Still no president for Zimbabwe

Radio Netherlands

Published: Thursday 01 May 2008 19:55 UTC
Last updated: Thursday 01 May 2008 20:50 UTC
Harare - In Zimbabwe it is still not clear who won the presidential
elections held at the end of March. A closed meeting of the election
commission and representatives of the presidential candidates has broken up
without any agreements.

The commission made it known during the meeting that opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai, with 47.8 percent, had won the most votes. President
Robert Mugabe had won 43.2 percent. The commission's rules state that a
second round is now needed, because nobody has obtained an absolute
majority.

But opposition party MDC says that according to its own count, its leader Mr
Tsvangirai has won more that 50 percent of the votes and therefore, for this
reason, is refusing to take part in a second round. The commission responded
by saying that if Mr Tsvangirai refuses to follow the rules, then Mr Mugabe
can remain as president.

The commission will meet tomorrow to decide what further steps to take.

Zim second ballot planned for end of May

Zim Online

by Patricia Mpofu Friday 02 May 2008

HARARE – Zimbabwe on Thursday began verifying results of last month’s
presidential election, as sources told ZimOnline that plans were already
underway to hold a run-off poll between President Robert Mugabe and
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai at the end of May.

Tsvangirai has insisted that no run-off is required because he won the March
29 ballot outright but ruling ZANU PF party and independent observers – who
acknowledge Mugabe lost to Tsvangirai – say the opposition leader won with
less than 50 percent of the vote, warranting a second ballot to settle the
contest.

A senior ZEC official, who agreed to speak on condition he was not named,
said it was going to take probably up to a week before verification is
completed and a final result announced but said the commission was looking
to staging a run-off election in the last week of May.

“It is going to be more than a week to have the final result,” said the
official. “But what we are preparing for is a run-off election that should
be held in the last week of May.”

ZEC deputy chief elections officer Utoile Silagwana refused to comment on
the possibility of a run-off election at the end of May insisting that
“everything is going to depend on the pace of the verification process.”

Zimbabwe’s Electoral Act prescribes that in the event that none of the
contests in a presidential election is able to garner more than 50 percent
of the vote at the first instance, a run-off poll should take place 21 days
after announcement of official results of the first round ballot.

Although there are no official results of the presidential ballot, political
parties and the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) had
been able to project the likely outcome of the vote using figures that were
posted outside individual polling stations.

ZESN and ZANU PF agreed in principle that none of the contestants took more
than 50 percent of the vote while Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) party differed saying from its calculations its leader won with
50.3 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a run-off poll.

Speculation by local and international media suggested that a second round
election was needed because Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe but fell a shade
lower than 50 percent of the vote.

Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga told the media on Thursday that
from the government’s calculations no one took more than 50 percent of the
vote and that a run-off poll was needed in accordance with the law.

"As far as I'm concerned, there is going to be a runoff. We have got our own
results," he said without disclosing what those results were.

Tsvangirai’s MDC won 99 seats in a parallel parliamentary poll while a
faction of the party led by Arthur Mutambara-led took 10 seats to bring the
total number of seats controlled by the opposition party to 109 out of the
210-member House of Assembly.

An independent candidate won one seat while ZANU PF, which had controlled
Parliament since Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence took 97 seats. Three
constituencies where voting could not take place will hold by-elections at a
yet unknown date.

The ZEC’s failure to release presidential election results has touched off a
tense stalemate that analysts fear could lead to violence and bloodshed,
while the United States has threatened sanctions over delays to issue
results.

The MDC has accused Mugabe of delaying results to use the time to unleash
violence and terror on voters in bid to cow them to support him in the
second round run-off ballot.

The MDC says at least 20 of its supporters have been murdered while another
5 000 have been displaced in the violence, which it the opposition party has
described as a war being waged by state security forces and ZANU PF
militants against Zimbabweans. – ZimOnline.

10 MDC supporters arrested

Zim Online

by Own Correspondent Friday 02 May 2008

HARARE – Zimbabwe police on Thursday arrested 10 opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party supporters in Harare and Bindura for allegedly
commiting political violence, including kidnapping and attempted murder.

"We arrested four people who are alleged to have abducted a soldier in
Chipadze township in Bindura and another six in Harare in connection with
the burning of a bus," said police spokesman Andrew Phiri.

"Police are still investigating the cases and some of the suspects have
appeared in court."

The six who were accused of burning a bus in Harare during last month’s
failed MDC stay-away were on Wednesday remanded in custody when they
appeared before a magistrate's court on public violence charges.

In the farming and mining town of Bindura, four opposition supporters face
charges of kidnapping and attempted murder after they allegedly bundled a
soldier into a car they were driving in the township and headed for an
unknown destination.

Phiri said, "The soldier managed to jump out of the vehicle but he was
seriously injured and is still in hospital."

Scores of opposition activists have been arrested in the aftermath of
Zimbabwe's March 29 general elections in which President Robert Mugabe’s
ruling ZANU PF party lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in
28 years when it garnered 97 seats compared to 110 won by the MDC and other
minor opposition candidates.

The MDC accuses the police of applying the law selectively targetting
opposition supporters for arrest while truning a blind eye on ZANU PF
activists who according to the MDC have committed the most violence since
the elections.

The MDC says at least 15 of its supporters have been murdered while another
3 000 have been displaced in politically motivated violence, which the
opposition party has described as a war being waged by state security forces
and ZANU PF militants against Zimbabweans. – ZimOnline

Lord Soames would feel vindicated

With Presidential Run-Off Mooted, Violence Rages In Zimbabwean Provinces

VOA

By Jonga Kandemiiri
Washington
01 May 2008

Post-election violence continued in Zimbabwe's hinterland on Thursday even
as the country's electoral authority convened presidential candidates and
their agents for consultations on the outcome, which pointed to a
presidential run-off ballot.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission told representatives of presidential
candidates in the March 29 elections that opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai received 47.8% of the vote, short of a majority, against
President Robert Mugabe's 43.2% share.

Officials of Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party said a run-off election would be
necessary, but Tsvangirai's formation of the Movement for Democratic Change
insisted that he won the election outright, if by a narrow margin, rejecting
the idea of a run-off.

Many observers believe a presidential run-off election would be accompanied
by even worse violence than seen to date, and the U.S. government said that
with a campaign of "state-orchestrated violence" under way, such an election
could not be fair.

Sources in Mashonaland Central Province said violence continued to escalate
there as ZANU-PF youth militia members burned the houses of opposition
members.

Mashonaland Central sources said homes were torched in Bushu, in Shamva
South constituency, and at Butter Farm, in Bindura North constituency.

From the Makoni South constituency of Manicaland Province, sources reported
that a headmaster at the Chakumba Primary School there was battling for life
after being assaulted by ZANU-PF militants on Thursday afternoon.

In Mutare, capital of Manicaland Province, the body of opposition activist
Thabitha Marume, shot dead by ZANU-PF militia members last week in the town
of Rusape, was collected from a local mortuary and was to be buried on
Friday, sources said.

The U.S. Embassy provided evidence of alleged state-sponsored political
violence and human rights abuses to the government. Senior officials of the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change say 20 of their members have been
murdered.

Police arrested 10 opposition activists in Harare and Bindura, Mashonaland
Central Province, on charges of public violence. Those arrested in Bindura
were accused of kidnapping a soldier by forcing him into their vehicle.

The state-controlled Herald newspaper quoted police as saying the soldier
escaped with injuries and was hospitalized for treatment.

Speaking from Bindura, opposition member Saymore Mhene told VOA reporter
Jonga Kandemiiri that police are arresting MDC members who report incidents
of violence.

We must support the people of Zimbabwe

The Guardian,
Friday May 2 2008
Letter
We are very concerned at the deepening crisis in Zimbabwe and at the pace at
which matters of utmost constitutional importance are progressing (Zimbabwe
braced for presidential run-off, May 1). The people of Zimbabwe have
expressed their democratic will for the future of their country. They have
the right to see it announced and implemented as a matter of the most urgent
priority. The continuing delay has thrown a shadow over an electoral process
and casts doubt on the integrity of the authorities charged with
implementation. Post-election violence has already compromised any
continuing electoral process; to inspire confidence all electoral processes
must be transparent and must operate within the framework of the
constitution.

We call upon all who can bring influence to bear to ensure that the rule of
law is upheld. This includes the right of all the people of Zimbabwe to cast
their votes free of coercion by threat of violence, forcible removal or
detention. It also includes the right to see their vote at the ballot box
transformed into a democratically elected and accountable government. The
world is united in admiration for the patience of the people of Zimbabwe in
pursuing the democratic path to renew their country. However, the patience
of the world is running out in waiting for their wishes to be honoured by
the current government of Zimbabwe.

Václav Havel
Doris Lessing
Bill Morris
David Puttnam
Kenneth Roth (Human Rights Watch)

Crackdown on Zimbabwe NGOS Widens; Humanitarian Worker Assaulted

VOA

By Carole Gombakomba
Washington
01 May 2008

A crackdown on Zimbabwean non-governmental organizations intensified
Thursday as police raids on NGO offices and interrogations of civil society
leaders were followed by the assault of a humanitarian worker, sending her
to the hospital.

The National Association of Non-Governmental Organizations said the employee
of Plan International was seriously injured and hospitalized after being
assaulted by war veterans in Mashonaland East Province, a focus of
post-election violence.

The precise circumstances of the attack could not immediately be determined.

Observers say the governing ZANU-PF party has mobilized veterans of the
liberation war and its youth militia to punish rural communities which voted
for the opposition in March 29 elections and to prepare the ground for a
presidential runoff. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change won
control of the lower house of parliament and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai
outpolled President Robert Mugabe.

Humanitarian organizations distributing food assistance have been unable to
relaunch programs suspended before the March 29 elections due to the climate
of violence in rural areas, which have been the primary destinations for
food supplies.

Sources in Zimbabwe's NGO community said other organizations based outside
the main cities have suspended operations and rights activists have gone
underground after receiving threats from state security agents and ZANU-PF
militants.

Police are closely scrutinizing operations of the Zimbabwe Election Support
Network, Action Aid international and NANGO itself. Officials of the groups
have been interrogated following raids on their offices in recent days.

Authorities are accusing ZESN of having run afoul of Zimbabwean law by
releasing unofficial projections of the presidential election outcome.

National Coordinator Xholani Zitha of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition told
reporter Carole Gombakomba that the ZANU-PF government is harassing NGOS in
an effort to silence them ahead of what seems likely to be a call for a
presidential runoff.

White Zimbabweans bring change to Nigeria

Christian Science Monitor

Farmers kicked off their land by President Robert Mugabe have made new
lives – and raised the local standard of living – in Nigeria.
By Sarah Simpson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the May 2, 2008 edition

Shonga, Nigeria - Musa Mogadi says he is better off since "the whites" came.
He's got a new job, learned new farming skills, and he can chat on a mobile
phone while zipping around the countryside on a motorbike.

Three years ago, Mr. Mogadi got by as a subsistence farmer. But he now earns
a regular wage as a supervisor on one of this town's new commercial farms.

He's applied skills he learned from some of the two dozen white Zimbabwean
farmers who moved to Nigeria in 2005, after being kicked off their land by
President Robert Mugabe and later attracted by large parcels of land on
offer under 25-year leases and commitments of support from the Nigerian
government.

Production on his farm is now up.

"We are starting to use fertilizers," says Mogadi, explaining that he was
encouraged to buy fertilizer after seeing yield benefits on the commercial
farm. He's also started planting his maize in a more compact formation, like
the Zimbabweans, increasing production from each field planted.

Before the Zimbabweans arrived, there was no mobile phone network in the
area and so no reason to have a mobile phone. Now he and most of the other
workers have snazzy cellphones, and many have bought motorbikes imported
from China, often with a loan from their employer.

In the future, when the national power network reaches the Shonga farms,
Mogadi is looking forward to having electricity in his home and village for
the first time.

Kenny Oyewo, who works as a farm manager, thinks the lessons being learned
in Shonga should be exported across Nigeria.

"If there were at least 20 white Zimbabwean farmers in each state," says Mr.
Oyewo, "Nigeria would become one of the most rich countries in the world and
we would not even depend on our oil." Nigeria is the largest crude producer
in Africa, but despite the country's oil-wealth the majority of Nigerians
exist on just a couple of dollars a day.

Key support from a governor

Bukola Saraki, governor of Kwara State, actively pursued the Zimbabwean
farmers, approaching them through Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers Union and
paying for them to stay in a hotel in Kwara while they assessed several
proposed sites.

To date, the governor remains personally involved in the project, visiting
the farmers in their homes, taking their calls on his mobile phone and
personally stepping in to help when Nigeria's confounding – and often
corrupt – bureaucracy gets in the way.

The Zimbabwean farmers are all too aware how key Mr. Saraki's support is.

Another group of Zimbabwean farmers who set up in Nasarawa State, east of
Nigeria's capital, Abuja, are close to abandoning their Nigerian venture.

There, farmers have not had strong support from the state authorities, a
promised bridge to link their farms to the nearby capital has not been built
and agreed-upon bank loans have not materialized.

But Saraki dismisses fears that the commercial farms may stumble with the
end of his tenure in three years' time.

"I think the project has sold itself," says Saraki. "When we started there
were a lot of people who did not believe in it. But I think by now, when we
are employing about 3,000 people in Shonga, they are the ones that are going
to defend it."

Oyewo, who is a university graduate and ne w to farming, says it's not just
farm employees who are learning from the Zimbabweans. "Even local people
have been encouraged to seek advice – and get it – from the farmers," says
Oyewo.

In the long term, veterinarian Abubakar Kannike sees great potential for
collaboration to develop a new breed of dairy cow that could be exported
throughout West Africa.

"The future for us is to develop our own dairy breed mixing the hardy local
Fulani breed with the Zimbabweans' high milk-producing Jersey cows," says
Mr. Kannike.

The lessons go both ways

But the lessons aren't all being passed in one direction. The Zimbabweans
are learning how to deal with a new climate, a new way of doing things.

This area of Nigeria is a far cry from the cool sunny plateaus of Zimbabwe.
It's relentlessly hot and close enough to the Sahara to be shrouded in
dust-laden desert winds for months at a time. And in the low-lying tropics,
farmers and their families are learning to cope with malaria.

White farmer Hunter Coetzee is paying close attention to Nigeria's weather
patterns, earning a reputation among the rest of the groups as something of
a meteorologist.

One of the steepest learning curves, farmers say, has been unearthing the
hidden corrupt practices that mar Nigerian society.

"Our first year farming here, we bought our fertilizer off the market," says
farmer Irvine Reid. But when the yield was disappointing, they sent a sample
of the fertilizer off for analysis. "There was next to no fertilizer, so
little of the active ingredient in there, that we may as well not have
bothered."

But after a traumatic and often violent departure from Zimbabwe, the
commercial farmers are learning about West African hospitality. "Everyone's
been very welcoming," says Reid, "and that's really nice."

Why white Zimbabwean farmers plan to stay in Nigeria

Christian Science Monitor

Farmers who moved to Nigeria after being kicked off their farms by President
Robert Mugabe say they won't return to the land they love even if Mugabe
fails to emerge victorious in the disputed March 29 election.
By Sarah Simpson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the May 2, 2008 edition

Shonga, Nigeria - A jet carrying a herd of Jersey cows touches down at an
airstrip in the Nigerian countryside, transporting dairy cows from South
Africa.
Their new owners, a small group of white farmers from Zimbabwe, watch as the
herd clip-clops down the gangplank. The farmers casually contemplate flying
back to homes they lost to President Robert Mugabe's supporters. But
whatever the outcome of Zimbabwe's disputed presidential poll, they are not
likely to be returning to the land they love soon.

"My heart would want to go back, but my brain would say no," says Susan
Mactavish, who's spent her whole life in Africa and now lives on a
1,000-hectare (2,471-acre) farm in Nigeria's west-central Kwara State. "I've
put too much into this place to abandon it."

Zimbabwean farmer John Sawyer says he would look closely at the Zimbabwean
economy before reinvesting in farming there. Zimbabwe's infrastructure and
services have decayed as Africa's breadbasket has turned basket case with
hyper-inflation of 165,000 percent and 80 percent unemployment. The seized
farms have largely failed, and nearly half of Zimbabweans are malnourished.

"If we go back to Zimbabwe tomorrow, then it's like when we arrived here.
We'd have to start all over again," says Mr. Sawyer, who wears the khaki sun
hat and shorts that are almost a uniform for the white farmers. He goes
barefoot, even when working in the fields.

While the Zimbabwean government evicted most of the 4,000 white farmers
without compensation (some 130 were chased off in the past month), the
Nigerian government has spent millions of dollars to woo these farmers here.
In southern Africa, English and Dutch settlers tilled large farms for
hundreds of years, causing friction with local groups over ownership of the
land. But Nigeria's history is different: English colonialists never tried
to own land and race relations have never been politicized.

For the Zimbabwean farmers it's a commercial opportunity and personal
challenge. For the Nigerian government, it's a chance to tap into years of
expertise and kick-start commercial farming operations in a country of 140
million where farming has long been neglected.

Until the group of 13 arrived in Nigeria, the land they now farm was, they
say, "bush." There were a few scattered subsistence farms, no electricity,
and no mobile phone coverage. But the nearby Niger River promised unlimited
water once bore holes and irrigation systems were in place.

Three years later, Nigerian farmers have been moved to alternative land,
with compensation from the government. Boreholes have been drilled, some
13,000 hectares of land cleared, mobile phone coverage is in place, and each
farm has a house with Internet access, satellite TV, pretty gardens, pet
dogs, and swimming pools.

Though the farms have yet to turn a profit, the farmers are optimistic about
their investment. "My projected wealth is more here [in Nigeria], than what
I left behind," explains Irvine Reid, who moved here with his wife, Gayle,
and son, Callum, though their two older daughters are in South Africa. "If
everything goes to plan," he adds.

The enthusiasm from Nigerian authorities is in sharp contrast to the
government-sponsored violence that forced the farmers out of Zimbabwe. The
Reid family was repeatedly visited by large mobs performing protest dances
until one day they visited when Mrs. Reid was home alone.

"I was sat down and told that if we were not off the farm by the following
Monday, they would come back and chop off his head," she says, pointing to
her husband. Their farm is now owned by a general in the Zimbabwean Army and
commercial farming has all but ceased, say the Reids.

Despite the farmers' welcome in Nigeria, their time here has not been
without problem. The newcomers were promised that their land would be
connected to the national power grid with guaranteed 24-hour power and
irrigation to the farms. None of that has happened.

"It's frustrating," says Sawyer, of his new life in Nigeria. "Everywhere
there is a lack of regard to time. And in farming that's a major problem.
Crops won't grow if they're not in the ground on time," he says in between
shouting instructions into his walkie-talkie. "If it hadn't been for people
not understanding the timing factor, we should have been further down the
road now."

Nigerian banks, which have provided the bulk of the investment through loans
underwritten by the Kwara State government, have been slow, too. "Banks here
don't understand agriculture," says Sawyer.

Nigerian banks have little experience of lending to commercial farmers.
Though agriculture accounts for about one quarter of Nigeria's gross
domestic product, that production comes from small-scale and subsistence
farmers. Since crude oil exports took over as the bulwark of the economy in
the 1960s, food production has steadily declined.

To date, the Zimbabwean farmers say, the maize and soya yields have been
disappointing. "It's just too hot," says Reid. In Zimbabwe, Reid could
expect at least eight tonnes of yield per hectare, compared with just four
tonnes in Nigeria.

"And in Zimbabwe, the inputs [such as fertilizer and seeds] were cheaper,"
says Reid. Like most of the other farmers, Reid has decided there's more
money to be made from dairy or poultry farming, but that's required more
expensive investment in milking and slaughtering facilities.

Back on the airport tarmac of Kwara State's main airport at Ilorin, crowds
watch the first batch of some 690 cows imported at a cost of about $3,000
per head. Despite the expense, Nigerian officials are optimistic that
large-scale investment will bring large-scale returns.

"The government realized that agriculture could grow our economy, but that
to do this there must be a shift from just peasant farming," says Mohammed
Gana-Yisa, Kwara State commissioner for agriculture and natural resources.

"At the time the government was conceptualizing moving into commercial
agriculture, there was this land use problem with Zimbabwean white farmers,"
says Mr. Gana-Yisa. "So the government took advantage of that situation."

Transplanted in Nigeria

Christian Science Monitor

Correspondent Sarah Simpson was impressed by the courage shown by the
Zimbabwean farmers now starting farms in Nigeria . "These are not young
farmers. To many people, this would seem quite late in life to be starting
afresh. This is a big investment for them, not just financially, but
emotionally," she observes.

Sarah found that a persistent theme among the uprooted Zimbabwean farmers
was the loss of family unity. "These are families who have been in Zimbabwe
for generations. That's home. But now their parents are living in flats in
London. Their children are looking for jobs in South Africa or Australia.
Their families are scattered around the world," she says.

Zimbabwe's unending election count

BBC

16:33 GMT, Thursday, 1 May 2008 17:33 UK

By Peter Greste
BBC News, Johannesburg

The "verification process" for Zimbabwe's presidential election is, at
long last, formally under way.

At around 1400 local time, agents for the four candidates who
contested last month's poll gathered at the offices of the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (ZEC) for a process that, in theory, could stretch out
for days, weeks or even longer.

It has taken the ZEC more than a month to get to this stage.

The commission blames the delays on the complexity of counting the
four-tiered voting system, as well as a series of disputes over the results.

Given the way the commission chairman says the process for the
presidential vote is to proceed, still further delays appear imminent.

According to the chairman George Chiweshe, under an agreement reached
before the elections, the presidential candidates were expected to present
their own tally of results at the verification meeting.

"They do their own tallies, and we do ours; then we get together to
compare the results," he told the AFP news agency.

"Where we don't agree, we will pull out every relevant document to
ensure we have the same figures. Once we agree, then we check out our
additions¿ and at some stage we have to agree."

Greater transparency

It is impossible to say exactly how long that may take, if ever.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change insists its candidate,
Morgan Tsvangirai, won the presidential election outright, and by a
comfortable margin.

It has based its figures on a sample of results posted outside every
polling station on the day of the vote.

The requirement to post those results has been the single most
important change to Zimbabwe's elections.

It both dramatically increased the level of transparency compared to
previous polls, and became the source of most of the disputes.

But according to the MDC, it is all the evidence they and the
electoral authorities needed to proclaim victory.

"The question of a run-off vote doesn't arise," declared the party's
Secretary General Tendai Biti at a recent news conference.

"We won outright. The people have spoken."

But the ruling Zanu-PF party has been hinting for weeks that Mr
Tsvangirai failed to cross the 50% threshold to avoid a run-off against
President Robert Mugabe, and on Wednesday evening, news agencies quoted
government sources as saying that was indeed the case.

Those claims have been supported by the independent watchdog, the
Zimbabwe Election Support Network, which compiled its own tallies, and
concluded that Morgan Tsvangirai has probably won about 49.3% - less than
50%, but still within the margin of error, so an outright win is still
theoretically possible.

Delays 'contrived'

Whatever the case, the MDC fears that the true figures may never be
known.

It believes the electoral commission has contrived the delays to give
Zanu-PF time to massage the results, force a run-off, and win the second
round through a combination of intimidation and ballot-stuffing.

Another independent watchdog, the South African based pro-democracy
think-tank, IDASA, recently compiled a report entitled "The Inconvenient
Truth: A complete guide to the delay in releasing the results of Zimbabwe's
presidential poll".

In it, the organisation said the "verification process" as defined in
the electoral law only involves confirming that the results of the count
conducted at polling stations were accurately conveyed to the electoral
commission's headquarters.

It does not mean challenging the accuracy of the count in the first
place.

So in theory, it ought to be relatively quick and straight forward.

But the fact that the entire process for the parliamentary poll,
(including counting, recounting, verification and collation,) has taken
almost five weeks, suggests that it may be anything but straight forward.

Archbishops join global calls for intervention in Zimbabwe

Church Times, UK

by Pat Ashworth

CHRISTIANS throughout the world responded to the urgent call by the
Anglican diocese of Harare for a day of prayer for Zimbabwe on Sunday. The
Archbishops of Canterbury and York described it as “part of a search for
increased solidarity and justice for the people of Zimbabwe at home and in
the UK” (News, 25 April).

The Archbishops’ statement called for immediate, concerted, and
effective action by the government of South Africa and other regional
organs, and for the UN to mediate and intervene as needed.

“Continuing political violence and drift could unleash spiralling
communal violence, as has been seen elsewhere in the continent,” the
Archbishops warned.

They declared that the current climate of “political intimidation,
vote-rigging, and delay” had left the presidential election process without
credibility, making the people of Zimbabwe “even more vulnerable to conflict
heaped upon poverty, and the threat of national disintegration”.

Referring directly to the invasion by riot police of a Mothers’ Union
gathering last week, they said: “Faithful men, women, and young people, who
seek better governance in either political or church affairs, continue to be
beaten, intimidated, or oppressed, as was the recent Mothers’ Union
gathering in Mbare. Anglicans cannot worship in their Cathedral in Harare,
and Mothers’ Union groups cannot now gather without fear of violence or
intimidation against them.”

Dr Sentamu spent a day of fasting and prayer in York Minster on
Sunday, encouraging the public to join him for the vigil and light a candle
in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe. “We must all stand together with
our brothers and sisters living under the tyranny of Mugabe, and pray that
they will find deliverance,” he said.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu described Zimbabwe as “staring into the abyss”.
He joined the worldwide calls to stop the supply of weapons to the country
until the political crisis was resolved, and warned: “If violence flares
further in Zimbabwe, those supplying the weapons will be left with blood on
their hands.”

The emboldened Anglican Council of Zimbabwe has publicly decried the
delay in publishing the results of the presidential election. As Christians,
the Council members said in a statement that they were “embarrassed, ashamed
and disappointed at what is clearly a flawed election process. We are
shocked and totally disapprove . . .

“There are reports of torture, killings, breaking into and burning
houses, damage and theft, threats and intimidation. This is happening to
ordinary, innocent, law-abiding citizens in our beloved Zimbabwe. We totally
condemn this vindictive, lawless behaviour, and call upon the perpetrators
and masters to halt this violence.”

Churches in Zimbabwe opened their doors on Sunday to give refuge to
people fleeing the violence. Christian Aid, a partner of the Zimbabwe
Christian Alliance (ZCA), said that its member churches had received people
in Harare and in Bulawayo. In the latter, militia are reported to be
undergoing intensive training on the outskirts of the city.

“Such a heavy presence and involvement of the military is having a
traumatic affect on the population,” reported Pastor Promise Manceda of ZCA.

Tearfund is also receiving reports from its Zimbabwean partners, which
include churches in Bulawayo. Karyn Beattie, Tearfund’s Disaster Response
Manager for Zimbabwe, said: “Fear and confusion are spreading across the
country in this vacuum of uncertainty and threat. We are very concerned for
the safety of people, those just simply trying to exist — although there is
nothing simple about existing in a country in collapse.”

A Harare resident described the escalating situation to the Church
Times as “A game of poker played out on the world stage. . . We are on our
knees and really trusting the Lord.”

The Bishop of Natal, the Rt Revd Rubin Phillip, called for a campaign
of prayer for Zimbabwe, to take place daily in the Cathedral of the Holy
Nativity in Pietermaritzburg. It began on Sunday, which was Freedom Day in
South Africa, and will continue until Youth Day on 16 June. “Intense prayer
is one of the crucial ways in which we can struggle against this appalling
situation,” said Bishop Phillip.

Bishop Phillip has been praised by the South African shack-dwellers’
movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, together with the South African Transport
and Allied Workers’ Union, for his active solidarity with the Zimbabwean
people.

An impassioned statement said: “We call on others to follow their
example. We call on all clergy to stand with the poor . . . We express our
solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe suffering terrible oppression in
their own country, and terrible xenophobia in South Africa.”

The World Council of Churches (WCC) and the World Student Christian
Federation also joined the growing outcry for immediate release of the
presidential election results. The WCC’s general secretary, the Revd Dr
Samuel Kobia, said that the electoral process had again been compromised by
“rigging and reprisals”. He supported church leaders’ calls for intervention
by the UN, the African Union, and the Southern African Development Community
“to prevent a political crisis from escalating into mass violence”.

A joint report from the WCC and the All African Conference of Churches
called on the Zimbabwean Church to give leadership to the people of the
southern African nation.

Although the churches have been “outspoken in promoting and
entrenching a transparent governance structure that is sensitive to the
plight of the Zimbabwean populace”, they nevertheless “have not spoken with
one voice, nor do they seem to read from the same script over the years”,
the report says.

Mugabe invents coup plot as poll chaos continues

· Forged documents outline 'British invasion plans'
· UK dismisses fakes as ruse to delay election results

Chris McGreal in Harare
The Guardian,
Friday May 2 2008

It is Gordon Brown's name on the letter with the familiar Downing Street
address at the top. If it weren't for the pesky business of the signature,
it would place the prime minister at the heart of a conspiracy to drag the
old Rhodesia from its grave in league with German bankers and South African
white supremacists.

You could have read all about it across the front pages of Zimbabwe's
state-run press over recent weeks, backed by what are purported to be
documents outlining opposition schemes to steal the unresolved presidential
election, British plans to invade and put President Robert Mugabe on trial
at The Hague, and the alleged letter from Brown saying that the ruling
Zanu-PF party is "no longer relevant to the people of Zimbabwe".

Under headlines such as "Return to Rhodesia", weeks of supposed revelations
have included claims that white former generals will be brought back to take
over the Zimbabwean army, that racially segregated residential areas will be
reintroduced and that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, has proven to be an imperialist
puppet by enduring a course in British etiquette.

The purported authors of the documents say they are forgeries, and not very
good ones. The signature on the Downing St letterhead printed in the Herald
newspaper bears no resemblance to Brown's. But that has not stopped Mugabe's
government from presenting the documents to regional leaders as "evidence"
that the MDC is trying to rig the election.

The first appeared in the Herald a few days after the election, once Mugabe
got over the shock of defeat and decided to fight on. It laid out a supposed
opposition plan to hand over many of the country's assets to foreign
control, including the central bank to the Germans. More importantly, it
said that if Tsvangirai became president he would sack the military and
intelligence chiefs.

The Herald's story came as Tsvangirai was negotiating with senior army
officials, offering them guarantees for their conditions of service and
amnesty from prosecution for past crimes. Suddenly, the generals stopped
meeting the opposition.

A week later, the Herald ran another "world exclusive" in which it claimed
to have laid its hands on a paper written by the MDC's general secretary,
Tendai Biti, detailing plans to bribe teachers and civil servants working as
election officials.

Conveniently, this came just as Zanu-PF was trying to persuade regional
leaders that the delays in releasing the presidential election results were
the result of opposition irregularities.

Inevitably, the opposition was accused of being in league with white
conspirators. Part of the alleged plan was for Zimbabwe's military to be
taken over by "selected reputable generals and senior officers of the former
Rhodesian Security Forces who are presently in Australia, Britain and South
Africa", and for hundreds of white farmers to get back their land.

"The beneficiaries of Mugabe's land grab should quickly be made to
understand that their number is up," the document said. "We have also
directed some of the remaining white farmers in the country to mobilise
their workers to poison cattle, slash or burn crops in the fields and carry
out other acts of sabotage of the resettled farms."

Some of the fake documents were presented at a summit in Zambia as a
justification for the delays in releasing the election results. They also
implicitly played up Mugabe's claim that the power struggle is with British
surrogates acting on behalf of their white masters in London.

A few days later, the Herald published two separate forgeries on the front
page of the same edition. One was the letter supposedly written by Brown,
promising to back Tsvangirai against Mugabe, the other was a long and
bizarre "memorandum of understanding" between the MDC, white farmers,
foreign business interest and Eugene Terre'Blanche, leader of the neo-Nazi
Afrikaner Resistance Movement that resisted the end of apartheid as well as
"various ex-Rhodesian elements exiled in South Africa".

The British embassy in Harare swiftly said the Brown letter was a forgery.
"No such letter, or wider correspondence, exists. It reflects the regime's
desperation that Zanu-PF and state-controlled media have resorted to faking
documents for crude propaganda purposes, and not for the first time," it
said.

But that was of little consequence to Zimbabwe's justice minister, Patrick
Chinamasa. When asked if he would withdraw his accusations after the
documents were shown to be fake, he declined because "even if Brown hadn't
put it in writing, everyone knows that is what the British are plotting".