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MATTHEW PARRIS: The tribal catastrophe that awaits Zimbabwe*** My evidence is anecdotal, sketchy and based on unsourced information, but a boyhood spent there lends me confidence to back my hunch. My fears are sharpened by those in Zimbabwe to whom I have been speaking this week.

The majority Mashona tribe who occupy the richer, northern part of the country centred on Harare, may soon be urged by their leader, Robert Mugabe, and his Zanu (Patriotic Front) governing party into a genocidal bid to take from the southern Matabele ("take back", he would say) the lands which the Mashona believe were stolen from them more than a hundred years ago. The situation has parallels with Kosovo. The plan would be to drive the Matabele, by terror and by massacre, over the southern borders of Zimbabwe whence (in some Mashona minds) they came.***

Where's Jimmy or Jesse? Opposition cites harassment, intimidation in race for parliament seat*** In the June 2000 parliamentary elections, Mugabe faced his most serious challenge since coming to power in 1980. The opposition won 57 seats to the ruling party's 62 in the race. Mugabe had controlled all but three seats in the previous legislature. The Movement for Democratic Change has since lost one seat after the death of another of its lawmakers.

Ruling party officials say victory in Insiza and a third seat left vacant by the death Tuesday in a jail cell of an opposition lawmaker, is an important step towards reducing the opposition's power in the 150-seat parliament. Mugabe appoints 30 lawmakers and needs a two-thirds majority vote to change the nation's constitution. The opposition has blocked proposed constitutional changes. If the ruling party wins the two by-elections it will be four seats short of carrying a two-thirds vote.***