Special to The Christian Science Monitor - WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2000

Three generations of Roy Bennett's family have owned farms amid the rocky outcrops jutting up between the pine and wattle trees here. He is popular in town, and speaks fluent Shona, the main language of the black majority. Mr. Bennett is just one of the locals, he even has a Shona nickname - Pachedu, meaning "together."

But he is white and defiant. And in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF Party and an army of war veterans are meting out violent punishment to opponents, both qualities make him a target.

In the past three months, more than 1,200 white-owned farms have been occupied, four white farmers have been killed, and some 20 others have died in the violence.

But despite Mr. Mugabe's announcement May 16 that parliamentary elections will take place on June 24 and 25, many doubt just how fair they will be - and how soon the violence and intimidation will end.

Against this backdrop of fear and retaliation, Bennett took a stand in a dramatic confrontation last week. Bennett had switched camps from Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party, and decided to run on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change ticket.

This infuriated ZANU-PF officials, because ZANU-PF's present, unpopular candidate is retiring, and they say Bennett has a real chance to win.

On May 4, party thugs attacked the house of Bennett's campaign manager, James Mukwaya, smashing all the windows and damaging the roof.

Then last week, the local head of ZANU-PF led about 50 party supporters armed with sticks and machetes in an invasion of Bennett's farm. His workers were rounded up and forced to chant ZANU-PF slogans, according to Rocky Stone, the farm manager who later fled.

"Pamberi ZANU-PF, [Forward with ZANU PF]," one of the invaders shouted in Shona at one of Bennett's farm workers.

The farm worker pumped his clenched fist in the air and shouted "Pamberi Pachedu," using Bennett's Shona name. The astounded slogan-master again shouted the ZANU-PF cry - to which the farm worker again responded "Forward with Pachedu!"

To save the farm worker from a lashing, a woman falsely indicated with a hand gesture that the man was crazy. The slogan-master believed her and moved on.

But they taunted other workers, forcing them to say "MDC" and to spit on the ground. One "didn't spit enough, so they pulled him out and beat him with sticks," another man says. The invaders demanded a meeting, saying that Bennett could either stand down as a candidate or he and his family would be killed.

The meeting was held May 11 at the Chimanimani Country Club, where Bennett was met by the local head of the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), the local head of ZANU-PF, two war veterans, the police, an official from the Ministry of National Affairs, and a pick-up truck loaded with 10 men in ZANU-PF T-shirts. "I want you to tell the people to vote for ZANU-PF.... The ex-combatants can hit and they can kill," said one obviously drunk man who identified himself as comrade Cobra. After their closed-door meeting, the National Affairs official, a Mr. Ndzama (who refused to provide his full name) said Bennett was free to stay on his farm and would be safe.

Bennett emerged from the confrontation red-faced and angry: "They said I was aligned with MDC, and I am a traitor. They said I had betrayed ZANU-PF."

The more important message: Bennett could withdraw from the election or potentially lose his and his family's lives.

Undaunted, Bennett insists, "They can take my farm, but I am still running [for Parliament]."

Bennett later says he believes white farmers are making the situation worse and conferring legitimacy on the farm invaders by engaging in endless rounds of talks. "If the good people sit by and watch evil prevail, we are going nowhere. I am committed.... I realize the implications.... I realize the danger. I believe righteousness will always overrule evil," he says. "The people of Zimbabwe are being suppressed by a very, very evil regime."

Although the government official Ndzama and the veterans assured him in the presence of journalists that he could return to his farm, the next day they refused to allow Bennett to remove personal possessions and farm implements.

For now, Bennett can only wait until the June election. He believes he can win, despite his race, because he has already campaigned extensively and has long maintained close relations with the community.

When Bennett moved to Chimanimani, he presented himself to the local chiefs as a subject and has worked hard to maintain relations. He built and runs a school and medical clinic on his property. He used his buying power to run discount grocery and sundry shops in the neighboring communal land and sells excess milk to workers and neighbors at one-eighth the retail price.

For refusing to condemn him, Bennett's nurse and store manager have both been beaten since Bennett's confrontation. But he argues that many Zimbabwean whites have not made much effort to interact with the black population. "The people who stay here have to get involved and know the people," he says.

"Politics here is a little bit dangerous," says one man randomly stopped on the road. "But we are expecting Mr. Bennett to be our MP here. He is here for development. We were attacked by the cyclone here and he helped rebuild our roads and bridges. We love him."

"We do love him," chimes in Trynos Makado, an unemployed man. "We have seen some threats by ZANU-PF, but we can't do anything because they are armed and we can't fight them with stones. Guys from Harare are coming here to cause trouble with the CIO guys. They are saying 'If you want, we can give you land. If you don't vote for us we will kill you.' "

As Bennett drove to his meeting, he sped past a lumber truck. A worker in the vehicle extended his hand to Bennett in the open-hand MDC salute. Minutes later another group walking from the saw mill raised their hands in the same salute.

Less bold were some others Bennett passed outside a shack where men carve wooden chairs and assemble iron burglar bars. A few workers looked around and whispered a refusal to discuss Bennett. "In politics you can die," one man says. "We are very worried.... Pachedu is all right. He was the person who was sending some lorries to people in the communal areas, giving some work on his farm," says a man grinding iron fittings who refused to offer his name.

Can Bennett win? "Yes of course," he adds. "When the cyclone came, he was the first person to send his trucks to clear the roads.... People are afraid to talk about politics. Myself, I will have to vote, otherwise there is no way out."

If voters share that affection for Bennett, he could become the first white MP elected here since Zimbabwe scrapped the 20 seats guaranteed to whites. "I am not going to be intimidated...." Bennett says. "If I lose my life to it, so be it. For my children to have a life in this country, someone has to make a stand," he vows.

 

Mugabe foes expect rigged vote

Zimbabwe opposition to ask High Court to postpone June vote

JOHANNESBURG - Zimbabwe's opposition leaders and democratic activists cried foul yesterday, saying widespread violence and government mischief would prevent free and fair parliamentary elections.

A day after President Robert Mugabe announced the long-awaited date of the elections, the ruling party's main opponent, the Movement for Democratic Change, said it would petition the High Court to postpone the ballot. The government has failed to release the voter rolls and redrawn voter-district maps, making it impossible for opposition parties to register their candidates.

Human rights groups, meanwhile, called on the international community to send large numbers of election monitors to oversee the process. Three separate foreign delegations are traveling in the country, assessing the climate ahead of the vote. Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon, who met with Mugabe yesterday, said the president agreed to accept 40 Commonwealth election observers.

''It is difficult, I have to say, to see how the elections will be free and fair given the extent of the violence being perpetrated in the countryside and the fact that no one has had a chance to see the voter rolls,'' said a Western diplomat based in Harare, the capital.

Violence has gripped Zimbabwe since late February, when veterans of the 1970s war for liberation and other supporters of Mugabe began invading white-owned farms and beating black farmworkers who they suspected were sympathetic to the opposition.

The intimidation quickly spread beyond the farms. The opposition movement claims that all of its 67 candidates from rural districts and seven from urban areas have been threatened or attacked. Ten have been hospitalized and one was held hostage. In all, at least 20 people have been killed in the political violence since February.

''The question now is whether people will have enough courage to rise above the violence and vote as they want,'' said Welshman Ncube, the opposition movement's secretary general. ''It is difficult to call. They might be disgusted with the violence and vote for change, or they might say it is not worth the risk and stay away.''

Beyond the political crisis, Zimbabwe also faces its worst economic problems in at least a decade, and the World Bank was expected yesterday to freeze all new loans for development projects after the country defaulted on its debt payments.

On Monday, after weeks of delay, Mugabe set the date of the elections for June 24 and 25. The winners will form Zimbabwe's fifth legislature since 1980. Until now, Mugabe's party has faced little opposition, and held 147 out of 150 seats in the parliament disbanded last month.

Mugabe's own term as president does not end until 2002. But the opposition movement, with its roots in trade unions, hopes to capitalize on widespread frustration over joblessness and inflation, and capture enough seats to topple the aging autocrat. It needs 75 seats to impeach.

John Makumbe, chairman of the political science department at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare, is not optimistic. The constitution allows Mugabe to appoint 30 legislators. While the opposition commands the urban vote, he said, intimidation on the farms is preventing the opposition from reaching the rural areas.

''Without the violence,'' the opposition movement ''was looking at sweeping the decks,'' Makumbe said. ''But faced with violence and strong government control of the state media, the opposition is unsure of the mood in the rural areas, and in some cases is too scared to find out.''

The opposition's problems are compounded by government manipulation of electoral laws, Makumbe added. According to the constitution, candidates have two weeks from the announcement to register. That means that all parties must field their members district by district by May 29. To do so, each candidate must be nominated by 10 voters from the district he or she wants to represent.

But without the voter rolls or maps, the parties do not know where to place their candidates, and it is probable, Makumbe said, that the government has gerrymandered districts to cut the number of seats in cities, where the opposition is strong.

Speaking after his meeting with Mugabe yesterday, McKinnon said he ''got the impression from the president the genuinely wants a lessening of the violence.'' So far, Mugabe has refused to condemn the farm attacks or forcibly remove thousands of pro-government squatters from occupied land, despite two High Court rulings last month deeming the invasions illegal.

 

African Parties Seek Election Observers

The Democrat Union of Africa (DUA), a league of mainly opposition parties, called for the urgent deployment of international observers before the parliamentary poll.

Marthinus van Schalkwyk, leader of South Africa's New National Party, said observers were vital to lay the basis for free and fair elections.

``Our call is for the deployment of many more international election observers, and please start now,'' he told a news conference in Harare after a series of meetings with civic and opposition groups.

Mozambique's chief opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama said the DUA was deeply concerned that violence would mar the vote.

Human rights group Amnesty International urged ``impartial policing of all pre-election activities and investigations of any incidents of rights abuses.'' It called for an end to violence and intimidation ``to ensure that all parties can participate in rallies of any political parties without fear.''

MDC officials in the eastern town of Chimanimani told Reuters that five more MDC supporters had been abducted overnight and could be dead.

``Five people have been abducted. We have reports that they have been killed, but we are still trying to confirm that,'' MDC organizer James Mundenda said by telephone. He said the attack had taken place on a farm owned by Roy Bennett, a white farmer and an MDC parliamentary candidate.

David Coltart, legal secretary for the MDC, told Reuters the government had violated the law when it set nomination and election dates before a commission charged with setting constituency boundaries had ended its work.

Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa told the state-owned Herald newspaper that the government had acted legally.

Defense Minister Moven Mahachi Wednesday denied reports that the military was involved in the farm occupations, which have deepened Zimbabwe's economic crisis by disrupting its agriculture, in addition to generating political chaos.

As a three-member team began preparing for the arrival of Commonwealth observers, Zimbabwe's human rights watchdog said at least 300 people had been driven from rural homes by ZANU-PF supporters and had seen their property wrecked.

Supporters of ZANU-PF call the campaign ``politicization.''

Don McKinnon, secretary-general of the 54-member Commonwealth said Tuesday Mugabe had agreed to allow international election observers. South Africa announced on Wednesday it would send observers to the vote.