Tsvangirai promises a rude shock for Mugabe

The Telegraph

Peta Thornycroft in Harare
Last Updated: 1:05AM BST 25/05/2008
Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, returned home yesterday,
claiming that the "appalling" violence endured by his supporters would
deliver an even greater electoral defeat to President Robert Mugabe when the
two square up in a second round of voting in five weeks.
Mr Tsvangirai, who left for South Africa six weeks ago, was surrounded by
his security men as he arrived at Harare airport and then sped to a hospital
to meet supporters wounded by rival Zanu PF party members.

"I return home with a very sad heart," he said. "I have met and listened to
stories from innocent people targeted by a regime seemingly desperate to
hang on to power. Democrats have been targeted by the dictator who has lost
the support of the people."

He said the ­Southern African Development Community, the regional
organisation which is to mediate the Zimbabwe crisis, had pledged to send
observers and peacekeepers to monitor the polls, but he said unless they
were in place by June 1, they would be of no use.

Mr Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
party, officially won 47.9 per cent to Mr Mugabe's 43.2 per cent in the
presidential poll on March 29, but needed more than 50 per cent to avoid the
run-off which is scheduled for June 27. The election was marred by
allegations of government intimidation and vote-rigging.

Since the elections, more than 40 MDC activists and party supporters have
been killed and tens of thousands have been assaulted and forced to flee
their homes as their villages have been burnt.

"They [Zanu PF] have beaten themselves into serious rejection by the people
of Zimbabwe," said Mr Tsvangirai. "All those I saw in hospital today were
saying to me, 'We will finish him off, don't let us down'. So on that score
I am inspired by people reeling with pain but still prepared to go all the
way. If Mugabe thinks he has beaten people into submission then he will have
a rude shock."

Blaming Mr Mugabe for the recent wave of violence against Zimbabwean
economic refugees in neighbouring South Africa, he added: "The xenophobic
attacks in South Africa can be directly attributed to Mugabe's failed
policies of intolerance and repression, the failed policies which forced
thousands and thousands to flee their ancestral homes. Now, instead of a
safe haven, people in the diaspora face even more death and destruction."

Praising the courage of his supporters, Mr Tsvangirai said that since the
election in March, "the regime has targeted young men and women who have
stood shoulder to shoulder with us over eight years, has hunted them down,
pulled them from their houses and systematically murdered people".

He also spoke about the murder of Tonderai Ndira, 32, one of Zimbabwe's
best-known political activists, whose body was found along with those of
several colleagues near a Zimbabwe National Army base outside Harare that
has often been used as a torture centre.

The men, who had all disappeared in the past 10 days, are thought to have
been grabbed from their houses at night or pulled from vehicles by plain
clothes officers in pick-up trucks.

While Mr Tsvangirai was speaking, news came through via messages delivered
to mobile phones that the bodies of two more activists had been found in the
same area.

It was also announced that the MDC's newly elected MP Iain Kay was refused
bail at the magistrate's court in Marondera, 45 miles south-east of Harare.

Mr Kay, who was arrested last week and accused of "inciting violence", will
have to wait for two more weeks in the filthy Marondera prison before he can
hope to be released.

Mr Kay, who used to own a farm in the area until he was violently evicted by
Mr Mugabe's supporters six years ago, has toured his constituency preaching
reconciliation, and has told voters than none of those resettled on
white-owned farms would be evicted by an MDC government.

"The regime is harassing and imprisoning members of parliament, party
administrators and many of those not yet detained by the police are in
hiding," Mr Tsvangirai said.

Without being specific, he said he hoped he had negotiated "assurances"
about his own safety during the run-up to the poll. "There are assurances,
there are measures that have taken place in order to reduce the risk, but
removing the risk does not mean risk will not exist in the future."

Mugabe will accept defeat – Mnangagwa

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com

May 25, 2008

REDCLIFF – President Robert Mugabe’s chief election agent, Emmerson
Mnangagwa, has ruled out any likelihood that the Zanu-PF leader will refuse
to vacate office in the event he loses the forthcoming presidential election
run-off.

Mnangagwa said Mugabe was an honourable statesman who respects the will of
the people. He said any fears that he might attempt to stage a coup in the
event of electoral defeat were far-fetched.

Mnangagwa, who was addressing a Zimbabwe Union of Journalists-organised
official launch of a national association of press clubs in Redcliff
Saturday, said it would not be the first time Mugabe would have lost an
election. He said Mugabe lost a constitutional referendum in February 2000
“and accepted defeat with grace”.

But he was quick to add that Mugabe was not contemplating defeat in the run
off, now set for June 27.

“We are very, very confident we will win this election,” Mnangagwa said. “We
have lost before. In February 2000, we lost and accepted defeat. If the
President loses, we will be the first to go on national television to say we
accept the verdict of the people. He is a very principled hero.”

Mnangagwa said he himself had lost his Kwekwe seat twice in a row and
accepted defeat. Mnangagwa lost the 2000 parliamentary election and lost
again in 2005 to the MDC’s Blessing Chebundo. On March 29, he finally won a
parliamentary seat, Chirumanzu/Zibagwe, a rural constituency created after
the expansion of Parliament from 120 electable seats to 210.

“I have lost twice here and accepted,” Mnangagwa said.

“You can see how mature we are. Once ZEC (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission)
announces the result and the President has lost, I am the chief election
agent, I will go to him and say, ‘Mr President you have lost’, straight. We
brought democracy. We must defend it.”

Mnangagwa said statements made by Mugabe that he will never allow Tsvangirai
to rule Zimbabwe, had been taken out of context by the media.

Mugabe has said “never, never, ever will we allow Tsvangirai to rule,”
ostensibly because that would be tantamount to recolonisation. Mnangagwa
said it was a metaphorical statement.

“He believes that will not happen, because he believes he will win,” he
said.
He denied that Zanu-PF had, as a matter of policy, sanctioned the violence
currently engulfing the country but admitted that there was escalating post
election violence. He said the issue had been discussed in Cabinet. He said
Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi had denied ever sanctioning the violence.

“We are very grateful to our people that they held the election in peace,”
he said. “But after the election we had skirmishes in the three Mashonaland
provinces and in Manicaland. We promote the concept of peace. In fact we are
Christians. We believe in peace. This should be the culture everywhere -
runyararo (peace) throughout.”

Mnangagwa denied press reports suggesting that he was now heading the Joint
Operations Command, a think-tank of top security service chiefs coordinating
the day-today running of the country, including the post-election terror
campaign.
He said the last time he headed a security division was in February 1988.

“I was secretary for security for 14 years during and after the war, a post
I relinquished in February 1988,” he said.

Mnangagwa said after that he was Justice minister for 12 years and later
Speaker of Parliament for five years.

“I see it in the press but it’s not true. The JOC is chaired by minister
(Didymus) Mutasa. I don’t sit in JOC. I am the Rural Housing and Social
Amenities minister.”

Mnangagwa refused to comment on threats made by army generals that they
would not hand over power to Tsvangirai even if he won the run off because
he did not have liberation war credentials.

“I cannot speak on behalf of the generals,” he said. “But this has nothing
to do with Zanu-PF. Those were individual statements. You should ask them. I
don’t know if it was individualistic or is it collective.”

Mnangagwa said Zanu-PF was not against the idea of a government of national
unity (GNU) with the MDC but said the official position was that discussions
on the GNU could only be held after the legal process of elections had gone
through. He claimed the MDC had approached Zanu-PF with the proposal.
Mnangagwa, a lawyer by profession, said Zanu-PF did not foresee any
constitutional crisis in the event Mugabe wins and presides over an MDC-led
Parliament.

He said at law, if the lower House, where the MDC has the majority seats,
rejects a bill and the Senate, where Zanu-PF hold the majority by virtue of
non constituency seats, assents, there was a legal provision that both
houses sit together and the issue brought to a vote. He said Mugabe could
also invoke presidential powers, or recall a bill and reintroduce it after
six months, according to the law.

Mnangagwa said if Mugabe won the election, he would focus more on
deregulation of the economy such as the recent move by government to
liberalise the exchange rate. He said that Zanu-PF would “need lines of
credit from both bilateral and multilateral institutions” but said the party
would first call for the lifting of sanctions, which he blamed for the
current economic crisis.

He claimed sanctions were imposed because Zanu-PF had repossessed land from
white commercial farmers. He denied that the regime of sanctions was
targeted at the Zanu-PF leadership. He insisted that the sanctions were
actually punitive and were hurting the economy.

He denied harbouring presidential ambitions, and said he was number 13 in
the Zanu-PF line of succession. Mnangagwa said the succession issue in
Zanu-PF would be discussed at congress in December 2009.

At past congresses Zanu-PF has not discussed this issue. Mugabe has been
allowed to impose his leadership on the party.

Mugabe fights for survival with start of campaign

Yahoo News

by Fanuel Jongwe

HARARE (AFP) - With his rival back in the country, Zimbabwe's President
Robert Mugabe fought for his political survival Sunday as he kicked off his
election campaign.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai arrived home Saturday after a
six-week absence vowing to end the three decade rule of post-independence
leader Mugabe in a run-off election scheduled for June 27.

Despite fears of an assassination plot and the threat of treason charges,
Tsvangirai returned to Zimbabwe looking relaxed and launched into a
blistering attack on Mugabe who has presided over the economic collapse of
the country.

Mugabe was set to deliver his first official campaign speech in Harare on
Sunday in which he is expected to tear into Tsvangirai and his Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party with his habitual fiery rhetoric.

Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa set the tone when he linked the
opposition to colonial-era enemies Britain and white farmers -- but he
admitted that the ruling ZANU-PF party was now fighting for survival.

"We are now fighting with our backs to the wall," he told the state-owned
Sunday Mail newspaper.

Former trade union leader Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a first round of
voting on March 29, but not by enough to secure an outright victory.

He had been abroad since shortly after a first round of elections on March
29, lobbying regional leaders to pressure Mugabe into hold elections under
the watchful eye of regional peacekeepers and election observers.

Both the MDC and ZANU-PF were scheduled to hold rallies on Sunday.

The aftermath of the disputed first-round polls, the results of which were
delayed by nearly five weeks, has been marked by violence that the
opposition claims is designed to rig the run-off.

Rights groups and the United Nations have said the attacks are being
directed at followers of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
with pro-government militias accused of a campaign of terror in the
countryside.

On his return on Saturday, Tsvangirai made clear his position on several
lingering questions.

Firstly, he rejected the idea of a coalition government with Mugabe, which
some have suggested would allow the 84-year-old leader a graceful exit and
prevent further violence.

And he called for regional peacekeepers and election monitors from regional
body the Southern African Development Community to be deployed by June 1.

"I am hoping that on Tuesday when they (SADC) meet they will be able to
concretise but I told them by the 1st of June you should put these people on
the ground otherwise we don't need them," he said.

"You can't have peacekeepers and observers two weeks before an election they
will not be of any benefit."

No Western monitors were allowed to oversee the first ballot and teams from
SADC and the African Union were widely criticised for giving it a largely
clean bill of health.

Tsvangirai is threatened by a treason charge after he was accused of
plotting to overthrow Mugabe with connivance from former colonial power
Britain in April.

Tsvangirai, who was beaten unconscious while in police custody in March last
year, has faced treason charges on two previous occasions.

He had twice announced his intention to return to Zimbabwe only to delay the
move and his long absence from the country ahead of the June 27 run-off had
begun to raise questions about his leadership qualities.

Tsvangirai had announced he would return last Saturday, but pulled out at
the last minute, citing an assassination plot.

New hope as Tsvangirai returns

Zimbabwe Today

The opposition leader defies death threats to witness the suffering of his
supporters.

Dismissing growing accusations of cowardice, Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of
Zimbabwe's oppositon, was back home in Harare yesterday, Saturday, and
seeing for himself the results of the systematic programme of terror
instituted against his people by Mugabe's Zanu-PF militia.

Tsvangiria, leader of the opposition Movement for Demcratic Change (MDC) and
winner of the recent parliamentary and presidential elections, toured the
wards of a private clinic where dozens of wounded MDC activisits are
struggling to recover.

He came to bring words of comfort, but was met by strong assurances of
continued support by the victims.

Two elderly brothers - August (66) and Beson Jemidzi (54) - occupying
adjacent beds, told him: "Kurova Zvavo asi tinemi!" (They might beat us but
we are behind you." Neither men are yet able to walk.

Runyararo Mugauyi, 27, also confined to bed with appalling wounds to both
buttocks after being attacked by Zanu-PF thugs in Chaona, Chiweshe, in
Mashonaland Central, told Tsvangirai: "I need someone to carry me back home
so I can vote the old man (Mugabe) out."

After his visit, Tsvangirai told a media conference that he had been
inspired by the heroic suffering of the victims, and by their determination
to fight on.

Earlier tight security was in place for his arrival at Harare airport, and
on the journey into town. Police had set up two road-blocks on the route,
but his party was allowed through after only a basic check.

He later told reporters that during his stay out of the country he had met
many leaders of countries in the region, and he predicted that the Southern
African Development Community (SADC) would convene a summit shortly to
discuss the situation in Zimbabwe.

He said it was vital that the SADC and the African Union (AU) have observers
in the country from the first days of next month, to monitor events in the
run-up to the new presidential election on June 27.

He also dismissed any possibility of a government of national unity, and
denied that any secret talks were taking place between Zanu-PF and the MDC.

He claimed that the recent attacks on Zimbabwean emmigrants in South Africa
can be directly attributed to Mugabe's repression. "His policies have forced
thousands to flee their ancestral homes to find refuge in South Africa. Now,
however, instead of a safe-haven, our people in the South African diaspora
face even more death and destruction."

Posted on Sunday, 25 May 2008 at 06:34

Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF scoffs at Tsvangirai

ninemsn, Australia

19:25 AEST Sun May 25 2008
Zimbabwe's ruling party scoffed at the return of opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai after his more than six-week absence as a non-event.

"Tsvangirai does not worry us at all," Justice Minister and ruling ZANU-PF
spokesman Patrick Chinamasa was quoted as saying by the state-owned Sunday
Mail newspaper.

"His return means nothing to us."

Chinamasa made the remarks ahead of the official launch of Mugabe's
presidential run-off campaign at the ruling party headquarters in the
capital.

He said Mugabe, who lost to Tsvangirai in the first poll on March 29 which
failed to produce an outright winner, was going into the second round "much,
much stronger" and conceded divisions in ZANU-PF contributed to the loss of
its majority in parliament for the first time in 28 years.

"It's true that we went into the March 29 elections a divided party, but we
are all now rallying behind the President (Mugabe)," Chinamasa told the
newspaper.

"After the March 29 elections we got a taste of what is to come if the MDC-T
(Tsvangirai) gets into power.

"You saw the attempted invasion of farms by former white commercial farmers
and you saw the arrogance of these white farmers. It was clear that the
British and the Americans are behind the MDC.

"So we are now fighting with our backs to the wall. Now people see the
danger of losing power to a surrogate of people we fought yesterday.

"Our machinery has been well-oiled and we are ready to win the June 27
presidential run-off."

The ruling party consistently links the opposition to white farmers and
Britain, the two enemies of the past from the country's colonial history.

ZESN contiues to receive distressing reports on Observers attacks

The Zimbabwean

Sunday, 25 May 2008 06:14

ZESN contiues to receive distressing reports on Observers attacks
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) continues to receive
distressing reports on observers being attacked.
As the retribution attacks continue throughout the country with
disturbing reports of alleged abductions, torture and subsequent murders of
political activists since the announcement of the Presidential results, ZESN
is alarmed with the continued attacks targeted at domestic observers a few
weeks before the critical second election pencilled for the 27th of June
2008.
Some ZESN observers have received threats, physical attacks, homes
have been burnt, property destroyed, crops burnt and some have been denied
medication after severe attacks.
On 21 May 2008, ZESN received three worrying cases of its observers
having been severely tortured at the hands of known ZANU PF militia in Mt
Darwin East, Mutyandaedza village, after which they were transported to Mt
Darwin District Hospital for medication, only to be denied proper care and
attention.
The three, two men and an elderly woman all ZESN observers suffered
fractured arms, fractured fingers, deep cuts and bruises from severe
beatings.  Such inhuman and degrading treatment by well known ZANU PF youths
in the area is a mockery to calls for peace and calm ahead of the runoff by
the leaders of ZANU PF and the police.
Furthermore, displaced ZESN observers who had been accommodated at a
safe house in Harare were raided and dumped at Mbare bus terminus on the
20th of May 2008 by the police. These observers from Muzarabani, Mt Darwin,
Shamva and Mudzi had ran away from their homes following threats,
harassments and arson attacks on their properties.
In Mutoko South, the family of a ZESN staff member was harassed and
beaten by suspected ZANU PF youths in the area for their association with a
member of an election observation group.
ZESN appeals to the police, political parties and traditional leaders
to educate and tell their structures to stop political violence.

Preaching peace during the Day & Abducting, Murdering at Night

High Cost of Dying

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Planning ahead, even for one’s own funeral, is increasingly difficult in
Zimbabwe’s second city.

By Yamikani Mwando in Bulawayo (ZCR No. 147, 24-May-08)

Moses Ndlovu leads the discussion as a group of men plan their future – or
to be more precise, their own funerals. They belong to one of many “burial
societies” in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, gathering at a local beer
hall once a month to pool money to pay for the elaborate rituals required
when death befalls one of their number.

Ndlovu has been a burial society member since the Seventies, but these days
he worries that spiralling inflation is undermining the viability of the
system.

The societies deposit funds in a local bank where the interest accrued
should cover the costs in the event that one member dies. But that only
worked well when the Zimbabwean economy was still stable, a decade or more
ago.

“Funeral costs are rising each week,” Ndlovu told IWPR, “and no matter how
much you put in, you are likely to be buried like a pauper.”

He estimated that the cheapest, most modest funeral available was priced at
six times the monthly wage of the highest earners in his burial society.

With annual inflation estimated to be over 350,000 per cent, one way of
keeping a burial society in funds is to require contributions to keep pace
with a more stable currency than Zimbabwe’ own dollar.

Since the beginning of May, when exchange rate controls were lifted, the
national currency has plummeted from an official rate of tens of thousands
to the US dollar to hundreds of million. Until then, almost everyone used
the black market anyway, on which the Zimbabwean dollar was already hugely
devalued.

“We do not know what to do,” said Japhet Khumalo, who chairs a Bulawayo
burial society and works as foreman in one of the few firms that remain in
business in a city once known as the country’s industrial hub.

“There were suggestions that we peg our monthly [burial society]
subscriptions to the South African rand to cushion us from the ever-rising
funeral costs, but members resisted it because not many have access to that
kind of money.”

Planning for the future has become a headache in a country where mortality
rates have been exacerbated by HIV/AIDS and anti-retroviral drugs are hard
to come by. The World Health Organisation estimates that one in four
Zimbabwean adults is living with HIV. Life expectancy for men has dropped to
37 while that for women is down to 34, whereas before the pandemic,
Zimbabweans could expect to live to 60.

For many families, a lifeline for surviving Zimbabwe’s continuing economic
implosion comes from relatives who send money home from abroad.

However, the spreading xenophobic attacks of the past fortnight in
neighbouring South Africa, where an estimated three million Zimbabweans live
and work, could threaten this income flow.

Nearly 50 people from other parts of Africa, including Zimbabwe, have been
killed, hundreds injured and 25,000 displaced from their homes in South
Africa. Even Zimbabweans who have lived in townships for years have had to
flee to safety at police stations.

The violence has deterred some people from leaving in search of work in
South Africa.

Fireman Pilate Gampu complains about his pitifully low wages, but would not
think of moving south at the moment. “I will stay here. For me death is not
an option,” he said.

The cross border traders who usually make regular trips to Johannesburg to
buy wares for resale back in Bulawayo have also been put off.

“I can’t risk going down south now,” said a woman who runs a stall in one of
the city’s many flea markets.

But economic hardship in Zimbabwe may also encourage those already in the
diaspora to try to stick it out.

“I spoke to people this week holed up in some church in Johannesburg, and
they say they are better off being hunted down in South Africa than failing
to feed their families back in Zimbabwe,” said Effie Ncube, executive
director of the Matebeleland Centre for Empowerment, Democracy and Human
Rights.

The steady impoverishment of Zimbabweans is making it impossible for Ndlovu
and other burial society members to make provision for the future.

“We will be eaten by vultures when we die,” said the white-haired Ndlovu.
“It is difficult to plan for things we took for granted in the past. If we
cannot plan for [death], it means we cannot plan for anything.”

Yamikani Mwando is the pseudonym of a reporter in Bulawayo.

Zimbabwe Needs Good Neighbors

VOA

Editorial reflecting the views of the US Govt

23 May 2008

Zimbabwe needs help. Its economy is in shambles, with an unemployment rate
of eighty per cent, and an inflation rate of one-hundred-sixty-five-thousand
percent. Food, fuel and other essentials are scarce. Millions of Zimbabweans
have left the country, and many more are trying to. Politically-motivated
violence against those perceived as supporting the opposition is rampant.

The problems are dire and need immediate attention.

The disputed presidential election in March has left the country in
political limbo. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirei claimed victory with
just over fifty per cent of the vote, while the Zimbabwe Election
Commission, controlled by the government of President Robert Mugabe,
released results that give neither candidate a majority of votes. A second
round of elections, set for June 27, has been announced by the Election
Commission. In the meantime, supporters of the majority party ZANU-PF have
unleashed a reign of intimidation and violence against opposition activists
and supporters. A number of political opponents of the current regime have
been arrested. Many fear that the violence will intensify as the June
election draws closer.

The United States and other Western countries have repeatedly expressed
support for African organizations and individual African states, stepping up
and pressing for an end to the country’s political crisis. U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice said that regional organizations, such as the African
Union and the Southern African Development Community, need to take the lead:

"It’s time for Africa to step up. Where is the concern from the African
Union, and from Zimbabwe’s neighbors, about what’s going on in Zimbabwe?"

Zimbabwe’s neighbors should strengthen efforts to insist that the Government
of Zimbabwe stop all attacks against opposition supporters. They should help
end the political impasse by closely monitoring the upcoming election, and
then by insisting that the will of the people of Zimbabwe, as reflected by
their vote, be implemented with all due haste. Only then can Zimbabwe, and
its neighbors, move on.

South Africa immigrant violence leaves 25,000 displaced

AFP

1 hour ago

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) — An anti-immigrant backlash in South Africa stretched
into a third week Sunday amid mounting concern over 25,000 foreigners who
have fled the violence.

The Red Cross in South Africa has said it is caring for 25,000 destitute
people who had been driven from their homes around Johannesburg and
Pretoria, the hotspot of the unrest which has left at least 42 dead over the
past two weeks.

Thousands have left makeshift homes in slum areas to shelter at police
stations, community centres and churches where they are being cared for by
aid groups providing tents, blankets and food.

Sunday newspapers made for alarming reading, with The Sunday Times
headlining with "It's a State of Emergency" and The Sunday Independent
front-page announcing "Ethnic Cleansing, SA Style."

Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, warned
Saturday of the danger of illness among the displaced and said the
government needed to make a decision on how victims would be looked after.

A growing humanitarian crisis was also reported in Cape Town in the Western
Cape province where attacks spread for the first time last week.

Cape Town spokesman Billy Jones said there had been lootings across the
province on Friday night and Saturday morning, forcing foreigners to flee
and leave their property unattended.

"We had 200 arrests related to the lootings. It happened everywhere, mob
style, people go into the premises and just start taking stuff," he told
AFP.

"People out of fear just vacated their property voluntarily."

Vimla Pillay, executive director of the Trauma Centre, an organisation
providing counselling to victims in Cape Town, says the victims are
devastated.

"They had high hopes about South Africa, but many of them are saying they
want to go to other countries," she added, estimating that about 10,000
people were displaced in the area.

National police were unable to comment on the situation overnight Sunday,
but the intensity of the violence has declined since last weekend, when
armed mobs were conducting door-to-door searches looking for foreigners.

At least 42 people have been killed and more than 500 arrested since the
unrest broke out in a Johannesburg slum area nearly two weeks ago before
spreading to seven of the country's nine provinces.

President Thabo Mbeki, facing increasing criticism of his handling of the
crisis, bowed to pressure to call in troops on Wednesday after a request for
support from the embattled police force.

He called the violence a "humiliating disgrace for our nation" on Saturday
as more than 2,000 people marched in central Johannesburg to protest against
xenophobia.

The army, which has stressed throughout that it is supporting the police,
announced Saturday that soldiers had killed a man in a slum area east of
Johannesburg in a clash on Friday.

"We unfortunately had an incident where a member of the public was shot when
he pointed a firearm at a soldier. He was shot dead," army spokesman General
Kwena Mangope told AFP.

The latest incident was an unfortunate echo of the country's apartheid past
when troops were frequently called upon to help police put down civil unrest
by blacks in poor townships during protests against the country's white
regime.

Soldiers were sent on to Johannesburg's streets on Thursday for the first
time since the end of apartheid in 1994. They have been providing logistical
support and back-up during search and arrest operations.

Foreigners in South Africa, many of whom have fled economic meltdown in
neighbouring Zimbabwe, are being blamed for sky-high crime rates and
depriving locals of jobs.

The unrest is seen as a result of policy failures to address critical
housing shortages, illegal immigration and the poverty-ridden conditions in
the slum areas that surround South Africa's cities.

Bishop answers refugee prayers

Scotland on Sunday

Published Date: 25 May 2008
By Kevin Kane
in Johannesburg
IMMIGRANTS fleeing South Africa's horrific anti-foreigner violence, with
images seared in their minds of people being burned alive, have searched
desperately for sanctuary from the mob over the past nine days.
Some 2,000, most of them Zimbabweans, have found refuge in a church in
central Johannesburg, the headquarters of a Methodist bishop who became
famous two decades ago when Winnie Mandela's notorious bodyguard, the
Mandela United Football Club, was killing and torturing people in the black
township of Soweto.

Bishop Paul Verryn has opened the doors of the huge Central Methodist Church
to people fleeing their blazing homes and the machetes of their assailants,
arguing: "As Christians we pray for the poor. Therefore we cannot chase them
away when they need our help.

"These people are our brothers and sisters. We can't leave them on the
streets. They also are human and we will help them."

The refugees from the killing are camped head to toe on the stairwells and
in the passages, doorways, offices and other rooms, including the vestry, of
the four floors of the church building, which is also the provincial
administrative headquarters of the Methodist Church.

The stench of unwashed bodies in a building with limited ablutions is
overpowering. Everywhere, except in the pews in the area of worship,
exhausted people camp on the floors, wrapped in whatever they could salvage
to ward of the intense cold.

Doctors from the charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) run a small clinic
from the church, ministering to the wounded and the sick, who report
particularly with TB and other Aids-related infections. MSF's medical
coordinator in South Africa, Dr Eric Goemaere, said: "We have also been
treating gunshot wounds, head traumas, wounds resulting from beatings,
lacerations, burns and other violence-related injuries."

Mobs have twice tried to storm the church in the past week to get at the
terrified migrants. Outside they grabbed a deaf mute Zimbabwean known only
as Tarro and deeply gashed the top of his head with a machete.

As he tended the bewildered Tarro's wounds, Herbert Nedi, a young medical
student working with MSF, said: "It was clear he did not have a clue what
they (the mob] were talking about. He doesn't understand what is going on."

One angry Zimbabwean who has found shelter in Verryn's haven asked: "Is this
how South Africans are going to treat foreigners when they come here for the
World Cup?"

Identifying himself only as Charles, he went on: "This is a shit country.
It's to the shame of the rest of the world that they are allowing the World
Cup to take place here. South Africans seem to think that no one's life is
precious."

South Africa is scheduled to host the 2010 World Cup in several of its
cities, including Johannesburg.

Bryan Burayai, a 25-year-old migrant from Zimbabwe, said he and his brother
were beaten up in their home in a Johannesburg township after a Zulu mob
asked them if they knew the Zulu word for "elbow". When they could not
answer they were severely beaten but managed to flee to the Central
Methodist Church. "I thought I would be safe here because Mugabe is a serial
killer. But these locals are just as bad."

Verryn said: "This is a dreadfully shameful time for South Africa, so
disgraceful… It is war."

Verryn, 56, was a famous participant in the struggle against apartheid. As a
young white Afrikaner minister, he served the Orlando West Methodist Church
in Soweto, just a short distance from Winnie Mandela's home. Verryn lived in
a manse attached to his Soweto church and does so to this day.

Verryn was the first white minister to be placed in a black township by the
Methodist Church. He had a courageous record, preaching against apartheid
and police brutality, and he was popular in the black community. He spoke
his defiance of apartheid by conducting funerals of blacks and whites who
had died at the hands of the police and covert government death squads: it
was enough to make him a possible target of the government's licensed
killers.

But instead the attack came from Winnie Mandela. Verryn's manse acted as a
safe house for 40 anti-apartheid activists at a time who were in hiding
before being smuggled out of the country to join the exiled African National
Congress (ANC). Verryn's many township projects were also attracting
international funds away from Mandela and her football cub.

Consumed by jealousy, she launched an elaborate, ultimately unsuccessful,
sting operation against Verryn, trying to brand him a gay seducer of
township boys. When the sting failed, she sent her football club to raid the
minister's manse. Among the ANC activists kidnapped was 14-year-old Stompie
Moeketsi, who Winnie Mandela beat up so badly that the boy subsequently died
from brain damage and multiple stabbings. In a sensational trial in 1991
Mandela was sentenced to six years imprisonment for the kidnap and assault
of Stompie: as the result of an apparent political fix, her sentence was
reduced on appeal to Rand 15,000, worth £3,000 at the time.

Verryn testified at South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation hearings in 1997
that he had never forgiven himself for failing to protect Stompie. His voice
broke into a sob as he looked directly at Mandela and said to her: "I have
been profoundly hurt by the things you have said about me. I have struggled
to forgive you even if you do not want forgiveness. I am struggling for the
sake of this nation and the people whom I believe God loves so deeply. I
long for our reconciliation."

More than 500 people in the Johannesburg hall where the hearing took place
stood and applauded Verryn. Mandela refused his offer of reconciliation.

Verryn hit new troubles two years ago when he opened the doors of the
Central Methodist Church to give shelter to more than 800 homeless
Zimbabweans.

But many of his South African congregants complained that Verryn had taken
his deep-seated belief in Christian charity too far. They complained that
the House of God was being used as a refugee camp where alcoholism,
prostitution and violence flourished. "Our church has become a slum, a
pigsty," said one of Verryn's junior pastors. "People are having sex in the
church and women are falling pregnant and delivering babies. What kind of a
church is that? How can we worship God in such a dirty place?"

Verryn lost some of his flock but persuaded others that opening the church
doors is what the founder of the Christian church would have done in similar
circumstances.

Today, as attacks against foreigners continue and as the South African
government dithers about how it will find homes for the tens of thousands of
Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Malawians, Somalis, Tanzanians and others made
homeless by the waves of xenophobic attacks, Verryn said: "I think that it
is impossible to be the body of Christ and not to have scars and I think if
a building represents Christ it's going to have scars.

"But I must say quite honestly I don't know how one can call oneself
Christian and not engage with this. One way is to see this (the
anti-foreigner pogroms] as a huge problem, and a problem obviously that one
wants to get rid of. The other way of seeing it is a unique opportunity for
us to become true neighbours."

By late Friday, more than 42 foreigners were known to have been killed in
the attacks which spread to Cape Town and Durban. Hundreds had been wounded,
many of them severely, and tens of thousands had been made homeless.

• A South African soldier shot and killed a man after he had pointed a gun
at him, the defence force said yesterday. Brigadier General Kwena Mangope
said that soldiers supporting police east of Johannesburg had approached the
man after seeing him assaulting a woman on Friday night.

Hunted down and burnt alive for being a migrant