Leaked poll results show that Mugabe lost – but will fight second round

The Times
May 1, 2008

Catherine Philp in Harare
Senior government officials in Zimbabwe leaked results yesterday for last
month’s presidential elections, which apparently hand victory to the main
opposition leader – but not by enough votes to win outright.

The news sets the scene for a bruising election run-off.

According to the officials, Morgan Tsvangirai won 47 per cent of the vote
against President Mugabe’s 43 per cent. He needed more than 50 per cent to
avoid a second round.

Mr Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), claimed
to have won 50.3 per cent of the vote based on results published at polling
stations, but a month later the official tally has still not been released,
prompting accusations of vote rigging against the Government.

The figures leaked yesterday – a day before the candidates’ agents were due
to begin verifying results – suggest that the margin of Mr Tsvangirai’s
victory was too large for the Government to overturn credibly.
Mr Mugabe’s regime has been preparing for a run-off, due within three weeks
of the final results, by launching a violent campaign of intimidation
against the MDC. The MDC said yesterday that 20 of its members had been
murdered since the elections. But it remained unclear whether the MDC would
take part in a run-off.

Zimbabweans had hoped that the election would bring positive change to their
country, where inflation is running at 165,000 per cent. Instead, severe
food, fuel and foreign currency shortages have been worsening along with the
escalation in bloodshed.

Zimbabwe’s proximity to economic collapse was thrown into the spotlight
yesterday as the Government announced that it would float its currency on
foreign exchange markets to bring in hard currency. Its foreign exchange
reserves are all but empty after years of looting and the virtual
destruction of the agricultural sector.

Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said that the
currency floatation would mean that “the availability of foreign exchange
will gradually improve”. But it remains to be seen who will be willing to
trade in the Zimbabwean dollar, which is virtually worthless after years of
overprinting and hyperinflation.

The announcement came hours after the regime lost one of its last sources of
foreign revenue. Farmers called off the annual tobacco trading season in
protest at government price-fixing. They tore up their crops of tobacco, the
country’s top foreign exchange earner, on the auction floors in protest at
the Government’s buying price of Z$70 million per kilogram – more than
US$2,000 (£1,000) at the official exchange rate, but less than US$1 at the
real black-market value.

Berison Mutemeri, a farmer from Ban-ket, northwest of Harare, said it cost
Z$2 billion to transport each bale.

The official exchange rate is fixed at Z$30,000 to US$1, a rate that exists
only on paper and to the benefit of senior officials able to purchase
foreign currency. On the universally used black market, where rates shift
daily, US$1 yesterday bought Z$100 million.

In the past, most of Zimbabwe’s foreign exchange was earned from exported
produce from its very productive white-owned farms. But that source of
revenue was cut off cata-strophically with the invasion and closure of most
commercial farms under Mr Mugabe’s land reform programme.

The lack of foreign exchange has been devastating for an economy now
dependent on imports. Experts say that the economy would have collapsed
years ago without the millions in foreign remittances sent home by its three
million refugees and migrants in South Africa and elsewhere.

Zimbabwean notes are not even considered hard cash but “bearer’s cheques”,
complete with an expiry date. All of Zimbabwe’s current notes expire at the
end of June 2008.

Economists say that the only way that Zimbabwe’s currency can be rescued is
by linking it to a hard currency such as the US dollar or the South African
rand. That would probably require a large-scale monetary rescue package of
the kind that international institutions would only be prepared to implement
if the current crisis was resolved and Mr Mugabe left.

Economists have argued that the fastest way to bring down the regime would
be for Zimbaweans overseas to stop sending remittances, even if it meant
that families would go hungry.

Some tobacco farmers had already decided not to sell their crops to the
Government to deny them the means to earn foreign exchange. An informal
boycott of black-market money-changers is also under way, with those holding
foreign currency urged not to sell it to street traders, many of whom are in
fact runners for the Reserve Bank and are using the black market to scoop up
US dollars.

The long election

March 29, 2008 Election day. Independently collated results suggest
landslide victory in parliamentary and presidential polls for the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change

April 4 Crackdown on foreign journalists and raids on opposition offices
stoke fears that Mr Mugabe is planning to fight to the end

April 11 Zimbabwean police ban all political rallies, accuse the MDC of
“spoiling for a fight” and deploy youth members. Hopes of a diplomatic
solution fade

April 18 Independence Day. Mugabe accuses Britain of paying Zimbabweans to
turn against him

April 23 Zimbabwe’s state-run media float the idea that Robert Mugabe will
annul the presidential election , staying on as president of a national
unity government while a new poll is prepared

Source: Times archive

Zimbabwe opposition says no to runoff

Victoria Advocate

By DONNA BRYSONAssociated Press Writer
April 30, 2008 - 3:35 p.m.
Zimbabwe's opposition rejected a presidential runoff election despite a
media report saying Wednesday that the long-delayed official tally delivered
them a victory short of an outright win.
CNN quoted an unnamed senior official with Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party
as saying results from the March 29 election gave President Robert Mugabe 43
percent and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai 47 percent. A candidate must
receive 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a presidential runoff in Zimbabwe.

The CNN source said the results meant a second round of voting was
necessary.

In Johannesburg, opposition spokesman George Sibotshiwe said he had heard
reports senior Zimbabwean government officials were saying official
presidential results put Tsvangirai ahead by a slim margin. Sibotshiwe
reiterated that the opposition would not take part in a runoff because it
believed only fraudulent results would make a second round necessary.

"If Robert Mugabe cannot accept the real results now, what's the guarantee
he'll accept the real results after a runoff?" Sibotshiwe asked.

Tsvangirai says he won the presidency outright; independent observers say
Tsvangirai won the most votes, but not the 50 percent plus one vote needed
to avoid a runoff.

In Harare, electoral commission officials said no results had been released,
and that party officials would not see them until a verification process set
to start Thursday afternoon.

Sibotshiwe also said the reports a runoff would be necessary were part of a
government strategy to gear expectations toward a runoff that Mugabe would
engineer in his favor.

The opposition has said a campaign of terror and violence since the first
round of voting has left it in disarray, with its main leaders out of the
country citing fears of arrest. Independent rights groups have also said the
postelection violence makes it unlikely a runoff could be free and fair.

Tiseke Kasambala, a Human Rights Watch researcher who was recently in
Zimbabwe, said even without the violence, the government's handling of the
first round, including the delay in releasing presidential results, raised
questions about whether any runoff would be valid.

Kasambala, who returned Monday from two weeks in Zimbabwe, also accused the
country's authoritarian regime of unleashing its army and ruling-party
militants on dissenters, reserving the worst violence for those seen as
betraying Mugabe.

The violence "is a form of punishment of people who turned against the
ruling party," Kasambala told reporters in Johannesburg on Wednesday. "The
government is actually focusing on its strongholds and some of the areas it
thinks it should have won."

She also said that in the past four days, Human Rights Watch had received
reports that more than 100 polling station officers - most of them teachers
and low-ranking civil servants - had been detained in an eastern province.
She described that as another indication the government and its loyalists
were targeting those seen as betraying Mugabe.

Mugabe's administration has countered that the opposition groups are
responsible for the violence. Attempts to reach Zimbabwean officials for
comment Wednesday were not successful.

In Washington, the Senate passed a nonbinding resolution late Tuesday
calling on Mugabe to step aside and begin a peaceful transition to
democratic rule.

US hands over proof of violence to Mugabe’s govt

Zim Online

by Cuthbert Nzou Thursday 01 May 2008

HARARE – The United States (US) has forwarded evidence of state-sponsored
political violence and human rights abuses to Zimbabwe’s government, amid
claims by the opposition that state security agents and pro-government
militias murdered 20 of its supporters in April.

US Ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee told journalists in Harare that the
embassy handed a dossier containing pictures of supporters of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party assaulted by state agents to the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

McGee said: “We have handed over evidence of violence to the government.
There are pictures of assaulted people and there are affidavits from the
victims narrating what happened to them. It’s sad that Zimbabwe’s political
crisis has now turned into a human rights crisis. There is need for
international intervention.”

Washington’s top diplomat in Harare declined to specify how the
international community could intervene in Zimbabwe, saying it was up to the
United Nations (UN) to decide how to get involved in the troubled southern
African nation.

Zimbabwe, also facing its worst economic recession and food shortages,
plunged deeper into political crisis after electoral authorities withheld
results of a March 29 presidential election that independent observers say
Mugabe lost to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, although they say a second
round ballot is required to settle the contest.

The MDC insists Tsvangirai won the vote outright and accuses the government
of holding on to results to allow state security agents and militants of
Mugabe’s ZANU PF party more time to terrorise voters and cow them to back
the 84-year old President in the anticipated run-off election.

The UN Security Council failed on Tuesday to agree on how to respond to the
Zimbabwe's post election crisis that the MDC and churches have warned could
easily slide into genocide of the scale seen in Rwanda.

Western countries led by Zimbabwe’s former colonial power, Britain, had
wanted the council to adopt a common strategy on the worsening situation,
including possibly sending a special envoy to probe violence and human
rights abuses committed by state agents against opposition supporters.

However, council president South Africa supported by Russia and China
opposed the move to leave the 15-member Security Council split and virtually
paralysed on the matter, as Mugabe’s government gloated on the lack of UN
action which it interpreted as a diplomatic victory.

But McGee hinted that Washington – which has maintained visa and financial
sanctions against Mugabe and his top lieutenants since 2002 – could widen
and tighten the punitive measures to force the Harare administration to
uphold human rights.

Zimbabwe foreign affairs permanent secretary Joey Bimha on Wednesday
declined to comment on the US claims of violence.  “We have no comment,” he
said.

A fortnight ago, the Zimbabwe government challenged anyone with evidence of
political violence to submit it in order that law enforcement agencies could
act.

McGee said the US embassy forwarded the dossier on violence in response to
the government’s call. “We have given them the evidence. It is up to the
government to give us evidence that there is no violence against the
opposition,” he said. “Out of the over 500 cases recorded, only one was
allegedly perpetrated by the opposition.”

Meanwhile, the MDC has said state agents and ZANU PF militia have stepped
violence against the opposition party’s supporters with at least 20 killed
as of Tuesday this week.

The MDC had previously claimed that 10 of its supporters were killed and 3
000 displaced from their homes in political violence since the elections.

The opposition party claimed that ZANU PF militia and soldiers killed five
of its activists this week alone.

The MDC said in a statement: “Tabitha Marume of Makoni West in Manicaland
province was shot and killed by soldiers at Chiwetu Rest Camp. Percy
Muchiwa, a teacher in Guruve was on Monday beaten to death by ZANU PF
supporters in Bakasa area.

“Tenos Manyimo and Bigboy Zhuwawo both of Mbire in Mashonaland Central
province died on Sunday when they were seriously attacked by ZANU PF militia
for being MDC supporters.”

The party claimed that in another brutal act of force in Shurugwi, Midlands
province, Clemence Dube of Poshayi Village in ward 12, was killed after ZANU
PF supporters and war veterans assaulted him on April 28.

The body of Dube, who was an MDC polling agent, had since been ferried to
Bulawayo for a post mortem, the opposition party said.

The MDC said thousands more of its supporters had been displaced in the
violence while hundreds are others were in hospitals across the country
receiving treatment for injuries suffered at the hands of ZANU PF militia
and state security forces.

Politically motivated violence and human rights abuses erupted in parts of
Zimbabwe almost immediately after the MDC defeated ZANU PF in the
parliamentary poll.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has not announced results of a parallel
presidential ballot but was expected to meet candidates in the poll or their
agents on Thursday to discuss results before making them public. – ZimOnline

ZEC says all set for presidential vote verification

Zim Online

by Patricia Mpofu Thursday 01 May 2008

HARARE – The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said on Wednesday that all
was set for verification today of results of the March 29 presidential
election, an exercise that will pave the way for announcement of a winner
more than a month after the vote.

But commission deputy chief elections officer Utoile Silaigwana cautioned
that it might still be a week before Zimbabweans know who won the vote as
disputes over figures might arise during the verification exercise which
would mean further delays.

“We have invited all the political parties and everything is on course,”
said Silaigwana, adding that ZEC officially invited all the four
presidential candidates and their election agents on Tuesday.

During the vote-checking process, candidates or their agents and election
observers will compare official figures with those they have compiled
themselves from the nearly 9 000 polling stations.

Silaigwana said: "Only after all parties agree with the figures will a final
overall result be announced. The process could take up to a week because
disputes are likely to arise.”

The Morgan Tsvangirai-led Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party faction
won 99 seats while the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC won 10 to bring their total
seats in the 210-member House of Assembly to 109.

An independent candidate won one seat while President Robert Mugabe’s  ZANU
PF party, 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 an as 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, which says Tsvangirai won the presidential election outright, says
Mugabe is delaying results to use the time to unleash violence and terror on
voters in bid to cow them to support him in an anticipated second round
ballot that according to electoral law should be held within three days of
issuing of results.

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.

Zimbabwe police after opposition leader over poll results

africasia

 HARARE, May 1 (AFP)

Zimbabwe police want to question a top opposition figure after he declared
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won the
presidential election, state media said Thursday.

"Police are keen to interview MDC secretary general Tendai Biti for
illegally declaring results ... in contravention of the Electoral Act, which
gives the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission the exclusive right to announce
results," the daily Herald said.

In a letter to Biti cited by the paper, police Commissioner General
Augustine Chihuri also accused Biti of inciting political violence.

"You know for sure, your violation of the country's laws by declaring
presidential results ... is still to be attended to by the police," said
Chihuri.

Biti proclaimed on April 2 that Tsvangirai had won the election with 50.2
percent of votes against 43.8 percent for veteran President Robert Mugabe
even though there had been no official word from the electoral commission.

"Put simply he has won this election ... Morgan Richard Tsvangirai is the
next president of the Republic of Zimbabwe, without a run-off," he told a
press conference in Harare.

Biti, the MDC's number two after Tsvangirai, has been out of the country for
more than three weeks since the country went to the polls. He has denied he
and Tsvangirai are in self-imposed exile, vowing they will return home when
it is appropriate.

"Surely, the police have been looking for you so that you could assist in
investigations surrounding the above-mentioned issue, concerning the
electoral laws and other matters, but you were nowhere to be found," said
Chihuri.

"What is very conspicuous in the Zimbabwean political arena today is your
prominent role in urging and abetting political violence through unbridled
rhetoric of incitement."

The result of the presidential election has still not been announced by the
electoral commission although the MDC has been declared the winner of a
simultaneous parliamentary election.

Zimbabwe Police Arrest Teachers Who Worked as Election Officials

VOA

     

      By Peta Thornycroft
      Harare
      30 April 2008

The group Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, says it is concerned about the
arrest of many Zimbabwe Electoral Commission presiding officers, who are
mostly teachers.  Peta Thornycroft reports that the arrests have been linked
to government statements about the conduct of the March 29 elections, which
were lost by the former ruling ZANU-PF party.

According to the Zimbabwe rights lawyers, more than 100 teachers have been
arrested, many of them in the past few days.

All of the arrests are connected with the recent elections.  The teachers
were hired by the Zimbabwe Election Commission as presiding officers for
local polling places.

The lawyers said among those arrested were several head teachers, people who
had been in the education system for decades.  They are all being charged
with criminal abuse of duty as public officers, fraud or violation of the
Electoral Act.

The Zimbabwe education system has in recent years been severely undermined
by a shortage of resources, the departure of teachers and harsh economic
conditions.  This is now being exacerbated, the lawyers say, by attacks on
teachers who worked for the Commission.

Schools opened this week after unusually long holidays to allow for
elections.  Teachers unions have warned for several years that there is
little learning or teaching going on at most public Zimbabwe schools,
because so many teachers have left the profession.

The lawyers say the arrests appear to be linked to what they say were
"insignificant anomalies" discovered during the recount of 23 constituencies
during the past 10 days.  Problems the lawyers say could easily be
attributed to human error.

The lawyers say they see the arrests not only as persecution, but that in
the event of a presidential run-off between President Robert Mugabe and
Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai the election will be
presided over by the security forces.

Police are investigating at least 100 cases of electoral fraud from the
country's disputed general elections, according to commissioner general
Augstine Chihuri.  He told state media this was what he called a "new
phenomenon in the electoral history of Zimbabwe."

These elections were the first time ZANU-PF has been defeated since
independence in 1980.  Independent pollsters say that Morgan Tsvangirai
defeated President Mugabe in the simultaneous presidential/parliamentary
poll.

Results of the presidential election have not been released and may take
several more days for verification, according to the commission.

Protest against Mugabe’s post-election reign of terror

As Victims of Violence Multiply, Zimbabwe State Doctors Widen Strike

VOA

      By Carole Gombakomba
      Washington
      30 April 2008

A strike by junior resident doctors at Zimbabwe's state hospitals has
widened just as increasing numbers of victims of post-election violence are
pouring in seeking care.

The job action by the physicians started slowly last week but has
intensified. Doctors charge that the government has failed to keep its word
on transport benefits, failing to deliver cars which the government promised
ahead of March 29 elections.

A representative of the doctors said Harare received a consignment of
imported cars before the elections, but those vehicles have been given to
senior consulting doctors and administrators rather than to the junior
doctors who are now aggrieved.

VOA could not reach Health Minister David Parirenyatwa or another senior
ministry official for comment on the grievance stated by the doctors.

Hospital Doctors Association Secretary Simbarashe Ndodha told reporter
Carole Gombakomba of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that while hospitals are
now receiving a mounting number of trauma patients as a result of the surge
in post-election violence, the government's failure to keep its word leaves
his group no other choice.

Children Not Spared Post-Election Violence

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

30 April 2008
Posted to the web 30 April 2008

Harare

Children are not being spared the impact of Zimbabwe's post-election
violence.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Zimbabwe told IRIN its work was being
hampered by the countrywide violence, which, according to widespread
reports, was being carried out by soldiers, war veterans and militias loyal
to the ruling ZANU-PF government.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the loss of
ZANU-PF's majority in parliament after the 29 March elections had sparked
both retribution against opposition supporters and a campaign of
intimidation ahead of an expected second round of voting in the presidential
ballot.

The MDC claim their leader won the presidential poll with 50 percent plus
one vote, a majority that negates the need for a second round of voting, but
ZANU-PF maintain that no candidate reached the required threshold. More than
a month after the poll, the results of the presidential vote have not been
released.

"Any violence against children, their families and their communities
seriously threatens the wellbeing and long-term development of children,"
James Elder, head of communications at UNICEF Zimbabwe, told IRIN.

He said UNICEF's "regular programmes are currently being negatively impacted
by the political impasse in the country", and that his organisation recently
contacted 27 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) implementing programmes
for children and "found that almost half had virtually suspended their
activities for children due to concern at current uncertainties".

Elder said UNICEF had increased visits by its programme staff to projects
and was working with partners "to create a safe and enabling environment for
NGOs to re-activate all programmes for children", which were expected to
reach more than 150,000 orphans in May with packages ensuring good
nutrition, health and education for the beneficiaries, in addition to
water-treatment chemicals in areas affected by severe water shortages.

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, told a forum on Tuesday during the
meeting of the Security Council that the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe,
caused by the delay in announcing presidential poll results and the violence
that has flared up, was "worrisome".

"Because of the increasing violence and the number of displaced people
fleeing their homes to other places, there is a serious humanitarian
crisis," Ban said.

More than 200 MDC supporters were arrested at the MDC's party headquarters
in the capital, Harare, after fleeing because their homes had allegedly been
razed by ZANU-PF supporters.

Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena told the state-controlled daily
newspaper, The Herald, that children were among those arrested, but that 29
people were released on the day of the mass arrests, "mainly women, babies
and the elderly".

Nelson Chamisa, the MDC spokesperson, described the raid on the MDC offices
as "a heinous show of state brutality", and asked, "What kind of a
government is it that willy-nilly tramples on the rights of children?"

Ndatadzei Karonga, 65, of Chihota district in Mashonaland East Province,
about 130km north of Harare, fled to the capital with her three
grandchildren - both her daughters had died of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses -
after militias accused her of having a son who worked in Harare.

The young men told me that my sin was that I have a son who works in Harare,
labelling everyone residing in urban areas as sell-outs because the MDC gets
most of its support from towns and cities

"The young men told me that my sin was that I have a son who works in
Harare, labelling everyone residing in urban areas as a sell-out because the
MDC gets most of its support from towns and cities. I feared that they would
assault or kill me, and had no option but to join my son here [in Harare]
because at least it is safer," Karonga told IRIN.

Her bachelor son lives in a single room and works as a bartender in the
dormitory town of Chitungwiza, about 30km from Harare, taking home a monthly
wage of Z$2billion, enough to buy nine loaves of bread.

"All the three children were supposed to have returned to school when
schools opened for the second term but, given the latest developments, we
might just as well forget about their education. My son is poorly paid and
there is no food for the children, unlike back in Chihota, where I had my
own food reserves that would be complemented by caregivers," she said.

Tendai (not her real name), 32, a single mother and another victim of
political violence, hitch-hiked from Murewa, about 90km northeast of Harare,
with her three-year-old daughter strapped to her back, in the hope of
obtaining antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) from the MDC.

"Being HIV-positive, I was getting my ARVs from a clinic in Murewa, but lost
the drugs after war veterans and militias torched my late mother's house. My
child is also sick, and if I don't get help immediately I might lose him,"
Tendai, an MDC ward political commissar, told IRIN.

She had to leave her home so suddenly that she was unable to tell her
seven-year-old son, who had been spending the school holiday in Gweru, in
Midlands Province, not to return to their rural home.

"I think he will be traumatised to find his home reduced to ashes. Who will
ensure that he is fed, bathed and sent to school, and how will he feel to
know that his mother has disappeared after some people tried to kill her?"

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

Mugabe Condemned at HIFA Opening

Zimbabwe Gazette

      By Lee Shungu, on April 30 2008 19:20

Though the atmosphere was a bit tense owing to the presence of
uniformed and un-uniformed state security forces, this did not deter the
determined artistes who proceeded to denounce Zimbabwe’s president Robert
Mugabe and his government, at the annual event, the Harare International
Festival of the Arts (HIFA) 2008 opening ceremony.

Packed up in the main stage arena Tuesday night, the crowd
cheered to the emotional poetry and music mainly by local artistes dubbed
Dreamland.
HIFA founder and artistic director, Manuel Bagoro confirmed
yesterday the opening ceremony was indeed touching.

  “It was an emotional performance as it set the tone for other
shows and events to come.”
“Artistes managed to touch the hearts of many by revealing the
truth, through poetry, dance and music,” said Bagoro.

To mark the beginning of the festival was the late Bob Marley’s
song performed by local artiste Outspoken- Zimbabwe. In the song, Marley
congratulated the country in attaining its independence in 1980. He
performed the song here in Zimbabwe.

The local artiste went on to do the late South African reggae
icon Lucky Dube’s piece- Different Colours. The song generally is about
uniting all races.

After this, the audience could not hear clearly, the artistes
who followed. It seemed as if their microphones or the sound system was bad.

Thus this reporter realised when an artiste was performing a
‘controversial’ song- it seemed the microphone was not clear enough. If an
artiste was doing a ‘non-political’ song, everyone could clearly hear.
According to the South African based choreographer, Bret Bailey,
Dreamland is about a King who stole the people’s dreams and songs, but
cannot take away the deepest songs and dreams in them. In a nutshell, the
opening festival was to celebrate the resilience of the Zimbabwean people in
a country marred by economic and political instability.

Local artiste, Chiwoniso Maraire performed a number of
‘emotional’ songs. Dudu Manhenga also did some poetry. They were supported
by a band which included children.

What was also of interest at the festival opening performance
was the appearance of ‘riot policemen’ in the act. Two men dressed as
policemen ‘beat up’ artistes and abused children on stage.

Chimurenga music legend Thomas Mapfumo’s Mhondoro was also
performed by Sebede and featured Zimbabwe’s protest poets, Samm Farai Monro
aka Cde Fatso and Outspoken. In the song, Mhondoro is the spirit medium of
Zimbabwe. The poets urged Zimbabweans to rise against oppressive rule, so as
to be free.

The big screen on the stage had Zimbabweans’ dreams flicking one
after the other, in the form of text whilst artistes performed. Most of the
dreams were of children and evicted farmers.

For example, one wrote, “I had a dream. I was to be made the
president of Zimbabwe, but a monster came chasing after me.”

Another one wrote, “I dreamt the country being ‘normal’ and I
was employed by ZABG Bank in the marketing department.”

Someone also wrote, “I had a dream in which Morgan Tsvangirai
was president and we were shaking hands and laughing together.”
One unidentified artiste putting on a mask and dressed in white
also performed a protest song. His supporting actors- ‘the policemen’ did
some dances whilst holding wooden material, ‘baton sticks’.

On the screen appeared a footage of a bulldozer bring down a
house and a bus heavily loaded with goods on the carrier. To many, this took
them back to the days of Operation Murambatsvina embarked on by Mugabe and
his government in a ‘clean-up’ campaign. Many people especially in Harare
and its surrounding areas were left homeless following the destruction of
‘illegal structures’.

To end the ceremony were some tremendous fireworks, for about a
good five minutes or so.

Also yesterday at a press conference, Canadian based arts group-
Chaos said they have been working with some local artistes at Young Africa
Skills Centre in Chitungwiza and have come up with great performances lined
up for HIFA.

"Actually when we arrived here we thought of changing the name
of our group from Chaos because it seems there is already enough chaos in
Zimbabwe." said one group member sarcastically.

‘It is surprising to see the courage and determination shown by
people of this country. It is amazing to see how they have hope and wake up
to face the economic and political challenges of this nation.”

Churches issue warning about Zimbabwe's political situation

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC)

Date: 30 Apr 2008

A broad coalition of Zimbabwean churches is speaking out against a political
crackdown that is underway in their country following disputed national
elections on March 29.

By Tim Shenk

April 30, 2008, AKRON, Pa./STRASBOURG, France – A broad coalition of
Zimbabwean churches is speaking out against a political crackdown that is
underway in their country following disputed national elections on March 29.

Representatives of Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical churches recently
issued a joint statement warning that pro-government forces are organizing
violence against individuals, families and communities that are accused of
supporting Zimbabwe's political opposition.

"People are being abducted, tortured, humiliated by being asked to repeat
slogans of the political party they are alleged not to support, ordered to
attend mass meetings where they are told they voted for the 'wrong
candidate' ... and, in some cases, people are murdered," the churches
stated.

Zimbabwe's Brethren in Christ Church is a member of the Evangelical
Fellowship of Zimbabwe, which is one of three church groups that issued the
joint statement. The Brethren in Christ Church is a member of Mennonite
World Conference (MWC) and a partner of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC).

Danisa Ndlovu, the bishop of the Brethren in Christ Church, said that his
denomination supports the statement. Ndlovu is vice president and
president-elect of Mennonite World Conference.

Ndlovu said that the statement is a strongly worded call for international
diplomatic assistance in resolving Zimbabwe's political crisis.

It states, "We warn the world that if nothing is done to help the people of
Zimbabwe from their predicament, we shall soon be witnessing genocide
similar to that experienced in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and other hot spots in
Africa and elsewhere."

Ndlovu confirmed that there are many reports of violence against alleged
opposition supporters, especially in rural areas. However, he said that
there is currently little to no violence in Bulawayo, the city where he
lives.

Ndlovu said that Zimbabwe's ongoing political conflict could give rise to
further violence. While an opposition party claims that it won the
presidency in March 29 elections, the government is conducting a recount and
refusing to release the official results.

The churches' statement calls on Zimbabwe's electoral commission to release
the presidential results immediately.

"We feel like there is something that is going on that is not right," Ndlovu
said. "And, as churches, we feel that, I think, it's important for us to
speak strongly against that."

The Brethren in Christ Church partners with MCC in projects related to AIDS,
education, relief, health care and peace-building. It is the largest
Mennonite World Conference member denomination in southern Africa, with
about 35,000 members.

Tim Shenk is a writer for Mennonite Central Committee.