Posted on 05/12/2003 8:23:15 AM PDT by Clive
Harare - The trial of Zimbabwe's main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was set to resume in Harare on Monday against a background of widening political and economic tensions in the southern African country.
Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has been charged with plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe ahead of last year's presidential elections, which Mugabe won.
Tsvangirai denies the charges, alleging he was framed by Mugabe's government. If convicted of treason, he faces the death penalty.
"It (the trial) is going to resume tomorrow," Tsvangirai's lawyer Innocent Chagonda told AFP on Sunday.
The high-profile trial of Tsvangirai began amid a blaze of publicity in February and was adjourned nearly eight weeks later in March, when Harare's High Court went into recess.
Two other top MDC officials stand accused with Tsvangirai: Welshman Ncube, the party's secretary general and Renson Gasela, the shadow agriculture minister.
Expected to testify on Monday for the prosecution was one of the policemen involved in investigating the alleged treason plot - the fifth of 11 state witnessses.
The state's main witness, Canada-based political consultant Ari Ben Menashe, has already testified.
The treason charges arise from a barely audible video tape of a meeting Tsvangirai held with Ben Menashe in Montreal in December 2001. Ben Menashe alleged that Tsvangirai had asked him at that meeting for assistance to "eliminate" 79-year old Mugabe. But Tsvangirai's lawyers allege that the consultant deliberately tried to entrap the opposition leader.
Tensions between the MDC and Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party have increased in the last two months.
The MDC staged a widely-followed two-day strike in March to protest alleged misgovernance, and then supported a second stayaway called by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) last month.
That strike was called to protest a hike in petrol prices of more than 200 percent.
Tsvangirai and the MDC have warned there will be further strikes. The MDC has been placing full-page advertisements in the private press stating: "The will of the people shall prevail".
The opposition leader has also however said he is willing to meet with Mugabe and the ruling party to chart a way out of Zimbabwe's current political problems.
Last week, three African leaders - Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Bakili Muluzi of Malawi - came to Harare for talks with Mugabe and Tsvangirai in a bid to break the political deadlock.
Mugabe appeared shortly after the talks to say that Tsvangirai must accept him as president before any inter-party talks could resume, something the opposition leader is unlikely to do.
The 51-year old former trade union leader has refused to accept Mugabe's victory in the March 2002 presidential polls, and will challenge it in court.
This week the MDC filed an urgent court application to force the High Court to set a date for the long-awaited election petition.
At a rally Sunday in the country's second city of Bulawayo, attended by an estimated 20 000 people, Tsvangirai urged thousands of party supporters to take to the streets in support of his demand for a re-run of last year's presidential poll.
"What the MDC wants to do is for people to go on the streets in numbers. And if we go on the streets (President Robert) Mugabe will know it's over for him," Tsvangirai said.
He did not set a date for the protest. "The dates for the mass action will be announced soon," he said. - Sapa-AFP
Showdown at the OK corral. Does Mugabe get to kill Tsvangirai, or will the people prevail?
He's at great personal risk, and may have done his cause better by heading up a government-in-exile.
No.
In exile, he would have been sidelined by the cabal of African revolutionary governments. Treated as irrelevant and ignored by the international press, he would have little influence to marshall opposition within Zim.
Within Zim he is a constant thorn, not only in Mugabe's side but also in the sides of Obasanjo and Mbeki.
It takes a great deal of courage to stay the course in the violent mileau of the Third Chimurenga.
It also takes high ethics to abstain from falling into the trap that opposition leaders customarily fall into in Africa, that of joining in a "government of national unity" as is being urged by Mbeki and Obasanjo.
He is definitely risking his life. The only thing that is saving it is that Mugabe does not want to provoke a firestorm by having him killed. But that can change in a minute as Tsvangirai gets more effective and Mugabe gets more desperate.
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