The Times
June 9, 2008
Shadowy politburo instigates campaign of
terror
Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent
The campaign of
terror sweeping Zimbabwe is being directly organised by a
junta that took
over the running of the country after Robert Mugabe's shock
election defeat
in March.
Details of the organised violence are contained in a report
released today
by Human Rights Watch, corroborated by senior Western
diplomats who describe
the situation in Zimbabwe as a "military coup by
stealth".
The human-rights group and the diplomats name Zimbabwe's
effective rulers as
the Joint Operations Command, a shadowy security
politburo made up of
military and police generals, senior intelligence
officers, prison service
officials and leaders of the ruling Zanu (PF)
party.
The report maps a chain of command leading down from the JOC to
senior
officers responsible for individual regions, and the local
politicians and
so-called "war veterans" and Zanu (PF) youth militias who
carry out much of
the violence as a proxy military force.
The report
said that the scale of the attacks exceeds anything seen
previously during
Zimbabwe's long history of electoral violence, and that
for the first time
militias are being armed with weapons such as AK47s,
hand-guns and rifles.
They have also used military transportation and even
attacked from military
bases.
A senior Western diplomat traced the military takeover to the days
after the
March 29 election, when a stunned Mr Mugabe was preparing to stand
down
before the generals moved in. "The generals didn't let him go," the
diplomat
said. "Afraid that Mr Mugabe's departure would expose them to
prosecution,
they struck a deal guaranteeing his reelection.
"This is
a military coup by stealth," the diplomat said. "There are no tanks
on
people's lawns, but the Joint Operations Command runs this country."
The
military takeover has meant an explosion in the level of violence in
Zimbabwe, as well as the de facto militarisation of food distribution
prompted by last week's ban on aid agencies.
Witnesses interviewed by
HRW identified numerous senior security officers
who report directly to the
JOC as being involved personally in the violence,
suggesting they are
carrying out orders from above. Police involved in the
attack on American
and British diplomats last week were quoted as saying
that their orders came
"directly from the top". Documents leaked by
disgruntled army officers name
200 of them, each assigned an area to oversee
in OperationMakavhoterapapi?
or Operation Where Did You Put Your Vote?, a
campaign to punish those who
voted for the Movement for Democratic Change,
particularly in traditional
Zanu (PF) strongholds, and to prevent them from
voting in the June 27
presidential run-off when Mr Mugabe goes head to head
with Morgan
Tsvangirai, the opposition leader.
The use of the "war veterans" and
youth militias as proxy forces was
intended to cover up the State's role in
the violence. But in many cases
documented by HRW, military involvement was
explicit. Scores of attacks in
Harare and surrounding townships have been
carried out by uniformed
soldiers. One victim described armed soldiers going
from house to house in
the township of Chitungwiza searching for MDC
supporters and beating them:
"I did not know my assailants, but they were in
army uniform and drove an
army truck. They were boasting of being given a
three-day assignment to
'bring hell' to the people."
Army officers
have been personally involved in a number of "reeducation"
meetings at which
local residents are forced to renounce opposition and
swear allegiance to
the ruling party after being beaten and tortured.
Beatings at such meetings
account for at least eight deaths. The Army has
denied any involvement in
the violence.
The extent of Mr Mugabe's acquiescence to the terror
tactics remains
unclear, but the moment he agreed to stay on, the diplomat
notes: "Mr Mugabe
became beholden to the generals to stay in
power."
Searching for the truth
- Human Rights Watch was founded
in 1978 as Helsinki Watch, to monitor the
compliance of Soviet bloc
countries with the Helsinki accords
- After growing to cover other
regions in the 1980s, the various committees
were united in 1988 as Human
Rights Watch
- The charity, whose home is New York, is the largest
US-based human-rights
organisation
- Human Rights Watch shared the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for a joint
campaign with other organisations to
ban landmines
- Fact-finding teams visit countries where there have been
allegations of
human rights abuses. They visit the locations of abuse,
interview victims,
witnesses and others. The teams publish their findings in
books and reports
- Researchers collected and corroborated stories of
refugees from Kosovo and
Chechnya, helping to shape the response of the
international community to
rights abuses there
The Times
June 9, 2008
Will
Mugabe force victory in the June run-off - or will there be a
liberating
turn of events? Here are five possible outcomes
Richard Dowden
The next
three weeks in Zimbabwe will be the most traumatic in its history.
Robert
Mugabe has declared war on the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
NGOs
and churches to reverse the electoral defeat he suffered in March. It
is a
war on unarmed people. Can he win it and what would victory
mean?
Scenario one: When the votes are counted after a peaceful,
well-organised
and credible election on June 27, President Mugabe concedes
defeat,
congratulates Morgan Tsvangirai, hands over the reins of power and
retires.
Likelihood? Zero.
The official results of the election on
March 29 did not give Mr Tsvangirai
more than half the votes so there must
be a run-off. To secure victory,
Emerson Mnangagwa, one of the architects of
the massacres in Matabeland in
1983, with the heads of the police, defence
forces and Gideon Gono, the
Finance Minister, has launched a violent
nationwide campaign to destroy the
opposition's capacity to deliver the
vote.
Only the towns that the ruling party now believe they cannot win
have been
spared. Key MDC organisers have been abducted and killed. The
death toll is
about 50 so far but may be many more. Anyone suspected of
voting MDC is
seized and ritually beaten, often on the back, buttocks and
legs with whips
and sticks, sometimes wrapped in barbed wire.
Another
strategy is to force people out of their homes by burning their
houses.
Driven from their constituency areas, they will be disqualified from
voting.
MDC leaders are detained. NGOs are ordered to stop work in rural
areas so
that news of what is happening there cannot reach the outside
world. It also
means that hundreds of thousands of people, now dependent on
food aid, will
not be fed. The last strategy is to prepare a massive rigging
campaign.
Professionals such as teachers, who acted as election officers in
the first
round, are being intimidated so that Zanu (PF) officials can step
in to run
the polling.
Opinions vary on whether all this will succeed in cowing the
people or if it
will make Zimbabweans more determined to cast their votes
for the MDC. But
even if Mr Tsvangirai were to win the most votes, it is
inconceivable that,
in its present mood, the regime would concede
defeat.
Mr Mugabe believes he won Zimbabwe by conquest, through the
liberation war.
Zimbabwe was never a one-party state, but to him the
function of elections
is to confirm his possession. The idea that he could
be deposed through the
ballot box is unthinkable. His wife has vowed
publicly that Morgan
Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, will never see the inside
of State House. To
justify his claim - and his war - Mr Mugabe has created a
fantasy enemy:
Britain. He says the British want to recolonise Zimbabwe,
bring back the
white farmers and re-create Rhodesia again. MDC is their
creation and
puppet.
While the key player outside Zimbabwe, President
Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa, remains silent on these developments, his
probable successor, Jacob
Zuma, says they have undermined any possibility of
a credible election. He
recommends a government of national
unity.
This is scenario two: a powersharing agreement between both
parties.
Likelihood? Minus zero. Neither side wants this election but the
possibility
of a Kenya-style government of national unity is
unthinkable.
Kenya had a lot to lose from political disruption. Zimbabwe
has lost it all
already. About ten powerful allies of Mugabe do have a lot
to lose, which is
why they hold on to power at any cost. They could offer
the MDC a few places
in government, but the MDC would not accept them. The
only terms under which
MDC would enter a reconciliation government - as they
prefer to call it - is
if they headed it.
Which brings us to the
third scenario: a victory for Robert Mugabe.
Likelihood? High. The party was
complacent in the first round. It assumed
the rural areas would vote Zanu
(PF) but they didn't. This time voters in
traditionally loyal areas will be
urged, even forced, to the polling
stations. That, the campaign against the
MDC and rigging might well reverse
the result.
This scenario raises
three more fundamental issues: the splits in Zanu (PF),
the reaction of the
region and the economy. Everyone knows a Mugabe victory
will not reverse
Zimbabwe's catastrophic disintegration - although there are
some who say he
is willing to step down but will not be driven from office.
After the
declaration of war on MDC, there is no one in the senior hierarchy
of Zanu
(PF) who would be an acceptable replacement except as a stopgap. The
party
itself is deeply riven by factions.
If Mr Mugabe wins, the reaction of
the regional leaders would be crucial.
But since Mr Mbeki's quiet diplomacy
has failed, he appears to have no other
policy. The other presidents of
Southern Africa are divided. They will not
condemn Mr Mugabe but would
probably not continue to support him if he wins
an election under current
circumstances.
The economy can no longer provide the Government with the
revenues it needs
to keep it in power. No one will lend it money. Every
source of wealth has
been raided and drained. Inflation is now more
than
2 million per cent. African economies do not die, they sink into
subsistence, but the Government's ability to pay soldiers, policemen, party
officials and civil servants is at an end. The election itself will drain
the last few drops of wealth from the coffers.
These factors create
fourth and fifth scenarios.
Scenario four: The unpaid Armed Forces and
police could break up into pro
and anti-Mugabe factions within the party.
Some may support the MDC. As the
Armed Forces disintegrate, warlords take
over local areas. Zimbabwe begins
to look more like Somalia. Likelihood?
Possible.
Scenario five. The miracle. Some random factor not in the
equation at the
moment suddenly turns history. Maybe the death or defection
of a key Mugabe
ally: Mr Gono, the Finance Minister, for example, who has
been churning out
increasingly worthless banknotes. Now he is of no further
use, but, rich and
ambitious, he may not see a future with Mr Mugabe. His
defection breaches
the wall of the fantasy castle and reality crashes in. Mr
Mugabe and his
chief lieutenants seek refuge in Equatorial Guinea and a
government of
national unity is set up.
Likelihood? Impossible to
say. But Southern Africa has been known to produce
miracles
before.
Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society. His book
Africa:
Altered States, Ordinary Miracles is published in September.
The Telegraph
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
Last Updated:
11:03PM BST 08/06/2008
Any chance of "free and fair" voting in Zimbabwe's
presidential election
run-off on June 27 has been "extinguished" by
appalling violence, according
to a human rights watchdog report to be
published today.
Since the inconclusive vote on March 29, violence unleashed
by President
Robert Mugabe's militia, soldiers, policemen and members of the
airforce has
left at least 65 people dead and more than 3,000
wounded.
The victims, according to Human Rights Watch, the largest
US-based human
rights group, are people from Zanu PF strongholds who voted
for the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Nelson Chamisa, a
MDC spokesman, struggled to describe some of the murders.
"This woman from
the Mhondoro area [a large tribal area about 40 miles south
west of Harare]
had her arms and legs cut off. She died and they also burned
her
house.
"They also killed a six-year-old boy and his mother at Harare
South and the
mother was pregnant," he said.
Pishai Muchauraya, a MDC
spokesman from eastern Zimbabwe, said there was
"anarchy" in several
districts along the Mozambique border.
"They (soldiers) are taking the
girls to their bases and raping them.
"They have surrounded this one
village and are beating them one by one."
The areas include the district
around Buhera, the village of Morgan
Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, about 170
miles south of Harare.
The report, Bullets for Each of You, comes as
intimidation of the MDC
continued despite the Zimbabwe High Court
overturning a police ban on
opposition rallies.
Mr Chamisa said
supporters of Mr Mugabe had cordoned off the area where
opposition leaders
had been planning to speak in a Harare suburb.
A Zimbabwe court yesterday
ordered the release of Eric Matinenga, an
opposition MP arrested twice in
recent days on charges of inciting violence.
Zim Online
by Nqobizitha Khumalo and Wayne Mafaro Monday 09
June 2008
BULAWAYO - Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
again appealed for deployment
of international peacekeepers in Zimbabwe as
his Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) party said on Sunday that three
more people had been killed by
political violence.
Tsvangirai told
supporters at the weekend in the border town of Plumtree,
541 km south-west
Harare, that peacekeepers from the Southern African
Development Community
(SADC) and the United Nations would help end political
violence that the MDC
says has now killed more than 60 of its supporters.
The presence of
peacekeepers would also help restore confidence among
ordinary Zimbabweans
that they would be no interference with their vote on
June 27 when the
country holds a second round presidential election.
The opposition leader
said: "The peacekeepers are most welcome and if SADC
and the United Nations
could send peacekeepers it would help to restore
confidence in the masses
that they can vote without interference.
"Their presence would also help
to put a stop to current ongoing violence
being perpetrated by ZANU PF
(President Robert Mugabe's ruling party)
militias and (torture) bases that
have been set up across the country would
disappear."
The MDC accuses
Mugabe of unleashing state security forces and ZANU PF
militias to wage
violence against MDC supporters and structures in an
attempt to regain the
upper hand in the second ballot - a charge the veteran
leader
denies.
Mugabe starts the second round presidential race as underdog
after losing
the first round March poll to Tsvangirai although the
opposition leader fell
short of the margin required to takeover
power.
The SADC is expected to deploy its first election observers to the
run-off
ballot on Monday but the regional body has so far not said whether
it would
be willing to send peacekeepers as demanded by the
MDC.
Tsvangirai, who spoke to individual supporters or small groups of
people
after police banned him from holding rallies, said he was confident
of
defeating Mugabe despite ongoing political violence and other impediments
placed in his way.
And in a statement on Sunday MDC spokesman Nelson
Chamisa said ZANU PF
militia killed the six-year old son of the opposition
party's councillor for
Ward One in Harare South constituency. The
councillor's wife also died later
from the severe burns she sustained killed
when the ZANU PF mob set their
house on fire.
"Harare South, Ward One
councillor's house was razed to the ground. His
six-year old son was brunt
to death and his wife later died from burns,"
Chamisa said in the statement
without disclosing the names of the deceased.
Chamisa said in another
incident, suspected ZANU PF militia murdered the
wife of an MDC district
chairman in Mhondoro Ngezi constituency in
Mashonaland West province on
Sunday. He did not give details of the
incident.
Both ZANU PF
spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira and Police spokesman Wayne
Bvudzijena were not
immediately available for comment on the reported
deaths.
The latest
deaths were reported as ZANU PF militia blocked the MDC from
holding rallies
in Harare and the dormitory town of Chitungwiza, both
strongholds of support
for Tsvangirai.
This was despite a court order allowing the opposition
party to hold
rallies.
Meanwhile the High Court on Sunday ordered the
police to release immediately
MDC Member of Parliament for Buhera West
Constituency Eric Matinenga who
they have been holding since
Saturday.
The police are charging Matinenga, who is one of the country's
prominent
lawyers, with inciting public violence although a magistrate's
court has
already said he has no case to answer. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Own Correspondent Monday 09 June
2008
JOHANNESBURG - Former Zambian leader Kenneth Kaunda on
Sunday called for the
setting up of a government of national unity in
Zimbabwe headed by President
Robert Mugabe with opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai as prime minister.
In a statement released yesterday, Kaunda,
a close ally of Mugabe, said a
presidential election run-off later this
month would not resolve Zimbabwe's
eight-year political
stalemate.
"We have in Zimbabwe a situation which will not be helped by
any type of
outcome of the June 27 repeat elections," said
Kaunda.
Tsvangirai starts off as favourite to win the run-off poll that
is being
held because the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party leader
defeated
Mugabe in a March 29 poll but fell short of the margin required to
takeover
the presidency.
However there are growing calls within
Zimbabwe, the southern African region
and beyond for Mugabe and Tsvangirai
to forgo the run-off election and
instead start negotiations for a
transitional government of national unity
that would be tasked to stabilise
the political and economic environment
before new free and fair elections
are held.
Proponents for a government of national unity or transitional
authority
argue that the run-off election would not end the economic crisis
especially
if won by Mugabe, while victory for Tsvangirai could see army
hardliners
staging a coup to forestall the opposition leader taking
power.
Kaunda said the best way to resolve Zimbabwe's political stalemate
would be
to form a government of national unity along similar lines like
those
witnessed in Kenya earlier this year.
Kenya was rocked by
serious violence that left more than 1 500 people dead
following disputed
elections last December. The crisis was only resolved
earlier this year when
the protagonists in the conflict agreed to form a
power sharing unity
government.
"The authority between president and prime minister must be
fairly shared.
The call now is 'come together and start afresh'," Kaunda
said. "Through
uniting in this government, there can be healing for many
dangerous
divisions there are in Zimbabwe today."
Both Mugabe's
spokesman George Charamba and Tsvangirai were not immediately
available for
comment on Kaunda's suggestion.
Zimbabwe has seen a rise in political
violence and human rights abuses as
the run-off election draws
nearer.
The MDC says at least 60 of its supporters have been killed in
state-sponsored violence since while more than 25 000 have been displaced by
political violence.
The opposition party accuses Mugabe of unleashing
state security forces and
ruling ZANU PF party militias to wage violence
against MDC supporters and
structures in an attempt to regain the upper hand
in the second ballot - a
charge the veteran leader denies. -
ZimOnline
The Times
June 9, 2008
Richard Owen in Rome
The son of Zimbabwe's chief arms
manufacturer accompanied Robert Mugabe to
Rome last week for the UN summit
on world hunger, it has emerged.
Thabani Dube, son of Colonel Tshinga
Dube, the head of Zimbabwe Defence
Industries, was part of the Zimbabwean
delegation accredited to the summit
but did not make a single appearance at
the conference, the Italian
newspaper Corriere della Sera reported. It noted
that Mr Dube Jr had stayed
not with the rest of the Zimbabwe delegation but
in a more discreet hotel
not far from Rome station. Sources in Zimbabwe
claimed that Mr Dube was
involved in work for the Government's intelligence
operation.
Asked for an explanation, George Charamba, Mr Mugabe's press
spokesman,
replied that "sons are different from fathers". It was unclear
why Mr Dube
was accredited and how he spent his time in Rome.
It also
emerged that Mr Mugabe paid a visit to St Peter's Basilica, despite
being
refused an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. He also bought souvenirs,
including rosaries and religious books, from a Catholic bookshop. Zimbabwe's
Catholic bishops have repeatedly criticised his human rights record and
despotic rule.
Mr Charamba confirmed that Mr Mugabe's meals had
been prepared by his own
chef, wearing cotton gloves and a face mask. He
agreed that Mr Mugabe had
"many enemies", but insisted that the President
was "following his own diet"
rather than taking precautions against being
poisoned.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
June 9, 2008
BULAWAYO
(zimbabwemetro.com/Own Correspondent) - In a stunning revelation,
it has
been established that the secretary general of the Arthur Mutambara
faction
of the Movement for Democratic Change, Professor Welshman Ncube has
instructed all legislators elected on the party's ticket not to support MDC
president Morgan Tsvangirai when he visits their constituencies.
This
move effectively scuttles the MDC unity pact agreed between the two
parties
in the aftermath of the March 29 election. The Tsvangirai led MDC
and the
breakaway faction led by Professor Arthur Mutambara polled 99 and 10
seats
in Parliament respectively in the March election. Ncube is the founder
of
the faction which Mutambara now leads. He is the secretary general of the
faction, a position which he held in the MDC before the split in October
2005.
It has also emerged that some officials in the faction are said
to be
resisting Ncube's moves. They argue, for instance, that their party
should
not have fielded separate candidates for the June 27 parliamentary
by-election in Gwanda South, Redcliff and Pelandaba-Mpopoma against those of
the Tsvangirai-led MDC.
Fletcher Dulini-Ncube, the faction's
treasurer, has reportedly refused to
release funds for the run-off. MPs and
senators told him they would use
their personal resources to campaign for
Tsvangirai and accused the
leadership of attempting to derail Tsvangirai's
campaign.
Dulini Ncube lost his own Magwegwe seat to the mainstream MDC's
provincial
spokesman, Felix Sibanda Mafa.
"There are a few senior
individuals in the party who are pushing a Zanu-PF
agenda and it is now
clear who they are," one of the legislators said. "They
are doing everything
in their power to destroy Tsvangirai. It is not our
fault that they have
differences with him, but we just want Mugabe out of
power."
The
legislators said it emerged last week that there were members of the
Mutambara executive who were against the party's resolution to support and
campaign for Tsvangirai against Mugabe in the run-off.
Another MP
alleged that the party leaders, in particular Welshman Ncube and
Paul Themba
Nyathi, were bitter after losing the March 29 parliamentary
election to
candidates fielded by the mainstream MDC of Tsvangirai. They had
claimed
that they were more popular than Tsvangirai and his candidates in
the
Bulawayo Province. Their defeat was, therefore, a humiliating
shock.
"There are some former legislators who are still bitter and just
last
weekend Welshman Ncube addressed a provincial assembly meeting and said
he
will cause by-elections to take place in areas where the MPs and senators
are campaigning for Tsvangirai," another lawmaker said. "We are saying we do
not care if he calls for the by-elections. We will campaign for Tsvangirai
against Mugabe."
Last Friday, the Mutambara faction leadership
scheduled a meeting to
coincide with Tsvangirai's address to recently
elected MDC parliamentarians.
However some of the legislators boycotted this
meeting and instead travelled
to Harare to attend Tsvangirai's address at
the Harare International
Conference Centre.
Lovemore Moyo, the
chairman of the mainstream MDC, played down the emerging
rift between the
two parties.
"We have been working together," he said. "We have an
agreement in place, a
coalition agreement between ourselves and our
erstwhile colleagues, and we
are therefore involved in joint campaigns with
them. We have been working
with them since we started our Matabeleland
presidential campaign.
"Today we went (out) with colleagues from the
other side."
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
June 9, 2008
By Our
Correspondent
BULAWAYO - Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono has openly
joined President
Robert Mugabe's campaign trail ahead of the presidential
run-off scheduled
for June 27.
He has promised to fulfil the
government's pledges to spend lavishly on
chiefs and headman in return for
their support for Mugabe's candidature.
The chiefs and headmen are set to
receive diesel power generators to light
up their rural homes in lieu of a
largely failed rural electrification
programme. Zimbabweans in the urban
areas have experienced regular power
blackouts as a result of electricity
shortages.
Also to be distributed are 3 000 grinding mills and a similar
number of
beasts. The strategy is meant to encourage traditional leaders to
coerce the
rural electorate to vote for Mugabe as he battles to overturn an
initial
defeat by Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC.
Gono has
constantly been accused by the MDC of colluding with Zanu-PF by
bankrolling
its elections campaign using public funds.
Just before the March
elections, Gono distributed hundreds of tractors, a
variety of farm
machinery and equipment, diesel and ancillary equipment to
Zanu-PF loyalists
and brand new cars for striking doctors.
"We cannot wait for this
programme to take off on the grounds that it might
be misinterpreted by our
detractors as vote-buying," Gono said during the
ceremony.
Under the
pretext of promoting the Zunde Ramambo - a long held tradition
whereby the
chief helped his subjects in the event of a famine from a
communal granary -
Gono promised the traditional leaders a key role in the
distribution of
agricultural inputs as an added incentive.
"From now on you are governors
as you will be working with this governor
assisting with this micro-credit
project which cannot be spearheaded by the
governor alone," Gono told chiefs
and headmen gathered at their annual
congress in Zimbabwe's second largest
city.
The grinding mills will be distributed to chiefs for the benefit of
their
communities, he said, adding that government had acquired book, candle
and
soap making machines as well as oil presses for distribution among the
rural
folk to empower them.
Zanu-PF is campaigning for the
presidential run-off under the theme: "Total
Empowerment, 100 per cent
Zimbabwean".
During the campaign for the last parallel elections in
March, Mugabe went
about 'donating' buses to each district at his rallies.
The majority of the
districts did not receive the promised number of buses
while others receive
none at all.
Each province was supposed to get
twenty-five 20-seater buses. Some of the
rural constituencies accepted the
gifts but went on to vote for the MDC for
the first time.
Always
resourceful, Gono told the traditional leaders that the RBZ was now
withdrawing the buses to replace them with lorries and trucks to transport
agricultural inputs to the farmers and harvested crops to the
market.
Chiefs, most of whom have already been allocated pick-up trucks
and tractors
as part of a government initiative to retain their loyalty,
will now receive
200 litres of fuel a month as part of their
package.
Out of the 266 substantive traditional chiefs, a total of 251
are now the
proud owners of a pick-up truck and tractor each.
Some of
the more enterprising among them are said to be using their trucks
and
tractors to transport villagers for a fee in areas where bus companies
have
withdrawn services because roads are in a state of disrepair.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
June 9, 2008
By Our
Correspondent
HARARE - Zanu-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) officials
traded accusations on Sunday, each party accusing the other
of fomenting
violence in order to force a cancellation of the June 27
presidential
election run- off.
Home Affairs minister, Kembo Mohadi,
claimed the authorities had uncovered a
plot by the MDC to make the country
ungovernable to foil the elections.
"The police are, therefore, under
instruction to deal with violent elements
impartially and decisively without
fear or favour of any political party,"
he warned.
He did not provide
details of the alleged plot.
But the leader of the movement, Morgan
Tsvangirai, said it was President
Robert Mugabe's government which had
hatched plans to foment violence as an
excuse to cancel the polls.
He
said that clashes throughout the country between the MDC and Zanu-PF
supporters over the last two weeks, which have left 10 dead in their wake,
were deliberately provoked by Mugabe's party.
The MDC says 60 of
their supporters have been murdered so far by marauding
Zanu-PF militants
over the past two months
The forthcoming election is the second fiercely
contested poll between
Tsvangirai and Mugabe in three months. Mugabe
suffered his first electoral
defeat in 28 years on March 29. Political
pundits predict another possible
setback for him on June 27.
In March
Tsvangirai fell just short of an absolute majority with 47, 3
percent of the
vote. Mugabe lagged behind with 43, 2 percent. The Zimbabwe
Electoral
Commission announced the result five weeks after the election.
Violence
broke out before the result of the presidential election was
announced and
has escalated sharply in the run-up to the run-off, with the
MDC insisting
it has been the major victim of Zanu-PF's terror campaign.
Mugabe insists
in turn that the MDC is to blame for the sharp rise in
post-election
violence, but the United Nations' chief representative in
Zimbabwe,
Agostinho Zacarais, has categorically stated that in most
instances, it is
Mugabe's supporters who are behind the violence.
The veteran leader is
accused by critics of reducing Zimbabwe's once-model
economy to ruins with
the world's highest inflation rate, now over one
million percent, and
serious food, power and fuel shortages.
The MDC, which Mugabe accuses of
sponsorship by Britain and other western
powers, has capitalised on
Zimbabwe's worst economic crisis and widespread
corruption in the public
sector to galvanise support even in previously
inaccessible rural
constituencies. The result was the defeat of Mugabe and
Zanu-PF at polls in
March.
In the current campaign the MDC has been able to stage only a
handful of
rallies, with Tsvangirai being detained twice by police last week
while on
the campaign trail in Matabeleland.
The party was forced to
approach the High Court on Saturday to obtain an
order lifting the blanket
ban on political rallies.
With just two weeks before the poll, Mugabe has
become more uncompromising,
banning MDC rallies and attacking diplomats who
try to investigate incidents
of political violence.
The East African, Kenya
By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
cobbo@nation.co.ke
In a different
time and country, the words of South African street trader
Veronica Khoza
wouldn't have been surprising.
In a recent story in Britain's Guardian
newspaper, Khoza was quoted as
showing utterly no sympathy for the African
immigrants who had been attacked
and killed or run out of their homes by
South African criminal hordes.
"They [South African employers] will give
the jobs to Zimbabweans because
they will work for cheap." Khoza said,
dismissing the latter as cowards.
"They have run away," she said. "All they
do is complain how horrible Mugabe
is to them. Why don't they stay in their
country and fight? We fought
apartheid. Many people were killed. Many people
went to prison, even
children. The white soldiers were here, in Alexandria,
and they shot people.
We didn't run away."
Perhaps Khoza does
actually believe that, but as the Guardian accurately
reported, South
Africans - very many of them - ran away from apartheid
oppression, some to
"join the liberation struggle and ended up in Zimbabwe,
Angola, Tanzania,
Mozambique, [Uganda, Zambia, Botswana]. It is a source of
bitterness among
immigrants from those countries that the hospitality they
offered is not
reciprocated."
This Khoza-type amnesia is not unique to South Africans.
In Zimbabwe itself,
Mugabe came to power as a freedom fighter against a
racist regime. And he
has forgotten that history and imposed a despotism on
his country as bad as
Ian Smith's supremacist rule.
In Uganda, the
NRM government came to power on a strong human-rights
platform after a
five-year rebellion provoked by a stolen election in
December
1980.
Many populist African governments have swept to power on the
promise of
ending corruption, and gone on to plunder their countries more
than the
regimes they replaced.
ONE VIEW IS THAT WE REPEAT these
mistakes because Africa "doesn't have a
long history of written records."
As a result, people forget the past
easily because they don't have constant
reminders, and later generations are
ignorant because there are few
historical accounts for them to study.
If that were the case, then the
recent immigrant violence wouldn't have
happened because one admirable thing
President Thabo Mbeki's rule will
bequeath to South Africa is the impressive
museums and memorials of the
struggle against apartheid.
But even the
Hector Perterson Memorial Museum to the victims of the
Sharpeville massacre
in Soweto, evocative as it might be, still takes some
emotion out of the
horrors that the apartheid regime visited on the
protestors on March 21,
1960. At least 69 people were killed, and over 180
injured.
Part of
the problem is that South African commemoration of the
anti-apartheid
struggle tends to be devoid of references to the African
countries and
patriots who supported them. Secondly, a museum seems not to
speak
powerfully about African tragedies. This point was brought home to me
in
Rwanda recently.
The Kigali Memorial Centre to the nearly one million
victims of the 1994
genocide used to be a powerful place. In the early
years, the mass reburial
graves being open so you would begin the tour by
viewing the grim handiwork
of the genocidaires, and by the time you got to
see the photographs, the
instruments of death and the video shows inside,
you were already shaken up.
Now the graves are full, and they have been
sealed. The shock has gone out
of it, as they look like giant food drying
platforms. The effect on the rest
of the centre is strange. It now feels
like an exhibition, instead of a
memorial.
Africa will continue to
have this crisis of memory, because even in Rwanda
you get the sense that
the genocide is already a faded memory for some
people.
Charles
Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group's managing editor for convergence
and new
products.