7 days to "D" day - I wrote this weekly report and then blinked and behold - a week has rushed by! In the MDC offices this morning the team looked exhausted already. Charlene could hardly talk, Chris had not shaved for a week, Rudo and Grace had dark rings around their eyes, and still the crowds of candidates, victims of violence and others poured through the door. Its great stuff - but I do not think anyone will have any energy for the celebrations when we win, although the human spirit is something else.
The campaign to win by any means is in full swing - look at the record: -
We are taking these new regulations to court but how do we cope with all of this in the time available - we are doing our best but this explains the exhausted state of our volunteer teams in the party offices. This is an exercise only for the most determined, and we qualify for that description!
In the meantime the violence and intimidation continue -our death toll of MDC members is over 35 and rising daily, the number of people with injuries is too numerous to list while the numbers of homes burned down run to hundreds, if not thousands. The farm occupations have intensified and a whole system of intimidation of farm workers is being set up for the election period. Intimidation and forced attendance and participation accompany all Zanu PF rallies. Non compliance is met with immediate retribution and threats of retribution against the individual and his or her family.
And then there is our President - in power for 20 years, with all that experience in running the country, 6 university degrees and a recognised intellect, yet making the most irresponsible statements on the economy and what he is going to do with it. Not satisfied with destroying the tourist and farming sectors, he now wants to inspire his goons to invade mines and industrial firms and offers no protection for any form of property rights in any field of endeavor. If we needed evidence of his growing insolvency in terms of ideas and wisdom, this is it and I only hope it pushes a few of the remaining fence sitters off the wall.
One comment that a person from South Africa made has stuck with me recently - he said "what Mugabe is trying to do, is exactly what Smith tried and failed to do - prevent the majority from coming to power". It's a thought - he will also fail!
Eddie Cross
17th June 2000
June 19, 2000
Rangarirai Shoko
PANA Correspondent
HARARE, Zimbabwe (PANA) - Zimbabwe on Monday threw out some Kenyan and Nigerian election observers in a European Union team on suspicion they were working for former colonial power, Britain, which it has barred from monitoring next weekend's parliamentary polls.
President Robert Mugabe, saying Britain was an interested party in the polls because of its open support for the opposition, last month barred London from sending an observer team for the 24-25 June parliamentary elections.
"We will welcome any observer team as long as they don't include a single Briton," he told visiting Commonwealth secretary general, Don McKinnon.
Government officials said 10 Kenyans and seven Nigerians had been denied accreditation because it had been discovered they were representing Britain and not the EU.
The UN pulled out of Zimbabwe's election process last month after the government refused it permission to co- ordinate the activities of all foreign observer missions.
More than 16,000 election observers have been deployed in the country to monitor the polls.
Zimbabwe bars EU
election observers
WebPosted Mon Jun 19 16:33:54 2000
HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Zimbabwe
has refused to allow some international observers to monitor this weekend's
elections.
The 17 Kenyan and Nigerian observers are members of a mission sponsored by
the European Union.
An election official in Zimbabwe says the observers aren't eligible because
neither country is a member of the EU.
The official also claims the Kenyans and Nigerians will pass on information
about the elections to the British government.
The observers have already been deployed in a number of rural districts
across the country and will not be recalled until their status can be confirmed.
President Robert Mugabe has accused Britain of supporting the main opposition
party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) which has mounted the first
serious threat to his rule.
Last month, Mugabe said his country would welcome any observer team as long
as they "don't include a single Briton."
Opposition and human rights groups have accused Mugabe's government of
delaying the accreditation of foreign observers so that the government can
conduct a state-sponsored terror campaign in the countryside.
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) has also had difficulties getting
their observers accredited after the Washington-based democracy group said free
and fair elections were not possible in Zimbabwe.
Tuesday, June 20 5:56 AM SGT HARARE, June 19 (AFP) - Hundreds of Zimbabweans supporting President Robert Mugabe's ruling party
started occupying white-owned farms in February but soon turned their violence
towards opposition supporters as election fever gained pace. The farm invasions, led by former guerrillas of the war of independence from
British colonial rule, started just days after voters rejected a proposed
constitution in a referendum. It would have allowed the seizure of farmland
without compensation, and increased Mugabe's already sweeping powers. The constitution would have also "compelled" Britain, as the former colonial
power, to pay compensation to white farmers whose land would have been taken by
the government. Five days ahead of the referendum the white commercial farmers expressed
their opposition to the provisions of the draft constitution, saying they felt
they were being "treated vindictively." They said for retribution to be meted out to today's farmers just because the
former colonial power has repudiated the payment of reparations was not fair
since the farmers were Zimbabweans, not British. Mugabe blamed the voters' subsequent rejection of the draft constitution on
the whites, accusing them of backing the main opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) as a front to re-colonise the former Rhodesia. Days after the government-sponsored constitution was defeated, with 54.6
percent of the voters casting "no" ballots, veterans of the war that ended
colonial rule went on a rampage, swarming onto white-owned farms across the
country. The invasions, often violent, led to the death of four white farmers in
direct clashes. The MDC claimed all four were its members. Accompanying the invasions, which Mugabe openly supported and adamantly
refused to stop, were brutal attacks on opposition supporters. The opposition
claimed more than 5,000 cases of violence against its supporters and the death
of a total of 30 people. War veterans' leader Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi, who spearheaded the farm
invasions, said Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front
(ZANU-PF) had given funds to his association to campaign for the elections, and
the invaders were reportedly paid and fed from government vehicles. Mugabe has denied having ordered the invasions. Hunzvi, for his part, warned that an opposition victory in the elections
would lead to the veterans launching a civil war. "We will never allow people who oppressed us to come to power," he said. Andrez Ndlovu, a top veterans' official, added: "It means we will go back to
the bush. We will declare a military government," adding that the military
government would need five years to get things right. The Commercial Farmers' Union, while it supports land reform in a nation
where some 4,000 white farmers own about 30 percent of the country, decided to
take legal action to have the veterans ejected from their properties, but Mugabe
said he would rather disregard the "little law of trespass" than order one black
to evict another. A day before Mugabe dissolved the last parliament in April, the government
amended the constitution to give the president the power to take land for
redistribution to blacks without paying for it. Hunzvi vowed to force the government to acquire land and redistribute it
before the elections, saying that politicians could not be trusted after a
victory at the polls, but no redistribution has yet taken place. Earlier attempts at land reform in Zimbabwe were marred by corruption, which
saw farms going to senior government and party officials, and by agricultural
failures in resettlment areas. June 19, 2000
Rangarirai Shoko HARARE, Zimbabwe (PANA) - Zimbabwe's two main political parties held final
campaign rallies at the weekend in Harare, the capital, as the crucial 24-25
June parliamentary elections draw close.
The governing ZANU-PF party and the opposition MDC held the rallies at
separate venues in the capital, in what political analysts said was intended to
gauge their political support ahead of the polls.
The rallies, addressed by the presidents of the two parties, attracted almost
the same number of supporters, a scenario the analysts said showed President
Robert Mugabe had covered significant political ground in urban areas where the
opposition have enjoyed overwhelming support.
Mugabe addressed an estimated 15,000 supporters at the Harare campaign rally
on Saturday, and another 10,000 in the second city of Bulawayo on the same day,
stressing his message of land reform and the need to thwart British attempts to
re-assert former colonial control on Zimbabwe.
He accused Britain, which granted Zimbabwe independence in 1980, of
sponsoring opposition parties in the country in an attempt to sidetrack his
government's land reforms which London strongly opposes.
On the other hand, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, predicting victory for his
seven-month old party, spoke out against top-level corruption in government and
Mugabe's poor handling of the economy at his party's Sunday campaign rally
attended by an estimated 20,000 supporters.
"We have demonstrated here with this large crowd that the MDC is not just an
opposition party. We are the government-in-waiting," he said.
But the MDC rally, held in a city stadium where Britain formerly handed the
reigns of power to Mugabe in 1980, was marred by brutal attacks on three
suspected ZANU-PF supporters by youths of the opposition party.
"We absolutely condemn them, but you have to see it in the context of a
violent three month campaign," said MDC legal secretary, David Coltart.
More than 30 people, many of them opposition supporters, have died in
inter-party clashes in the past three months, with all parties trading
accusations of responsibility for the fighting.
Sixteen thousand regional and international observers are monitoring the
polls.
Political observers say the close turnout of supporters at the weekend
rallies between the two parties indicated a tight race for ZANU-PF and the MDC
in urban areas where the latter drew most of its support.
The 5,000 difference in crowd numbers between it and the ruling party is
something that the MDC should worry about, more so that time has run out for the
party to do anything much about it, said a University of Zimbabwe political
science lecturer.
He said the opposition party's best electoral hope is in urban areas as
ZANU-PF has sealed off its rural political stronghold through promises of land
reform to the peasants. 'Red-carded' Mugabe faces an early exit
By JONATHAN STEELE in Harare
President Robert Mugabe, could be facing humiliation and defeat for his
ZANU-PF party in this weekend's parliamentary election, according to a new
opinion poll. It suggests the opposition Movement for Democratic Change could win 70 of the
120 contested parliamentary seats. Under the Constitution, Mr Mugabe - who has led Zimbabwe since his massive
victory in the former British colony's first majority-rule elections in 1980 -
appoints another 30 MPs. But the leader of the MDC challengers, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, said he would
try to limit the president's ability to do so. The president's term lasts until 2002 but the MDC is trusting that if it
wins, Mr Mugabe will be pressed into going early. Six weeks ago, when ZANU-PF launched its election campaign with a wave of
intimidation against MDC supporters, some opposition leaders considered calling
for a boycott of an election they believed could not be free or fair. Now, against earlier odds, they sense victory, and at the weekend 15,000 of
their supporters sang, danced and cheered in Harare's Rufaro stadium in
anticipation. "We showed Robert Mugabe the yellow card," the MDC president, Mr Morgan
Tsvangirai, told them - referring to February's nationwide vote that rejected Mr
Mugabe's attempts to change the constitution. 'Now we show him the red one!" A roar of triumphant laughter engulfed the
stands and, on cue, hundreds of people waved little red cards. "We have had enough of poverty, enough of racism, enough of ZANU-PF," Mr
Tsvangirai said after asking the crowd to stand in memory of the roughly 30
candidates and supporters who have been killed in the election campaign. "Robert Mugabe is a violent president who does not love the people of this
country. He loves power. We are not for retribution, but those who have done the
killing must answer for it.'' In turnout and spirit, the contrast with Mr Mugabe's rally the day before was
painful. Even though it was held at Highfield, close to Harare's biggest black
township, the president mustered little more than 5,000 people. An embarrassed Mr Tony Gara, the ZANU-PF chairman for Harare province,
apologised in his welcoming address, sounding almost like an MDC supporter when
he rubbed in one of the main factors which has seen Mr Mugabe's popularity
plummet: "Some people also could not get here because of the fuel crisis," he
said. Mr Mugabe declared: "Zimbabwe is a black man's land and therefore a black man
has the right to determine its future. We must remember the problems we went
through when they ruled this country." But his rhetoric - and his favourite slogan, "Zimbabwe will never be a colony
again" - seemed out of touch. Most people are more concerned that the country's
economy began to turn down in the 1990s and that they now face an unemployment
rate said to be as high as 55 per cent and inflation of around 74 per cent. The magnitude of Mr Mugabe's crisis is hard to absorb. The MDC is a broader
coalition even than the rainbow alliance which Nelson Mandela put together in
South Africa. It includes whites who fought in the army in support of Rhodesia's white-rule
leader, Ian Smith, as well as liberals who fought against him. It has thousands
of blacks who used to be with the ZANU-PF guerillas in the fight that began in
1965 for majority rule, as well as others who were rivals or kept their heads
down in the war. The Guardian Ross Herbert HARARE, ZIMBABWE
Aloyis Mudzingwa's campaign supporters sometimes do their work by
moonlight. In his rural Zimbabwe constituency, they covertly paint his name on large
rocks by the side of the road. And as they drive through the streets, his
campaign workers hurl election pamphlets out the windows. "That is the only [safe] way of campaigning we have left," Mr. Mudzingwa told
international election observers this week. A parliamentary candidate for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
Mudzingwa's constituency is Murehwa North, about 60 miles east of Harare. It is
- like much of Zimbabwe - a virtual no-go area for opposition candidates who are
fighting an uphill battle against President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF
party. Despite the deployment this week of hundreds of international election
observers, tension continues to mount as Zimbabwe moves closer to June 24-25
parliamentary elections that represent the first major challenge to Mr. Mugabe's
ruling party in 20 years. "We must accept that we have a real battle here," the visibly angry president
told just 5,000 people Saturday in a Harare stadium where, on his return from
exile in 1980, more than 100,000 gathered to cheer him. In the same stadium yesterday, an estimated 10,000 MDC supporters gathered to
hear their candidates speak. A poll published on Friday indicated that the MDC could win 70 of the 120
contested parliamentary seats, but government ministers have dismissed the
survey as inaccurate. Most of the parliamentary seats in contention are in rural areas where
thousands of veterans of the 1980 war for independence and party youths now
occupy some 1,500 white-owned commercial farms. These groups effectively act as
a ruling party militia, forcing rural voters to go to campaign rallies, holding
all-night indoctrination sessions on occupied farms, and physically blocking
campaign rallies in rural areas that ZANU-PF considers its political
heartland. MDC party leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who travels with an entourage of support
vehicles, has better access to rural areas than Mudzingwa, but his movement has
been limited too. Last Tuesday, Mr. Tsvangirai attempted to hold a rally in Murehwa but a brawl
erupted between his advance team and ZANU-PF supporters. When Tsvangirai arrived
for the rally, some 3,000 ZANU-PF supporters and war veterans armed with clubs
occupied the site and police barred Tsvangirai from the town. "It is a strategy. We schedule a rally and they go after and book the place
and the police block you. They are trying to say we should not campaign in these
places," Tsvangirai says. So far the presence of international observers has not notably improved the
situation. Five major Tsvangirai rallies and many smaller rallies by MDC
candidates were blocked last week. After Tsvangirai's motorcade was stoned and a rally blocked by ZANU-PF in
Honde Valley, about 110 miles east of Harare, he tried to get a European Union
observer team to accompany him back to Harare. The EU team declined for fear of
being stoned itself and Tsvangirai was subsequently stoned a second time. The
observers, facing the same risk of violence, have been disorganized and slow in
deploying to rural areas. "Unfortunately, the international observers are sitting in international
hotel rooms and don't know what is going on," Tsvangirai complained last week.
Since his complaint, observer deployments have increased. "What has happened in Zimbabwe over the last few months is a complete
subversion of the democratic electoral process," says Tony Reeler, director of
the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum, a coalition of independent groups monitoring
the violence. "Free and fair elections are not possible," Mr. Reeler told a news conference
in Harare. The Forum says more than 13,000 people have fled rural violence and sought
refuge in towns and cities. Reeler says unruly MDC supporters have increasingly
been involved in violent clashes, but the vast majority of incidents recorded by
the group were launched by ZANU-PF backers. At least 30 people have been killed
in political violence so far. Despite the violence, campaigning continues. On the stump, Tsvangirai
continues to focus on the country's economic collapse, high unemployment,
crippling interest and inflation rates and fuel shortages that have brought much
of the economy to a standstill. For his part, Mugabe's speeches and advertisements continue to portray
Tsvangirai as a stooge of white interests and the British. At the Saturday
rally, the last major campaign event in Harare before elections, Mugabe spoke
for an hour about colonialism, the evils of the British, unfulfilled British aid
promises and white influence behind the MDC. "This struggle is against the
whites and the British. Let the Britons rule Britain and the Zimbabweans rule
their own country," he said. In the last 10 minutes he mentioned the economic crisis, which he blamed on
white business which he said took advantage of the end of price controls six
years ago. "So we are now giving the government the power to limit the price of
everything. No one will be allowed to raise the price of anything without
government permission," Mugabe says. Mugabe's appeals to patriotism and emphasis on his role as the leader of the
liberation from white rule remain deeply evocative to many Zimbabweans. Although Tsvangirai clearly has wide support, Mugabe retains huge advantages.
Mugabe appoints 30 members of the 150 seat Parliament, which means the MDC must
win 75 of 120 elected seats to command a majority. If, as the latest poll suggests, the MDC took 70 seats, that would be an
impressive win in a Parliament where the opposition currently holds only three
seats. But it still would be too little for the MDC to take control. June 19, 2000
Rangarirai Shoko HARARE, Zimbabwe (PANA) - The leader of Zimbabwe's main opposition party has
predicted victory in this weekend's parliamentary elections.
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai told an
estimated 20,000 supporters at a campaign rally Sunday that the seven-month old
labour-backed party would dislodge President Robert Mugabe's government from 20
years of uninterrupted rule.
"We have demonstrated here with this large crowd that the MDC is not just an
opposition party. We are the government-in-waiting," he said.
The party was buoyed earlier in the week by an opinion survey predicting it
would win 70 of the 120 seats being contested in the poll, the toughest the
governing ZANU-PF party has had to fight since coming into power in 1980.
The MDC is campaigning on the platform of political and economic change,
blaming the government for sinking 76 percent of the country's population of 12
million people into poverty.
Tsvangirai, a former trade unionist, accused Mugabe of being spendthrift and
of tolerating top-level corruption in government, vowing to require all MDC
officials declare their wealth before assuming office.
But the rally, the biggest the party has held, was marred by savage beatings
of three suspected supporters of the ruling party.
"We absolutely condemn them (the beatings), but you have to see it in the
context of a violent three-month campaign," MDC legal secretary David Coltart
said.
More than 30 people, many of them opposition members, have died in clashes
between rival supporters since February.
Sixteen thousand regional and international observers have been deployed to
monitor the elections.
Mugabe has accused the MDC, transformed into a political party from a labour
group, of promoting the neo-colonial interests of former colonial power Britain,
which is locked in a bitter war of words with his government over land reform.
But Tsvangirai denied the MDC was being manipulated by the British
government, despite London's financial backing for the party.
"Zimbabwe will not go back to Rhodesia (the country's colonial name) again,
as some of our detractors claim. Saying ZANU-PF has failed does not mean
returning the country to foreigners," he said.
Zimbabwe violence started on the farms, then spread
Zimbabwean Political Parties Round Off Campaigns
PANA Correspondent
Tense vote this week in Zimbabwe
With five days left before parliamentary elections, President Mugabe is
block-ing opposition campaigns.
Special to
The Christian Science MonitorOpposition Predicts Victory In Zimbabwe Polls
PANA Correspondent
HARARE, Zimbabwe (PANA) (Panafrican News Agency, June 18, 2000) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, campaigning for next weekend's parliamentary elections for his governing party, has admitted that his support base is on the decline in urban areas.
The Zimbabwean leader said a new labour-backed opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had capitalised on the country's economic crisis to win considerable support in urban areas, especially the capital Harare and the second city of Bulawayo.
"Let us not fool ourselves. We are facing a challenge from the Movement for Democratic Change in the urban constituencies, especially here in Harare," Mugabe told supporters of his ruling ZANU-PF party at a campaign rally in the capital at the weekend.
The veteran politician, who has dominated the country's politics since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980, rounded off campaigning for the elections with two rallies at the weekend in Harare and Bulawayo.
Unlike in the rural areas where he has promised speedy land reform, Mugabe told supporters at the two urban rallies he would re-introduce price controls to cushion people from the rising cost of living which he blamed on profiteering by manufacturers and retailers.
Zimbabwe abandoned price controls at the beginning of the 1990s after the government embraced IMF-drafted economic reforms.
The country has since ditched the reforms.
The Zimbabwean leader, who has been in power for 20 years, also promised a re-invigorated crackdown on top-level corruption in government in which several senior officials have been implicated in scams involving billions of dollars.
"We are determined to fight corruption and to fight those who are plundering government's wealth," he said.
An opinion survey by an independent polling agency released last week has predicted the MDC, which was formed seven months ago, will win the elections.
by Rangarirai Shoko
HARARE, June 18 (Reuters) - Jubilant Zimbabwe opposition supporters ran a gauntlet of police searches to throng Harare's independence stadium on Sunday for a violence-marred rally four times larger than the ruling party's main event.
At least 20,000 people attended the rally addressed by Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a key test of his party's ability to mobilise supporters ahead of next weekend's election.
"We have demonstrated here with this large crowd that the MDC is not just an opposition party. We are the government in waiting," Tsvangirai said to loud cheers at Rufaro Stadium.
On Saturday, ruling ZANU-PF officials apologised publicly to President Robert Mugabe for the poor turnout of around 5,000 at his Harare rally before the parliamentary vote on June 24-25.
The MDC rally had several ugly incidents in which youths attacked three men suspected of being ZANU-PF supporters.
They chased one man, who later gave his name as Felix, against a chainlink fence protecting the playing field and beat and kicked him until police with dogs drove them back. He was accused of helping to abduct four MDC youths on Sunday.
"They said I was a ZANU-PF supporter and they started to beat me up. I am not ZANU-PF," Felix, his shirt torn and his face bleeding, told reporters.
In a separate incident, another man was punched in the face and a Mugabe T-shirt ripped from his body before police rescued him from the mob. He also denied he was a ZANU-PF supporter.
A third man was also beaten before police saved him.
ATTACKS CONDEMNED
MDC legal secretary David Coltart condemned the attacks and said his party, the first to seriously challenge Mugabe in the 20 years since independence, was committed to a peaceful poll.
"We absolutely condemn it (the attack), but you have to see it in the context of a violent three-month campaign," he said.
At least 29 people, mostly opposition supporters, have died in political violence linked to the election campaign and the invasion of hundreds of white-owned farms by pro-government militants since February.
Shingirayi Mutsapi, an MDC supporter, showed reporters cuts on his shoulders and leg and said he was in a group of party members attacked on the way to the rally.
Police set up roadblocks on routes to the stadium where Britain's Union Jack came down in 1980, searching cars and questioning drivers.
Mugabe has denied responsibility for the violence and accused the opposition of attacking government supporters.
The 76-year-old president acknowledged on Saturday for the first time that his ZANU-PF party faced a strong challenge in Harare province, which holds 19 of the 120 seats at stake.
"We must accept that we have a real battle here," the visibly angry president told about 5,000 people in a stadium where, on his return from exile in 1980, more than 100,000 gathered to cheer him.
On Sunday, a mob of 50 men attacked the Harare home of Margaret Dongo, leader of the Zimbabwe Union of Democrats (ZUD), the country's third-largest opposition party.
"They came by bus and started throwing rocks at my house and car," Dongo told Reuters. "They were ZANU-PF. They had flags and everything. I hid under the table, but one of my workers was injured."
START OF "REAL INDEPENDENCE"
In his speech, Tsvangirai stressed the symbolism of holding his rally in the same place where Mugabe was inaugurated as the country's first black president in 1980.
"In this stadium 20 years ago, Robert Mugabe stood and announced the independence of Zimbabwe. But Zimbabwe moved from the hands of one oppressor to another," he said.
"Today Zimbabweans begin the countdown to the start of our real independence," Tsvangirai added.
In stark contrast to Mugabe's passionless rally on Saturday, the mood on Sunday was electric.
Most of the MDC supporters were young men who danced in the stands, shouted anti-ZANU-PF slogans and waved red cards to symbolically toss Mugabe out of power.
A poll published on Friday suggested the MDC was poised to win 70 of the 120 contested parliamentary seats, but government ministers have dismissed the survey. Under the constitution, Mugabe appoints another 30 members to parliament.
Tsvangirai said his party would seek to limit Mugabe's power to fill parliamentary seats if the MDC won next week.
"We cannot have a man whose party has lost an election to rule by default. If Mugabe loses the coming elections he has no moral authority to continue in office," Tsvangirai said.
Most of the parliamentary seats are in rural areas where pro-government militants have employed strongarm tactics against rural voters, warning there will be reprisals if the MDC wins.
After three weeks of death threats against her and her family, savage assaults on farm labourers and being forced to watch the frenzied mob trash the family home 300 miles south of Harare, Mrs Bennet, 38, a mother of three, suffered a miscarriage.
The lost baby can be added to the tally of at least 30 people who have died in the campaign of rural terror launched by the ruling Zanu (PF) Party. Most were opposition supporters and black labourers.
The Bennet farm, a sprawling 7,000-acre coffee and cattle plot bought in 1993 after President Mugabe's Government declined an offer to acquire it for resettlement, was invaded by 30 so-called war veterans to teach her husband, Roy, a lesson. Mr Bennet, 43, a former Zanu (PF) local candidate, defected to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in March after becoming disillusioned with what he described as the autocratic and incompetent leadership of the ruling party.
He is one of five white candidates fielded by the MDC in next weekend's elections. A fluent Shona speaker, Mr Bennet insists that the support he is getting has nothing to do with his racial origin. "It's not because I'm white. It's because I have a proven track record of working well with the local community," he said.
The MDC offered the first opportunity for whites and blacks to work together, he said. "Before this election, there has never been a credible opposition party. Whites have never got involved in politics because they were never welcomed. Mugabe turned every previous election into an exercise in white-bashing."
Mr Bennet's troubles started as soon as it became known that he had defected to the MDC. "They started beating people," he said. "Every day I received threats that they were going to take my farm and kill my family.
"They beat up the teachers from the local school in front of the children. They dragged out one of the teachers, stripped her naked and flogged her. They have even bused in people from as far as Bulawayo to try to sort me out."
Castigating Zimbabwe's white-dominated Commercial Farmers' Union for failing to stand up to President Mugabe and his roaming bands of war veterans, Mr Bennet said: "It's the appeasement from the white farmers which has allowed the lawlessness and mayhem to reach the level it has in Zimbabwe." Yet Mr Bennett is optimistic. He repeated a Shona saying: "When you've been lying on one side for 20 years, that side becomes rotten and it's time to turn over.
"The war vets are the only source of power Mugabe has left. Once they see that the game is up, they will just filter away. The time for evil is over. Zanu (PF)'s days are over."
The campaign manager of the ruling
Zanu-PF party, Jonathon Moyo, told the BBC he expected the opposition to win 18%
of the vote - though he said this would only translate into three seats in
parliament.
His estimate contrasts with an independent opinion poll last week, which
forecast the opposition winning about 70 of the 120 seats being contested.
The government dismissed that poll as unscientific.
Dr Moyo said the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change was only
campaigning in about a fifth of the constituencies.
Correspondents say the campaign of intimidation against the opposition,
orchestrated by the ruling party, appears to be backfiring, angering many
potential Zanu-PF supporters.
Restraint urged
Meanwhile, the head of the Commonwealth Electoral Observer Team, Nigeria's
former president Abdulsalami Abubakar, has urged restraint ahead of the weekend.
He condemned political violence sweeping Zimbabwe.
He said he was concerned at the horrifying tales of violence and intimidation
his observer team had heard.
"People have been beaten and I have been able to speak to some of those who
have been beaten. This is coming from all the (political) parties concerned," he
said.
At least 29 people, mostly opposition supporters, have died in violence
linked to the election and the invasions of hundreds of white-owned farms by
government supporters.
According to the Commercial Farmers Union, 430 people have received hospital
treatment and 2,400 assault cases have been reported since February, mostly
against black farm workers.
There were 1,490 death threats, 70% of them against the workers, the union
said.
On Tuesday opposition leader Margaret Dongo told journalists in Harare that
about 70 militants of the Zanu-PF party attacked her house wielding sticks and
something like a bottle of petrol.
They thoroughly wrecked her house and car and five people were seriously
injured, she said.
Disgraceful Africans
Meanwhile, the 17 Kenyan and Nigerian observers who have been barred from
monitoring polls have been called "disgraceful Africans" by the state-owned
Herald newspaper.
"We do not expect our brothers and sisters to be aiding Western powers in
their destructive ways," the newspaper said.
The European Union team has denied the observers had any connection with the
UK - which has been highly critical of President Robert Mugabe. BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, June 20 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe opposition officials told
the head of the Commonwealth Electoral Observer Team harrowing tales on Tuesday
of beatings and abductions of its supporters in the run-up to this weekend's
parliamentary elections. Officials of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) who met former Nigerian
president Abdulsalami Abubakar said they told him that mounting violence and
bureaucratic red-tape targetting the opposition were eroding chances for a free
and fair vote. "We used the opportunity to express our concerns about the ongoing violence
in Bulawayo and the rest of the country," MDC official David Coltart told
Reuters after the hour-long meeting with Abubakar, a respected former military
ruler of Nigeria. Coltart said beatings and abductions of MDC supporters had risen this week.
On Sunday 25 MDC supporters were abducted in Bulawayo and were still missing,
five more disappeared on Monday evening and others were dragged from their homes
and beaten in broad daylight, he said. "We are really scared and things are just getting worse in the suburbs. We
expect more violence before voting day," MDC official Beauty Sibanda said. Coltart said Abubakar was given a graphic picture of violence across the
country, including rapes of MDC supporters. Officials with Abubakar said he was horrified by the violence linked to the
elections in which President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party faces a stiff
challenge from the MDC led by trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai. Interviewed by Reuters earlier, Abubakar deplored the violence in which 29
people, mostly opposition supporters have died since February. He urged
restraint before the June 24-25 vote. "Zimbabweans should vote peacefully and according to their will. There is no
need for violence otherwise you are doing a disservice to the same people you
aspire to lead," he said. "People have been beaten and I have been able to speak to some of those who
have been beaten. This is coming from all the (political) parties concerned," he
said. OPPOSITION WARNS OF VOTE-RIGGING Violence erupted in February when self-styled independence war veterans
invaded white-owned farms to claim land they say was stolen by British colonists
more than 200 years ago. Mugabe backed the invasions but has denied responsibility for the violence.
Abubakar was due to meet ZANU-PF officials later. Coltart said the MDC officials told him of government tactics to rig the
elections, including tampering with the Voters' Register, the reduction in the
number of parliamentary seats in urban areas considered to be opposition
strongholds and a law that denies polling agents the right to escort ballot
boxes from polling stations to counting centres. "Young Zimbabweans have been left off the registration roll and all sorts of
tactics and laws applied to frustrate the opposition," Coltart said. The MDC was also concerned about the deployment of army troops in
Matebeleland, ostensibly to beef up security before the voting, which was
frightening the people. The red-bereted troops reminded them of rights abuses in the 1980s by the
notorious North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade when it was sent to quell an
uprising by the ZAPU party of the late Joshua Nkomo, Coltart said. Home Affairs Minister Dumiso Dabengwa said on Monday he would deploy 30,000
police in a countrywide security operation to ensure a peaceful vote. Human rights monitors have said more than 13,000 rural people have fled to
towns and cities to escape rural violence and others have had their identity
books destroyed by government supporters, making it impossible for them to
vote. Tuesday June 20 11:52 AM ET By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Criticizing Zimbabwe's violence-plagued election campaign,
an American observer group Tuesday canceled plans to send a delegation to this
weekend's vote.
``The process is so flawed that it cannot adequately reflect the will of the
people,'' the International Republican Institute said, adding it hopes citizens
will ``brave intimidation, vote their conscience and salvage some credibility
for Zimbabwe.''
Despite repeated requests, the Zimbabwe government had not yet granted
accreditation to the group and denied accreditation to a number of British,
Kenyan and Nigerian citizens who were to serve on other international
delegations.
``If Zimbabwe's election process were open and transparent,
the government wouldn't fear election observers,'' said the 17-year-old IRI,
which has observed 90 elections in 40 countries.
``Those responsible for elections in Zimbabwe have failed their country,''
the organization said in a statement.
Cancellation of the delegation's visit came one day after the State
Department urged Zimbabwe to quickly accredit American observers for Saturday
and Sunday's fiercely contested parliamentary elections. The government also has
withheld accreditation for the National Democratic Institute, which wasn't
sending another delegation but already has representatives in Zimbabwe.
``With just four days remaining before voting begins, the conditions for
credible democratic elections still do not exist in Zimbabwe,'' said the
democratic group's Patrick Merloe.
Violence has scarred campaigning for the election that poses the biggest
threat to President Robert Mugabe's ruling party since he led the nation to
independence in 1980. At least 31 people, mostly opposition supporters, have
died in political violence since February, when ruling party militants and war
veterans began illegally occupying more than 1,400 white-owned farms. Zimbabwe minister 'watched
beatings' The Times, 20 June 2000 - FROM JAN RAATH IN HARARE ZIMBABWE'S Home Affairs Minister saw Zanu (PF) thugs assault kidnapped
opposition supporters but ordered police to arrest the victims, it was alleged
yesterday. The claim about the actions of Dumiso Dabengwa came amid rising electoral
violence and the first indications that supporters and property of President
Mugabe's Zanu (PF) ruling party are being targeted in a backlash against its
systematic thuggery.
The Zimbabwean President showed signs of the increasing tension in Cairo
yesterday, where he was attending a summit of developing nations. He struck out
at a wire service correspondent who asked as he passed through a hotel lobby:
"Are you afraid your party will lose the elections?" He hit the reporter's tape
recorder with his right hand, glared and did not answer the question.
Lawyers for nine supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) said that the men had been abducted in the western city of Bulawayo on
Sunday night by self-styled war veterans. They were accused of mounting an
attack on a bar frequented by veterans and Mr Dabengwa the day before.
Reports quoted one of the nine, Peter Munhuwei, an MDC official in Bulawayo,
as saying that they had been stripped, kicked and beaten with planks. Mr
Dabengwa walked in during the assaults, he said, and ordered police to arrest
the MDC activists.
Tony Denbury, a lawyer who saw them after their arrest, said that Mr Munhuwei
and another individual bore evidence of assault. It is understood that by
yesterday morning they had been refused medical attention.
"They said he [Mr Dabengwa] was certainly there," Mr Denbury said. "They said
he told them: 'You will be taught a lesson.' "
Until now, Zanu (PF) has been almost the sole perpetrator of violence in the
election campaign, but yesterday police confirmed that three homes of ruling
party officials had been firebombed in the Marondera area, 40 miles east of
Harare, over the weekend. It seemed that no one was injured.
"People have just had enough of Zanu (PF)," a source in the area said. "They
just can't take all this violence from them any more."
Observers say that it is too early to determine if the incidents of the past
few days are signs of a shift in the balance of power in the townships,
commercial farms and tribal areas that are the key points in the electoral
struggle. They point, however, to significant signs of the electorate turning
against Mr Mugabe, they say.
David Coltart, the MDC's legal director, said that there was a risk of
further violence from its supporters after the election. "There is so much
pent-up anger after a sustained campaign of violence against the MDC. I have a
real fear of how these angry young people will react if Mugabe tries to rig the
elections," he said.
The state-controlled Herald newspaper admitted yesterday that "war
veterans" in the Chiredzi area in the southeast who were demonstrating outside a
hospital were chased away by MDC supporters.
The EU mission that will observe the elections dismissed a Herald
report that the Government had refused to accredit ten Kenyan and seven
Nigerian observers because they had been "planted" by the British Government.
Tana de Zulueta, the mission's deputy leader, said that it was because Zimbabwe
insisted that only EU nationals could be observers. HARARE, June 20 (AFP) - Tuesday, June 20 6:51 PM SGT Zimbabwe's violent election campaign degenerated Tuesday as the opposition
charged the government was rigging thousands of postal votes from troops in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). That followed complaints among the approximately 500 international observers
monitoring the run-up to the parliamentary poll this weekend that the government
had withheld some 200 of their accreditations. White Zimbabweans -- the target of inflammatory rhetoric by President Robert
Mugabe -- meanwhile told AFP that many among them were leaving the southern
African country until after the vote. "There are lots of people leaving the country," one white woman said at
Harare airport as she bade farewell to her mother, going to Johannesburg. Tim Henwood, president of the Commercial Farmers' Union, told AFP however
that the white farmers were staying "to make sure everything is okay." Squatters led by veterans of Zimbabwe's independence war have occupied some
1,500 of their farms and Mugabe has gazetted 804 -- many of them not occupied --
for seizure without payment and distribution to landless blacks. The opposition, which put on a show of strength last weekend by attracting
some 25,000 supporters to a rally in Harare, meanwhile says that stalwarts of
President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front
(ZANU-PF) are going round the country confiscating and destroying opposition
supporters' identity cards to prevent them from voting. Mugabe and his party have ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain 20
years ago, with huge majorities in parliament, but the newly formed Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) is putting up the first strong challenge to The result is what human rights groups have termed a "terror campaign"
against opposition supporters, with at least 30 people killed in political
attacks. The MDC said Tuesday that it would file a petition with the High Court later
in the day asking it to disallow the applications for postal votes from the
troops in the DRC, where they are fighting alongside President Laurent Kabila's
army and Namibian and Angolan troops against DRC rebels supported by Rwandan and
Ugandan troops. "All the forms we have seen are irregular," Elias Mudzuri, an MDC polling
agent, told a press conference in Harare. "A majority of these applications are from DRC, where 11,000 servicemen are
on duty," he said. The party also called on the observers to examine the applications. "Polling agents for the MDC have observed that the application forms for
postal votes being processed at the offices of the registrar general in Harare
have not been signed by the applicants," said a statement read at the press
conference. "Some are signed by a witness but do not bear the signature of an applicant,"
it added. The small opposition Zimbabwe Union of Democrats (ZUD) also charged that the
applications were irregular. ZUD leader Margaret Dongo was the party's sole representative in the last
150-seat parliament, where she was one of just three opposition members. The government has altered her South Harare constituency to include occupied
farms and four military barracks. Many of the troops in the DRC are registered at those barracks, and would
thus be voting in the constituency, Ian Grier, a Dongo campaign worker, told
Dongo told reporters on Monday that about 70 ZANU-PF militants armed with
clubs and other weapons had wrecked her house and car on Sunday, seriously
injuring five of her campaign staff and her dog. Zimbabwe's state-run Herald reported Monday that the government had barred 17
Kenyan and Nigerian observers, charging that they were working in secret for
former colonial power Britain, which has become the main target of Mugabe's
rhetoric. On Tuesday, the newspaper described them as "disgraceful Africans willing to
be used as tools by the British in return for a few pieces of silver." "The British are so determined to rubbish the image of the country that they
will go to any lengths to prove that Zimbabwe, under the present government, is
not capable of holding free and fair elections," the newspaper's editorial
added. Mugabe calls on nations to seize
lands The Times, 20 June 2000 - FROM RAY KENNEDY IN JOHANNESBURG PRESIDENT MUGABE is drawing up plans to promote his policy of seizing lands
belonging to whites throughout southern Africa. The move could force President Mbeki of South Africa, so far his most patient
and consistent supporter, to adopt a tougher attitude towards the Zimbabwean
leader. Mr Mbeki has reassured whites in his country that there will no illegal
occupation of their lands, as orchestrated by Mr Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
Senior officials of Mr Mugabe's Zanu (PF) party disclosed yesterday that it
is drawing up proposals to put before the 14-nation Southern African Development
Community (SADC), which it hopes will be used to address the return of "land to
landless Africans" in sub-Saharan Africa. The proposals, to be known as the SADC
Land Protocol, will enable land issues to be dealt with collectively, the Zanu
officials were reported here as saying.
The plan is unlikely to draw much support from SADC members, some of whom are
likely to regard it as an attempt by Mr Mugabe to interfere in their domestic
affairs.
At the weekend Mr Mbeki reiterated in a radio interview a pledge he made
recently in Parliament that white South Africans should have no fears that the
Government would allow the illegal occupation of their farms by landless people.
But he did emphasise that the process of legal redistribution of land should be
speeded up.
Mr Mbeki's quiet support so far for President Mugabe's actions has been
criticised by his political rivals. In the interview, he again called on the
British Government to honour the 1998 agreement under which, he insisted, London
agreed to pay for redistributing land in Zimbabwe. "This land was seized from
African people by colonial power and handed to whites," he said. "They
[Zimbabweans] are saying, I think quite legitimately: 'Why must we pay for it?'
" Commonwealth Poll Chief Told of Zimbabwe Violence
Group Won't Monitor Zimbabwe Vote
Opposition charges rigging as Zimbabwe vote nears