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Mugabe's mobs force 40,000 to flee homes By Sebastien Berger, Southern Africa Correspondent Last Updated: 8:31PM BST 08/05/2008 Around 40,000 Zimbabwean farm workers have had to flee as a result of the violence inflicted by Robert Mugabe’s mobs since the country’s general election in March, a union leader said today. The Movement for Democratic Change also said that the violence is getting worse, with three of its supporters shot dead earlier this week. Farm workers, whose livelihoods have been destroyed since Mr Mugabe launched his assault on white-owned land in 2000, are often supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic...

Children die beneath Mugabe's bulldozers By Alistair Leithead in Harare (Filed: 24/06/2005) A piece of red plastic tape flutters from a post outside the remains of Lavender Nyika's home in Tafara - a place outside Harare which means "we are happy". But there is little happiness here. The tape is a traditional sign representing a loss in the family, and while hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans have lost their homes, few have lost a daughter. Lavender Nyika's daughter Charmaine was crushed to death Charmaine was two years old and inside the family home when the police came with their bulldozers...

Mugabes' £1m party as millions face starvation TREVOR GRUNDY ROBERT Mugabe and his wife Grace are this weekend preparing for a lavish wedding anniversary celebration by approving a guest list that includes the names of African leaders seeking massive debt relief for their impoverished countries. "It will be a classy, royal-like occasion," a government source said in Harare. "The Mugabes will be driven from a church service at Kutama Mission outside Harare where they were married in August 1996 in an open Rolls-Royce with horses in front. That's how they want it." The wedding anniversary party will reportedly cost close...

Mugabe's bulldozers push people back to land By David Blair in Johannesburg (Filed: 06/06/2005) President Robert Mugabe's onslaught against Zimbabwe's cities has escalated to claim new targets, with white-owned factories and family homes being demolished in a campaign that has left 200,000 people homeless. Across the country, Mr Mugabe is destroying large areas of heaving townships and prosperous industrial areas alike. Virtually all the areas demolished voted for the opposition MDC Party in the last elections The aim of this brutal campaign is, says the official media, to depopulate urban areas and force people back to the "rural home". Chris...

Mugabe's raids leave townships in tatters By David Blair, Africa Correspondent (Filed: 03/06/2005) Desperate people picked through the wreckage of their homes yesterday after Zimbabwe's police raided Harare's townships, destroying "illegal shelters" and leaving 10,000 homeless. Riot police conducting "Operation Drive Out the Rubbish" were accused of bringing misery to the urban poor, the latest target of President Robert Mugabe's campaign of terror. Children wait with their belongings after their home was destroyed In one township Irish missionaries were forced to dismantle a clinic and a creche for children orphaned by the Aids epidemic. Police demolished shacks inhabited by impoverished...

Africa unites to condemn Mugabe's regime By Christopher Munnion in Johannesburg (Filed: 05/07/2004) African nations combined for the first time yesterday to condemn the Zimbabwe government for its "flagrant human rights abuses", signalling a shift in their attitude towards President Robert Mugabe's increasingly repressive regime. The African Union's executive council, meeting in Addis Ababa ahead of this week's conference of 53 heads of state, adopted a report damning Mr Mugabe's regime for the arrests and torture of opposition MPs and human rights lawyers, harassment and arrests of journalists, the stifling of freedom of expression and abuse of civil liberties. African...

The latest refugees from Mugabe's lawless Zimbabwe - hundreds of elephants Wildlife experts in Zambia fear flight from poachers is damaging crops and property Michael Durham in Mosi-o-Tunya National Park, Zambia Monday December 29, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Hundreds of wild elephants are the latest refugees from violence and disorder in Robert Mugabe's crisis-torn Zimbabwe. The animals are fleeing the country by wading across the Zambezi river to escape being shot or trapped by so-called "war veterans" and illegal hunters. Game wardens in Zambia say record numbers of elephants are crossing the Zambezi, which forms the border between the two...

Double blow for Mugabe's allies By Anton La Guardia in Abuja (Filed: 06/12/2003) President Robert Mugabe's allies suffered a double defeat last night after they failed to secure Zimbabwe's reinstatement to the Commonwealth and lost the fight to unseat Don McKinnon, the organisation's secretary-general. Mr Mugabe addresses his ruling Zanu-PF party congress in Masvingo The decisions amounted to a victory for Tony Blair, who came to the Commonwealth summit in Nigeria determined to ensure that Zimbabwe was not re-admitted before it had halted the repression of political opponents. The battle now moves to the terms and conditions that Zimbabwe will...

Mugabe's 'brutal' police chief lands role at Interpol By Basildon Peta Southern Africa Correspondent 09 May 2003 Zimbabwe's police commissioner, who is accused of being a driving force behind President Robert Mugabe's brutal repression of opponents, has been appointed honorary vice-president of Interpol. Augustine Chihuri is on a list of close Mugabe associates subject to sanctions by the European Union and the United States because of the regime's human rights abuses. Yet it emerged yesterday that he has accepted an invitation from the international police organisation's President, Jesus Espigares Mira, to take up the honorary post. The Zimbabwe Herald, the...

Mugabe's boy militia flee after murders By Basildon Peta Southern Africa Correspondent 15 March 2003 Hundreds of President Robert Mugabe's notorious youth militia – nicknamed the "Green Bombers" – are fleeing to South Africa because they say they are tired of "killing for nothing" and are being starved. Fourteen boys and men aged between 15 and 28 have provided testimonies about life in the youth wing of Zanu-PF, Zimbabwe's ruling party, to The Sunday Independent newspaper in South Africa. They say they were taught how to kill people in ways that "would be quick and silent and leave no evidence"....

Mugabe's men drown cattle as thousands go hungry By Peta Thornycroft in Harare (Filed: 17/12/2002) Zimbabwe's commercial farmers have fallen victim to a renewed campaign of mindless violence with the killing of hundreds of cattle by workers egged on by supporters of President Robert Mugabe. On one farm several hundred head of cattle were recently driven into a dam to drown while others were penned into paddocks, in searing heat, to starve to death. Cattle were sent to their excruciating end by a group of about hysterical 20 farm workers, encouraged by government supporters, at Forrester Estates, in the Mvurwi...

Mugabe's wife to move into white couple's farm By Peta Thornycroft (Filed: 20/08/2002) Zimbabwe's first lady, Grace Mugabe, has chosen the white-owned farm she wants and has ordered its elderly owners and residents off the land, it emerged yesterday. Grace Mugabe Mrs Mugabe has picked the Iron Mask Estate, 30 miles north west of Harare, which belongs to John and Eva Matthews, both in their seventies. The couple abandoned their home at the weekend. According to residents on the farm, Mrs Mugabe and a high-powered entourage visited the property last week, said she would be moving in shortly and told...

April 22, 2002 Mugabe's farm endgame recalls Stalin From Jan Raath in Harare AFTER about 50 years of farming in Zimbabwe, Guy Cartwright and his wife, Rosalind, are left with a rented flat in Harare, two vehicles, furniture and a pension worth £5.77 a month after the Government seized their property. Two weeks ago his 4,000-acre farm, Waltondale in Marondera, with assets apart from the land worth £900,000, including 260,000kg of tobacco just harvested, 600 head of cross-bred cattle, eight tractors and two dams, came under the control of Brigadier (retired) Ambrose Mutinhiri, the local MP for President Mugabe’s ruling...