Associated Press
1 hour
ago
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe's opposition party is appealing to
the
United Nations to intervene before "there is blood in the
street."
Spokesman Nelson Chamisa asked the U.N. on Saturday to help the
country
prepare for a presidential runoff, saying he fears the "vampire
instincts"
of President Robert Mugabe and his ruling party.
Chamisa
said Zimbabweans "need the international community to help us." He
added
that the U.N. should not wait to "come when there is blood in the
street,
blood in the villages."
While official results from the March 29
presidential election have not been
released, independent observers
projected the opposition had won most of the
votes but not enough to avoid a
runoff.
africasia
HARARE, April 5 (AFP)
Zimbabwe's opposition said Saturday it feared Robert Mugabe was
pushing for
a presidential election run-off as part of a ploy to exact
revenge and
called for international intervention to avert
bloodshed.
"For Mugabe, a run-off is a strategy for retribution," the
Movement for
Democratic Change's (MDC) chief spokesman Nelson Chamisa told
AFP.
"He is defeated, he wants a chance of retribution."
The MDC
has proclaimed its leader Morgan Tsvangirai as the winner of last
Saturday's
election although there has been no official word on the outcome.
Chamisa
said international intervention would avoid a repeat of the violence
which
followed Mugabe's defeat in a referendum eight years ago when he
failed to
get approval for changes to the constitution.
"He was beaten at the
referendum in 2000 and we all know the violence which
followed.
"This
is what we want to avoid, rather than have the international community
intervene after there has been bloodshed."
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party
gave its backing on Friday for the veteran president
to stand against
Tsvangirai in a run-off.
Reuters
By Nelson Banya 16
minutes ago
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's main opposition party goes to
court on
Saturday to force the release of results from the presidential poll
one week
ago and President Robert Mugabe signaled he planned to fight to
extend his
28-year rule.
Lawyers representing Morgan Tsvangirai's
Movement for Democratic Change will
ask a high court in Harare for an order
compelling election officials to
issue the results immediately, ending a
delay that has raised suspicions of
a tainted vote.
The MDC claims
Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe and should be declared president
of the
economically devastated African nation, but independent observers say
the
MDC leader did not win an outright majority and faces a run-off against
Mugabe.
The court case will begin at 4:00 a.m. EDT, according to MDC
spokesman
Nelson Chamisa.
"We want an urgent release of the results,
within four hours of the court
order," he said. "We're fighting the anxiety,
disappointment, speculation
and rumors as a result of this
delay."
Senior officials of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party said on Friday
that they
would back the 84-year-old veteran in the second round of voting,
ending
speculation earlier in the week that they might ask him to step
down.
ZANU-PF said it would challenge some of the results of the
parliamentary
election, which showed it lost control of the lower house.
Preliminary
results from the upper chamber show Mugabe's party ahead by
three seats.
The government-run Herald newspaper reported on Saturday
that a provincial
elections officer had been arrested in Zimbabwe's Midlands
over charges that
some polling stations under him had inflated vote tallies
for the MDC and
recorded lower votes for Mugabe and parliamentary ZANU-PF
candidates.
"ZANU-PF in the province say they are checking every ward as
they suspect a
wider conspiracy," it said.
Mugabe's officials said on
Friday his party would go to court over what it
alleged was bribery of
electoral officials in some places, but was already
preparing for a
run-off.
OPTIMISM WANES
It is not clear when the run-off would
occur. Zimbabwean law requires that
it be held within three weeks, but the
ruling party hinted on Friday that
the timing might be changed.
The
hardening of the ruling party's position has punctured the guarded
optimism
that had emerged among the opposition and Mugabe's critics in the
West, who
hoped the ex-liberation war fighter would concede defeat.
The MDC said in
advertisements placed in South African newspapers on
Saturday that it wanted
peace.
"At this stage we offer the hand of peace to the current regime,
and will
recognize and respect their rights if the transition is expedited
without
further ado, but this offer will not remain open indefinitely," the
MDC
said.
Former colonial ruler Britain and the United States, both
of whom have
applied sanctions on Mugabe and his top officials, have
criticized the
election delay and suggested it could be the precursor to a
rigged result.
Mugabe's government is widely accused in the West of
stealing previous
presidential and parliamentary elections, and his removal
is seen by
Washington and London as necessary to rebuilding Zimbabwe's
shattered
economy.
Zimbabweans are struggling with the world's
highest inflation of more than
100,000 percent, mass unemployment and
chronic shortages of meat, bread,
fuel and other basic goods.
Worries
that tensions could explode rose on Friday when liberation war
veterans, a
pro-Mugabe group that has in the past intimidated government
opponents and
violently occupied white-owned farms, attacked the MDC for
claiming
victory.
"These are all provocations against us freedom fighters,"
veterans' leader
Jabulani Sibanda told a news conference.
He said the
veterans would repel any attempt by white farmers to reclaim
properties
seized by Mugabe. "It now looks like these elections were a way
to open for
the re-invasion of this country (by the British)," he said.
The farm
seizures, part of a government policy of redistributing land to
poor blacks,
are often blamed for the devastation of Zimbabwe's farm sector.
Food
output has fallen sharply since the seizures began in 2000 and
Zimbabwe,
once an exporter, now relies on food imports and handouts to feed
its
people.
(Additional reporting by Stella Mapenzauswa, Cris Chinaka,
Muchena Zigomo,
MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Marius Bosch and Tim
Pearce)
Boston Globe
Tensions rise as
Mugabe's party fights back
By Craig Timberg
Washington Post / April 5,
2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe's party acknowledged
yesterday
that it lost last weekend's historic election, but vowed to fight
back in a
second round of voting that many Zimbabweans fear will be much
less peaceful
than the first.
The announcement came on a day of
sharply rising tensions in Harare, the
capital, as signs mounted that Mugabe
was preparing to use extraordinary
measures to regain control amid the
biggest challenge to his rule since
Zimbabwe gained independence in
1980.
Riot police and trucks mounted with water cannons appeared on city
streets.
The country's feared association of liberation war veterans, who
long have
served as Mugabe's enforcers, threatened to deploy.
A top
ruling party official, Didymus Mutasa, said party officials were
planning to
"purge" the electoral commission of alleged opposition
supporters and would
challenge the results of 16 seats in the lower house of
Parliament, enough
to let them retake control of the chamber they lost in
results announced
this week.
Diplomats and opposition officials also said Mugabe, 84, was
considering
whether to invoke emergency powers to delay the presidential
runoff election
for 90 days in a bid to improve his chances of
winning.
Mutasa did not say when the runoff would occur, but said a
second round was
necessary. "This time we will be more vigilant, and I'm
sure we will win by
a wide margin," he said.
Mutasa said Mugabe got
43 percent of the vote in last Saturday's election,
compared with 47 percent
for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The
numbers are close to those
reported by independent observers. The opposition
party says Tsvangirai
narrowly topped 50 percent, which would allow him to
avoid the second round
of voting automatically required when no candidate
wins a clear majority.
Official results remain unannounced.
After days of reports that Mugabe's
closest associates were split over
whether to participate in a runoff or
step down, the 49-member ruling body
of his Zimbabwe African National
Union-Patriotic Front met for five
boisterous hours yesterday. It voted
unanimously to fight on in a second
round, Mutasa said.
The
announcements came after days of rumors and reports that Mugabe, who has
led
Zimbabwe into a devastating economic morass with chronic shortages and
100,000 percent inflation, was considering stepping down at the urging of
some family members and friends. Instead, Zimbabweans braced for a return to
the violent politics common in earlier elections but largely absent in the
run-up to Saturday's vote.
"Mugabe, after a defeat he did not expect,
surely cannot want to face
another election without a bag of dirty tricks,"
said Nomore Mutizwa, 32,
who runs a cellphone shop in Harare. "I'm sure
people will be beaten up and
intimidated, especially in the rural areas.
When ZANU-PF is desperate, they
can be very dangerous."
Others
prepared to meet any violence with resistance.
"We need to fight for our
country," said Calisto Sibanda, 23, a black-market
fuel
trader.
Adding to the heightened tensions was the reemergence of an
association of
veterans from Zimbabwe's liberation war in the 1970s. The
veterans long have
been enforcers of Mugabe's policies and, in 2000, were
the leaders of
chaotic and often violent invasions of white-owned commercial
farms, which
gave many landless black peasants farms but also devastated the
nation's
vital agricultural sector.
Hundreds of veterans marched
silently through Harare's streets yesterday,
according to news reports.
Afterward, leaders announced they accused
Tsvangirai of seeking to help
white farmers reclaim their land and said they
were prepared to fight
back.
"What I know is we will be compelled to repel the invasions," said
Jabulani
Sibanda, head of the war veterans' association.
Police
crackdowns on foreign journalists covering the elections and at least
one
democracy activist group also fueled anxiety in the capital. Two
correspondents, including Barry Bearak of The New York Times, were charged
yesterday with violating Zimbabwe's strict journalism laws. He was among a
group of four foreigners arrested at a Harare hotel Thursday. Zimbabwe has
barred most foreign journalists from legally reporting on the
election.
The newspaper said Bearak "is being held in a frigid cell
without shoes,
warm clothing or blankets."
His lawyer "informs us
that the top legal officials in the office of the
attorney general agreed
that the case . . . should be thrown because the
police could produce no
witnesses or other evidence against him. But somehow
the state's lawyers
were overruled," the newspaper's statement said.
National Post, Canada
Steven Edwards,
National Post Published: Saturday, April 05, 2008
NEW YORK -For all
the claims these days that the age of impunity has ended
for the world's
despots, Robert Mugabe will prove that international justice
has its limits
-- and he's beyond them.
Despite the horrors of his regime since it began
targeting Zimbabwe's white
farmers in 2000, Mugabe's greatest crime against
humanity occurred two
decades earlier -- against black
Zimbabweans.
In the early 1980s, his North Korean-trained henchmen
massacred up to 30,000
opposition supporters, a crime that should be
sufficient to land him in jail
someplace for the rest of his
life.
But the 84-year-old leader can continue to sleep easy, even though
international justice has notched up some remarkable successes in recent
years, including the arrest of former Liberian president Charles
Taylor.
Somehow the fine print in what Taylor thought was an ironclad
deal to
exchange power for asylum in Nigeria allowed his extradition. He is
now in
The Hague, facing multiple charges of war crimes and crimes against
humanity
in front of a UN/Sierra Leone tribunal.
This hybrid court
was set up to prosecute crimes committed during the civil
war in Sierra
Leone. The charges were laid even before Taylor stepped down
as leader of
neighbouring Liberia, a position he is accused of having used
to funnel arms
to Sierra Leone rebels in exchange for diamonds.
There is no special UN
court
for Zimbabwe, even though Mugabe's misrule has led to more of his
people
dying than in Iraq, Afghanistan and even Darfur.
Also count
out the UN's International Criminal Court (ICC), launched in 2002
to
prosecute war crimes suspects who might escape punishment in their home
countries. Its jurisdiction is not retroactive and in any case Zimbabwe is
not a signatory.
A few countries have laws that apply the principle
of "universal
jurisdiction." Some argue Canadian legislation paving the way
for the ICC
puts Canada in that group.
But Mugabe need only stay away
from them to avoid arrest. That leaves
Zimbabwe itself, but there he has
leverage as long as he hangs on to or can
influence the levers of
power.
"Inside Zimbabwe, he can make any deal he wants with the
Zimbabwean
authorities
-- and they can give him immunity," says
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director
at U.S.-based Human Rights
Watch.
Which explains all the closed-door talks in Harare since the
election
results did not go all Mugabe's way.
Another possibility is
a body modelled on South Africa's post-apartheid
Truth & Reconciliation
Commission, which aimed to bring together whites and
blacks.
Although
black-ruled South Africa long turned a blind eye to Mugabe's
misrule out of
solidarity with a fellow African "freedom fighter," the West
also failed to
move against him when his true murderous character emerged.
The same
month he became prime minister in April, 1980, he launched secret
talks with
Communist dictator Kim Il Sung to have the North Korean military
create a
Zimbabwean brigade to "combat malcontents."
The Fifth Brigade also
carried the name Gukurahundi from Mugabe's Shona
language -- meaning "early
rain that washes away the chaff before the spring
rains."
Mugabe
unleashed his new force on the mainly Ndebele supporters of his chief
rival
Joshua Nkomo, who had headed a separate army against the former white
minority regime.
One of the brigade's most horrific acts occurred in
1983 in Nkomo's
Matabeleland homeland, where soldiers shot people in public
executions after
forcing them to dig their own graves.
Not only did
Western aid continue to flow to the former British colony after
that
atrocity, Britain even knighted Mugabe in 1994.
Having been effectively
rewarded for committing genocide, Mugabe's ruling
Zimbabwean African
National Unity Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) regime acquired
a sense of
impunity.
The West sought sanctions only after Mugabe launched his
violent land
reforms, aimed mainly at evicting white farmers.
To this
extent, it brought some of Mugabe's accusations of racism on itself.
"As
the ZANU-PF apparatchiks see it, the West ignored the massacre of
thousands
of black Zimbabweans in the 1980s, but imposed sanctions on
Zimbabwe
following the killing of a handful of white farmers and a few
hundred
opposition activists since 2000," argues the Cato Institute's David
Colbert
in a recent essay.
Mugabe went on to target his country's poorest people
in another operation
to which he applied another Shona word: murambatsvina
(drive out trash). It
resulted in his security forces evicting about 2.4
million slum dwellers
from their homes and livelihoods.
Whether
Mugabe is prosecuted or not, it would seem any deal is worth
relieving this
man of the ability to impose more pain and suffering.
National Post, Canada
Dictator has
a long record of human rights' abuses
Peter Goodspeed, Canwest News
Service Published: Friday, April 04, 2008
For all the claims these
days that the age of impunity has ended for the
world's despots, Robert
Mugabe will prove that international justice has its
limits - and he's
beyond them.
Despite the horrors of his regime since it began targeting
Zimbabwe's white
farmers in 2000, Mugabe's greatest crime against humanity
occurred two
decades earlier -- against black Zimbabweans.
In the
early 1980s, his North Korean-trained henchmen massacred up to 30,000
opposition supporters, a crime that should be sufficient to land him in jail
someplace for the rest of his life.
But the 84-year-old leader can
continue to sleep easy, even though
international justice has notched up
some remarkable successes in recent
years, including the arrest of former
Liberian president Charles Taylor.
Somehow the fine print in what Taylor
thought was an ironclad deal to
exchange power for asylum in Nigeria allowed
his extradition. He is now in
The Hague, facing multiple charges of war
crimes and crimes against humanity
in front of a UN/Sierra Leone
tribunal.
This hybrid court was set up to prosecute crimes committed
during the civil
war in Sierra Leone. The charges were laid even before
Taylor stepped down
as leader of neighbouring Liberia, a position he is
accused of having used
to funnel arms to Sierra Leone rebels in exchange for
diamonds.
There is no special UN court for Zimbabwe, even though Mugabe's
misrule has
led to more of his people dying than in Iraq, Afghanistan and
even Darfur.
Also count out the UN's International Criminal Court (ICC),
launched in 2002
to prosecute war crimes suspects who might escape
punishment in their home
countries. Its jurisdiction is not retroactive and
in any case Zimbabwe is
not a signatory.
A few countries have laws
that apply the principle of "universal
jurisdiction." Some argue Canadian
legislation paving the way for the ICC
puts Canada in that group.
But
Mugabe need only stay away from them to avoid arrest. That leaves
Zimbabwe
itself, but there he has leverage as long as he hangs on to or can
influence
the levers of power.
"Inside Zimbabwe, he can make any deal he wants with
the Zimbabwean
authorities - and they can give him immunity," says Georgette
Gagnon, Africa
director at U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.
Which
explains all the closed-door talks in Harare since the election
results did
not go all Mugabe's way.
Another possibility is a body modelled on South
Africa's post-apartheid
Truth & Reconciliation Commission, which aimed
to bring together whites and
blacks.
Although black-ruled South
Africa long turned a blind eye to Mugabe's
misrule out of solidarity with a
fellow African "freedom fighter," the West
also failed to move against him
when his true murderous character emerged.
The same month he became prime
minister in April, 1980, he launched secret
talks with Communist dictator
Kim Il Sung to have the North Korean military
create a Zimbabwean brigade to
"combat malcontents."
The Fifth Brigade also carried the name Gukurahundi
from Mugabe's Shona
language - meaning "early rain that washes away the
chaff before the spring
rains."
Mugabe unleashed his new force on the
mainly Ndebele supporters of his chief
rival Joshua Nkomo, who had headed a
separate army against the former white
minority regime.
One of the
brigade's most horrific acts occurred in 1983 in Nkomo's
Matabeleland
homeland, where soldiers shot people in public executions after
forcing them
to dig their own graves.
Not only did Western aid continue to flow to the
former British colony after
that atrocity, Britain even knighted Mugabe in
1994.
Having been effectively rewarded for committing genocide, Mugabe's
ruling
Zimbabwean African National Unity Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) regime
acquired
a sense of impunity.
The West sought sanctions only after
Mugabe launched his violent land
reforms, aimed mainly at evicting white
farmers.
To this extent, it brought some of Mugabe's accusations of
racism on itself.
"As the ZANU-PF apparatchiks see it, the West ignored
the massacre of
thousands of black Zimbabweans in the 1980s, but imposed
sanctions on
Zimbabwe following the killing of a handful of white farmers
and a few
hundred opposition activists since 2000," argues the Cato
Institute's David
Colbert in a recent essay.
Mugabe went on to target
his country's poorest people in another operation
to which he applied
another Shona word: murambatsvina (drive out trash). It
resulted in his
security forces evicting about 2.4 million slum dwellers
from their homes
and livelihoods.
Whether Mugabe is prosecuted or not, it would seem any
deal is worth
relieving this man of the ability to impose more pain and
suffering.
New York Times
By DANIEL
J. WAKIN
Published: April 5, 2008
A journalist for The New York Times
detained by the police in Zimbabwe spent
a second night in a jail cell on
Friday, after government authorities
overruled the attorney general’s
decision to set him free.
The journalist, Barry Bearak, and a British
citizen who was also arrested,
were swept up at a small hotel in the suburbs
of the capital, Harare, on
Thursday afternoon. The action appeared to be
part of a crackdown by
government forces after an election that seemed to be
turning against
President Robert Mugabe and his 28-year grip on the
country.
Offices of the main opposition party were also raided, while an
American
democracy advocate helping local groups monitor the elections was
arrested
at the airport.
Mr. Bearak has been caught up in shifting
legal machinations by the
authorities. He was first arrested on a charge of
working as a journalist
without accreditation, but when the police realized
that the press law had
been changed, he was recharged with falsely
presenting himself as a
journalist, according to his lawyer, Beatrice
Mtetwa.
She said her colleagues, with police officers present, had gone
to the
attorney general’s office and argued that there was no evidence to
support
the charge. Officials there agreed, and said Mr. Bearak should be
released.
Back at the police station, after several hours of waiting, Ms.
Mtetwa asked
about the delay.
“The police advised that they had
received orders from above not to release
him,” she said. “Obviously they
got political instructions from elsewhere to
hold them.”
She said
officers had given conflicting reasons about why Mr. Bearak was
being held,
including that preparations were in the works for his
deportation and that
his computer was being searched for evidence that could
lead to other
charges. Ms. Mtetwa said she would apply to the nation’s High
Court, and
fight any deportation order.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said
Zimbabwe long used accreditation
laws to keep foreign journalists from
shedding light on the country’s
turbulence. “It is a backdoor form of
censorship,” said the committee’s
executive director, Joel
Simon.
Very few foreign journalists received accreditation, though there
were some
300 requests to cover last weekend’s election, a government
spokesman told
the pro-government newspaper The Sunday Mail, according to
the committee.
Mr. Simon said, “We call on the police to heed the
attorney general’s
recommendation.”
With nighttime temperatures in
the 50s, Mr. Bearak’s cell is unheated and he
sleeps on a concrete slab
without a blanket, Ms. Mtetwa said.
The executive editor of The Times,
Bill Keller, said Mr. Bearak was being
held on charges “that even the
government’s own lawyers recognize as
baseless.” Mr. Keller called the
charge that Mr. Bearak had misrepresented
himself as an accredited
journalist a “ludicrous assertion.”
The American worker for a
pro-democracy group — the National Democratic
Institute, based in Washington
— was released Friday, Ms. Mtetwa said. The
American, Dileepan
Sivapathasundaram, was placed into the hands of United
States
representatives, the institute said, but his passport was still being
held
and he was ordered to report back to the police on Saturday.
The
institute said it hoped that he would be free to leave the country, but
was
unsure of what would happen to him.
Tom Casey, a State Department
spokesman, said, “We want to see these people
released as soon as possible,
and we’re going to continue to make sure that
our consular officials,
through our embassy in Harare, do everything they
can to see that this issue
is resolved and resolved successfully.” At least
two other Americans were
detained, but were released and had left the
country, he said.
In the
elections last Saturday, Mr. Mugabe’s party, known as ZANU-PF, lost
control
of Parliament’s lower house, but the government has yet to release
results
in the presidential race. The opposition said its candidate, Morgan
Tsvangirai, had won.
Mr. Mugabe, who led the struggle against
minority white rule, has grown
increasingly unpopular in Zimbabwe and is a
pariah elsewhere, as he has
ruthlessly suppressed dissent and overseen the
dissolution of the economy.
Mr. Casey criticized the Zimbabwean Electoral
Commission for delaying the
results. “The longer they delay in this process,
the more suspicious it
becomes,” he said. He said there was no place for
“acts of intimidation or
of violence” in Zimbabwe’s political system, and
called on all parties to
“act peacefully.”
iafrica.com
Sat, 05 Apr
2008
Two 702 Eyewitness News journalists were expelled from Zimbabwe after
they
tried to enter the country at the Beit Bridge border post on Friday
afternoon, the station said.
Journalists Jean Jacques Cornish and
Sheldon Morais were detained and
questioned but were released after more
than three and a half hours.
Their passports and other personal
belongings were also confiscated but
later returned.
Eyewitness News
Johannesburg editor Katy Katopodis said she was disappointed
that the pair
were not allowed into the country to cover the outcome of the
country's
historic election but was relieved they were not jailed.
Sapa
Dispatch, SA
2008/04/05
ANY
attempt by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to extend a second round
of
presidential elections to 90 days would be “illegal”, the opposition MDC
said yesterday.
In an interview with South African radio, MDC
secretary-general Tendai Biti
charged Mugabe of ruling illegally because his
term expired on March 28, the
day before elections.
The Zimbabwe
Independent newspaper yesterday quoted “impeccable sources” as
saying Mugabe
wanted to use his presidential powers to amend the Electoral
Act to extend
the run-off period to 90 days and rule by decree in the
interim.
Biti
also accused Mugabe of plotting a crackdown on the opposition during
the
run-off period. “They are preparing for a war,” Biti
said.
Zimbabweans were hoping to know the outcome of the presidential
results
yesterday after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said it would
issue
results within six days of voting, but that looked increasingly
unlikely.
ZEC instead was issuing results from the 60-seat Senate
election at the same
snail’s pace as the parliamentary vote. With 10 seats
announced, Mugabe’s
Zanu-PF party and the MDC were neck and neck with five
seats each. —
Sapa-DPA
Zimbabwe Today
Can an emergency move in the
High Court force Mugabe's hand?
Harare, Zimbabwe, Friday, April 4, 3.30
pm
After another morning with no sign of the Presidential election
results,
Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC has gone to court in an attempt to force
the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to release the figures.
An
emergency application has been lodged at the High Court for immediate
publication of the results, although technically the ZEC has until midnight
tonight to do so. At the same time the EC has added its voice to internation
pressure, urging the Zimbabwe authorities to act as swiftly as
possible.
One threat to the MDC has been removed today. It concerns Simba
Makoni, the
rebel Zanu-PF ex-minister standing as the third candidate in the
election.
There is, I'm informed, absolutely no prospect of him making
things up with
his old boss, Mugabe.
Makoni's spokesman, Ibbo
Mandaze, confirmed to me today that despite
attempts earlier this week to
lure the candidate back into the Zanu-PF fold,
Makoni will definitely back
Tsvangirai in any runoff vote. "We have made our
position clear, that we
will come together as the opposition and fight
against Mugabe." he said. And
there was more good news for Tsvangirai's MDC.
The breakaway MDC faction
will also campaign vigorously to support
Tsvangirai. Leader Mutambara's
spokesman Gabriel Chaibva, told me: "It is
known that we are still brothers
with the other MDC and we will fight
together to dispose of Mugabe in the
event of a run-off."
I have also learned that there was a blow for
Tsvangirai yesterday afternoon
when a planned secret meeting between him and
seven of the country's top
generals was called off at the last minute.
Tsvangirai had hoped to reassure
the service chiefs of their futures, which
would include generous retirement
packages for those who would not wish to
serve under him.
It is not clear who ordered the generals not to attend
the meeting, but the
fact that some were prepared to come in the first place
indicates that the
rumours of rifts in the upper echelons of the Zimbabwe
high command are
true.
Normal life in Zimbabwe meanwhile goes on as
before - that is, it gets
tougher by the day. Latest indication of our
financial melt-down comes in
the shape of the new Z$50m note. Get hold of
one of these, and you can go
shopping with confidence, knowing that you have
just enough to buy two small
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Saturday, April 05, 2008; Posted: 02:48 AM
(Voice of America
News/ContentWorks via COMTEX) -- -- DATELINE: Washington
Aid agencies in
Zimbabwe say they"re deeply concerned about the rising
tensions and fears
following last weekend"s elections. They say the slow
release of election
results this week and accusations of vote rigging are
the main reasons for
the heightened tensions.
Karen Beattie, a Zimbabwean, is a disaster
management officer for the NGO
Tearfund. From London, she spoke to VOA
English to Africa Service Joe De
Capua about the situation in
Zimbabwe.
We had a call from one of our partner organizations, the
Zimbabwe Christian
Alliance, actually on Monday night, saying that they were
very concerned
about the tension that was mounting with the delay of the
announcement of
the results. As you can imagine, the Zimbabweans have been
watching these
results and with a lot of expectation and hope, but I think
with a lot of
fear as well. The Kenyan situation is fresh in everybody"s
mind and so the
delays are just increasing that tension. So we"ve been
worried about it, she
says.
Beattie is calling upon prominent African
organizations to take action.
There is obviously international pressure on
the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission to actually get the results out. I think
that"s very important.
But I think that another thing that would be good to
see would be the
re-involvement or the reengagement of the SADC, the
Southern African
Development Community, observers, as well as the African
Union observers,
that they ensure that whatever the results are that we hear
today and in the
coming days, that they reengage in the process to ensure
that the rule of
law is upheld, she says.
She says Tearfund has
received reports of increased militia and police
presence in some
areas.
Tearfund has been operating in Zimbabwe for about 20 years. Its
work
includes teaching conservation farming, helping those with HIV/AIDS and
food
aid for AIDS orphans. However, the collapsed Zimbabwe economy has taken
its
toll.
Beattie says, We"ve seen an incredible decrease in people"s
ability to cope
from, I would say, in the last couple of years. It"s been
exponential. So
where people were poor in the past, they"re absolutely not
coping at all
because of the combination of factors and primarily the
economy.
BBC
00:41 GMT, Saturday, 5 April 2008 01:41 UK
By Farai Sevenzo
Harare
Harare's quiet was burst today, but there was no loud
bang. It was a
bit like a flat party balloon finally finding the flame of a
candle.
Friday was Zanu-PF Politburo day and the rumours which
have persisted
about the state of the nation, the future of politics and, of
course, those
long-awaited results, did not go away.
With a police
escort, independence war veterans marched through town
towards the Zanu-PF
headquarters to show their support.
Support for what exactly, was
not made clear. But these marches are
nothing new. They are a morale-booster
for the ruling party, and the
marchers are peaceful and sing in
tune.
Questions pile up
To the ears of bystanders,
though, the questions were piling up. When
will the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC) announce the remaining results
of the Senate and
presidential elections?
The local newspapers have been widely
reporting 48% for Morgan
Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change
(MDC), and 43% for Zanu-PF leader President Robert
Mugabe.
And then there is the small matter of the constitution
which,
according to some, says results should be known by midnight on
Friday, six
days after the poll. Fluid as the situation is, there is no
guarantee that
the deadline will prompt results.
But the issue
of the moment is what Mr Mugabe would say at his
politburo
meeting.
Did he have the energy to contest a run-off with an
opposition that
has already gone to the High Court in an attempt to force
the ZEC to reveal
last Saturday's election results? Should he stay or should
he go?
The pictures on state television showed the president
seemingly
relaxed, and the AU observers said as much.
Show of
force
Meanwhile the massive international interest in the elections
has seen
a mini-invasion of the media - they are dotted here and there,
trying to
understand what is happening.
On Thursday evening,
two foreign journalists were arrested for taking
pictures, and possibly also
because their accreditation was in doubt.
An MDC office in a
hotel was also said to have been raided and
ransacked by the security
forces. And a drive out of town shows the massive
police presence which kept
its distance last Saturday.
So what is going on? Why the sudden
show of muscle?
Many have said a run-off in the presidential
election would be a
chance to put things right. It has, according to some,
galvanised the
Zanu-PF.
The fear for the common citizens is
that the old tricks of former
Zimbabwean elections may resurface - bloody
clashes between rival parties in
an effort to win a photo-finish
vote.
Meanwhile, the rumours keep hitting the streets thick and
fast.
Some say the president is not going anywhere, that naturally
the
opposition were over-enthusiastic in their celebrations and claims of
victory, that the game is one of two halves - the next half being the widely
expected second-round vote.
But will it play like
that?
Economic pressures
The MDC, for their part, have
adopted the kind of strategy befitting a
savvy student union. They have
anticipated every move - from the
overprinting of ballot papers to the
possibility of stuffed ballot-boxes.
They ran a campaign which
ordinary Zimbabweans, unused to dissenting
voices on television and the
press, lapped up. Once the playing-field began
to open up and the spectre of
violence did not to rear its head, the party
began demanding the
electorate's attention.
So what happened? For almost a
decade, the opposition has been seen as
hopelessly inept. Mr Mugabe could
run rings around them politically.
A treason trial also hung over
Mr Tsvangirai, his supporters
frequently crossed the floor to the Zanu-PF
benches in parliament, and there
were often scenes of the beaten leaders
showing off their broken limbs
outside court and in hospital.
There were also seismic splits within the MDC's ranks, accusations of
dictatorship against its leadership, and multiple arrest warrants issued for
their supporters for alleged crimes ranging from "political nuisance" to
murder.
The Zanu-PF believed it had done enough to ensure
victory last week.
"Our Land, Our Sovereignty", one of the
slogans on the portraits of
the president of the Republic, rang true to the
convictions of the
converted, but not to those feeling the enormous pressure
of 100,000%
inflation.
The border-jumpers, the closed
schools, the dire statistics - as much
as they could be blamed on Western
media and a real unwillingness to extend
lines of credit to Zimbabwean
manufacturers and farmers, they could not be
understood by the
electorate.
Too many questions
"We have taught you the
meaning of self-sacrifice," the people heard
Mr Mugabe say a day or so
before the polls opened.
But they found it difficult to believe
that the same lesson had been
swallowed by his cabinet. And the big scalps
that fell as the results came
through - from the justice minister downwards
- showed their cynicism.
It is now almost impossible to reach
Mr Mugabe's talkative and
approachable spokespersons.
Is the
opposition a government-in-waiting, or is it now painfully
aware of the
dangers of triumphalism? Have its leaders gone into hiding,
watching the
re-clenching of a fist they have been all too familiar with?
There are too
many questions.
The president, a proud man, is said to be asking
over whom he will
preside, now that many of his ministers have lost their
seats.
It must also be said that very few leaders in
post-independence Africa
have so dominated the story of one nation by the
sheer force of their
personality.
Mr Mugabe is a living myth to
friend and foe alike, and Zanu-PF has
not yet found a way to emerge from his
immense shadow.
What if he has had enough but his followers,
lacking his convictions
and afraid of life after him, decide to keep him
firmly enthroned for their
own reasons?
Until he says something
and until the people know the election result,
Harare will fill itself on
rumour and 40m-dollar beers.
By Antony
Sguazzin and Brian Latham
April 5 (Bloomberg) -- President Robert Mugabe
of Zimbabwe faces an uphill
battle to win a runoff campaign after most
voters supported opposition
candidates in the March 29 election's House of
Assembly races. Analysts said
he may resort to violent intimidation to
prevail.
Government backers have said results from the election's
presidential
ballot, which haven't been released yet, will show that none of
the four
candidates won a majority, an outcome that requires a runoff
between the top
two.
Opposition parliamentary candidates won control
of the House with 54 percent
of the vote. The Movement for Democratic
Change, an MDC splinter group and
independent politicians won 1.31 million
votes in House races, compared with
1.11 million for Mugabe's Zimbabwe
African National Union-Patriotic Front,
according to official results
tallied on a Web site for Sokwanele, a
Harare-based human rights
group.
Zanu-PF officials ``underestimated the opposition to Mugabe,''
Marian Tupy,
an analyst at the Washington-based Cato Institute, said in an
interview
yesterday. ``He doesn't have majority support. They have overcome
their
shock, and they will try and hang on to power.''
Mugabe's
opponent likely will be the MDC's leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, 56,
the most
popular of the three opposition presidential candidates.
Support for
Mugabe, Zimbabwe's leader since independence from the U.K. in
1980, has been
sapped by a decade of recession and the world's highest
inflation rate,
164,900 percent.
State-Backed Violence
Observers from the European
Union and other governments have said that
Mugabe used violence and election
law violations to win Zimbabwe's last
three campaigns. There is concern that
a runoff would incite a new round of
state-backed violence.
``He
could unleash his thugs on the opposition,'' Tupy added. ``Don't count
Mugabe out.''
``The fear Zimbabweans have is that it could lead to
three weeks of
intensive violence and even deaths,'' added Michael Davies,
an analyst at
Sokwanele, the human rights group.
The opposition
alleged that Zanu-PF already tried to rig last month's poll.
``There is a
well thought out and premeditated plan to steal the election,''
Simba
Makoni, a former finance minister who ran for president as an
independent,
said in an interview. Makoni will endorse Tsvangirai in a
runoff, said
Nkosana Moyo, his campaign manager, in an interview in Cape
Town.
Court Hearing
A Zimbabwe court will hold a hearing today
on an application by the MDC to
force the government to release the
presidential election results, said
Irene Petras, head of Zimbabwe Lawyers
for Human Rights in Harare, the
capital.
After family members and
some underlings urged Mugabe, 84, to resign, the
Zanu-PF's politburo decided
yesterday that he would compete in a runoff if,
as expected, results show
that none of the four candidates won a majority,
party officials
said.
The MDC claims Tsvangirai won the presidential election with 50.3
percent. A
sampling of polling stations by the independent Zimbabwe
Electoral Support
Network indicated Tsvangirai received 49 percent, Mugabe
41 percent, Makoni
8 percent and Langton Towungana, the other candidate, 0.6
percent. The study
has a 2.4 percent margin of error.
``We've
suffered a blow, but we're not out for the count,'' said Didymus
Mutasa, a
Zanu-PF official, disclosing yesterday's decision that Mugabe
would compete
if there's a runoff. ``Of course Robert Mugabe will stand. Who
else would it
be?''
Possible Delay
Mutasa ended the telephone interview without
taking additional questions, so
it is unclear if the government will delay
the runoff beyond the three-week
deadline that is required by
law.
Earlier, two top Zanu-PF officials had said that the politburo, or
executive
committee, discussed either delaying the runoff and giving the
government
time to shore up support for Mugabe or forming a temporary
coalition
government with the opposition. The two officials are members of
the
politburo and declined to be identified because the talks are supposed
to be
confidential.
Under the first option, Mugabe would use his
decree powers to extend the
election law's three-week deadline for a runoff
to three months and then
deploy party militias across the country to ensure
support, the officials
said. Under the other option, he would have asked the
opposition to form a
six-month transitional government and then hold new
elections, they said.
Three Month Delay
Military chief Constantine
Chiwenga and rural housing minister Emmerson
Mnangagwa pushed for the
three-month delay, the officials said. Chiwenga,
along with Commissioner
General of Police Augustine Chihuri, urged Mugabe to
fight a runoff because
they are concerned that an opposition-run government
may charge security
officials with human rights abuses and corruption, the
politburo members
said.
A group led by Lieutenant-General Solomon Mujuru, the former head
of the
guerilla army that helped Zimbabwe win independence in 1980, favored
opening
talks with the MDC on forming a transitional government, the
politburo
members said. Central Intelligence Organization Director Happyton
Bonyongwe,
family members and personal aides urged Mugabe to resign, the
party
officials said.
Mnangagwa didn't answer a call made to his
mobile phone, and both he and
Chiwenga were said to be out when their
offices in Harare were called.
Workers at the CIO declined to put Bloomberg
calls through to Bonyongwe. No
one answered the phone at Chihuri's police
headquarters.
Unquestioned Rule
Mugabe's era of unquestioned rule
ended after opposition politicians won 111
of the 210 seats in the House,
according to official results released April
2. The MDC secured 99 seats,
Mugabe's Zanu-PF won 96, and a MDC splinter
group led by Arthur Mutambara
got 11. An independent candidate also won a
seat. The three remaining seats
will be decided in later by-elections.
Zanu-PF has demanded a recount in
16 House of Assembly races, Agence
France-Presse reported, citing an
unidentified party spokesman.
Before losing the House, Mugabe had
controlled all levels of Zimbabwe's
government since his guerrilla army
ousted white- minority rulers 28 years
ago.
If he manages to retain
the presidency, he will be a weaker but not
powerless leader. Mugabe has
used nearly three decades of absolute control
to push through constitutional
amendments to strengthen the presidency. He
can pass laws by decree that
stay in force for 90 days, after which they
expire unless the House and
Senate approve them.
Check on House
The Senate, created in 2005 as
a separate parliamentary chamber, can block
legislative proposals, so it
would be another check on the House's ambitions
if Mugabe partisans control
that chamber.
State television reported that partial official results
from the Senate
races showed that Zanu-PF won 20 seats, the MDC 19 seats and
MDC splinter
group four, said Petras, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
leader.
Results for 17 Senate seats haven't been disclosed
yet.
Tsvangirai's MDC has released no details of how it would tackle the
country's economic crisis, apart from saying it plans to allow the Zimbabwe
dollar to trade freely against other currencies. Officially, the Zimbabwe
dollar is pegged at 30,000 against the U.S. currency. It trades at 55
million to one U.S. dollar on the black market, where most foreign exchange
trades take place.
The MDC split in 2005 after some of its members,
led by Mutambara, a
university professor, decided to compete in the
country's first senatorial
elections. The move was criticized by the larger
Tsvangirai-led faction,
which boycotted that poll. Repeated talks since 2006
had failed by early
this year to re- unite the party.
To contact the
reporters on this story: Brian Latham in Durban via
Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net; Antony
Sguazzin in Johannesburg
at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.
Last
Updated: April 4, 2008 19:46 EDT
Mirror, UK
Victoria Ward In Johannesburg
5/04/2008
As desperate Zimbabwean refugees pile off the buses in downtown
Johannesburg, they do not dare to dream that change is on its
way.
Teppina Ntombela, 32, who left three children behind to come looking
for
work in South Africa, said: "We are scared. Mugabe will not go easily.
But
unless I am here earning money my children will not eat. I send them
cooking
oil and rice because there is nothing there. Shelves are
bare."
For the thousands of Zimbabweans fleeing every day - dodging
patrols,
cutting through game parks, hiding under canvas in trucks - South
Africa at
least offers a chance to earn cash and send food back
home.
But life across the border for the illegal immigrants, now
estimated at up
to three million, remains a humiliating struggle. Some say
they are at the
mercy of corrupt local police and many among the South
African population
resent their presence.
Oscar Machapaza, 34,
was a teacher in Harare. As he lay on a Johannesburg
church floor with 1,500
others, he said: "I've lost my honour. I work on a
building site and sleep
on a dirty floor. There are no blankets but disease
and lice.
We feel
like animals."