March 22, 2003 (AFP/Aaron Ufumeli)
Posted on 03/28/2003 1:22:35 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- In the days following a crippling strike by opponents of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the government there has struck back with a wave of violence and intimidation that has brought condemnation from governments and human rights groups around the world.
Human rights workers and diplomats say Mugabe has unleashed Zimbabwe's armed forces and militia against his own people, as the country prepares for two important parliamentary elections Sunday.
Internet reports from Harare describe hospital wards full of people suffering from severe burns and broken fingers and toes. Photographs show men and women with swollen lash marks across their backs and chests. Opposition leaders report that more than 1,000 people have fled their homes and more than 500 have been arrested.
The police confirmed they had arrested hundreds, adding that those detained had incited violence. The police officials denied accusations of brutality.
Human rights groups, however, say most of those arrested are leaders and supporters of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. The prisoners, human rights officials say, are often beaten and detained in their homes.
The deepening tensions followed a two-day strike by the opposition that halted most business and industry in Zimbabwe.
Political analysts and opposition leaders issued forecasts for more political storms ahead. In a speech March 21, Mugabe, 79, boasted he could be a "black Hitler tenfold."
The State Department has called on the Zimbabwe government to "cease its campaign of violent repression" and to bring to justice the perpetrators of "serious and widespread human rights abuses."
Amnesty International, in a March 21 report, issued a warning: "The alarming escalation in political violence is a clear indication that the Zimbabwe authorities are determined to suppress dissent by any means necessary, regardless of the terrible consequences. We look upon the next 10 days with fear."
Sunday, voters in two important townships controlled by the opposition are supposed to go to the polls to elect new representatives to the Parliament.
In a news conference Thursday in Harare, opposition leaders showed reporters copies of the government's voter rolls and said dozens of people on the lists did not exist. Government officials dismissed those charges.
Monday will mark the deadline set by the opposition for Mugabe to accept and begin addressing a list of 15 demands, including disbanding government militias, restoring freedom of the press and releasing all political prisoners.
Mugabe, who has governed since the end of white rule more than 20 years ago, played down the impact of the strike and dismissed his opponents' demands, saying he would not obey "pathetic puppets" of the West.
He also ordered security forces to crack down on those using violence against the government, accusing the opposition of employing mob aggression under the guise of defending human rights.
The opposition, emboldened by the success of its two-day strike, has promised "mass action" against Mugabe. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, said the violence by soldiers and militia had deepened the country's "crisis of governance."
"No amount of brutality and arrests will discourage people from engaging in an agenda they have determined whose time has come," said Tsvangirai, who is on trial on charges of treason. "The more the repression, the more it will rebound."
Silly me, I always thought that moustache was just a bad-taste coincidence.
March 22, 2003 (AFP/Aaron Ufumeli)
Internet reports from Harare describe hospital wards full of people suffering from severe burns and broken fingers and toes. Photographs show men and women with swollen lash marks across their backs and chests. Opposition leaders report that more than 1,000 people have fled their homes and more than 500 have been arrested.
Yes, Zimbabwe's got the brutal dictator with years of horrific human rights abuses, but it's just a shame the country doesn't have any oil.
Southern Rhodesia had fine and functioning railways, good roads; its towns were policed and clean. It could grow anything, tropical fruit like pineapples, mangoes, bananas, plantains, pawpaws, passion fruit, temperate fruits like apples, peaches, plums. The staple food, maize, grew like a weed and fed surrounding countries as well. Peanuts, sunflowers, cotton, the millets and small grains that used to be staple foods before maize, flourished. Minerals: gold, chromium, asbestos, platinum, and rich coalfields. The dammed Zambezi River created the Kariba Lake, which fed electricity north and south. A paradise, and not only for the whites. The blacks did well, too, at least physically. Not politically: it was a police state and a harsh one.
When the blacks rebelled and won their war in 1979 they looked forward to a plenty and competence that existed nowhere else in Africa, not even in South Africa, which was bedeviled by its many mutually hostile tribes and its vast shantytowns. But paradise has to have a superstructure, an infrastructure, and by now it is going, going- almost gone.***
Hugo Chavez (AFP/ Juan Barreto)
Hugo Chavez - Venezuela Another Hitler in the making.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi laughs before the start of an Arab League summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, March 1, 2003. Arab foreign ministers dismissed on Friday U.S. pressure to urge President Saddam Hussein to resign, as Arab leaders meet for talks on bridging long-standing rifts and averting war. REUTERS/Aladin Abdel Naby
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