Posted on 07/03/2008 12:04:00 PM PDT by vikingd00d
HARARE - A pall of fear a campaign of post-election retributive violence that has claimed nine lives since Friday has descended over Zimbabwe.
President Robert Mugabe is frantically trying to shrug off massive international condemnation over his fraudulent re-election to entrench himself for a further five years.
In the aftermath of Friday’s widely-condemned one candidate runoff election, Mugabe’s supporters have intensified a witch-hunt of perceived opposition activists and supporters.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, told a news conference at his Strathaven residence Wednesday that groups of soldiers and Zanu-PF youth militia had been carrying out a door-to-door purge of his supporters in rural Zimbabwe since Friday.
“Since the June 27 sham election, nine MDC supporters have been murdered, with hundreds more beaten and forced to leave their homes,” Tsvangirai said.
“In Manicaland alone, since the weekend, five hundred MDC supporters and families have been forced to flee their homes and are now seeking refuge at the party’s headquarters in Mutare. Therefore, the MDC reiterates its call for peace in the country.”
In Masvingo over the past week, there has been a sharp increase in cases of politically-motivated rape at Zanu-PF torture bases since Friday.
The MDC says 10 have been hospitalized at Gweru General Hospital after being assaulted by armed police in the city’s suburb of Mkoba.
Tsvangirai said in Mashonaland Central, about 2 000 families were still living in the mountains as the violence against MDC members escalated especially in Mt Darwin, Shamva, Muzarabani and Mahuwe. MDC councillors in Mashonaland East and Central were all said to be on the run amid reports secret police agents in unmarked vehicles were hunting for them since last Friday’s vote.
Tsvangirai named those who have been murdered since Friday as Chrispen Chijeke of Murehwa North, Darlington Chingombe of Chirumhanzu, both of them murdered on June 27.
On June 30 Gift Tavengwa was murdered in Chiweshe, Hama Chironga in Chiweshe, Mr and Mrs Gumura, Sandros Mandizha, Nguwani Madamombe and Taurai Kamuchira of Headlands. Kudakwashe Majongosi was murdered by Zanu-PF militants in Chirumanzu.
Those who dared to oppose Mugabe last Friday were now easy prey, Tsvangirai said.
In Mutare, 500 people are huddled outside a modest, four-bed roomed house that serves as the MDC headquarters. Some have been away from home since April, others arrived the June 27 run off election. There is an air of desperation and fear. The women and children sleep in the cramped rooms, according to Manicaland MDC spokesman Pishai Muchauraya. The men sleep on newspapers in the long grass by the maize patch.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum says most of the people on the run across the country are mainly MDC supporters who are being hunted by the feared Central Intelligence Office (CIO). Some are non-partisan farm workers and independent election monitors.
Polling agent James Nevana who spoke to The Zimbabwe Times from his bed in a private hospital in Harare Wednesday said militiamen had abducted him from Hatcliffe last Friday. They broke both his legs.
Civic groups are trying to persuade the UN and the International Red Cross to set up a safe zone, such as a tented camp under international supervision, for internal refugees.
One such facility has been set up in Ruwa about 30 km east of Harare, where more than 400 internal refugees who had sought sanctuary at the South African embassy have been relocated to.
“The numbers are just so huge,” said a doctor with Medicins Sans Frontiers at the camp.
Things are equally bleak in Harare. Any hopes of pulling the economy out of a nosedive have faded. Food shortages are predicted to become a full-scale famine.
The government says it has imported 600 000 tonnes of maize but does not have the foreign currency to pay for it.
“The country is going to implode,” said leading economist Tony Hawkins.
But Mugabe can still count on his African peers. They issued a resolution Tuesday at a summit held in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh calling for a power-sharing government between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai however told reporters that he was disappointed that the resolution did not recognize the illegitimacy of Mugabe.
“The resolution endorses the concept of a government of national unity without acknowledging that the MDC, as the winner of the last credible election on March 29, 2008, should be recognized as the legitimate government of Zimbabwe,” he said. “A GNU does not address the problems facing Zimbabwe or acknowledge the will of the Zimbabwean people.”
Tsvangirai said before negotiations can commence, Zanu-PF must stop the violence and the persecution of MDC leaders and supporters, release all political prisoners, disband the youth militia and torture camps. He said the security forces must also immediately abandon their partisan approach.
When these conditions are met, said Tsvangirai, then a transitional authority should be installed to oversee a free and fair internationally supervised poll.
Tsvangirai still doesn't get it. A "Call for peace"? He should be calling for war. He should be urging his supporters to arm themselves and fight back. Those 500 refugees at his headquarters would be a good start.
If this were a white-led African regime the media and the Left would be screaming for the US and the UN to do something.
All I hear is ..... crickets.
Genuine democratic movements don't have 'torture bases'.
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