The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
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The head of a team of European Union election monitors has arrived in Zimbabwe despite warnings from the government there that he could be barred from observing next month's vote.
Pierre Schori, a former Swedish Government minister, flew into Harare after Zimbabwe's announcement last week that it would not accept observers from six EU countries, including Sweden.
The EU has threatened sanctions against Zimbabwe if its monitors are not granted full access to the elections.
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His first task will be to seek accreditation from the authorities.
If he is denied that, or if he or his team are barred access to parts of the country or parts of the campaign, the EU has said it will impose sanctions.
Travel ban
The European Commission in Brussels says it is monitoring the situation constantly, and EU foreign ministers are ready to decide on sanctions in the next few days.
These include a travel ban for President Mugabe and his inner circle, a freeze on any assets they hold in the EU and a stop on longer term development aid.
They have also said they will impose those sanctions if they believe that the voting has not been free and fair, or if media coverage of it is restricted.
Just last week Zimbabwe said it would allow in EU election monitors but only from nine of the 15 EU states; Sweden and Britain were amongst those excluded.
The EU officials have said it is not up to the Zimbabwean Government to decide the make-up of an EU election monitoring team.
From The Sunday Times (SA), 10 February
What did I do to deserve this?
Zimbabwe war veteran has to flee in the face of threats to his life
A stalwart of Zimbabwe's liberation war has fled the country after he allegedly received a tip-off that war veterans and government security agencies were planning to kill him. Makhathini Guduza, a former Zapu central committee member, secretly sneaked out of Matabeleland last Sunday for a brief stay in South Africa en route to London. Guduza fled as President Robert Mugabe intensified his crackdown on dissent. Troops were deployed in the outlying eastern and northern districts of Mount Darwin, Murewa, Mutoko and Shamva in Mashonaland province early this week. Last year Mugabe similarly deployed troops in Matabeleland in what was interpreted as a bid to shore up support ahead of the crucial presidential poll next month, pitting him against the Movement for Democratic Change's Morgan Tsvangirai.
Guduza claims Mugabe's feared Central Intelligence Organisation operatives and war veterans wanted to silence him after he refused to allow his kraal to be used for planning of attacks against MDC activists in Matabeleland. He says he was threatened with the same fate as Patrick Nabanyama, an MDC activist who was abducted before the 2000 parliamentary elections and has not been seen since. "I did not do anything to deserve such treatment from the government I fought for during the struggle," said Guduza. "Even now I am still prepared to share a platform with the president to understand what exactly went wrong in our country." Guduza is reputed to have been a right-hand man of former vice-president Joshua Nkomo, and is said to have single-handedly hatched the plan to spirit Nkomo out of the country during the Matabeleland reprisals of the 1980s by the Central Intelligence Organisation and Mugabe's North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade.
This week Guduza spoke of bitterness at the way in which the Mugabe administration had treated him and his refusal to co-operate with marauding thugs in Matabeleland. "I do not understand Mugabe's intentions. There simply is no respect for human life and values under his administration. Something is terribly wrong with our country." He said his problems became serious two weeks ago when he protested about a meeting that was supposed to be between farmers and government officials in Tsholotsho district near Bulawayo. He said he became angry when the meeting ended up being part of the Zanu PF election campaign. "I thought they had no right to deceive the people like that," Guduza said. When he questioned the use of state resources for party activities, he claims he was labelled a traitor by the local Zanu PF leadership and war veterans, and told that his days in Tsholotsho were numbered. Since then his house had been put under surveillance and his movements had been monitored.
From The Star (SA), 10 February
Thug tactics and arson derail MDC rally
Harare, Zimbabwe - Opposition activists on Sunday accused ruling-party supporters of attacking them to prevent an election rally west of Harare. After the violence on Saturday night in Gokwe, 320 km from Harare, police ordered the cancellation of the rally without heeding opposition pleas to investigate the attack, said Learnmore Jongwe, a spokesperson for the Movement for Democratic Change. Nine opposition members had arrived in Gokwe on Saturday night to prepare for the rally, when they were attacked by a mob of supporters of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF Party, Jongwe alleged. A truck belonging to the opposition was set ablaze by the ruling-party supporters, he said. There was no comment from the police.
Violence has intensified ahead of elections scheduled for March 9-10, when Mugabe faces a stiff challenge from opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, a former trade unionist. Opinion polls indicate Mugabe, 78, is in danger of losing power and the opposition and human rights groups say the chances of a free and fair election are remote. "To date we have had 67 rallies cancelled either by the police or by Zanu PF violence since the (laws were) passed three weeks ago," said Jongwe. "We will contest this election under the most severe circumstances but we have been stretched to the limit." Meanwhile, welfare organisations appealed on Sunday for children to be spared from violence in the political turmoil. The nine independent groups noted that militants had forced schools to close and teachers to flee, and condemned the continued detention of juveniles, often in the same cells as adults. The groups did not attribute responsibility for the violence.
In the western city of Bulawayo, 17 church leaders denounced repeated attacks in the state media on Mugabe's critics and new regulations requiring police permission for religious gatherings to be held off church premises. "We abhor the fact that we now have to seek permission to hold prayer meetings in public," the church leaders said vowing to defy the law and accept the consequences. An advance group of European Union election observers were due to arrive in Zimbabwe later on Sunday night. The EU has warned of targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe unless the elections are free and fair, and observers and international journalists are allowed to work unhindered.