecution for his government's attack in the 1980s in
Matabeleland, the home of the Ndebele tribe, which at the time posed the most
significant threat to his leadership. An estimate of the number of people killed
in the operation ranges from 10,000 to
20,000.
