Posted on 04/02/2002 1:03:40 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Edited on 05/07/2004 6:26:29 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Our position: The United States should sanction Zimbabwe after an election ruined by widespread fraud.
Robert Mugabe must be dreaming. According to the Zimbabwe government's official line, Mugabe was elected to a fifth term of the presidency with 54 percent of the 2.9 million votes cast. But most of the world believes he was elected by fraud.
(Excerpt) Read more at indystar.com ...
The government will not tolerate attempts to make Zimbabwe ungovernable "by those bent on causing chaos, especially those who did not agree" with his election victory, Mugabe said.
"Those who want to rebel and become lawless, we will deal with them firmly," he said. "They think we will continue to be soft. That's gone. It's finished. We are in a new phase and there will be a firm government."
The radio said Mugabe was addressing a victory party Sunday in his home district of Zvimba, 25 miles southwest of Harare.
The National Constitutional Assembly, a reform alliance that includes the main opposition and human rights, labor and church organizations, has called for street protests on this coming Saturday.
In weekend advertisements in independent newspapers, organizers say the protests and a campaign of civil disobedience will go ahead in defiance of new security laws banning political demonstrations.
The advertisements urged Zimbabweans to turn out in large numbers in the capital and regional centers to protest elections they say were rigged during voting and marred by political violence and intimidation against Mugabe opponents.
Mugabe, state radio said, complained his victory "was not an easy one because the white community and the British wanted to see him out" and backed the opposition Movement for Democratic Change candidate Morgan Tsvangirai.
Britain, the former colonial power, and other Western countries who criticized the election result wanted to protect the interests of their white "kith and kin" in Zimbabwe, Mugabe said.
There would be no new election and "no nonsense will be tolerated from any quarter."
The last protest organized by the constitutional reform group was broken up by police on Feb. 15. About 40 protesters were arrested and hundreds fled baton-wielding riot police.
Many local and international election monitors criticized the March 9-11 election as deeply flawed and engineered to ensure a Mugabe victory.
Since the poll, Zimbabwe's 4,000 white farmers have reported an upsurge in violence, evictions, and looting of their property, which they blamed on retribution against them by Mugabe's militants.
White farmers became targets of violence two years ago when armed militants loyal to Mugabe began occupying their farms with tacit government approval and demanding they be seized and redistributed to landless blacks.
The opposition accused the government of cynically exploiting the land issue for political gain and using the farms as bases to terrorize rural opposition supporters. [End]
Robert Cook presents here a remarkable statistical analysis of the Palm Beach presidential ballot controversy that deserves serious investigation. He says that the controversial 19,120 Presidential race ballots at issue there were "destroyed by deliberate double-punching ballots in Palm Beach County FL with a 'second punch' for Al Gore or Pat Buchanan. (In 1996, an additional 15,000 Dole and Perot ballots were destroyed by double-punching presidential ballots in Palm Beach County, FL. *)...."
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