Posted on 04/03/2008 11:57:49 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Security agents and paramilitary police in riot gear are surrounding a Harare hotel housing foreign journalists.
A man answering the phone at the hotel says they are taking away some reporters.
The man refused to give his name but said about 30 police entered the hotel Thursday and were preparing to take away four or five journalists.
Foreign journalists have been in Zimbabwe to cover elections in which President Robert Mugabe's party lost control of parliament. He is apparently facing a runoff for the presidency.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — State media gave Zimbabweans a hint of how President Robert Mugabe's embattled party might wage its campaign for a presidential runoff, with stories Thursday portraying the opposition as divided and controlled by former colonial ruler Britain.
Mugabe's Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said the 84-year-old leader was ready for a runoff. The opposition claims it won the presidential race outright, and official results show it won the most parliament seats.
"President Mugabe is going to fight. He is not going anywhere. He has not lost," Matonga told the British Broadcasting Corp. "We are going to go hard and fight and get the majority required."
Mugabe has ruled since his guerrilla army helped force an end to white minority rule in Rhodesia and bring about an independent Zimbabwe in 1980. On Thursday, he was shown on state television meeting African Union election observers, his first public appearance since the elections.
While the election commission has issued results for the parliamentary races held alongside the presidential race, it has yet to release any presidential count.
"We need to see an official tally, see it soon and have assurances made that this is actually a correct counting of the votes," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.
Independent observers say their own projection based on results posted at a representative sample of polling stations showed opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the most votes, but not enough to avoid a runoff, which would have to be held within 21 days of the first round.
A commission member indicated presidential results would be announced Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The commission said it still was receiving ballot boxes from the provinces, raising questions about where those votes had been since Saturday's elections, amid charges there was a plot to rig the results. Western election observers have accused Mugabe of stealing previous elections.
On Wednesday, official election returns showed Mugabe's ZANU-PF party had lost its parliamentary majority. The state-owned Herald newspaper, which reflects government and ruling party thinking, said Thursday the parliamentary race was a "photo finish" and stressed the split in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Tsvangirai loyalists won seats, as did members of a breakaway MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara.
Mugabe has overseen the destruction of a thriving economy. The unraveling began when he ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms, ostensibly to return them to the landless black majority. Instead, Mugabe replaced a white elite with a black one, giving the farms to relatives, friends and cronies who allowed cultivated fields to be taken over by weeds.
Today, a third of the population depends on imported food handouts. Another third has fled the country and 80 percent is jobless. Inflation is the highest in the world at more than 100,000 percent and people suffer crippling shortages of food, water, electricity, fuel and medicine. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 to 35 years.
Still, about half of Zimbabweans who voted in weekend elections chose the ruling ZANU-PF party.
On Thursday, The Herald charged that Tsvangirai would hand back farmland to the whites. Tsvangirai has not said that, promising instead an equitable distribution of land to people who know how to farm.
The Herald said white farmers had returned from Zambia and Mozambique and were threatening to evict blacks. It quoted the war veterans association that spearheaded violent land grabs as saying, "We will be left with no option except to take up arms and defend our pieces of land."
Mugabe blames former colonizer Britain and other Western nations for the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy. Targeted Western sanctions, though, only involve visa bans and frozen bank accounts for Mugabe and about 100 of his allies.
Mugabe calls opposition leaders stooges and puppets of Britain. The Herald said "the British government and Prime Minister Gordon Brown have now come out in the open as the real power behind MDC-Tsvangirai."
Religious leaders and diplomats were involved in a flurry of initiatives Thursday to try to persuade Mugabe to step down. Diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue said Western leaders were contacting southern African leaders. Amani Countess of the Washington-based TransAfrica Forum said religious leaders also were asking counterparts in the region to pressure presidents to approach Mugabe.
The Monomatapa iswhere they used to hang out years ago.
update on this ap piece, they’re cracking down on MDC
Zimbabwe opposition offices raided
ANGUS SHAW, Associated Press
HARARE, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe’s government raided the offices of the main opposition movement and rounded up foreign journalists Thursday in an ominous indication that he may use intimidation and violence to keep his grip on power.
Police raided a hotel used by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and ransacked some of the rooms. Riot police also surrounded another hotel housing foreign journalists, and took away several of them, according to a man who answered the phone there.
“Mugabe has started a crackdown,” Movement for Democratic Change general secretary Tendai Biti told The Associated Press. “It is quite clear he has unleashed a war.”
Biti said the raid at the Meikles Hotel targeted “certain people ... including myself.” Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was “safe” but had canceled plans for a news conference, he said.
Biti said that Thursday’s clampdown was a sign of worse to follow but that the opposition would not go into hiding.
“You can’t hide away from fascism. Zimbabwe is a small country. So we are not going into hiding. We are just going to have to be extra cautious,” he said.
Independent observers say their own projection based on results posted at a representative sample of polling stations showed opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the most votes in Saturday’s election, but not enough to avoid a runoff.
Mugabe’s Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said Mugabe was ready for a runoff, dashing hopes that he would bow quietly off the national stage he has dominated for 28 years.
“President Mugabe is going to fight. He is not going anywhere. He has not lost,” Matonga said on the British Broadcasting Corp. “We are going to go hard and fight and get the majority required.”
On Thursday, Mugabe was shown on state television meeting African Union election observers, his first public appearance since the elections.
A commission member indicated presidential results would be announced Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. But that was before the commission announced that Thursday’s expected announcement of senate results was delayed because of “logistical problems.”
The commission said it still was receiving ballot boxes from the provinces, raising questions about where those votes had been since Saturday’s elections, amid charges there was a plot to rig the results. Western election observers have accused Mugabe of stealing previous elections.
Mugabe has ruled since his guerrilla army helped force an end to white minority rule in then-Rhodesia and bring about an independent Zimbabwe in 1980.
He ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms, ostensibly to return them to the landless black majority. Instead, Mugabe replaced a white elite with a black one, giving the farms to relatives, friends and cronies who allowed cultivated fields to be taken over by weeds.
Today, a third of the population depends on imported food handouts. Another third has fled the country and 80 percent is jobless. Inflation is the highest in the world at more than 100,000 percent and people suffer crippling shortages of food, water, electricity, fuel and medicine. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 to 35 years.
Biti said that Thursday’s clampdown was a sign of worse to follow but that the opposition would not go into hiding.
“You can’t hide away from fascism. Zimbabwe is a small country. So we are not going into hiding. We are just going to have to be extra cautious,” he said.
ap re-title on this piece
Zimbabwe opposition offices raided
PLEASE let Dan Rather, Katie Kouric and Keith Olberman be there!!!
MAN if they going after Sky news reporters they must be bad**** go after them you don’t go after Sky news reporters
They are tough Aussies or Brits
MAN if they going after Sky news reporters they must be bad**** go after them you don’t go after Sky news reporters
They are tough Aussies or Brits
Preview of the second term election for the Obama administration...
Two foreign journalists arrested in Zimbabwe
HARARE - Zimbabwean police Thursday night identified a hotel in Harare which housed many foreign journalists and announced a short time later the arrest of two reporters here.
"I can only confirm that we have arrested two journalists at the Lodge York," said a spokesman for the national police, Wayne Bvudzijena.
"They are under investigation for financial year (from their jobs) without accreditation. They were arrested early in the evening and detained," he added, without giving details about their identity.
Earlier, a witness told AFP that security forces surrounding this small hotel near the centre of the capital. "We do not know what is happening. The police are here at the moment," said the witness, under cover of anonymity.
Towards 19H00 GMT, the hotel was closed, all lights extinguished, and no activity was visible around the property. The phone lines were ringing all occupied, noted journalists from the AFP.
The government of President Robert Mugabe, in power for 28 years, has refused to grant accreditation to most foreign journalists for the general elections on Saturday.
He had warned last week that it would show severe to those who contourneraient the ban and illegally opèreraient
Information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu had stated two days before the election that some media had installed "sophisticated equipment for broadcast, telecommunications equipment and other devices spying via the Internet in our country".
"The government will not graciously n'acccueillera this imperialist propaganda," he started.
Two South Africans, accused of illegally participate in media coverage of elections, had been arrested the same day.
"The two South Africans were arrested (...) on the grounds that they were not accredited to cover the elections, told AFP Ronnie Mamoepa, spokesman for the South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs .
"They are not journalists. These are technicians. Our company provides a service to satellite radio and television media, had said their boss, Alan Hird, CEO of the company GlobeCast Africa, based in Johannesburg.
There are no private radio or television in Zimbabwe, where the only national newspaper is controlled by the state.
Around 5.9 million Zimbabwean voters were called to the polls on March 29 to nominate their president, deputies, senators and councillors.
If the ruling party had lost its majority in the Chamber of Deputies, no indication has yet been given on the presidential elections.
Zimbabwe senate race results coming in
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080403/wl_nm/zimbabwe_election_dc;_ylt=AmMeEoANtjTXiy9lKwFffYW96Q8F
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission on Thursday started issuing election results of the country’s upper house of parliament election.
So far opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC and President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF each won five seats in the 60-seat contest.
(Reporting by Stella Mapenzauswa)
and Jimmy Carter will be there, nodding his head in approval.
This could describe some US Cities, most notably Detroit.
Zimbabwe: Recession Slows Election Results
http://allafrica.com/stories/200804021068.html
4/2/08
Harare
The painful slowness of announcing the results of Zimbabwe’s 29 March poll is being condemned internationally as “suspicious”, but the accusations do not take account of the debilitating affects of the country’s eight-year long recession and its impact on the electoral process.
In past elections, results were announced almost immediately by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC). But this time, the battered economy and the world’s highest inflation rate in excess of 100,000 percent, could mean that final results may only be finalised on 11 April, election officials and candidates told IRIN.
“We could have expected more in terms of preparations for such major elections, but the current economic problems naturally constrained the voting process,” David Chimhini, candidate for the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the rural province of Manicaland, told IRIN.
Chimhini, who is also the director of Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust (ZIMCET), said: “Worse still, the ruling party hurried the elections in spite of protestations from the opposition that the polls should be postponed to June, all because they thought they wanted to retain power before our crisis got out of hand.”
“There were hardly enough vehicles to ensure smooth voting in the province,” said Chimhini, who won his seat. “The transportation of ballot boxes after voting on Saturday was a real headache. Officials ended up resorting to unreliable transport such as private lorries and tractors that broke down.
“To make matters worse, there was little fuel and in one case in my constituency, the lorry that was used because there was no official vehicle ran out of fuel on its way to [ZEC’s] command centre, and that meant a big delay in relaying the results,” Chimini said.
Shortages of fuel, food and energy have become commonplace, but the election placed extra demands on an economy which has become shadow of its former self.
—snip—
fwiw
Has he invited Jimmy Carter to rubber stamp the legitimacy of the vote?
In Mugabeland its Chicago style, with Daley elections and Capone enforcement.
Apparently this is Mugabe’s idea of an April Fool’s joke.
He should lose his O.B.E. .
This guy is a bad joke for how many years already?
I guess this means Mugabe won’t go quietly. I didn’t expect him too, but had hoped.
Power corrupts.
He destroyed a nation,, and for what? The cause?
—
New York Times correspondent held in Zimbabwe
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean police have arrested a New York Times correspondent who was covering the country’s election, the newspaper said on Thursday.
“Barry Bearak, a Times correspondent based in Johannesburg, was taken into custody today by police in Harare, Zimbabwe, where he was covering the elections. We do not know where he is being held, or what, if any, charges have been made against him,” the newspaper’s executive editor, Bill Keller, said in a statement.
Megalomania, one of the oldest stories in the book.
What a tragedy. Zim was once well-fed and one of the most prosperous countries in Africa. A beautiful place with an agreeable climate. Now the people are starving and its in ruins. Dante would invent a new ring for that scum.
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